As I was younger, I spent all my time saving up cash in the bank. It was around 2011 when my dad suggested that I'd buy some silver just in case America eventually fell to pieces. At the time, I scoffed off his advice. Should the power grid go off and civilization breaks down, what good would silver do? Father had some very good advice but I wish he could have explained things a little better.
After listening to Aaron Clarey, he explained that silver was not so much an investment rather than an insurance policy. Insurance against inflation. Insurance against stupid people. Insurance against people who vote for higher taxes and printing off more and more money.
There was another reason why I didn't bother with buying the precious metal. At the time, I had only saved up about $10,000 to $15,000. In my mind, cash was king and I had to accumulate it as much as possible. Since my working career started in the Summer of 2010, I had only spent about a year accumulating that money. Should it all get wiped out, I wouldn't have lost that much of my life. In my mind, I didn't have that much to lose.
As I got older, I saw that the problems that caused the 2008 financial collapse had never been resolved. During 2013, Cyprus had some bad money problems and stole money from bank accounts of the average citizen. Also, around that time, it was brought to my attention that several countries nationalized the IRA and 401k programs of the citizens. It was during 2013 when I started feeling more uneasy about the economy. At that point in time, I also had a lot more money. I had invested a lot more of my life in accumulating money and I had a lot more to lose. At that point, I decided to start buying some precious metals.
But during 2015, I had a very good net worth for someone my age. I had accumulated silver, gold, and platinum. But no investment could ever protect yourself from all sorts of risk. Maybe I listen to too much InfoWars but I felt like I had to prepare for the increasing likely hood that our civilization falls to pieces. First I accumulated cash. Second I collected precious metals. Now, I'm stocking up on survival food and bullets.
With more time and investment in a strategy, I've felt like I've had to prepare myself for any disaster that might happen. This was the paradigm shift I experienced and it was driven by the amount of wealth I've accumulated.
The problem I have with gold is that it is in one sense 'dead'. If we buy equities we are buying a slice of economic life. Be are buying companies that produce things. If we hold cash accounts we are in fact lending it to individuals who will hopefully grow wealth with it. Gold on the other hand is dangerous to extract and produces nothing by existing. It sits in a vault as a form of dead, unproductive past labour which seems a waste.
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