Are Gold and Silver gonna keep going down?

[TheChief]

can the usd even recover at this point? seems like we're printing, borrowing, and throwing money to foreign entities towards the ultimate goal of achieving zimbabwean currency value. i suspect gold will keep rising now, but more practical and useful than that(since gold is impractical when you want to move long distances, especially out of the country), and thus more valuable, would be flagship cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum, and if things get really bad in terms of government intervention, fully anonymized bitcoin clones like monero

There is no one qualified in this site to answer that question and more likely it is too complex to really answer with any certainty. The gov is trying, at least some parts of it.

[Supersapper]

can the usd even recover at this point? seems like we're printing, borrowing, and throwing money to foreign entities towards the ultimate goal of achieving zimbabwean currency value. i suspect gold will keep rising now, but more practical and useful than that(since gold is impractical when you want to move long distances, especially out of the country), and thus more valuable, would be flagship cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum, and if things get really bad in terms of government intervention, fully anonymized bitcoin clones like monero

As mentioned, the legit answer to this will require significant experience in economics. Some predictions, however, can be made. Simply put, the more money you print, the less valuable it becomes. The more money that a country borrows, the more debt it gets and it must find the money somewhere. There are only two possibilities: higher taxes and print more of it. At some point, the interest you pay on the debt becomes more than you make and that's when the trouble is arguably unrecoverable.

If this were you and I, once the interest on the debt we have becomes more than we make, we file bankruptcy to save ourselves. The debt is restructured and forces us, if we are not stupid, to restructure our lives to prevent it from happening again. The problem is that you and I can't print money or just keep borrowing more with the ability to kick our debts down the road. The government can just keep doing it until the point is reached where it turns into the aforementioned Zimbabwean dollar or a Weimar Reichsmark.

This is where gold and silver come in. They were never meant to make huge sums of money. They were meant to protect the wealth you have from inflation. For example, if you bought a Gold Eagle for $1000 back around 2010 and sold it today for $2300, what about that $1300 gain? It isn't really profit as such, it's just what the inflationary winds, in theory, are making it worth. Think about it...$1300 over the 14 years? Not a real profit and if you break it down, it basically is keeping with 6% inflation (as a linear number) over the last 14 years (1.06^14)(1000). This number is overly simplistic, but it makes the point. Inflations wasn't as bad back then, but it's bad now. Depending on how you view current inflation, gold and silver are heavily undervalued, but they haven't been following traditional patterns, so now it's kind of anyone's guess.

What makes them valuable, though, in a practical sense is that as long as there is a single exchange in the world that values 1 ounce of gold and silver, they'll never be worthless, unlike currency. If the dollar ever went away or became the new Reichsmark, then one can take the ounce of gold to another country and get the money for it.

This makes the case though, for having physical. It's untraceable, so it can't be frozen out, it will have worth as long as someone on this planet pays for it, great barter item in short term SHTF situations, etc. Obviously, amassing a large amount of it produces a challenge for transport and storage, but then if you have a mass of gold and silver, it might not be such an issue

The major issue with crypto, all politics and vitriol aside, will be it's accessibility in a grid down situation. Without power, there is no ability to use crypto. The other item is that when currency is no good, at least gold and silver may have some bartering use. Crypto can't be held in your hand, so giving something like food or fuel up for an electron is NOT something that will fly for most people. If you really want to take advantage of the crypto asset, day trade it and take profits often. Convert those profits to gold and silver. That makes the precious metals effectively free to you and you can amass them while you have the physical infrastructure to do so.

Just a thought.

[lightbulbcollector]

Not sure what's gonna happen. All I know is the house of cards seems to be falling down. I'd rather have money in silver/gold than money in the bank.

[karsk]

yes bitcoin is taking a big chunk out of precious metals. it simply has superior utility. you have to declare gold, you don't have to declare your bitcoins:

https://www.deccanherald.com/india/female-crew-member-of-airline-held-for-smuggling-gold-in-rectum-3044937

[TheChief]

Its been 11.5 years since this thread began. Back then Gold was $1,482/oz and silver was $25/oz. As of this writing gold is $2,736/oz and silver is $32/oz.

None of the doom and gloom predicted so so many times happened. Do you think it is going to change in a weeks time or just keep chugging on?

[EM2]

Years ago when I first started to pay attention to the price of silver it was at $35/oz.
It started to drop soon after.

[user120312]

Choice of use varies widely. My use is for compact storage and transport of a relatively stable, over centuries, asset.

Although an alloy, I had one of my gold crowns out recently to do tooth maintenance and, cleaning and examining it under the digital microscope, I was amazed how little it had changed in the 15 years or so in my mouth. Molars get a beating and just that very thin cap of gold has been worth the expense. Teeth in my family are crap so even with the best of care it's tough. Gold works.

So, my use for the metals doesn't really revolve around increases or losses in dollar value. It's a defensible asset. Machine guns are also a compact transporter of wealth and can also be used to defend one's life, and assets. That's my focus now, respecting the focus here on prepping and survival. YMMV.

[twinfin]

Its been 11.5 years since this thread began. Back then Gold was $1,482/oz and silver was $25/oz. As of this writing gold is $2,736/oz and silver is $32/oz.

None of the doom and gloom predicted so so many times happened. Do you think it is going to change in a weeks time or just keep chugging on?

This is one of those threads that will never age out.

As for me, I’m glad that I have a wide and diverse range of preparations. If one falls, another is available to take its place. Have a little bit of everything and not too much of any one thing seems to be working for me. The goal at the end of the day is to be the one passing out soup, not the one standing in the soup line. Precious metals along with so many other useful things and strategies are part of that goal. I feel pretty good about where I’m positioned but always trying to think of where my weaknesses might be; there will always be room for improvement.