Yes, in a civilized, modern society. Strip away that, and the local biker/meth dealer has more power than the three of them combined.
What Silenus said. In a functioning society with some kind of rule of law, they are powerful. Remove that and they are some gang leader’s lunch.
(Looks like I will have to add you to my long list of admirers, followers.)
Yes.
So, I guess you ARE in fact admitting that what you said I said is not true. So ok.
Also, you obviously have no idea how much stock has been issued in the past 200 years for companies that you never heard of.
Here is question 1 (multiple parts) :
I bet you cant even name just 100 of the car manufacturers, in America, that have went bankrupt ? …and how many foreign car companies that went bankrupt in the past 100 years can you name?
How many hundreds of railroads from up to 200 years ago whose stock went bankrupt can you name?
This past century alone, do you actually have any idea how much stock became totally worthless in newly issued stock in startups of computer manufacturers, software companies, radio manufacturers, television manufacturers, steel companies, mining companies, bicycle companies, camera companies, chemical companies, furniture companies?
How many apparel manufacturers in America over the past 200 years have closed shop, went out of business, and are now worthless?
No, I dont think you do. You have no concept of how many hundreds of thousands of companies who went belly up in the past 200 years and whose stock became worthless.
How about an easy one? Of all the companies, just in America(to make it even easier), who had publically issued stock outstanding in the year 1929, are still in business and that same stock is still worth anything? How many American car manufacturers who had publically traded stock in 1929 still have that same stock that is worth anything, and which companies are they, and which publically traded American car companies from 1929 are still around?(note: you cannot count Ford because Ford did not have publically traded stock in 1929, and you cannot count GM)
How many stock-issued internet start up companies from the 1990’s went bankrupt?
**Here is question 2: ** How many specific ounces of gold that existed either in 1911, or in 1822 200 years ago, are now worthless? (hint: the answer is none)
The simple fact is, that EVERY!!! ounce of gold, ever produced, anywhere in the world, in all of history, is still worth $1400.
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And how much of their combined fortunes is invested in gold? Do you know something they don’t?
Originally Posted by Susanann
Hold on to your hat, because I got some BIG news for you:
Donald Trump, George Soros, and Bill Gates have more power than any classroom strong arm bully. In today’s world, it is wealth that makes power.
When you wake up from your daydream, and come back to reality, you will see that even after economic collapse and a worthless US dollar, there will still be order, there will still be a government, and people who are wealthy such as those who have lots and lots of gold and other wealth that “gets thru” will be the ones in power. We are NOT going into a science fiction primitive fantasy world. Donald Trump, George Soros, Bill Gates, and those who own lots of gold will be in power, same as today.
The DO!! own gold!
Anyways, there are lots of investments that will retain wealth, gold is not the only investment that will always be worth something.
Gold is just easier to get, and gold is available in small, large, huge quantities whether you are George Soros, the chinese government, Saudi Arabian kings, or just average American citizens. Everyone can own gold, in any denomination, and gold is transferable, is small in size, and gold always has a buyer and a seller waiting.
Finally, I think I made my point on this topic. Anyone out there who STILL!!! does not understand in the principle of preserving wealth, will have to learn the hard way.
10 -4
Then why are you just as fixated on guns as you are on gold?
I’m not talking about chandeliers and faucets.
I don’t dispute that. Unfortunately, if you buy it today it is more likely it will be worth less than you paid for it if the world economy doesn’t do what you predict it will.
**
At it’s inflation adjusted all time peak?!
No Mr. Hyde. I expect them to die!
Look people. You should only buy gold as an investment to round out your portfolio. And then, it should only be a fraction of your total assets as part of a comprehensive diversified long term investment strategy.
Gold is not hedge for inflation. In fact the price of gold dropped from its peak in 1980 to 1991 and failed to keep pace with inflation at all, losing over 80% of its value.
Susanann - How many of the companies were acquired by other companies? How many never had an IPO? If I were to take 10,000 and invest it in a diverse portfolio of tech companies 40 years ago, would I be insane or a multi-millionare today?
Do you think it makes sense to have an investment strategy not contingent on the end of civilization?
**
Certainly as Homer Simpson once said, “Your ideas are intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.”
It’s called “How to Die Broke”. And Homer would certainly find these ideas intriguing.
First of all, you would be hard pressed to convince me that 99% of all publicly traded companies that have had an IPO have gone bankrupt or been delisted from their exchange. Value has not been destroyed if the company merged with another company and its shared converted.
Second, you shouldn’t be investing in single stocks for the most part. You are much better off investing in an index fund consisting of dozens or hundreds of stocks.
This is a message board, when you make wild, extremely general claims you can’t counter with “but I’m only talking about a very specific situation, which is the present one!”
FWIW if you’re super worried about reality, then in the real world holders of a diversified investment portfolio that includes mostly non-gold assets will be fine 50 years from now here in the real world.
Another dose of reality, since that is what we’re now concerned about with: Based on your posts here I gather you’re at least my age, possibly a little older. Which means you’re probably not going to see much more than 30 +/- 10 years of life; in that time frame I can promise you the stock market isn’t going to hit rock bottom, the U.S. isn’t going to go bankrupt. We won’t all be homeless, we won’t be taken over by Mexico. We won’t be ran by the Chinese. Thirty years from now at worst the U.S. will be a little poorer relative to everyone else, we’ll have a weaker military, a weaker position in the world, and possibly a little bit lesser quality of life. (That’s granting a lot, history has shown that technology has caused continual quality of life increases in first world countries even during economic stagnation.)
For people who are playing a longer game (namely the young) you have to seriously analyze if preserving your wealth is enough. Sans periods of great adjustment (as has been seen over the past few years) gold has mostly been of similar value throughout history. For example the price of 100 acres of prime real estate in gold isn’t dramatically different now than what it was 500 years ago. (I say that with a mountain of caveats, but it’s close enough to make my point.) What this means is that unless you’re already wealthy, gold won’t make you much wealthier than you already are, it will just mean you won’t go broke.
Here’s the problem though, presume instead of being already retired I was 23 years old and just entering the job market. Assume best case scenario I can save 12% of gross towards retirement right at 23 and do so until my 60s (not realistic since most people’s first jobs don’t give them enough discretionary income to do this.) My “money in” to retirement still isn’t a lot, and still doesn’t replace that many years of earning. Only through interest gains does it become a large enough nest egg to spend the rest of my life not working. Investing in gold won’t, over an average 40 year working life provide much of an ROI, because gold’s value does not tend to accumulate interest (and it certainly doesn’t accumulate more gold, gold never becomes more gold–all purchases have to be made off of earnings.)
There’s a major difference between middle class people trying to preserve wealth and the “richest people.” The richest people are today’s “nobility” because they have power, they didn’t just become rich out of nowhere. Power such as controlling or running a large enterprise, being a major player in politics, having some sort of skill which makes them intrinsically valuable to society. You can put all your discretionary income in gold every paycheck for 40 years and you’ll not be very close at all to Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, or even someone like John McCain or Sean Penn.
If you bought gold ~2000, now is time to be selling at least some of your gold, taking some profits, and diversifying more. The price can only get so high before people start realizing it’s just a shiny mineral with only so much intrinsic value. There are many other commodities that are a hell of a lot more useful, and a hell of a lot less overvalued than gold.
Right now, Gold is at an extreme price bubble, selling for about 3X what it should. That doesn’t mean you should nessesarily sell all your gold, but it’s a VERY bad time to be buying it.
I do agree that some smaller gold coins, and bags of silver coins (you can get bags of US silver for a reasonable price) is not a bad thing. But now is not the time to buy. The ONLy people saying BUY right now are Gold bugs and those who are pumping the gold bubble, and are about to dump.
Mind you, it still could go up a little. But anytime now it’s gonna crash back down to reality, which is $600-$800 a oz.
The rich aren’t rich because they have bank accounts with large numbers of zeros in them. They don’t have vaults filled with dollar bills. They don’t have safes stuffed with gold dubloons.
The rich are rich because they own productive enterprises. These productive enterprises make money. These productive enterprises will not lose their value just because of a currency devaluation and inflation. Bill Gates is rich because he owns a large fraction of Microsoft, Warren Buffet is ric because he owns Berkshire Hathaway. Neither of them have vast storehouses stuffed with gold. The rich don’t give a shit about gold. Your obsession with currency and gold is a bourgeois fixation.
Glenn Beck’s Fox News show winds down this year. Definitely not a good time to buy.
is this really actually true? What about the myriad boats loaded with gold that sank in the middle of all the world’s oceans in the middle of myriad hurricanes and typhoons? Can their owners still claim to be wealthy at $1400 an ounce and claim all the power and respect that comes with owning all that glorious gold?
Nitpick: as of right now the year 1822 was not 200 years ago.
Hi everyone, I’m looking to invest in precious metals by collecting coins. I decided not to look for old coins, but to make sure that I have at one coin from every collection the Canadian Mint will put on the market in the hope it will be valuable fifty years from now. Does this make sense? Plus I’m more interested in silver coin as they are less expensive. Looking at the Silver Coins page on the Royal Canadian Mint I couldn’t decide on which ones to choose. When it doesn’t say 99.9% pure silver does it mean it does not bear any long term value?
Thanks in advance to anyone willing to help.
I strongly suggest that you invest in something other than coins if you are buying precious metals as an investment. The markup on coins is usually quite high.