# Probability of a currency collapse within the next 3 decades? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 27, 2019, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086 "2019-11-27T20:24:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2019, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/121 "2019-12-05T02:37:13Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Silver, though? Please. It’s damn near useless for anything other than making jewelry or trying to convince other people to please please _please_ take this shiny metal from me and give me food. Now, now - I once knew a fellow that claimed his speaker cables produced a vastly superior sound in his stereo system because the wire in them consisted of a “single crystal of silver stretched out so it had reduced internal connection impedance.” They still make this [shit](http://bmc-audio.com/index.php/bmc-monos-silver-cable.html) and sell them at ~[$1700 a 1 meter pair](http://www.aaudioimports.com/ShowProduct.asp?hProduct=203). So obviously silver is as valuable as can be. If you’re selling snake oil to idiots :p. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2019, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/122 "2019-12-05T03:51:16Z")
Heavy metals make a poor diet when food runs out. What is the heaviest object one could purchase with silver that would weigh less than the silver used to purchase it? How much silver to pay for, a nuclear submarine, for example? ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2019, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/123 "2019-12-05T06:21:16Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > As a thought experiment about confidence, put $1000 of U.S. currency in a time vault, along with the gold purchased with a 2nd $1000. (To please OP, buy silver with a 3rd $1000 and put that in the vault too.) Come back and open the vault in 50 years. I am fairly _confident_ (not 100% certain, but perhaps 96% or so) that the gold and/or silver will then be worth more than the paper money. Or civilization will have collapsed, and\* neither \*is worth much because there’s very little to buy. Or mineral extraction technology will have advanced letting humanity extract large amounts of trace metals from seawater or whatever, rendering silver and gold into cheap industrial materials. Or owning silver and gold will have been made illegal, rendering it not only worthless but dangerous. Or America will collapse rendering US dollars worthless because everyone uses the Universal World Currency Unit instead. 50 years is much too long to make confident predictions. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2019, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/124 "2019-12-05T09:03:09Z")
> [@RioRico](#): > > Heavy metals make a poor diet when food runs out. > > What is the heaviest object one could purchase with silver that would weigh less than the silver used to purchase it? How much silver to pay for, a nuclear submarine, for example? The heaviest object worth more than its weight in silver? A gold box full of all the world’s paper currency, of course! Because gold is worth more than its weight in silver, and so is a dollar bill. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2019, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/125 "2019-12-05T10:11:35Z")
Off-topic: > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Or mineral extraction technology will have advanced letting humanity extract large amounts of trace metals from seawater or whatever, rendering silver and gold into cheap industrial materials… My own patent-pending process uses genetically-engineered bacteria to glom onto metallic ions in seawater for subsequent extraction. By fine-tuning the protein receptors I can select strains to extract any element I want. It appears that in every thousand tons of seawater there are about 50 cents worth each of the elements tin, gold, copper, silver. Of course there is also $7000 worth of magnesium (and far more sodium or calcium, relative to the elemental prices quoted at Wikipedia). Rubidium or Boron look like possible good compromise choices (high unit price, high portion of seawater) — what’s the demand for them look like? ---
**Author:** ![Marcus\_Flavius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@Marcus\_Flavius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marcus_Flavius)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2019, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/126 "2019-12-05T20:59:06Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > There is nothing that says it will or must come back into fashion during the timespan in which you need to use it, or indeed within your lifetime. If you don’t have it when you need it, then how “safe” is it? > > There’s an example of a trireme crew during the Peloponnesian War (5th century BC) being paid one drachma per rower per day. Since an Attic drachma contained 4.3g of silver, that works out to about $2.30 of silver (at current spot) buying a day’s hard labor. In 2019, $2.30 worth of silver isn’t going to buy you much more than 15 minutes labor, or something rather less than two percent of what it used to buy. That is a rather astonishing loss of value. How soon are you expecting it to “come back into fashion” at its former level, if twenty-four centuries hasn’t been enough time? The historical average pay for a days worth of labor has been a tenth of an ounce of silver. In the Scriptures it is mentioned that field laborers work all day for a Denarius, which consists of a tenth of an ounce of silver. In Sun Tzu’s Art of War he mentions that war causes huge drains on the resources of the state- a thousand ounces a day for a 100,000 man army- actually less than an ounce per person per day. When this quadrillion dollar+ empire of illusory wealth collapse, it is likely that we will return to the historical norm of 1/10 oz of silver for a days worth of labor. Remember, there’s only about 1/4 to 1/2 oz of silver for every man, woman, and child alive today. And yet, we can buy an ounce for the same cost as a burger, large fries, and large cola at Five Guys. What an opportunity. We’re living in anomalous times. Our modern way of life is only made possible by 1. An endless supply of cheap, abundant energy (particularly oil) and 2. An endless amount of debt. You think either of those are going to last forever? > [@slash2k](#): > > What is the reasoning behind this proposition? When the currencies become not worth the paper they’re printed on, people will want something of actual value in exchange for their gold or silver. > [@slash2k](#): > > liquid because it’s liquid? That’s called a tautology, not an explanation. It’s the very definition of liquidity. Silver (and gold) are money. The framers wrote that into the Constitution. Paper currency is nothing more than a claim on or future promise for money. However, we now have a global Fiat currency system. The only difference between any fiat currency and Monopoly play money is that one is deemed by a government to be “legal tender for all debts, public and private” and the other is not. Ultimately, the value of a Fiat currency is dependent on the faith people have in the government that issues it. Let me ask you- are Americans gaining or losing faith in their government? > [@slash2k](#): > > will the next crisis be so unlike recent crises? What makes you certain that the next crisis won’t be similar to 2008, or indeed 1929, in which currency was the wise (safe) choice? Because we’re sailing in uncharted waters. Never before had the world been this awash in debt. Never before has there been a global, generational, fiat currency, debt based Ponzi scheme. > [@slash2k](#): > > As soon as you try to USE that silver, however, going to know, because it will be back into the financial system (even if that is only the local economy). You can’t turn it into food and shelter and livable assets without disclosing its existence. Look, silver was here long before man developed any financial systems, and it will be here long after man is gone from this earth. How many other assets can you say that about? > [@slash2k](#): > > ``` > At no point has it ever lost its value, except for all the times it has. From $50/oz to $6/oz is a loss of value, in fact a loss of nearly 90% of its value. From purchasing a day's labor to purchasing 15 minutes worth of labor is a loss of value. From $21.75/oz in mid-2016 to $16.92/oz today is a loss of value. The price goes up and the price goes down, and when it goes down that means it is less valuable. > > ``` Yes, there have been spikes and dips in the price of silver in dollar terms. But the general trend had been upwards. An ounce of silver had equal or greater purchasing power as it did in the 50s and 60s. Can you say that about fiat dollars? > [@slash2k](#): > > Silver is not intrinsically extremely valuable; it has industrial uses, but industry accounts for only about half of silver production, with the rest going to jewelry, coinage, and investment (and industrial silver usage waxes and wanes–silver halide photography, e.g., used to be the principal industrial use, but that market collapsed in the wake of the digital photography revolution). A big chunk of its perceived value is people thinking that silver is valuable and good to have. That is exactly the same thought process as thinking that a piece of paper with a number and a picture of a dead guy, backed by its issuing government, is valuable and good to have. > > Aluminum, at one point, was more valuable than gold because people believed it was valuable and good to have. Today, aluminum has rather more industrial usages than gold or silver, but scrap aluminum fetches two or three pennies per ounce, if you’re lucky. If you think silver isn’t valuable, consider that modern life as we know it would not be possible without silver. ---
**Author:** ![Marcus\_Flavius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@Marcus\_Flavius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marcus_Flavius)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2019, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/127 "2019-12-05T21:03:25Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > The notion that silver -or anything- has “intrinsic worth” is absurd. > > I mean, you can make something of an argument that a person has intrinsic worth: they’re versatile for a variety of purposes and their sheer adaptability means that they’re almost always useful for _something_. Silver, though? Please. It’s damn near useless for anything other than making jewelry or trying to convince other people to please please _please_ take this shiny metal from me and give me food. > > What worth it has is based entirely on whether the person you’re dealing with wants to make jewelry - or whether they think of it as (gasp!) a _fiat currency_. A currency that has worth because people have arbitrarily decided it’s worth that much. Not because it has intrinsic worth, but because the masses have decided to pretend it’s worth something. > > Don’t try that with me, though. You can keep your shiny metal and I’ll keep my food (or give it to that guy threatening me with a gun). Silver is among the most useful commodities in the world. If you do not value it, that is fine. But you don’t get to dictate it’s value, the market does. ---
**Author:** ![Marcus\_Flavius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@Marcus\_Flavius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marcus_Flavius)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2019, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/128 "2019-12-05T21:06:57Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Absolutely. I totally agree. To spare you more grief, I will be happy to take all these worthless pieces of monopoly money off your hands. I’m sorry, but as much as I despise fiat currency, I need to keep some around for bills and taxes and such. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2019, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/129 "2019-12-05T21:26:51Z")
> [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > Silver is among the most useful commodities in the world. If you do not value it, that is fine. But you don’t get to dictate it’s value, the market does. Yes. The market determines its value, because it doesn’t have intrinsic value, and every time you’ve said it has intrinsic value is flat wrong. The fact that you keep saying this flatly wrong thing makes me think it’s part of your argument. It’s not really good when your argument relies on things that are flatly wrong. It’s a sure fact that silver has been valued at various amounts throughout history. This doesn’t mean that it’s got magical value-producing powers, though. Salt was considered a medium of exchange once; do you consider its value immutable? Your position seems to rely on silver and gold having inherent powers not shared by any other commodity. Whereas I look at silver and note that it only becomes a medium of exchange when it gets its value normalized _as a fiat currency_. While it’s part of a necklace it isn’t money, it’s a commodity. So after regular currency fails and zombies roam the earth silver won’t suddenly coalesce into standard universally-accepted coinage. It’ll just stay as necklaces and bars of metal which you’ll have to try and barter with. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2019, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/130 "2019-12-05T22:45:57Z")
> [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > Paper currency is nothing more than a claim on or future promise for money. Actually, no. That stopped being true when we went off the gold standard. Paper currency is money. In exactly the same way, nothingness – i.e. the electrons used to transfer money online – is currency and not a claim or future promise for money. Currency does not need any tangibility of any kind. It is a record, an intermediary, a mathematical system. I can spend the imaginary nothingness in a PayPal account exactly as I can cash or even gold, should someone want to barter that way, except easier and to more places. All currencies are all exactly equivalent. You cannot convince anybody otherwise. You can’t even fool yourself, as you proved your need for fiat currency rather than silver or gold in our real world. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2019, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/131 "2019-12-05T23:41:33Z")
> [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > The historical average pay for a days worth of labor has been a tenth of an ounce of silver. The historical average tells you nothing whatsoever about the rate at any particular point in history, and you live in and need to acquire goods in a particular timespan. No, there is no particular likelihood that it’s going to return to 1/10 oz of silver, because there’s nothing “normative” about an average across centuries of human experience in a variety of economic climates (even assuming your average is accurate). For example, does the Gospel of Matthew refer to an Augustan denarius of the beginning of the first century (3.9 grams of 95% silver), or a denarius from the time of Nero (3.4g, 93.5%), or perhaps a debased denarius from the latter second century? (None of them contained exactly a 1/10 ounce of pure silver, and even slight changes in weight or fineness skew your averages.) A thousand ounces of silver per day for a 100,000-man army works out to 1/100 of an ounce each, an order of magnitude less than a tenth ounce. Is that more or less a historical norm than the Roman example, or the Greek example I gave earlier? > [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > We’re living in anomalous times. Our modern way of life is only made possible by 1. An endless supply of cheap, abundant energy (particularly oil) and 2. An endless amount of debt. You think either of those are going to last forever? Probably not, but what does that have to do with the price of silver? > [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > When the currencies become not worth the paper they’re printed on, people will want something of actual value in exchange for their gold or silver. When the currencies are not worth the paper they’re printed on, it will be because people have lost faith in the ability of their government to maintain a stable society. If that happens, necessities of life (food, shelter, etc.) are things of actual value. > [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > It’s the very definition of liquidity. Liquidity refers to the ability to quickly and cleanly exchange goods and services. There’s nothing inherently magical about silver (or gold) that makes it liquid; they are liquid in the market only to the extent that people trust them to retain value and be accepted everywhere. Right now, US paper dollars are highly liquid (they’re accepted across the entire country and much of the world) and they are fairly stable. Silver is a lot harder to turn into foodstuffs because most American grocers won’t accept it, so you have to find a middleman who will turn it into dollars for you (meanwhile taking his cut), AND the price of silver has been much more volatile in recent decades than the US dollar, so as a store of value silver isn’t so hot. Right now, the dollar is more liquid than silver. Will that always be the case? Perhaps not. Many Americans don’t trust our government to always do the right thing, but that’s very different from trusting our government to maintain social order. It takes some pretty fringe thinking to expect the United States is going to descend to the level of Venezuela or Zimbabwe in the next six months or a year (and both of those countries took much longer than a year to fall as far as they have). Yes, ultimately the value of a fiat currency is dependent on the faith people have in the government and society; ultimately, the value of silver is dependent on the faith people have that this pretty metal will retain value. Note that both are based on faith. > [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > Because we’re sailing in uncharted waters. Never before had the world been this awash in debt. Never before has there been a global, generational, fiat currency, debt based Ponzi scheme. Never before has the world enjoyed the level of prosperity it does today. Never before have humans lived as long, on average, as they do today. Never before have there been as many humans as there are today. As a species, we’re pretty much always in uncharted waters, and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. > [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > Look, silver was here long before man developed any financial systems, and it will be here long after man is gone from this earth. How many other assets can you say that about? Granite and cockroaches were both here long before and will be here long after man (and the former, at least, is economically useful). What intrinsic value does that confer upon them? > [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > Yes, there have been spikes and dips in the price of silver in dollar terms. But the general trend had been upwards. An ounce of silver had equal or greater purchasing power as it did in the 50s and 60s. Can you say that about fiat dollars? The general trend has not been upward; it’s been all over the place, rising and falling with the general economy, with silver supply (the Comstock Lode, e.g., or Mexican silver in the 16th century), with market manipulations (the Hunt brothers), the interests of speculators, predictions of future economic results, etc., etc., etc. An ounce of silver today has greater purchasing power than it did in the 1950s, and less than it did in the late 1970s, and less than it did in 1819 or in ancient Greece. For example, two hundred years ago you could buy a cow in Maryland or Virginia for around $10-12 in silver dollars (approximate 240-300 grams of silver). As I write this, here in Kansas you can buy a cow at auction for anywhere from $500 to $1500; at current spot, that’s somewhere between 1000 and 3000 grams of silver. In other words, you have to give between four and ten times as much silver for that cow. > [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > If you think silver isn’t valuable, consider that modern life as we know it would not be possible without silver. Modern life might well be different, but there is nothing that silver can do for us that cannot be accomplished in other ways with other materials or techniques. Those others might be more expensive or more difficult, but that is not at all the same as impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2019, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/132 "2019-12-06T00:13:27Z")
> [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > If you think silver isn’t valuable, consider that modern life as we know it would not be possible without silver. This is also true of manure. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2019, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/133 "2019-12-06T00:32:47Z")
**Marcus Flavius** If (note the if) there is a vast shadowy government conspiracy to hide inflation, what group is behind it? Re The Coming Apocalypse Without access to my medications and chocolate, I wouldn’t want to survive. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2019, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/134 "2019-12-06T00:34:23Z")
All of you beans and bullets people need to see me when because when the US dollar collapses I’m cornering the toilet paper market. ---
**Author:** ![Oredigger77](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/oredigger77/32/3181_2.png) [@Oredigger77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oredigger77)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2019, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/135 "2019-12-06T01:30:02Z")
> [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > The historical average pay for a days worth of labor has been a tenth of an ounce of silver. In the Scriptures it is mentioned that field laborers work all day for a Denarius, which consists of a tenth of an ounce of silver. In Sun Tzu’s Art of War he mentions that war causes huge drains on the resources of the state- a thousand ounces a day for a 100,000 man army- actually less than an ounce per person per day. When this quadrillion dollar+ empire of illusory wealth collapse, it is likely that we will return to the historical norm of 1/10 oz of silver for a days worth of labor. Remember, there’s only about 1/4 to 1/2 oz of silver for every man, woman, and child alive today. And yet, we can buy an ounce for the same cost as a burger, large fries, and large cola at Five Guys. What an opportunity. > We’re living in anomalous times. Our modern way of life is only made possible by 1. An endless supply of cheap, abundant energy (particularly oil) and 2. An endless amount of debt. You think either of those are going to last forever? So just using your math once the collapse occurs we get to work for 5 days before there is no more money? Even assuming a 99% die off there is only 2 years worth of wages available before we run out of silver. It sounds like either there is going to have to be a major extinction event or we’re going to need to use something that is more commonly available. My guess is if we lose 99% of the population there won’t be enough of an economy left to matter. Salt may be used instead of silver since its more needed for life. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2019, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/136 "2019-12-06T03:48:01Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Again, you have been pointed to historical prices which show ridiculous swings. A tiny loss in value in currency is tremendously better than going through those wild swings. > > Today silver lost 1.63% of it’s value. A loss of 3.29% over the last 30 days. Wow. > > You also, repeatedly, have not noticed that the value of gold and silver are _mental constructs_! > > You can’t eat silver. You can’t use it to keep warm. Etc. > > It’s value directly relates to what people think it’s worth. Do you not notice the word “think” there??? > > And what people think of the value of silver varies all over the place _now_. Nevermind when things get iffy. > > Why do you keep posting the same refuted points over and over? Don’t you think it’s time to pay attention here? Another factor against gold and silver is one of the points that’s offered in supposed support of them; their historical value. Let’s say I want to invest my money in comic books. I can go out at buy a bunch of comic books at my local store for their cover price (I think they’re around five dollars now). I can hope that in ten years, the now relatively unknown guy who wrote the story or produced the art will be recognized as a giant in the field and his early work will be valuable to collectors. I can then resell my copies of these original comic books for fifty dollars apiece. That’s not going to happen with gold or silver. I can’t buy gold or silver cheaply because people haven’t discovered its worth yet. Gold and silver are already recognized as valuable commodities and their price reflects that when I buy them. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2019, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/137 "2019-12-06T03:50:07Z")
Most of you are all wet, especially OP. 😛 I don’t like semantic games — what does “intrinsic worth” even mean? — but if you define such that NOTHING has “intrinsic worth” then, sure, silver doesn’t have intrinsic worth either. Great moments in tautologization! > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > 50 years is much too long to make confident predictions. ALMOST a good point. And the reason it’s only _almost_ correct is the rapidity of change itself. I can predict with some confidence that Justin Bieber will not be a top star in 2070. > [@Oredigger77](#): > > So just using your math once the collapse occurs we get to work for 5 days before there is no more money? Even assuming a 99% die off there is only 2 years worth of wages available before we run out of silver. The U.S. has a $19 trillion economy with $4 trillion of M1. If your calculus were sensical then M1 would all be gone in 11 weeks. (And, again, arguments about the SCARCITY of precious metals only help support OP — Don’t you guys even see that??) > [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > All of you beans and bullets people need to see me when because when the US dollar collapses I’m cornering the toilet paper market. Between the beans and **Saint Cad** ’s cheap toilet paper, I’m filling my apocalyptic go-to bag with Preparation H! ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2019, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/138 "2019-12-06T04:05:51Z")
Saint Cad, what you don’t realize is that when the apocalypse goes down and silver reigns supreme, we will all of us have become investors in a sort of crude toilet paper: our very own fiat currency! ---
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2019, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/139 "2019-12-06T05:35:57Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Just skip to the bottom of all this =) > > OK, while our dollar is going to fluctuate, perhaps wildly. I doubt we are going to end up all Mad Max. That being said: > > _snicker_ Feudalism, a strong guy in charge of a bunch of weaker guys, providing strength in numbers. If one is smart enough to have a bunch of land that is arable, a source of dependable water, a source of energy [windmill, waterwheel, solar power, pocket nuke?] and the forethought to have weapons and ability to throw up a fort, one can bring a selection of people through a Mad Max scenario. Hells bells - wanna buy some [mountain artillery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mountain_artillery)? Hit some of the gun auctions, some are available that [don’t need specialty licensing](https://www.morphyauctions.com/jamesdjulia/item/2053-373/) … keep in mind you can reach out and touch someone’s vehicles at a better distance than anything except another bit of artillery or snipers. I know a handfull of reenacors that own their own _cannons_ and shoot stuff, and I posit that anybody that can rig a trebouchet able to chunk a punkin, they can chunk a hunk of rock just as competently with a tad of practice. > > Actually, you want a bunch of reenactors - I personally know [our roomie] is a blacksmith, I can take sheep and not just cook them to be palatable, I can turn wool into clothing and leather into shoes. I can design, produce and use spinning tools, weaving tools, know how to process clay from dug up messy crap to well crafted and fired pieces. I can cook for 60 people on a campfire with the proper equipment pwhich oddly enough I happen to have ] and I know people that can and have made and used everything from a Davids Sling, atlatl and dart, bow and arrow, wooden seige equipment and can manage to make proper gun powder [and better, know how to make the requisite ingredients and where to find sulphur] and know how to process various ores into various metals [he made a freaking Bessemer converter, how cool is that :eek:] You also want to know where to source some common animals, how to care for them, and process them into eating or other functionality - I actually know a bunch of people into plowing and plow horses other than my Mom’s side of the family. You want people who understand agriculture and have access to plants and seeds appropriate for the area, or already are hobby growing stuff that can be expanded into community based survival agriculture and animal husbandry. > > The only use I have for gold is as jewelry - though it can be melted and turned into bullets =) Ditto silver. Though I can tell you how to make silver fulminate using a silver dime as the weight measure [convenient, as one can find silver dimes] Although as a classically trained inside outside mechanic I could direct a project to bootstrap machining from wood and copper and bronze to at least mild steel if all the machine equipment in the world suddenly vanished [and have I got a bone to pick with the author of the Belisarius series about his lack of proper bootstrapping, and he even gave both sides almost omniscent helpers in the form of Aide for the good guys, and a overbearing computer that takes over the minds of a host female.] The problem with a “fort” it that it permanently puts you on defense. Sure you can send out patrols, but ultimately you are a sitting duck. You might be able to hold off 30 or 40 well armed marauders for awhile, but word of your well stocked compound will sooner or later spread and attract the attention of larger and larger groups until you are over run and/ or the compound is destroyed. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2019, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086/140 "2019-12-06T11:29:09Z")
> [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > On a scale from 1-10, how likely is the USD to collapse in the next 3 decades? With 1 being an infintesimally small probability and 10 being an absolute certainty. > > Why or why not is a dollar failure likely, how would a currency collapse happen, what effects would it have on American society and the global economy, and what should a prudent saver do to protect himself? I’m going with 1, an infinitesimal probability. A real currency collapse is going to cause utter and widespread chaos. Given the difficulty of successfully protecting oneself against it, and the low likelihood of occurrence, I’m not doing anything to prepare for it. It would be like bringing a parachute onto a commercial plane flight. Not sure why OP thinks that there is any medium of exchange that will never lose purchasing value. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/probability-of-a-currency-collapse-within-the-next-3-decades/844086.md?page=8)