Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Gold only has value because we say it does. It's just a rock. Like a diamond. There is no inherent value in any of this stuff.
This is the part that gets me. These types always say the dollar will be worthless because it's fiat currency but never explain why anyone will give a s*** about specific metals in this Mad Max thunderdome they're imagining. "Because it's what fur trappers used!" doesn't really persuade. If the dollar becomes worthless no one is going to be trading gold bars for canned goods. It will be straight barter or theft; plan accordingly.
He could go all out fur trapper. Glass beads, tin cooking pots, sewing needles, bolts of calico.
It had only become legal to own bulk gold in the 70s under Nixon. My entire childhood gold was fixed at, if I remember, $35 per ounce. Plus in the 60s they stopped making coins out of pure silver, so people were stashing older coins during the transition.
In the 80s it seemed like end times publishing exploded, plus there was huge inflation and very high interest rates--easily up to 18% My dad was a farmer at the time, also on the local farmer's co-op board, and the co-op itself was paying 18% for awhile. The gold spike then was because of the economy.
Rural areas were hit especially hard because modern family farmers often have to borrow to put in their crop (crop prices were low as well, less money in the bank from the previous harvest). This was the time when the Posse Commitatus movement, the Montana Freeman, other paramilitary groups became active. VCR technology helped them spread their notions in persuasive ways that were not possible before. Not that there had not been pockets of cranks and conspiracy theorists before, but I think they became more established starting around then.