The problems you describe are problems for just about every currency right now. How much of your money do you have in cash, and how much is in the bank? Do you think you will still be able to use the bank in a situation like the one you describe?
1. Venomsnake's law - every discussion on Hacker's news degrades to bitcoins.
2. Goldilocks apocalypse - every goldbug, bitcoin miner and similar depends on the crash of civilization in just the right way that everything will be the same but his economic decisions will put him on top with the pure strength of speculation. Whatever assets you have the federal government will be able to confiscate if the need is dire enough. Whatever protection the law gives you can be reverted.
There is no safety. To be able to claim and hold to a property you rely on massive infrastructure. If the dollar and the federal government crashes - it will vaporize too.
As for gold though, it takes a long-term view of the apocalypse. In the immediate aftermath, no one will care about gold. Guns, food, etc will all be at a premium. It might take a decade or so for people to care about gold, and even then enough of the population will probably be dead that gold can be had by looting for jewellery that no longer has an owner.
edit: to be clear, the utilities of these items is relative, think a DAG. gold > bitcoin. food > gold. transport to safe haven > food,guns. Maybe. Medicine > gold, also. Not trying to say anything special about gold, I mostly agree that it has very little use to justify its value.
In a functional society no one wants to pay for their goods with food or water.
Gold is useful because everyone, everywhere recognizes its value independent of any other entity. This happens simply as a function of gold's rarity and manipulability; if you're looking for a natural resource to stand in as a currency, gold meets the requirements better than other materials. This is so, and will remain so despite any human ongoings.
- small gold rings are good currency: you can easily divide it, and you can carry small amounts on your person. For some reason, people valued that more than paper money. - a black market for guns (and ammo) will spring up; cheap POS guns will have ludicrous prices, so if you plan to have one, it's wise to have them before The Collapse - Don't open your door for anyone. - Be armed. Seriously. - Be prepared to seriously consider whether to drive _through_ a pedestrian, rather than risk that his friends will kidnap you as soon as you stop. - Neighborhood friendships are extremely valuable.
.. that's all I can remember off the top of my head. I'm sure someone else can link the originals. Basically, though, it's comparatively easy to stockpile small pieces of gold jewelry ahead of time, and people will tend to accept it in trade. (Water/food/bullets/guns are of course even more valuable, but those aren't as transportable.)
The things you listed are valuable because they have direct utilitarian value for drinking, eating, defense, etc. Gold is valuable because it can be traded for things with utilitarian value.
Gold coins (British Sovereigns) were supposedly part of the emergency survival kit given to US and British fighter pilots during the first Iraq war.
During a civil war, the local economy will be destabilized. This means that local production will drop off, and most things you want you will have to import (this includes the service of fleeing the country). In addition, your local currency will have become destabilized (possibly permanently), so outsiders won't find it desirable. Gold has a market outside your country, so outsiders would be willing to accept it as currency.
Basically, what you want is a currency with a global value, because it won't be affected by local conditions. Gold satisfies this criterion, as does USD in many cases.
I think most of the debate upthread can be summarized thusly: This criterion depends on a separation between local economic conditions, and global ones. In the US there is not such a distinction. If we suffer an economic collapse (whatever the cause), we're taking the world with us. As such, there is no currency with the properties that people are looking for.
Yes exactly. And I hear too many people in the US say they feel like we are on the verge of some kind of massive revolution or civil war, which seems preposterous to me. Your average person would rather just get by than get involved in a bloody, civil conflict. There is a growing economic divide in the US, as well as a somewhat large rate of unemployment (mostly made up of the young and self-entitled, and older folks who's skills have become fairly obsolete), but compare it to countries where there have been actual civil wars in recent times and we're nowhere near that level of destitution and disparity. You need to get into multi-generational inequity, corruption, and despair before enough people will put aside their own relative comfortable complacency to get involved in armed conflict.
So buying gold for the coming apocalypse is silly.
You could also argue that if Europe collapses, it will take down the US too. It could go either way, or there may be some kind of localized collapse. All continents have their Powers That Be, and those of other continents might well be able to detach themselves from one continent going down. All that really matters is order, and the ability to keep things chugging along.
Food, water, and fuel would obviously be valuable too, but they're harder to carry a lot of.
Guns? Well, ammo really. Guns are plentiful in the USA and are extremely durable. Ammo is more suitable to currency type usage, being handy during the crisis, comes in small units comparable to coins, and the value of each is around a dollar making it convenient for smaller commonplace transactions.
Water and fuel.
How about: potable water, non-perishable food, gasoline, batteries, tools (including weapons), and other commodities that will be scarce and have intrinsic value during a crisis?
I believe cyprus had to find out the hard way as well sans civil war. They had internet, but no access to bank accounts (still very limited to this day). And I doubt the the 25%+ in spain and greece are much better off…
Call me a nut but at this point, people who have the means should put their money in things they can live off of sustainably or at least partially (PV's, rain water catch, DIY small greenhouse) because things are not getting any better globally and we seriously can't expect the printing press to get us out of this.
Oh yeah, DOW closed above 15000. quelle chance.