Gold/silver thread

[mikeinreco]

HAHA...so true! You must take your survival lessons from the same place I do, The Walking Dead! Seriously though, think about it. Some television people decided to sit down and do a show on the zombie apocalypse. They probably sat for hours thinking of plot lines and imagining what people would be dealing with in a time of utter disaster, when everything they had known and trusted in failed. If you watch the show, you will see how the entire premise (besides killing zombies) is predicated on finding food and shelter, and protecting it from those that want to take it away. Nothing else matters. Gold and silver are meaningless, and the only other worthwhile commodity might be gasoline. Ok ok, I know its just a tv show and may be a bit extreme to use as a parallel, but to echo a point made above, if our economy shatters, the only things worthwhile will be tangible goods that we can touch and feel and are useable. Without going totally extreme, there is no harm in having a small stockpile of such goods. A weapon and ammo, stockpile of some can goods and water, possibly some metals like gold, silver copper and lead (gotta make those bullets), and a tent and blankets. Come to think about it, I have all those items around me as I use them for camping and hunting.

But....this is a thread about gold. Sorry for the digress

Yeah gas would probably be a good asset to have (for example The Road Warrior).............Once again gold and silver had no value in a post apocolyptic society

[EcoSafe]

most of the week ender "financial expert" talking heads who were touting gold as the greatest thing sense nickle hamburgers, this week end were saying there is no bottom support for gold.

several big population buying centers such, as China, India, Hong Cong and others have put an excize import tax on gold.

A month ago they were touting mining stocks as the filay mignon of stocks, suddnly all mining stocks are strugling.

they also made comments like:

no one really knows the health of the Chinese economy, and the only thing gold is really good for is jewelry.

WTF, just proof that these radio and tv "experts" don't know any more then you do.

[auminer]

Actually I would agree with the assessment that no-one truly knows the real state of the Chinese economy. They work under a different system than we do... a VERY different system. Every year each company/farm/factory/department/workfroup has to show that they outperformed their output from the previous year or face the consequences. This leads to an utterly fake GDP estimation when you add all the pieces-parts up at the bottom of the balance sheet.

[jghilino]

all i know for sure is for the next 3 years nothing is going to get better from where it is right now, its going to get worse, the question is how low will the markets and metals tumble?

[unknownk]

Everybody lies. I never heard of a restaurant, car dealership, manufacturer that didn't fudge the books a little down to pay less taxes or up to get a loan. Anyway in the US housing speculation caused a glut of houses and sunk our economy, in China they have whole cities nobody lives in yet there is no implosion (population isn't growing either to need the extra housing).

China - Population growth rate - Historical Data Graphs per Year

News channels just hype up what is going on at the moment, there is no research going on to support any of it. If gold goes up they say it will keep climbing, if gold drops they are doom and gloom.

When the **** hits the fan (basically everyone notices that all the profits out there are debt that cannot be repaid) there isn't anything you can invest in to keep you safe (especially if you are one of the few super rich when the poor find out you stole their lives working for nothing).

[EcoSafe]

The only true assets:
1. family love

2.clean water

3. shelter

4. food

5. clothing

6 common sense/logic

7.the knowledge how to use it

8 .self protection

9.self reliance

10. trade goods.

if you have all of the above. you have the necessities regardless of what the future holds.

[unknownk]

Actually olddude you need to put medicine/prescription drugs in that list. The world would collapse without the internet and common drugs we take for granted (birth control pills, aspirin, antibiotics, pain meds, blood pressure meds, insulin, antacid, flu shots, STD treatment, etc). Not even 100 years ago it was common for people to die from blood poisoning from simple cuts and other easily treatable infections.

[parrothead]

The only true assets:
1. family love

2.clean water

3. shelter

4. food

5. clothing

6 common sense/logic

7.the knowledge how to use it

8 .self protection

9.self reliance

10. trade goods.

if you have all of the above. you have the necessities regardless of what the future holds.

Good list. Especially knowledge and how to use it. I grew up on a farm, I can plant and harvest, I can hunt and butcher. I can cure meat and can goods over an open fire. I have a good base when (not if) it all hits the fan.

[NobleMetalWorks]

I don't worry too much about gold and silver prices, I am more concerned at this point in turns.

I will adjust my prices according to the market fluctuation, my profit margin always stays the same regardless of what the market is doing. I do this by hedging, and it can be done in the same way here as well.

Take the first initial purchase of material, lets say 1000 lbs of PC boards. The money you use to purchase these boards should be considered an investment, not an asset. That means it's money that goes down in your books in the investment column, just like equipment, etc. This is your hedge.

Now you can buy up to 1000 lbs of PC boards, at any given time because you can immediately sell up to 1000 boards right away. You don't have to worry or concern yourself about market fluctuations because you have "hedged".

I keep a quantity of silver on hand as a hedge, when I purchase material to process, I immediately assay the material so I know what the yield will be, and then promptly sell the same quantity in silver. In this way I never loose money and don't have to worry about market fluctuations.

Also consider this, as the prices drop, it will become easier to purchase larger quantities of material. If you purchase your hedge now, you will be perfectly placed for when the precious metals prices start to go up again.

I personally believe that the market manipulation we are currently seeing is because a large quantity of the Libya gold is hitting the market. If you look at the market, and compare it to specific events, you will see a pattern. After 911 when all the gold under the towers went missing, gold price fluctuated the year after in 2002. That was also the same year we went into Iraq, and oddly enough Iraq was one of the only countries not connected to the world banking system, and was hoarding gold as well. Now fast forward to Libya, it also was one of the few countries that was not connected to the world banking system, and also had a large hoard of Gold, Gaddafi only accepted payment for oil, in gold. So as in 2002 when prior gold prices dropped, then exploded, I believe the same thing is going to happen in the near future. I am in fact hedging on it so to speak.

Gold and silver for that matter, are very interesting metals when talking in terms of market fluctuation and the economy. They directly affect the electronics industry, which also happens to be a huge chunk of the retail sales numbers in the United States. So literally, in order for the US Economy to do well, we need cheap precious metals to be sold to China, so they can churn out the electronics our retail economy demands. So on a totally different note, the drop in the prices of precious metals in the short term, should help our economy. I personally think this is the reason all this gold has been dumped on the market recently, and then people started taking profit in the gold they purchased years prior, and then you have the people selling because they don't want to loose anymore.

In the long run, over a long period of time, gold prices have to increase and exceed what they have done in the past. So if you are hoarding gold, don't sell now, keep hoarding, follow the prices on the way down and accumulate as much as you can. There is only a finite amount of gold in the world, and even less silver.

Scott

[jghilino]

i think we are seeing a dead cat bounce in metals right now, looking for another big down turn coming soon i think the week after the 4th

"a dead cat bounce is a small, brief recovery in the price of a declining stock. Derived from the idea that "even a dead cat will bounce if it falls from a great height", the phrase, which originated on Wall Street, is also popularly applied to any case where a subject experiences a brief resurgence during or following a severe decline."

[pcscrapper]

I also depend on the value of Gold.. and Copper and the precious Metal.. as I'm moving from sending My boards to a middle man to a refiner now. as I gather more materials.

I watch the market very closely.. china has slowed down on expanding .. and I trully belive that the market is so saturated with gold is whats causing the value of gold to sink.

but whats interesting is the value of silver is going up.. I belive its because not many people think about the value of silver. Or even think about buying silver.. I've about a good pile of silver.. and I'll keep it before I keep gold.. reason why.. is that Gold.. is unpredictable on the other hand silver has been on the up.. for several years.

so.. when gold goes down.. so does my prices.. as people may noticed I've taken down My prices due to the fact that from one day it may be this to the next day it may be that. and to readjust it constant is very time consuming.

I hope for the sake of our business and many others on this forum that gold makes a slow but steady comeback. Don't want to come back to fast.. to become a big bubble.. in a hurry for only for it to burst.. let it build.. slowly.. and I think it could be a healthy start again for the precious market.

If gold falls below 1000.00 I trully belive.. it will be years before it comes back to the 1700 or 1800 dollar mark.

Goldman and these other people that have input into what they think will happen to the market are playing with fire.. I don't care for them.. let the market speak for its self.

Thats My Three cents.

[Scrapette]

The world is full of greedy and aggressive people and conflict inside and outside of nations shows no sign of ebbing. I don't claim to understand how commodities trading works, but there is never any shortage of crises in the world and the next time one heads our way, the price of gold will probably climb again.

Having said that, I still think the best investment is to build your skills and tools- in food production and storage, in first aid, in makeshift sanitation and water collection and purification, in heating and cooking with passive solar or wood - just because you never know when hard times will come to you personally or to the place where you live. YouTube has a large number of vids on these topics - many of them offer low cost, homemade ways of
accomplishing various self-suffiency goals and often they use recycled materials for projects. You have to use discernment, of course, because not everyone truly knows what he or she is talking about. For something like canning, I would probably talk to your local extension office for instance just to be on the safe side. But otherwise, there is an amazing amount of innovation on YouTube regarding these topics.

You can only sell gold or electronics with gold in them if there are buyers. But if you have something someone actually needs for survival, you can barter if for something you need.

People fear a collapse of civilization if the economic system collapses but I think the more that neighborhoods, towns and cities can take care of their own needs, the less likely that would be. My grandmother told me that our area wasn't hit as hard as the cities during the Great Depression because we were a farming community - she had chickens in the backyard and they lived in town.