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Bildo | 04-26-2006 10:46 PM
Post-collapse values... If things were to go badly and the dollar became worthless, how will I know the value of any PM I may have? If I have a silver round, worth $12 today, what would it be worth then in terms of what I could trade for? I think I'd expect more than $12 worth of goods at today's prices, but maybe I'm wrong? How many chickens or ears of corn or toothbrushes could I get with an oz of silver? I saw someone using a toilet paper example...how many rolls will you trade me for an oz of silver? How will the "market" price itself out? It would seem to me that goods are only as valuable as people are desperate, but what does that desperation translate to in terms of PM? Anyone ever give this any thought? Thanks.

Book | 04-26-2006 10:51 PM
Re: Post-collapse values... Germany once used the "cost" of a loaf of bread to determine the "value" of stuff. How many loaves of bread will this buy... :wavey:

Alric | 04-26-2006 11:33 PM
Re: Post-collapse values... You will have to do your homework. Ask around and find what the average prices are. Right after a crash things will be chaotic. I personally don't think anyone is going to be trading PM untill after things stabilize. Once that happen it might be easier. If people are still using the internet, you might even be able to just check the spot price. That depends on the level of the crash though.

Ragnarok | 04-26-2006 11:43 PM
Re: Post-collapse values... Great question. I've wondered this myself. Unlike Asian societies where the people keep gold and silver on their radar screens, the great majority of Americans have forgotten their relative value in relation to other things (except for a vague jewelry related concept perhaps), and have to translate into a dollar value first. Without that reference they are lost. That metal-value-savvy has to be reestablished somehow. Doesn't look good. I am sure that the learning process won't take that much time, but if there is continued chaos over an extended period there may be no sure way to determine a trade value. If there is a rapidly devaluing currency in place it will not be a trustworthy reference. If there is access to information from other currency markets, maybe items in that market can be "cross-referenced" to gold/silver for an approximation, with a local correction applied for scarcity, abundance, etc. Communication is all-important. The more people compare notes the faster a consensus will eventually emerge. You may find yourself not using PMs much in a SHTF scenario; probably more so only after things have calmed down somewhat. That's why it's wise to be ready in advance with the non-PM things needed to tide you over. Ragnarok

Ponce Cuba | 04-26-2006 11:43 PM
Re: Post-collapse values... When the times comes PM will find their own place in a natural way on their own, people will see that the fiat is no good and therefore look for something of intrinsic value in order to be able to keep on trading as they do now. I don't look at my silver as an investment per se but more as security, if you want investment they buy stock or go short or long or whatever. I am very pleased to say that I have no bills (but for the monthly payments and yearly taxes) and that I have secured my future by investing in food and other items that will become invaluable in the years to come...... and of course my silver.

bjgnome | 04-26-2006 11:47 PM
Re: Post-collapse values... I think I remember hearing that back in 1980 one of Bunker Hunt's arab buddies saying that he thought 1 0z silver = One barrel of oil. Current real silver price $75?

Atahualpa | 04-26-2006 11:59 PM
Re: Post-collapse values... Wrote this on another thread, maybe more appropriate here; On a SHTF scenario, I don't think chunks of metal are going to save our asses, why would anybody want it in a all out meltdown? It's a store of wealth in a functioning commercial economy but in a catastrophic situation it doesn't seem that valuable. I have a difficult time getting anyone to trade goods for gold or silver now, I can't imagine what it would be like if people are desperate for food and basic needs. I wonder how long after a SHTF situation it would be before "money" is the medium of exchange? I won't be selling my food stores for metal.

Ponce Cuba | 04-27-2006 12:05 AM
Re: Post-collapse values... Ata? you might not sell me your food but you might want to buy my toilet paper....... have silver? :haha:

Atahualpa | 04-27-2006 12:28 AM
Re: Post-collapse values... Quote:
Originally Posted by Ponce Cuba Ata? you might not sell me your food but you might want to buy my toilet paper....... have silver? :haha:
If I needed toilet paper and 'they' weren't making it anymore, you bet I would trade metal for paper (unless you have that super soft multi ply heavily scented stuff, I wouldn't wipe my ... with that stuff..hehe). BTW, I use Scott single ply 1000 sheets to the roll and have a pretty good stash of my own...haven't bought any other brand in at least 30 years. I'm good for a few years anyway.

RiverRat | 04-27-2006 06:39 AM
Re: Post-collapse values... :cool2: My dad used to tell me stories of how things were in the Great Depression (1930s) he was about sixteen years old at the time. According to him the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Work was plentiful,it just didn't pay squat. Food was plentiful everywhere,you just had to have money to buy it. Real estate prices went down the toliet and the rich bought all they could. I realize we now live in a just in time world where everything would get sucked up very quickly if TSHTF. I don't worry about the value of gold and silver going down the crapper,I think those that have it will be much better off than than Joe6Pack with a fistful of worthless dollars. Unless we're talking all out nuclear war,I doubt food will be totally unobtainable.Even in historical Germany with outrageous inflation and collapse the people still could buy food.Yes,it was probably pricey,but it was still available. Even if the dollar crashes and devalues at 10 to 1 nothing will change overnight.It would mean a drastic and brutal reduction of our present economy as we know it,but the rich will still be buying bargins as usual while the rest of us struggle to keep food on the table and a roof over our head.History repeating itself. One thing about the hyperinflation horror of Germany always struck me as extremely weird. If things were so bad,why the hell didn't they just leave and go somewhere else in Europe where things were normal ?They didn't shoot people for walking across the border that I know of. I would have took off walking to Africa before I slowly starved to death. Best to all :cool2: RiverRat

Large Sarge | 04-27-2006 06:43 AM
Re: Post-collapse values... Quote:
Originally Posted by bjgnome I think I remember hearing that back in 1980 one of Bunker Hunt's arab buddies saying that he thought 1 0z silver = One barrel of oil. Current real silver price $75?
I seem to remember that also

GoldWampum | 04-27-2006 06:47 AM
Re: Post-collapse values... This is why it's important to have a plan and some stores to get through for a while. The ability to live at least a year out of the "system" is a good measure IMO.

Tn...Andy | 04-27-2006 06:56 AM
Re: Post-collapse values... I'd think an ounce of silver at that time was worth more than a barrel of oil. Think of the work, energy and investment it takes to produce an ounce of silver versus a barrel of oil.....and the availiability of silver to oil. If you simply tried to exchange all the oil that could be produced for silver at that rate, you'd run out of silver a LONG time before you ran out of oil......so on that basis, I'd think more like 10-50 barrels per ounce....maybe more. And THAT is the true basis for any form of money I think. How many loafs of bread can be produced for the same amount of work/energy/etc for a ounce of silver.......a WHOLE BUNCH I think...... What Atahualpa says is very true.....if the SHTF suddenly, metals will be relatively worthless for a long time....barter will be the economy of the day. Which is WHY I don't put a lot of my current savings efforts into PMs.....I split my savings between conventional paper promises, PMs, and actual practical items like beans, bullets and toliet paper.

dust_bunny | 04-27-2006 09:49 AM
Re: Post-collapse values... Quote:
Originally Posted by Atahualpa I wonder how long after a SHTF situation it would be before "money" is the medium of exchange? I won't be selling my food stores for metal.
I'm of the same opinion. Anyone that thinks hunks of metal will be of use (other than for making knives) isn't prepared for the situation. I get the feeling that most of the SHTF people on here don't think it will evolve into chaos for a long time. I think most are city dwellers that don't know how to skin a buck and think money will save them somehow. If you don't have land to grow your own food, hunt, cut wood, get water. You aren't going to make it long no matter how much metal you have. You either prepare for the worst or you are just fooling yourself. I don't think the S will HTF.

Aware | 04-27-2006 09:51 AM
Re: Post-collapse values... Didn't it used to be said that an OZ/Silver = A days wages and Gold = A fine suit of clothes? Of course with the current lack of silver maybe those values need to be reversed but if we think along these lines we'll have a pretty good idea of what it'll be worth.

aikitrader | 04-27-2006 10:21 AM
Re: Post-collapse values... I've read that a 90% Silver dime in 1913 or so was a day's pay for a man. A 1oz Gold piece should buy you a nice suit. Let's see....we went over oil versus gold or silver already. Anyone have any other relations of historical value vs PMs

volzka | 04-27-2006 10:23 AM
Re: Post-collapse values... Hey- IMHO, there is, under the present fiat regime, no way to accurately value anything. Under a SHTF scenario supply/demand fundamentals have the potential to place a given value on just about anything. I have food, but no silver, wanna trade? In fact, placing a value on PMs is totally impossible today. Why? Because I can call Monex and leverage my dollar account in a multiple of maybe four. Or I could purchace options or futures and increase the leverage even more. Imagine the following: You and I are both looking for a house and both really like the one at 123 Elm st. I have saved up 50 grand and will only pay cash. You don't have ANY cash but can borrow 200 grand. The house is listed for sale at 200 grand. What is the house worth? Since we are property (USA citizens) can we even "own" it at all? Maybe TS has already HTF, it just hasn't come to your house yet. Bring a pocketful of .999 by some day and lets figure out what a roll of potty paper or black market sausage is really worth. It will depend on whether you have dysentary or malnutrition. Today, both are extremely cheap because I only have cash (and very little of it) and you have a credit card (or magnetic digits on a balance sheet). The worst of all fears I have is that 300 million Amerikan citizens wake up in the morning and realize they are nothing but cash cows for the "magic mile". Volzka

aikitrader | 04-27-2006 10:34 AM
Re: Post-collapse values... ok...If I remember it correctly from what I've read recently. They say the dollar today is worth what 2 cents was back in 1913? So...we are at $12.50 Silver .02 x 12.5 = 25 cents or 1 silver quarter This being said�.only conclusion to make is that Silver is extremely undervalued compared to 1913. To be at fair value Silver should be at 4 quarters x 12.50 silver = $50 Does anyone else concur with my rationale that Silver should be at $50 to be at fair value or is my math off?

Argentsum | 04-27-2006 10:59 AM
Re: Post-collapse values... Silver's cost = ( mine + refine + transport ) +- strength of demand. .........................b a s e...... c o s t.................. c r i m e x....... Technology and energy abundance have vastly diminished the base price as compared to historical production costs.

Large Sarge | 04-27-2006 11:04 AM
Re: Post-collapse values... Quote:
Originally Posted by aikitrader ok...If I remember it correctly from what I've read recently. They say the dollar today is worth what 2 cents was back in 1913? So...we are at $12.50 Silver .02 x 12.5 = 25 cents or 1 silver quarter This being said�.only conclusion to make is that Silver is extremely undervalued compared to 1913. To be at fair value Silver should be at 4 quarters x 12.50 silver = $50 Does anyone else concur with my rationale that Silver should be at $50 to be at fair value or is my math off?
I am going to have to think on this one for a minute or 3, but one thing not figured into your equation is that Silver & Gold were fixed in price. 1 dollar was .715 ounces of silver so today .715 ounces of silver = .715 * $13.00 = $9.29 so 1/4 of $9.29 is what one quarter is worth today now if we value it by loss of purchasing power, 98% loss for FIAT or a gain of 98% for gold/silver we start with the value of $1.29 per ounce (I believe that is correct) for 1913 1.98 * $1.29 = $2.55 there is more to it than this, I think that is why folks tend to use historical relationships, daily wages, gold/silver ratio, etc because these items do not vary as much over time as say amount of currency, deficits, etc

Ponce Cuba | 04-27-2006 12:43 PM
Re: Post-collapse values... One silver dime for a days works sound about right, but one oz of gold for a "nice" suit??????? maybe they mean one oz of silver?

Anty Ep | 04-27-2006 01:31 PM
Re: Post-collapse values... Quote:
Originally Posted by Atahualpa ... On a SHTF scenario, I don't think chunks of metal are going to save our asses, ....
the little chunks of metal I am ready to deploy in the event of a dangerous civil breakdown are made out of "lead." :D

Tn...Andy | 04-27-2006 01:40 PM
Re: Post-collapse values... Quote:
Originally Posted by dust_bunny I'm of the same opinion. Anyone that thinks hunks of metal will be of use (other than for making knives) isn't prepared for the situation. I get the feeling that most of the SHTF people on here don't think it will evolve into chaos for a long time. I think most are city dwellers that don't know how to skin a buck and think money will save them somehow. If you don't have land to grow your own food, hunt, cut wood, get water. You aren't going to make it long no matter how much metal you have. You either prepare for the worst or you are just fooling yourself. I don't think the S will HTF.
Have no idea what you base your 'think' on....but to me, there IS a reasonable chance it will do exactly that. But millions and millions of people are betting their lives it won't. They had best hope that particular wager works out.

Q.E.D | 04-27-2006 01:45 PM
Re: Post-collapse values... Quote:
Originally Posted by Ponce Cuba One silver dime for a days works sound about right, but one oz of gold for a "nice" suit??????? maybe they mean one oz of silver?
I believe the "suit" for gold saying is correct, at least, that's what I've always heard. And maybe it's true. Several years ago I went to a taylor to have a suit made and all of the other suits in his window were going for about $ 800 and up. They were good suits (as in the saying). Fortunately, I didn't have to pay that much as he had one already made that he was willing to alter for me. On the other hand the dime for a days work can't be right (perhaps .10 per hour?). About $ 1.00 a day is more like it. In the 19th century, in the old west, there was a saying about a cowboy's wage: "A dollar a day and found", meaning a dollar a day plus 3 squares. (I think). And Henry Ford introduced the $ 5.00/day wage (and then, as I understand it, he promptly turned on the production line to something above light-speed, effectively negating the increase in salary cost to his company. An old fox if ever there was one. Btw, he also used to keep $ 1,000,000 in cash in the safe in his private office). In 1920, my great grandmother (after many years of petitioning the fed gov, she didn't receive it until she was almost 80 years old) started receiving her widows pension for my great grandfather's service in the Union Army during the War Between the States, which pension was $ 30.00 per month at the time of her death in 1925. I don't think that a typical wage of .10/day could be right, even if it were based on a scale 20-30 years earlier. Adios.

brsjw86 | 04-27-2006 03:13 PM
Re: Post-collapse values... I am not sure about a dime as a days pay but My grandfather was a lumberjack in Alabama and he told me that they made a quarter a day for a days work which started at 6:00 am til it got to dark to chop and saw trees down.:mad: I

Q.E.D | 04-27-2006 03:26 PM
Re: Post-collapse values... Quote:
Originally Posted by brsjw86 I am not sure about a dime as a days pay but My grandfather was a lumberjack in Alabama and he told me that they made a quarter a day for a days work which started at 6:00 am til it got to dark to chop and saw trees down.:mad: I
Now we know why so many people left the south and headed north.

Waypoint-Trading | 04-27-2006 05:01 PM
Re: Post-collapse values... Quote:
Originally Posted by RiverRat Food was plentiful everywhere,you just had to have money to buy it. Real estate prices went down the toliet and the rich bought all they could. I realize we now live in a just in time world where everything would get sucked up very quickly if TSHTF. I don't worry about the value of gold and silver going down the crapper,I think those that have it will be much better off than than Joe6Pack with a fistful of worthless dollars. Unless we're talking all out nuclear war,I doubt food will be totally unobtainable.
I agree with the River Rat - there will always be a medium of exchange - even paper money, and I think prices of PM's will always be traded, but at what price?? That is where we are far ahead of the curve...... :coolbeer:

mightyspuds | 04-27-2006 05:15 PM
Re: Post-collapse values... Quote:
Originally Posted by gasilat I'm of the opinion that its a good idea to stock up now on everything you need for as far in the future as is reasonable. In a scenario as you propose, where the dollar is worthless, international trade will collapse. Since so many items we need for existence are imported you may not be able to get them for any price. Those shovels and rakes and garden seeds down at Home Depot look awfull cheap to me in todays FRN's.
80% of pharmacueticals are imported,better have a good supply of prescription meds,I have 2 years of one,6 months of the other,I too need to get that other one up to 2 years. And no,eating right and exercising isnt going to repair a burned up thyroid,must have them or early death. Spuds:sheep:

Anty Ep | 04-27-2006 06:19 PM
Re: Post-collapse values... Quote:
Originally Posted by mightyspuds 80% of pharmacueticals are imported,better have a good supply of prescription meds,I have 2 years of one,6 months of the other,I too need to get that other one up to 2 years. And no,eating right and exercising isnt going to repair a burned up thyroid,must have them or early death. Spuds
Better stock up on that HGH too eh? LOL

wallew | 04-28-2006 05:08 PM
Re: Post-collapse values... A lot of good thoughts here. This is exactly WHY I only store 90% junk coins. THEY still have a recognized face value. If the dollar falls through the floor and drops 1300 %. A silver dollar could be worth a dollar again. A silver quarter would be worth twenty five cents again. If you have a one oz round of silver and Joe, the gas station owner or grocery store owner probably won't take it as he CAN'T figure out that one oz round of silver IS worth one dollar. Whereas my Morgans SAY what they are worth right on them. While you and I know that silver and gold has an intrinsic value, Joe the grocery store owner may not. Worse yet, HE MAY KNOW EXACTLY what it's worth but just doesn't WANT to take it. Not worth his time. What's the old curse? "May you live in interesting times."

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TheSimpleton | 05-03-2006 08:35 AM
Re: Post-collapse values... Question: What place in the world, and under what conditions, were silver and gold ever NOT accepted by someone, at some price? I would think if you're preparing for silver and gold to be held worthless, by everyone, you're planning to return to the stone age, and have neither governments, the wealthy, markets or banks to worry about. TS

Anty Ep | 05-03-2006 08:49 AM
Re: Post-collapse values... I have had these discussions before but let me put things in perspective. Basically, how much and how far are you going to get on a bag of cold coins? How much can you tote? Ten pounds would be, what 160 oz. 160x 675 would be $10,720. If per the usual apocaplyptic fantasies, you are humping a thirty pound pack with food, gear, water, rifle, and ammo, then you are not going to really want more than ten pounds of gold. Even that much will make you a "mark" for anybody who knows, to take you down and divide the spoils if you are alone. Now that's more than a fistfull of FRNs would be if the dollar lost its value, but, consider that you aint going to get too far on Ten Grand worth. Now, if you buried a hoard of say 100 pounds, you would be up past $100,000 which is a good rainy day fund, to be sure. Now consider where the hell you would bury your hoard, Fafner. For people in cities or suburbs, not an easy answer. How will you retrieve it if you are incarcerated or detained? Who can you trust to know? You put a buried treasure map somewhere? What good will your hoard do you if you become a refugee and are in a remote location with nobody back in the old 'hood who can access the stash? What if there is no phone or post? What if all communications are monitored? The contingencies for this kind of planning approach the ridiculous. Just a thought, feel free to expand on this or criticize.

Bildo | 05-03-2006 09:53 AM
Re: Post-collapse values... Very good points...but I think it falls apart in your assumption that the value of gold would be the same as today's values. Many people believe that in a post-collapse "economy", gold and silver will be worth what you could buy today with thousands of FRNs.

Ponce Cuba | 05-03-2006 10:05 AM
Re: Post-collapse values... Don't worry people, when the time comes people will learn relly fast the value of gold and silver no matter in what form. I seen it many times where a native could not even read but knew to the penny the value of paper money, silver or gold.

Anty Ep | 05-04-2006 11:37 AM
Re: Post-collapse values... Let me expand on my comment with this story about hyperinflation in the district of Chimpistan, otherwise known as Zimbabwe, fka Rhodesia, which, when it was a White-racist state, was a pool of prosperity in the lake of misery that is Africa, and now, as a black-racist state, is a puddle of misery itself. Quote:
Zimbabwe's Prices Rise 900%, Turning Staples Into Luxuries New York Times, 6.5.2 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/02/wo...2zimbabwe.html By MICHAEL WINES HARARE, Zimbabwe, April 25 How bad is inflation in Zimbabwe? Well, consider this: at a supermarket near the center of this tatterdemalion capital, toilet paper costs $417. No, not per roll. Four hundred seventeen Zimbabwean dollars is the value of a single two-ply sheet. A roll costs $145,750 in American currency, about 69 cents. The price of toilet paper, like everything else here, soars almost daily, spawning jokes about an impending better use for Zimbabwe's $500 bill, now the smallest in circulation. But what is happening is no laughing matter. For untold numbers of Zimbabweans, toilet paper and bread, margarine, meat, even the once ubiquitous morning cup of tea have become unimaginable luxuries. All are casualties of the hyperinflation that is roaring toward 1,000 percent a year, a rate usually seen only in war zones. Zimbabwe has been tormented this entire decade by both deep recession and high inflation, but in recent months the economy seems to have abandoned whatever moorings it had left. The national budget for 2006 has already been largely spent. Government services have started to crumble. The purity of Harare's drinking water, siphoned from a lake downstream of its sewer outfall, has been unreliable for months, and dysentery and cholera swept the city in December and January. The city suffers rolling electrical blackouts. Mounds of uncollected garbage pile up on the streets of the slums. Zimbabwe's inflation is hardly history's worst in Weimar Germany in 1923, prices quadrupled each month, compared with doubling about once every three or four months in Zimbabwe. That said, experts agree that Zimbabwe's inflation is currently the world's highest, and has been for some time. Public-school fees and other ever-rising government surcharges have begun to exceed the monthly incomes of many urban families lucky enough to find work. The jobless officially 70 percent of Zimbabwe's 4.2 million workers, but widely placed at 80 percent when idle farmers are included furtively hawk tomatoes and baggies of ground corn from roadside tables, an occupation banned by the police since last May. Those with spare cash put it not in banks, which pay a paltry 4 to 10 percent annual interest on savings, but in gilt-edged investments like bags of corn meal and sugar, guaranteed not to lose their value. "There's a surrealism here that's hard to get across to people," Mike Davies, the chairman of a civic-watchdog group called the Combined Harare Residents Association, said in an interview. "If you need something and have cash, you buy it. If you have cash you spend it today, because tomorrow it's going to be worth 5 percent less. "Normal horizons don't exist here. People live hand to mouth." President Robert G. Mugabe has responded to the hardship in two ways. Although there is no credible threat to his 26-year rule, Zimbabwe's political opposition is calling for mass protests against the economic situation. So Mr. Mugabe has tightened his grip on power even further, turning the economy over to a national security council of his closest allies. In addition, he has seeded the government's civilian ministries this year with loyal army and intelligence officers who now control key functions, from food security to tax collection. At the same time, Mr. Mugabe's government has printed trillions of new Zimbabwean dollars to keep ministries functioning and to shield the salaries of key supporters and potential enemies against further erosion. Supplemental spending proposed early in April would increase the 2006 spending limits approved last November by fully 40 percent, and more such emergency spending measures are all but certain before the year ends. On Friday, the government said it would triple the salaries of 190,000 soldiers and teachers. But even those government workers still badly trail inflation; the best of the raises, to as much as $33 million a month, already are slightly below the latest poverty line for the average family of five. This will only worsen inflation, for printing too many worthless dollars is in part what got Zimbabwe into this mess to begin with. Zimbabwe fell into hyperinflation after the government began seizing commercial farms in about 2000. Foreign investors fled, manufacturing ground to a halt, goods and foreign currency needed to buy imports fell into short supply and prices shot up. Inflation, about 400 percent per year last November, edged over 600 percent in January, but began to soar after the government revealed that it had paid the International Monetary Fund $221 million to cover an arrears that threatened Zimbabwe's membership in the organization. In February, the government admitted that it had printed at least $21 trillion in currency and probably much more, critics say to buy the American dollars with which the debt was paid. By March, inflation had touched 914 percent a year, at which rate prices would rise more than tenfold in 12 months. Experts agree that quadruple-digit inflation is now a certainty. In the midst of this craziness, some Harare enclaves seem paradoxically normal. North of downtown, where diplomats and aid workers are financed with American dollars, and generators and bottled water are the norm, the cafes still serve cappuccino and the markets sell plump roasting chickens, albeit $1 million chickens. Everywhere else, the hardship is inescapable. In Glen Norah, a dense suburb of thousands of tiny homes southwest of the city, 58-year-old Ayina Musoni and her divorced daughter Regai, 26, share their five-room house with Regai's two children and three lodgers. The lodgers, two security guards and a teacher, pay monthly rent totaling $3 million, or about $14.25 in American money. Ms. Musoni's latest monthly bill for services from the Harare city government was $2.4 million. The refrigerator in her closet-size kitchen is empty except for a few bottles of boiled water. Christmas dinner was sadza, or corn porridge, with hard-boiled eggs. For Easter, there was nothing. Mother and daughter make as much as $10 in American money each week by selling vegetables, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily. But the profits are being consumed by rising costs at the farmers' market where they buy stock. "Like potatoes," Regai said. "I went last week, and it was $500,000 for a packet. And when I went this weekend, it was $700,000. Millions of Zimbabweans survive these days on the kindness of outsiders foreigners who donate food or medicine and, more important, family members who have fled the nation for better lives abroad. As many as three million Zimbabweans now live elsewhere, usually in Britain, South Africa or the United States. An economist here, John Robertson, estimates that they remit as much as $50 million a month to their families the equivalent of one sixth of the gross domestic product. Ms. Musoni's is not a hard-luck story; in Harare, most people now live this way, or worse. Indeed, life for many may be better in the nation's impoverished rural areas, where subsistence farming is the only industry and millions of people are guaranteed free monthly rations from the United Nations and other donors. In the cities, little is free. Unity Motize, 64, lives with her 65-year-old husband, Simeon, in Highfield, a middle-class suburb turned slum not far south of town. The couple occupies one room of their three-room house. The second sleeps two sons, their wives and their two infants, all left homeless last May after riot police bulldozed the homes of hundreds of thousands of slum-dwellers. A 23-year-old son and an unemployed daughter sleep in the living room. Hyperinflation is a cradle-to-grave experience here. The government recently announced that the price of childbirth, now $7 million, would rise 463 percent by October. Funeral costs are to double over the same period. In rural areas, said one official of a foreign-based charity who declined to be named, fearing consequences from the government, even the barest funeral costs at least $6 million, or about $28.50 well beyond most families' means. The dead are buried in open fields at night, she said. Recently, she watched one family dismantle their home's cupboard to construct a makeshift coffin. "I'll never forget that," she said. "The incredible sadness of it all." Critics say that Zimbabwe's rulers are oblivious to such suffering last year, Mr. Mugabe completed his own 25-bedroom mansion in a gated suburb north of town, close by the mansions of top ministers and military allies. But the government says it has a plan to revive the economy. That plan, the latest of perhaps seven in 10 years, would quickly raise billions of American dollars to end a chronic foreign currency shortage, cut the inflation rate to double digits by year's end and an end to the recession that has gripped Zimbabwe, halving its economic output, since 1999. Mr. Robertson, the economist, says that is unlikely. Zimbabweans can and probably will endure greater hardship, he says. As a whole, the nation has only now sunk to standards common elsewhere in Africa. But the government may have reached the limit of its ability to do anything about it. Cutting spending seems impossible, and raising taxes further is unthinkable. That leaves one option: "much more inflation," he said. "Because this government is always going to be printing its way out of its current difficulty."

money matters | 05-04-2006 12:54 PM
Re: Post-collapse values... TS said: "I would think if you're preparing for silver and gold to be held worthless, by everyone, you're planning to return to the stone age, and have neither governments, the wealthy, markets or banks to worry about." "Real Money" is/was always superfluous to "wealth". Equating money with wealth is a recent phenomena. Maybe it is part of the delusion and madness of (certain) crowds??? To the subject at hand: I have no doubt, that somewhere in a post-collapse arena, there would be someone, some business willing to "trade" (remember what that word actually means?) Goods for money. I do have concerns that the odds of being able to find or be in proximity to the person who desires "money" for their goods, or is even willing to accept it, will be Much Greater than expected. I realize how "money" facilitates "trade". Yet, taking money in lieu of trading for "goods" means the trader must find another person who also will take money. If goods are very finite in supply, and in strong demand; why take money, when you can obtain a commodity you could continue to trade for something else? The term collapse implies RUIN. Those who think all will back to "normal" in even a few years, have no awareness for how finite the resources are that replacement would be drawn from. 30 years ago, there was a merchant class that existed and prospered throughout America. WalMart has basically displaced this local merchant. I wonder, who will have the goods you want to buy? Looters? Profiteers? Doubtful that commerce will be conducted in an oasis of trust and confidence. Who is going to be confident or trusting after a collapse? If you are relying on your PMs to provide for your needs after a "collapse", I seriously urge you to reconsider your situation. Some people miss the point by urging paying down debt first and foremost. Others urge amassing large PM stores. Don't get out of debt before you provide for the basics Don't exclude the basics in favor of PMs Maybe you will be lucky once or twice. Maybe not. Better to have "the goods" than only money; Post Collapse. Nice to have both.

AMforPM | 05-05-2006 03:49 AM
Re: Post-collapse values... Quote:
One thing about the hyperinflation horror of Germany always struck me as extremely weird. If things were so bad,why the hell didn't they just leave and go somewhere else in Europe where things were normal ?They didn't shoot people for walking across the border that I know of. I would have took off walking to Africa before I slowly starved to death.
I used to wonder that too, RiverRat, but now I see. Most Americans are not outta here, and the handwriting on the wall is neon. In our case we have a frail relative, for whom relocation would likely hasten death, and are near enough retirement to feel inclined to see if traveling then is soon enough. But I wonder if Germans thought 'maybe next year' till Hitler had them trapped. Except in the most extreme SHTF scenario, I expect PMs to have value. Human smugglers took people out of the disaster at the end of the war in Viet Nam, for PMs, and I would say a lot of S had hit that F. That does not mean I think other preparedness is not very valuable. It is certainly part of what we are doing. And the more of us who do prepare, the better off the whole country will be since we will not be in soup kitchen lines, or making scarce things more scarce by having put by nothing. Governmental price controls may interfere with PMs, though I hope not, but they will be more valued with paper devalued greatly, not less. Like many currencies there may be official and street prices.

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