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Comment by Kon-Peki | Hacker News Reader

If one were to accept the premise that it will eventually reach some unsustainable level, then it makes sense to start wondering what course of action an individual person/household can take to best prepare for such an event.

Putting all of your money into Bitcoin/gold right now is a terrible idea for an event predicted to occur in 20 years. So what do you do now? Next year?

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> Putting all of your money into Bitcoin/gold right now is a terrible idea for an event predicted to occur in 20 years.

How is it a worse idea than, say, putting all of your money into your 401k fund for 20 years?

As Warren Buffett says, which would you rather own, a bunch of bits [0] that are going to be the same in 20 years, or shares in a bunch of companies where other people are working day and night to increase the value of the company?

[0] Buffett said "hunk of yellow metal", which unlike Bitcoin, has some intrinsic and widely recognized value

Other people are also working day and night to suck out as much value from those companies as possible. Let's not ignore the multiple tried-and-true strategies for siphoning wealth from common-stock shareholders into the pockets of CEOs and board members. That is what the CEOs of most publicly-traded companies are spending their time trying to do. Would you rather own a shiny hunk of gold, or a paper whose value is constantly under attack from smart, Harvard-educated parasites?

I'm not saying that, in this scenario, putting all of your money into a 401k fund for 20 years is a good idea either. In fact I think it should be fairly obvious that asking the question implies that "standard investment advice" must be revalidated for its applicability.

Bitcoin/gold, like fiat currency, are just proxies for the things people actually want: housing, transportation, energy, food, time savers, etc.

It’s usually good to own productive things like a home, long lasting efficient cars, labor saving appliances, solar panels, batteries, fruit trees, etc

Productive things have a high cost of ownership. Our home has significantly increased in value, yet we are going to barely break even after maintenance & upgrades, taxes, insurance, and mortgage. Physical things tend to depreciate, and quicker than one might imagine.

A home isn't the only productive thing, many have negligible costs. Wrt the home, each situation varies, but one of the most important things to keep in mind is that appreciation often offsets all interest, tax, maintenace, insurance costs. Like right now in CA, tax is 1.25%, interest is 7%, maintenance ~0.5%, insurance negligible, so if appreciation is 8.75%, you are effectively paying nothing to live there, rather than $3,000 in rent. Maintenance can mostly be done by yourself too, and it's good to learn those skills if someone is worried about currency devaluation / shtf scenarios.

> Physical things tend to depreciate, and quicker than one might imagine.

First part is true, but I think it actually takes quite awhile. Many people in the US live in 50 - 100 year old homes, and well engineered cars are going 30 years and 300k miles these days.

50-100 year old homes with no maintenance? They probably have had the roof replaced two to four times, windows replaced, siding replaced, furnace/ac replaced several times, egress window wells replaced multiple times, and that's just the beginning. They depreciate very fast and even a 10 year old home without proper upkeep will look shabby.

Either way appreciation tends to be pretty close to inflation on average, so you are generally not making 8.75% on top of inflation. That does happen in very specific markets but definitely not in most areas.

I own a home for the lifestyle. But I could do far better as a financial investment is concerned.

Some of the appreciation we've seen in the past decade where I live in California far exceeds the maintenance cost. If you own long term, then yes, you're likely to average out much of those costs, but a lot of people are buying for a few years and selling. Unless you put any major repairs into it, you're making out like a bandit, and generally even if you did then you can still make out like a bandit. It isn't sustainable in the long term, but it's the mentality of the past decade.

CA (where real estate exploded) is a niche market. It's great if you happen to live there. Most people can't identify a hot new real estate market and then upend their life to move there. There are plenty of years and locations where real estate actually decreases in value as well.

If you are moving into a new house every few years that is particularly terrible, because you are throwing away a ton of money in closing costs and selling fees.

Calling California niche isn’t accurate. I don’t live in the Bay Area or LA. It’s a significant population of the country. Aside from that, low interest rates have seen many places throughout the country see home values double, or more, over the last 10 years.

I never said no maintenance. Of course over 50-100 years you're putting ~0.5% / yr into it.

Real vs. nominal is important but it also applies to the largest cost which is interest. Interest at 7%, but inflation at 7%, means that loan is effectively free in real terms.

I agree there are better investments overall, but when you need to live somewhere, and in the case of looking to secure purchasing power in anticipation of extreme inflation... Better to rely on real goods. Otherwise, you're hoping the high volatility of gold and stocks coincides with your highly increased rent from other owners.

Why would you go all in? A small allocation is fine

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