THAT DOESN"T QUALIFY AS RETAINING VALUE?!?!?! It was still worth something after the bubble even at the lows. Thats the definition of retaining value!
Ok. To each their own as far as defining "retaining value". Retain means to keep intact. The antonym of the word is to lose. 2/3 or more down in my book means losing, not retaining. Of course it still has some intrinsic value attached to it, like everything else. You can buy a house for 500K at the peak of the market and it's worth 200K at the bottom, does that mean that the house retained it's value? It's a shitty investment either way. Gold is like every other asset class, it fluctuates in value.
Urgh. The 'if the world ends gold wont help you' argument is so worn out. People (including 90% of the goldbugs) buy gold hoping to make a profit end of story. What's so hard to grasp about that? And so far they are on the winning side. Get over it. Or hop on ofcourse.
IF the SHTF in a big way..not gold , nor ammo , nor food is going to save anyone...unless you are planning on using the ammo to start capping people for food...backcountry and knowing how to survive in the back country and having the plan to get you there is the only thing that will save any of YOUUUUUUUUUUUUu...
Best is to dig a tunnel 50 miles into the ground and build a bunker with 3 years of food to go to when nuclear winter is here. I heard Tom Cruise did this.
you would need a handful of people with years of supplies , condoms and a strong leader in some hut in the back country in an area with good climate for agriculture to even remotely stand a chance...the Latter Day saints in utah have an advantage over the rest of us....but they'd need to borrow even further and break up into packs....When the run starts , which will lead to power grid failures and then to total choas ( kinda like New orleans in Katrina)...who the fuck is going to survive that with a truck load of gold ...
Huge fallacy. Gold investor will NOT make a profit... never, NEVER, N-E-V-E-R!! Gold will go up in nominal price to reflect a proportional amount of inflation and/or currency debasement... that is, "the money invested in gold will MAINTAIN it's value [well, sort of] against fiat currency".... to a degree. Don't forget, the "nominal increase" in your gold's value is subject to "special capital gains tax". So, even if you load up on gold as fiat currency goes to SHIT, the best you can hope to do is PARTIALLY PRESERVE the bying power of your gold-invested money. There's a "conventional wisdom" that one should have 5-10% of his wealth invested in gold... as "insurance"... so that if fiat money fails, "the profits on your gold will preserve your wealth"... TOTAL CROCK OF SHIT CONCEPT... the nominal profits on the portion of your assets invested in gold will preserve a PORTION of your wealth, that's all.
http://www.drum-runners.com/add_LDS Preparedness.pdf If you are not prepared for the worst you deserve what you get. Especially if you have a family.
A quick look on eBay has Canadian Maple Leafs bid to $1125 currently, auctions ending in couple hours. Doesn't appear too difficult to sell.