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Comment by canadiantim | Hacker News Reader

Gold/Silver is best in this situation. Don't have to worry about inflation, but you still have it in case of emergencies

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Depends on what the scope is. It's a lot easier to go to the store and buy food with emergency cash if there is a 1 month blackout or internet outage. The grocery store isn't going to accept gold and the conversion rate from gold to cash isn't going to be great in that situation.

For inflation proofing a fortune, sure, keep a large chunk in gold (or something else that is stable and movable). But for "emergencies" I'd try to keep some cash.

If there's a long blackout or internet outage stores would not be able to operate - if you're preparing for that scenario canned food, water canisters, weapons and whatever else prepper handbooks say are probably your best investment.

I disagree, many mom and pop / convenience stores will be able to operate by just accepting cash.

The bid/ask spread is too wide on precious metals to be useful as a transactional currency. I guess in a true societal collapse-type emergency maybe it'll be useful, but at that point canned food, guns, and ammo might be more valuable.

Right, I think it's helpful to define the most probable types of emergencies where having a non-electronic form of payment is useful. In the US that's likely some sort of natural disaster (hurricane, snow storm, blackout or brownout during the summer). Going to your local grocer and using cash won't raise any eyebrows where I'm not sure how likely anyone is to accept gold or silver in one of those situations.

Venezuela is one example before societal collapse where gold has been useful as a currency.

Venezuela has pretty well collapsed.

There are various rules of thumb in the prepper communities but it's something like:

* 2 weeks supply of food, water, heat, and cash * 2 months supply of similar but in longer-term forms (often precious metals go here; ones that are "well known" are the best, like junk silver)

Beyond that it's up to personal discretion and location, but the two week rule is a good one, in my opinion. 90% of "hiccups" are done in two weeks.

If you are at the level of using precious metals as currency, you are going to need to be part of a powerful tribe that will watch your back so that your precious metals will not get stolen. And I doubt many, if any, “preppers” have that crucial aspect covered.

Not to mention that the mere rumor that you have any is going to put a target on your head.

If I'm in a scenario where the economy has collapsed to the point that trade is happening through barter, I feel like liquor, arms, and ammunition are better value stores than precious metals. They'd be an appreciating asset, because a societal collapse would probably disrupt manufacturing and distribution supply chains, and they're directly useful rather than requiring someone figure they'll be able to exchange them with someone else later, but also shelf stable enough that a buyer could trust they could pass them off later, allowing them to operate as an adequate substitution for currency.

Gold is almost at its all-time high. Might not be the best time to enter.

Gold will be hitting all time highs forever when your measuring stick is an inflationary currency.

So long as your investment horizon is on the scale of years and decades, it's never a bad time to buy an asset with constrained supply in exchange for paper that's constantly being debased.

When your ruler is getting shorter every year, you'll never stop growing taller.

Gold is almost at an all-time high when adjusting for inflation. If it lost 2/3 of its current value that wouldn't even be very notable, pretty middling as far as historical value goes.

The problem there is you have to find a buyer to turn that metal into liquid money. The only one you can sell it to is usually the same place you bought from, and they will make sure to make a profit.

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