5 ms·

Gold: If you don't have the physical gold in your IMMEDIATE possession, you don't own gold.

stingraycharles 6y ago
I feel like I’m missing some underlying point here, since you’re assuming there is a financial difference between buying, say, 100 gram of gold on the stock market vs having it stored at home.
- mattmanser 6y ago
  He's implying if there were some serious financial disaster, digital records saying you own gold are going to mean little.
  - orthecreedence 6y ago
    If there's a serious financial disaster, cans of beans are going to be worth more than physical gold anyway.
  - 01100011 6y ago
    If there is a serious societal collapse, gold is going to be the last thing on your mind. Bullets, fuel, tools... trust relationships with other people... all infinitely more valuable than gold in a crisis. People who own physical gold are preparing for an extremely unlikely event, where society has collapsed in a very specific way. A HAM radio and the skills to operate it would be worth more than its weight in gold in many disaster scenarios.
    - danhak 6y ago
      Not everybody holds gold as a hedge against complete and utter collapse. It can be a sensible hedge against a weakening dollar, such as is currently happening.
      - 01100011 6y ago
        Right, in which case you do not need to physically possess it, which is what we're talking about here.
    - hammock 6y ago
      >If there is a serious societal collapse, gold is going to be the last thing on your mind. Bullets, fuel, tools... The three precious metals for a balanced portfolio. Gold, silver and lead
  - danhak 6y ago
    Which is nonsense. Hyperinflation can occur without the financial system crumbling. And in that scenario you’ll be glad you had a position in gold, even just digitally.
    - grizzles 6y ago
      Your broker could change their T&Cs to enact a 1% conversion to USD fee. If you own 100 gold bricks, that's the same as them walking in and confiscating 1 of them. Presumably that's something that wouldn't happen if you owned the actual physical commodity.
      - danhak 6y ago
        Storage, security / insurance and exchange of physical gold is not free either.
  - neilv 6y ago
    If all the precious metals chatter I heard when I was into collecting, e.g., Peace Dollars is true, you can't actually take delivery of Comex gold you "own", even in non-panic times, and also that there was many times more "ownership" than there was actual corresponding gold. And then the conspiracy theories go up from there. :) Not knowing how much this is true, my impression, as a layperson, is that the claims would mean investment gold was more of a financial mechanism that only works because everyone is playing along that it has certain value governed by certain rules. If that's true, I don't know when the rules would stop or change. I decided I'd rather just plow my savings into total-market index investing of US stocks, than blindly guess about how and when gold would help.
- grizzles 6y ago
  The history of paper and leather money is that it was originally considered receipts for the storage of precious metals like gold. In fact this was the case in the US until the 1970s. I'm not a gold bug suggesting a return to the gold standard, just pointing out that the concept of money, value, storage and ownership can shift and be redefined over time.

I feel like I’m missing some underlying point here, since you’re assuming there is a financial difference between buying, say, 100 gram of gold on the stock market vs having it stored at home.

mattmanser 6y ago
He's implying if there were some serious financial disaster, digital records saying you own gold are going to mean little.
- orthecreedence 6y ago
  If there's a serious financial disaster, cans of beans are going to be worth more than physical gold anyway.
- 01100011 6y ago
  If there is a serious societal collapse, gold is going to be the last thing on your mind. Bullets, fuel, tools... trust relationships with other people... all infinitely more valuable than gold in a crisis. People who own physical gold are preparing for an extremely unlikely event, where society has collapsed in a very specific way. A HAM radio and the skills to operate it would be worth more than its weight in gold in many disaster scenarios.
  - danhak 6y ago
    Not everybody holds gold as a hedge against complete and utter collapse. It can be a sensible hedge against a weakening dollar, such as is currently happening.
    - 01100011 6y ago
      Right, in which case you do not need to physically possess it, which is what we're talking about here.
  - hammock 6y ago
    >If there is a serious societal collapse, gold is going to be the last thing on your mind. Bullets, fuel, tools... The three precious metals for a balanced portfolio. Gold, silver and lead
- danhak 6y ago
  Which is nonsense. Hyperinflation can occur without the financial system crumbling. And in that scenario you’ll be glad you had a position in gold, even just digitally.
  - grizzles 6y ago
    Your broker could change their T&Cs to enact a 1% conversion to USD fee. If you own 100 gold bricks, that's the same as them walking in and confiscating 1 of them. Presumably that's something that wouldn't happen if you owned the actual physical commodity.
    - danhak 6y ago
      Storage, security / insurance and exchange of physical gold is not free either.
- neilv 6y ago
  If all the precious metals chatter I heard when I was into collecting, e.g., Peace Dollars is true, you can't actually take delivery of Comex gold you "own", even in non-panic times, and also that there was many times more "ownership" than there was actual corresponding gold. And then the conspiracy theories go up from there. :) Not knowing how much this is true, my impression, as a layperson, is that the claims would mean investment gold was more of a financial mechanism that only works because everyone is playing along that it has certain value governed by certain rules. If that's true, I don't know when the rules would stop or change. I decided I'd rather just plow my savings into total-market index investing of US stocks, than blindly guess about how and when gold would help.
grizzles 6y ago
The history of paper and leather money is that it was originally considered receipts for the storage of precious metals like gold. In fact this was the case in the US until the 1970s. I'm not a gold bug suggesting a return to the gold standard, just pointing out that the concept of money, value, storage and ownership can shift and be redefined over time.