Yes, I think the political factor has to be taken into consideration and it is not taken into consideration at all in the "academic" 2X2 grid. If the government (or a supra-national organization, like, say, IMF, or ECB for us European citizens) wants to steal my property (there are many wa...

Sure. Gold is too valuable IMHO to be substituted by anything else, even physical real estate. But I think buying too much gold on leverage is pretty risky, too. The hard part is finding the right balance... Do not use leverage if there is any possibility, no matter how seemingly remote, of getting...

Sure. Gold is too valuable IMHO to be substituted by anything else, even physical real estate. But I think buying too much gold on leverage is pretty risky, too. The hard part is finding the right balance...

As a side note,  Bill Bernstein's latest book, Deep Risk, seems to add some interesting thoughts on this debate:  (1)  inflation is the far more likely economic risk scenario in modern times, (2) Gold has had more deflationary rather than inflationary protection, and (3) (I think he said) a 30 year...

I don't know if that's of any use to a US purchaser (they are a UK dealer), but I buy all my online coins from coininvestdirect.com . They have a very good service as far as I can tell and they can sell 20F coins (or others) one by one.

I shave only once in a while, because the process of shaving is painful (I have thick facial hair I guess) and takes time. But after a while, I usually get fed up with it for various reasons and finally shave.

Yes, if I was investing in LT bonds, I would hold them directly.

That's an interesting topic. I think the "one-size-fit-all" of the PP is a little problematic. For example : someone with a government job ; not necessarily US, I'm talking about what I know : in France, they are very safe ; you cannot lose it unless you make a bad mistake or unless France...

The good part I think though is that equities actually stay in your name, in my current broker at least. I need to find out if the 100k covers cash and equities combined. In France, equities (from EU only) are insured too (and that's another insurance, so that's 100k for cash, 100k for equities). E...

5th condition : stagflation because of high energy prices (peak oil, etc.). Then, either energy commodities or forest land.

As for me, I hate it when websites open a new tab without asking for the permission. I'd rather do it myself, and open links in another tab if I want to, and in the same one if I prefer.

So hard to satisfy everyone

1. Who would want to borrow gold? Other than miners, who could theoretically repay in kind, and bullion banks, who don't repay at all, there aren't many possible borrowers. Short sellers might want to do that. I borrow gold, I sell it high, and buy it back low (hopefully) to pay back my golden debt...

There's a new law in France that has been put into application : the postal services shall not be used anymore to send precious metals, especially gold & silver bullions. There is no real justification for that and the law is not well known yet (many professional bullion dealers do not seem to h...

smurff wrote: I always thought you were the K9 who used to hang with Doctor Who.

No, I'm not. I'm a Mark IV.

For those wondering, my avatar is sibyllin : yes, I AM a robot dog. From another planet. From the future. Please consider updating your assumptions.

I'm only holding physical gold. I don't like having too many people between my assets and I, especially with gold (which is supposed to protect me against financial & political maëlstroms). I think I could cope with a little part of it with ETFs, for rebalancing reasons, but I haven't done it y...

I personally think that market participants are more worried about deflation than inflation. In that environment it would make sense for gold and stocks to move in tandem. Yep. Both gold & stocks are supposed to be affected by swings from (anticipated) deflation to (anticipated) inflation and v...

I'm only holding physical gold. I don't like having too many people between my assets and I, especially with gold (which is supposed to protect me against financial & political maëlstroms). I think I could cope with a little part of it with ETFs, for rebalancing reasons, but I haven't done it ye...

The market sets the prices of those assets. I don't know if shares/bond prices had already priced in the risk lately but anyone loaning money or owning shares in institutions that make these risky loans is playing with fire. They aren't anymore responsible then depositors though. When you can't pay...

Having depositor's lose money is the best solution. It doesn't matter if they have a lot or a little. The market has been overvaluing the promises of government. The government can't suspend the laws of economics. Well, you can't be more wrong actually. What the government is doing is precisely goi...

I don't understand that geographical bias in the PP. That's called market timing : it is precisely the same as saying "I think industrial stocks will far outperform other stocks, so I invest 90% in industrial stocks, 10% in other stocks" or "I think small caps will far outperform big ...

Yep, a wonderful scissor effect. While they endure income deflation (both wages and welfare state went down), they have to face inflation for all the many imported goods.

That's interesting. Thanks for the link.

I think it's a very good idea ! Now, gold or silver ? As I said in other posts, physical precious metals are useful in a quite-SHTF like Argentina as they can be changed at a local dealer against a local currency of some sort (say, pesos or dollars) ; then you would use that currency. So, gold or si...

I THINK gold would be better based on recent examples, or precisely silver would do no better. If bartering small items becomes widespread, there won't be enough people having silver coins, anyway. Barter would probably be based on everyday's items, say, an egg for a lemon, something like that. You ...