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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

>>  History supports James' points a couple weeks ago that gold/silvere will 
> 

Leslie, as far as gold goes, one must per force separate the pearls from the 
rotting oysters as far as "experts" and "smart people" and their advice on 
gold.  99.9% of the advice about why gold is such a good investment comes 
from 
people  who hope to earn a lot of money selling you gold.  Separate out the 
people whose livelihood or investment values don't depend on your willingness 
to 
be caught up in they hype and buy gold, and picture changes dramatically.

Has it ever occured to you that if these golkniks really believe that 
currency is about to collapse and gold will hold its value or greatly 
increase in 
value, why in the world would they be wanting to sell their gold to you for 
said 
currency??  Whey wouldn't they be keeping it themselves?

Through Fekete's writing (and there is a great deal more along these lines 
from other writers) you understand that gold has not always been a viable 
token 
of exchange.  It makes me feel as if I am not wasting my time after all.  
Gold 
coins have very rarely been used for everyday transactions.  One did not stop 
at the inn in the middle ages and pay for his sup and bed with gold coins.  
The farmer of a century ago did not fill the buckboard with supplies at the 
general store and pay for it with gold coins.  The denominations were far too 
large.  Gold was used for very large debts.  If you had a gold coin and 
wanted to 
take care of your daily or weekly expenses for a while, you'd have to 
exchange it for other currency unless you'd be willing to give me the gold 
coin for a 
dozen eggs, an excange which I'd seriously consider.

During times that Fekete is talking about if there is no established currency 
and means for translating that exchange into gold, the gold is more or less 
useless.

And as he pointed out, and as most goldniks that actually understand gold 
point out, the storage value of gold is not in having it available for you to 
buy 
bread and cloth and fuel with when TSHTF, but rather a very LONG term storage 
that you family has prospects of using two generations from now if you manage 
it keep it quietly hidden.

It has been pointed out by Fekete that there were times in history where the 
trafficking in gold comes to a stand still, that is, gold loses all of its 
value as a medium of exchange.  For the golkniks to shake their pouch of 
coins 
and demand that the gold still has value is like arguing how many angels can 
dance on the head of a pin.   It would be like being in the desert with an 
empty 
water bottle and demanding that it was valuable and would save you because 
someday it would likely have water in it again.

So we've seen the times in history where if you were there with only your 
sack of gold coins, you'd have starved to death anyway.  Let's look at the 
proposal of the goldniks.  Can you point ot an example where there has been a 
collapse of the currency (or even a drastic devaluation) and those holding 
gold were 
able to buy land, livestock, farm tools, and grub stake supplies with the 
gold they were holding?  No?  It's because it doesn't happen that way, never 
has.

We've heard that farmland here or there sells for so much an acre and if I 
took this jingly purse of gold coins which are worth that much times that 
many 
acres, I could buy that farm ... so that proves gold has value, right?  No.  
That is only possible because of a supported and enforced currency.  What if 
the 
currency collapsed and you showed up to buy that and with your leathern pouch 
of gold coins,  could you get the land owner to agree.  History says 'no'.  

So in thinking about gold, first filter out where the information is coming 
from.  If the source is mainly infomercials and web sites of people who make 
money talking you into buying gold and the "experts" of finance are those 
whose 
ONLY asset would be gold if things got dicey,  you can understand the bias.  
But if you study the history of gold written by those who have no material 
investment in thy hype, you see a very different story.


>  
> James, do you have any time line of your own in mind on when you think you 
> might find yourself in a position to have to close your own front gates?
> 

If you mean that I cannot depend on the outside world for the things my 
family needs to survive and thrive, that timeline would be twenty years ago, 
and 
that's only because I started way too late.  Our existence is divided into 
two 
distinct parts:  what we need to physically survive and be comfortable on the 
one hand and the superfluity and frills on the other.  We worked dilegently 
to 
make sure our food, fuel, and other such needs were secured by our own work 
and cleverness without reference to the outside world.  And this does not 
consist of a mirthless bowl of gruel eaten in a cold and gloomy hovel.  Among 
us we 
read as many as 20 books in two weeks.  We are all filled to the brim with 
stories and when the night or winter closes in, we often sit by the fire and 
relate them.  We all play musical instruments and sometimes get into one of 
those 
rounds where we make up the verses as we go and those will involve events in 
our life together, charicatures of people we know.  

That is, as the title of an old Appalachian tune would have it, there are 
Fine Times at Our House.

As I have described before, we also participate in the wider world, but we do 
NOT depend on it.  

But if by closing the gates you mean to protect ourselves from the roving 
hordes of angry day traders and exectutive secretaries that have suddenly 
found 
themselves destitute and on the rampage, that point on the time line would be 
never.  

James