What will do it?

[misteroman]

The rest of the world comes up with a reserve currency they would rather use than the U$ Dollar.

Bingo

[Silverfondler]

That's a really interesting story, thanks for sharing it. About 10 years ago, I was putting all my money into Yu-gi-oh! cards. I was just buying them for fun, but I did hope they might go up in value. Looking back, precious metals would've been a better thing to buy. Maybe 10 years later, the opposite is now true... perhaps I should go buy a booster pack...

You're welcome. Pre-1980 certified unopened baseball packs are on fire right now and the prices area going up monthly. So keep you eyes open at yard sales, flea markets etc. and if your lucky you might come across someone who doesn't know the value of what they have and you could score big!!!

Great story! Thanks for adding to this thread. It makes me think I have hope in my old baseball card collection(s). I look forward to going through them someday. Overall, though great message on sticking to your guns so to speak. A lot of time I feel like I am the black sheep who is picking up PMs when I can. Most people just don't see it as a valid method of investing...yet.

[Silverfondler]

I too appreciate the economy lessons from those far smarter than me. The reason I am here is I tried to change careers 5 years ago to try to learn options trading. I was going to get rich and donate millions to needy causes, right? Wrong. I'm lucky I came out alive. Had some huge wins but far more loss. I considered it going to global economy school/was immensely interesting being thrown into global issues. It's a big world out there. So I considered my losses as college tuition. Thru that education I became introduced to PM, which I am thankful. Another "something good" out of my losses overall. I'm not a Robert Prechter fan or critic, but became aware of him, and do respect him as someone spending his life on his career. If I remember right, his prediction is that gold will eventually go down to the approx $680 range, and silver approx $8.50. It may be possible that if it gets that low there will be none to buy? If those prices happened tomorrow imagine the scurrying to the local coin shops/the long lines of us "1%ers".

And someone wrote: "Ask someone in your daily routines what would happen if we didn't have a currency or what would we use as a currency if the USD wasn't worth anything. The answers are astonishing - 2/3 the time PMs are not even brought up..."

What was brought up? Bartyring goods? food, ammo, essential items?

To answer your question. The answers I receive are literally nothing. These people cannot fathom a world without our current fiat currency. And, to me its really scary and astonishingly unbelievable to think that common man just doesn't have a clue. Honestly when the time is right, ask someone what is money? and after there initial BS answers challenge them to answer more specifically of what it is? What is it backed by? says who? etc. I can almost guarantee you will be astonished with the answers you get.

[theo]

To answer your question. The answers I receive are literally nothing. These people cannot fathom a world without our current fiat currency. And, to me its really scary and astonishingly unbelievable to think that common man just doesn't have a clue. Honestly when the time is right, ask someone what is money? and after there initial BS answers challenge them to answer more specifically of what it is? What is it backed by? says who? etc. I can almost guarantee you will be astonished with the answers you get.

I believe most people think that our currency is "backed" by gold in the sense that our government possesses certain amount of gold holdings. Of course they don't understand that the dollars in their pocket gives them no real claim on the gold.

[50centsaver]

I have tried so hard to convince my grown up son and daughter- 33 and 32 and their spouses the logic of real money, to at least have some PM for insurance sake/as a store of value, but to of no avail. They will have none of it. They've been good kids and listened to me about many things, but not this. Sadly, I started teaching them about this too late- should've started when they were younger. I've given them small amounts of silver for recent Christmas's and even a 1/10th oz AE gold coin. I've sent them much info from my blog http://yourmetalmatters.blogspot.com/
to explain the dire condition of our economy/the global economy, fiat money printing, the fact the U.S. can't even afford the interest on our debt, yadda yadda.
Like the great majority, they have confidence/believe in the illusion our government will be fine, somehow- they believe anything can be fixed. They don't understand that we're beyond "fixing".
If anyone has a time machine give me a call- I got into PM only 6 years ago. If I could, I'd go way back in time, have my kids set aside some of their earnings in H.S. into gold and silver, all the while teaching them the importance of PM. We had a family business of which they were a part of and made quite a bit of money- for kids.
My advice to any parents out there- do this now- have your kids purchase small amounts- when they are young. Hopefully they'll catch on as they get older. When they see their small piles grow, and you keep talking to them/teaching them, I bet they'll have a far easier time grasping it, than trying to teach your kids when they've moved away from home and think they know it all.
This is a great time for kids to get in- especially for silver, copper pennies, and nickels, with maybe a small coin of gold purchased once in awhile.
I sure wish when I was in H.S. someone would've taught me. Instead of spending all my lawn mowing $ on my girlfriend, I would've been buying gold at $35/oz! Or how about walking into a bank in 1964 and buying all the 90% I wanted at face!
In my case- better late than never.

[Silverfondler]

Here is a great article I came across last night on Kitco. What I found most interesting was the sentence that read something like. "Silver costs $21.XX an OZ to mine and Miners are considering shutting down on Silver mining for a while at least in till Silver prices go up." This would certainty cause some supply and demand issues. Here is the link:

http://new.newsedge.com/?cmmd=readStory&key=-Z1OUj5g6VQzfBUIvlK3zWkzGg5AoxuQlD39A0mMXGF8ahBEtYxi5nh3M_YaSHcsgCXwv9OUW7W_jdtEtStykjq3l3rHiJ0vCDQInmmJn_NhnOpVxJq1B6ZEMVJlkz8UpZTmPxF6UDzTWfet5ZWJPA**&client=rssfeed_14118_213233

[68Camaro]

On a related note, you have to admire (perversely) the thoroughness of the brainwashing of the masses, which started slowly and under false pretenses, progressed over decades, became more overt, then finally started to come out into the open in the 80s. Children of the past 20-30 years are increasingly being taught full blown lies as though they are truth, and being told their parents are unfit if they offer a different view. It's a sick plot, but masterful in depth and width and time scale.