re: "The comments are worth the price of admission!"
This one from your site was sure good. (I trust that copying a COMMENT from another website does not violate any copyright rules.)
by pakled
Wed, 12/14/2011 - 19:00 | 1981093
My take on this post and others along the same vein today (subject to change as I learn more):
1) gold (& silver) are stores of value. Always have been and always will be (until alchemy perfected. Remember that old Twilight Zone episode?).
2) gold (& silver) can be traded for goods/services, but [favorably] only under certain circumstances.
3) therefore 50% of my emergency-double-secret dystopian crash bag of tricks is FOOD, and the means to cook it. (and supplies and medicine and seeds)
4) some of that 50% are redundant quantities to be offered for barter
5) must not forget dangers of relying on only gold (&silver). Possible scenario:
a) government makes gold (& silver) illegal to own. Perhaps confiscates for the patriotic purpose of backing a new currency
b) lest you try and barter with gold (&silver) on the grey/black market, government offers reward to your neighbor for turning in such a 'terrorist'. Reward is an offer the neighbor 'can't refuse', like increasing their food ration. How so? Monthly threshold on their safeway (albertson's, ralphs, costco, kroger, et al) will be bumped. How so? All food purchases, do to shortages, and to be 'fair', will require these cards. No hoarding! That is an act of terrorism and we have a place for such types.
6 No way around acredited grocery stores because all mom/pop farms will be illegal (we are actually just about there now on that one).
7) Go ahead and protect your stash with a gun, if you so choose…..but you damned well better have walked through that scenario and be absolutely clear you are prepared to take a life to protect you and yours… or you would be better off trading the gun for food/supplies. Gun or no gun, keep your mouth shut about your stashes, whatever they are, and do some favors for your neighbors, starting now.
inflation vs deflation: I refer to some rules I have learned in the school of hard knocks: a) to the degree you are absolutely, positively sure it is going to be ‘A’, by that same degree it will more likely turn out to be ‘B’. b) the longer a prediction is in effect, and the more people that buy into that prediction… the less likely that prediction will manifest as predicted.
9) Inflation: Printing money (monetary inflation) does not in and of itself cause price inflation. The trillion dollars you print in your basement (if u could) has zero effect on inflation if it stays in the basement. It must circulate. A key factor to price inflation (or deflation) is ‘money velocity’; how often money exchanges hands in a finite period of time. This is why Helicopter Ben has threatened to circumvent the I-don’t-trust-you-enough-to-loan-you-money banks, and hand the money out directly. You must get people to spend.
Hyperinflation is more a psychological event than a monetary/political event. It happens when a critical mass of the populace become fearful that they must spend TODAY, because prices will be higher TOMORROW. Once at critical mass the fear feeds on itself until the currency is fully consumed. I have a Zimbabwe 100 Trillion dollar bill on my mantle to remind me of that. Best as I was able to figure it bought 2-3 loaves of bread at the end.
But, timing is everything! We will likely get both, but in which order? Inflation is an unstoppable force meeting an immoveable object (deflation). The grand tug of war. We can take a good guess at the end game, but we don’t know how this will play out in the meantime because there are too many moving parts. For example, if people stop spending will we enter spiral deflation, or will direct government spending on food stamps and war overtake the downward momentum of trillions of dollars in derivatives and loan defaults unwinding? I personally am planning for biflation; the things we absolutely need will cost a lot more… and the things we don’t absolutely need will call cost a lost less. But as a wise old man once said, “Difficult to see the future is. The dark side clouds everything”.
Whatever we do let us be sure we are prepared for the endgame. Don’t let this day-to-day crap throw you off your game (gold (& silver) seem to thrive in either environment (inflation/deflation) in terms of purchasing power, so it seems they should be part of a complete breakfast regardless).
And, even the end game is uncertain. We may be living at the most ‘interesting’ time in this round of human civilization. We are rolling over to a new age, and that means that past history may be less of a guide then some people think.
On top of everything else we must try to convert our fear to love, as we are able (fear is the ‘mind killer’). Those are the two options that are REALLY in play here.
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PS – All of the above could be wrong. That is why I picked the avatar that I did. I look to ZH to ‘make me smart’… ‘make me strong’.
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