Dear Dave,
I’m retired, and currently I have about five percent of my retirement savings in gold and silver I’ve been acquiring over the last few years. I’ve seen gold prices decline significantly, and I’m wondering if I should hang on to it as a safety factor in the event the economy goes bad in a hurry. I want to make sure I’ll still have a safety factor, and something of value, if that happens.
Steve
Dear Steve,
What’s the safety factor here? And if everything goes downhill, why does it have value? Gold has this weird allure and mythology around it that says, “I’ve still got something that people will take when the economy crashes.” But the truth is there hasn’t been an instance when people used gold as a medium of exchange in a crashed or failed economy since the Roman Empire.
People still use gold because they believe in it. We also believe in green paper with presidents’ faces on it. So, gold really has no more intrinsic value than that green paper. The only reason we place value on it is because we, the society, place value on it. A failed society might not place value on it anymore.
In a completely failed economy, the first step is usually a takeover by a Fascist government. After that, you get a new color of money – of paper – with a new leader’s face on it. Then, the old stuff isn’t worth anything. It’s very seldom you ever see gold come to the rescue.
I don’t believe in investing in gold for that reason. Plus, the track record on gold, as far as a rate of return, is horrible over the long haul. There was a time a few years ago when everyone went crazy on it, but other than that? Ugh!
—Dave
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