His answer when I asked this question (around post #110 to #115 ITT) is something you might find interesting. Less of the "load up on seeds and water" and more of the "this is what you do to buy gold and silver". I followed his instructions and it worked fine.

I have to say, however, that I wouldn't invest that much in gold and silver if I only had a couple grand to invest/protect. Maybe 20 silver buffalo coins or something, but no reason to throw it all into precious metals. If you have $30-40k, investing in a reasonable amount of PM makes more sense. Just imo obv.

wow another one liner with zero sources, zero original content, zero interesting content... what a shocker... I dunno what to tell you Yowserrrs... both of those numbers... 12.8 trillion for the USA... and 20 trillion+ for europe have been widely reported in mainstream news sources... google is your friend... obviously you WANT TO KEEP YOUR HEAD IN THE SAND, so there's really no help for you...

http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north689.html

see bloomberg article i posted above for 12.8 trillion number...

I realize I post sources for 80-90% of the things I claim, whereas you post sources for 0-10% of the things you claim, and I really have no problem being held to a higher standard... but I am just going to ignore you there's no reason putting up with blatant trolling, i just dont have the time at this point.


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@ Barron- I know Bernanke knows what really caused the Great Depression- and what scares me the most is that if he was taking actions to purposely move us into the greatest depression, he could not possibly be doing a better job.

Just because he's showing some awareness of the inflation issue doesn't mean shyt... actions speak louder than words. I agree with you though -- i think he will bring some "solutions" to the table eventually such as price fixing, rationing, looting tons and ons of cash... oh wait they're already doing that... Barron I have to ask you, have you ever seen the Obama Deception? There are a few key points in that movie I would like to discuss with you, but I feel like it would be much easier if we had some common ground to work with. To be honest with you, you seem hopeless stuck in the left right paradigm... it's a little bit more complicated than the red team vs. the blue team, but not very much more complicated...

Even if you disagree with 100% of the movie that is fine, that is great, it will open up to a great discussion. The fact of the matter is that this is the most view video ever in internet history and eventually you'll probably run into in one place or another.

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T50 - you will surely not regret buying the silver! I suppose the main difference was I got the feeling you had 5-6k to invest, and this other fellow had 1-2k to invest. Silver is damned high on the list of things to acquire in my book, but items that will directly help you survive can be even more valuable than silver at times.

Ammunition/firearms
Non GMO Non Hybrid seeds
water filters
food

you could easily spend 500-1000$ on seeds, 1000$ on firearms, 2-3000$ on food, 500$ on water filters... and not really have much money to buy silver with yourself... changing your mindset and realizing that we cannot possibly maintain our grossly high standard of living is very key. Reading books and educating yourself on what is important now and may be extremely important in the future is key. My goal is self sufficiency. The gov't HATES people who are self sufficient and do not DEPEND on them for their existence.

If electricity prices go up 2-3x , if food prices go up 2-3x, gas, etc... everyone will be hurting very badly, but those who prepared will not need to dance with the devil and report to FEMA camps* in order for the gov't to protect them. As long as you stay out of the dollar, you're going to do significantly better than the other 99% of the population. I think silver will likely gain significantly in purchasing power and some of these things can be picked up further down the line... however I want to say sorry to T50 and others for not hammering some of these other important items to obtain such as food, water, etc. I'm often wrong so don't take my word for ANYTHING... do you own due diligence. That said I bet silver's AT LEAST 25 if not 30+ dollars by the end of this year... i truly believe it could double in the span o a few days.

*I've seen yowsss say fema camps dont exist many times before so I just want to go ahead and reply to your
"lol fema camps don't exist ur a conspiracy theorist." reply --so here's a little pre emptive strike :

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-645

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.p...w&pageId=87757

http://www.jbs.org/index.php/compone...userblogs/4449

do you think the germans though tthey were being brought to concentration camps? Do you think he native americans thought they were being brought to concentration camps?

http://www.efoodsdirect.com/product-...?c=1&id=cseeds

I just want to specifically comment on this item since it's being sold in many locations and is a very "uniform" item. I would surely not pay more than $40 for this item... this site used to sell these cans for $35 each not very long at all.. they seem to keep creeping up in price... please shop around you may be able to find them somewhere else for $35. Also if you buy a dozen of these at once, i bet efoodsdirect.com may give you some kind of discount. I'm not sure you necessarily want a dozen of these, but having 2 or 3 of them probably won't hurt.

Pluses

-there's over a pound ( i can't recall exacly how much, i will post this info later on ) of seeds in this, the sites says 23000 seeds but that doesn't really mean that much... its tough to picture those seeds in your head.

-his item has really long shelf life, they advertise 5 years. I bet if you keep this at 40-50 degrees or in one of your extra freezers in the basement etc, these seeds could easily be viable 10 years from now. This is a big plus since a significant portion of seeds you buy may not be viable after a couple of years. The better job you do storing them, the longer they will last of course.

-this item can make a great gift to someone because it's really not THAT expensive, If you go from owning zero of these cans to owning one of hem, that's a pretty big upgrade. It may also promote discussion of the patriot movement, etc. also the more you help out others now, the less you may have to do so later on.

Cons

-this damned can is sealed shut and we all should be gardening NOW... make sure you buy some other seeds so you're ot tempted to crack this sucker open.

-you're paying an extra premium for canning and packaging... some of the sies I recommended earlier

-there is a good variety, but it could much wider for sure. I find hat it's best to buy seeds of exactly what you want to grow and what you want to eat.

-
I would say that I ha ve had the best success growing leafy greens like lettuce, spinash, swiss chard, kale, tomatoes, etc etc... i try to grow items that are expensive in the grocery store...

growing an item like potatoes or carrotts or something that is dirt cheap in the grocery store seems like kind of a waste to me... i's all about gettin that cash MONEY =) or not spending it in he first place

We discussed previously that the Bloomberg number includes a large number of backstops on various banks, money markets, etc. Your 'analysis' is basically the same as looking at the million covered lives at XYZ insurance company and calculating what their liability would be if everyone died at once. Obviously the real inflationary component is nowhere near that and that point should be obvious when one considers that $12.8 trillion is enough to buy the entire S&P 500 or 80% of the market capitalization of every public company in the United States.

Its sad how you can spend as much time as you do pulling up every possible news report that you can spin to make worse than it is. Perhaps if you had dedicated as much time to school and work, you would actually have a career in front of you and then perhaps not be obsessed with a collapse that would vindicate your own laziness and stupidity.

A few questions Info,

Any thoughts/rationale for Gold's recent drop to about $870/oz (aside from it being a solid buying opportunity)?

Why the premium for American Gold Eagles vs. a Maple Leaf or a Krug...(is it because Gold Eagles are 22K and still a full oz of gold...thus being slightly more durable)?

Junk Silver coins seem like a slam dunk right now...not much premium over spot, plus they're highly divisible/easily used for barter...recommend you do a longer post on the subject since you're the expert obv. Don't have any yet, but if I can scrape together some scratch they look really attractive now IMO.

I do have more than $1-2k to invest, although only a small minority went into PM (which I did 60% silver, 40% gold). A lot more is going into global ETFs--EPI, HOA, TUR, ILF, EWL, FCHI to name a few--as my goal is basically to have as diversified a portfolio as possible. The recent rally has treated some of them extremely well--I bought them well off the lows but some are still up over 20%. The only thing I don't like about this portfolio is that on bad days (like today) when the market loses ~2% and the dollar gains ~1% you get magnified losses in these ETFs. On good days, when the dollar falls and markets soar, they can shoot up like crazy.

Of course I'm cheerleading a recovery, but the gold/silver is a just-in-case type of bet. I've still got lots of money on the sidelines in USD that I'll be investing before long.

I have a rough plan for dealing with the apocalypse, so I don't really need to cover that base any more.

Again, thanks for your help in buying the PM--I prob would have gone 100% gold if not for your input.

its not the same as the insurance case where they have well established class probabilities to work off of. The insurance company is not as widely effected by the self-aggravation problem that is inherent in the government guarantees either. As much as you think its wrong to claim their liabilities at the level of their gurantees, there is obviously a bigger claim against the government than what they've spent thus far, so their liabilities should be considered higher than this, even if not the full amount committed contingently. Its also important in this case to realize the money spent thus far is catching up quickly to initial guaranteed amounts and the total outstanding guarantees are expanding just as fast. The big bazookas are not scaring many and they keep getting called out. The other factor is the guarantees can be effected by decisions of those insured to take claim. I cant influence my life insurance or medical insurance without fraud. The probabilities are bigger than me and no one insures me against events i can use discretion to create. I can influence my deposit insurance though and so can many other short term creditors relative to government guarantees.

Also remember a lot of this stuff is phony. For example, you have the treasury backstopping the fed with the fed backstopping the treasury. This makes no sense as there is no real back stop between the two. You have the fed conducting currency swaps and holding collateral from countries whose currencies will be worth nothing in the event the swap goes bad which makes the collateral a facade. You have the government as the major market base, or about to be, for many of the aspects of the collateral they hold, which overstates whats its worth in a market sale. And the real money the government has guaranteed is much higher than the 12 trillion or whatever has explicitly been detailed. You had the g20 say they would not let any systemtic institutions fail. How large is that contingent liability? What about all the bond and derivative holders we know are gonna be protected in general? What about all the borrowing done under the fdic guaranteed liquidity facillity? That private borrowing from deeply troubled firms, fully backstopped by the government, should add something to their liabilities. What about the back stops we know are gonna keep flowing to the IMF and the like? There should even be more sovereign bailout commitments added which are near certain implied liabilities. I mean this can go on and when you add it all up its almost hard to overshoot how deep the government is in trouble and how bad their liabilities really look, especially compared to their current stated levels. Accrued accounting would change things drastically too.

================================================== =========
--- Amounts (Billions)---
Limit Current
================================================== =========
Total $12,798.14 $4,169.71
-----------------------------------------------------------
Federal Reserve Total $7,765.64 $1,678.71
Primary Credit Discount $110.74 $61.31
Secondary Credit $0.19 $1.00
Primary dealer and others $147.00 $20.18
ABCP Liquidity $152.11 $6.85
AIG Credit $60.00 $43.19
Net Portfolio CP Funding $1,800.00 $241.31
Maiden Lane (Bear Stearns) $29.50 $28.82
Maiden Lane II (AIG) $22.50 $18.54
Maiden Lane III (AIG) $30.00 $24.04
Term Securities Lending $250.00 $88.55
Term Auction Facility $900.00 $468.59
Securities lending overnight $10.00 $4.41
Term Asset-Backed Loan Facility $900.00 $4.71
Currency Swaps/Other Assets $606.00 $377.87
MMIFF $540.00 $0.00
GSE Debt Purchases $600.00 $50.39
GSE Mortgage-Backed Securities $1,000.00 $236.16
Citigroup Bailout Fed Portion $220.40 $0.00
Bank of America Bailout $87.20 $0.00
Commitment to Buy Treasuries $300.00 $7.50
-----------------------------------------------------------
FDIC Total $2,038.50 $357.50
Public-Private Investment* $500.00 0.00
FDIC Liquidity Guarantees $1,400.00 $316.50
GE $126.00 $41.00
Citigroup Bailout FDIC $10.00 $0.00
Bank of America Bailout FDIC $2.50 $0.00
-----------------------------------------------------------
Treasury Total $2,694.00 $1,833.50
TARP $700.00 $599.50
Tax Break for Banks $29.00 $29.00
Stimulus Package (Bush) $168.00 $168.00
Stimulus II (Obama) $787.00 $787.00
Treasury Exchange Stabilization $50.00 $50.00
Student Loan Purchases $60.00 $0.00
Support for Fannie/Freddie $400.00 $200.00
Line of Credit for FDIC* $500.00 $0.00
-----------------------------------------------------------
HUD Total $300.00 $300.00
Hope for Homeowners FHA $300.00 $300.00
-----------------------------------------------------------

This is the line by line breakout.

I dont have the time nor the patience to discuss each line in detail especially when I know you find it crazy that they could actually make money on any of this or be able to remove excess liquidity so I'll spare myself a headache and leave it at this.

I feel so bad for the people who are actually listening and acting on the advice inf0 is providing.

you deserve what you get.

he is betting on armageddon, essentially a collapse of civilized society.

you can bet on this, however you should be aware that this only happens once. meaning you will be wrong everytime except once. when you are actually right life won't be awesome because you own some shiny metal.

i also love his seed, food, water concepts. they are a joke.

basically the only thing i agree with is the gun/ammo purchase, but this is for different reasons.

hey inf0, how is your great hyperinflation thesis playing out? when is that coming again? perhaps you will be correct if we give you a timeframe of 100 years. the sad part is I don't even think you realize what you are forecasting with your hyperinflation call or what would even cause that result.

we are in the midst of the greatest deflationary collpase since the great depression. i'm pretty sure there wasn't hyperinflation during the GD.

instead of polluting this forum with your bs and nonsense theories please give us your analysis of what this chart means.

have a nice day!

P.S. Your comment about being delusional that gold will be in the 600s soon....i guess you forgot it was there only 5 months ago.

let it not be said there were those who stood silent. we shall see how things to turn out. i would love some prop bets on some of these situations. ill go long all the black swans.

I tried to take you up but you backed down.

Odds for Q4 GDP going positive are down to 2:1. I guess you should hit the bid.

I'm all ears for any prop bet youd like, but after the sh*t show last time, its on you to put out everything.

why do you think the odds are fair with an implied 66% probability of the markets being negative. The odds should be even better than this for me now. The whole consensus as ive seen, unless you have evidence to the contrary, estimates positive q4. i think a straight bet is appropriate now.

How can consensus be for postive GDP when a semi efficient market is paying odds?

Funny how youre consistently willing to dismiss the Fed but of course when it helps your case you take their predictions as 'consensus'

I never told you what I estimate as fair value. I dont know why youre assuming anything.

Lets not discuss this here anymore. I dont want to clutter up another thread when I know it isnt going anywhere. You can PM me if you want.

show me the market. is it more important than...

most fear spreads are near or at their recent lows. The equity rally is pricing earnings that cant be sustained if q4 gdp really is negative. The treasury secretary and fed chairman have called for q4 growth. Tips have rallied and other signs of successful reflation are emerging. Actions via the G20 and other major pushes and details have eased many systemics concerns. More than a couple hundred billion in stimulus money will be spent domestically this year. etc. etc. etc.

edit: pm me your response. didnt see the comment but you're right.

It's pretty insane... i can't believe gold into 2k/ oz by now. People in this country prefer gold eagles over other coins for whatever reason... maybe because they're familiar... maybe because they're from OUR govt mint... maybe it has to do with supply and demand. I don't really know to be honest with you. I don't really believe it's because they're slightly more durable, but I suppose that could be a factor.

I'm not too excited about gold right now, it's a bit overpriced compared to silver or platinum. Any physical assets >>> paper asset by so much though in the coming years.

Junk silver coins are going for a pretty significant premium over spot right now. If you have any junk silver coins you want to sell me at or very very near spot, I'd be happy to buy all that you have. If you have any silver shot, I am NOT INTERESTED
That said, even with the premiums, junk silver, and really any form of silver looks like a slam dunk imho.

I have written many articles worth of information in this thread... and I feel like I have repeated myself over and over again for people who don't have the patience to read through the entire thread. It's tough for me to focus sometimes and not end up with a 5 or 10 page article... but this seems like it could be a valuable resource for everyone to have so I will try to throw something together.

PS. I have put yows on ignore- i simply dont have time to argue the same thing with him over and over again... too much effort already been expended feeding the trolls. in most cases, the exact opposite of what he says is likely true- but any intelligent person already realizes this.

Analyzing such a short term graph that only spans 70 years is sort of ridiculous... lets pull up a 500 or 1000 year graph of silver + gold prices or whatever it is you're trying to graph here...

my first impression is that this graph is horribly biased for a number of reasons , one of which is that it's put out by Morgan Stanley

I love how they split up the GSE debt... this might as well be govt debt as well since they have probably committed to backstop it...

So it looks like household debt has gone down as the consumer becomes tapped out, is not extended lines of credit, and because the consumers income is just so so low compared to what it was 70 years ago, they just can't really afford to take on much debt...

it looks like the government is going to take on more and more and more debt in order to pay interest on the older debt, and also to replace the US consumer and keep the economy sort of going ... for a couple more years... if we're lucky. The problem is that gov't is inefficient, prints up debt while offering no collateral for the debt... it looks like we've already eclipsed our previous level of 300% of GDP... and the party is just getting started... within 3 years we should be at the 700-900% of GDP debt level if not significantly higher...


also wanted to add just because spot hit down to $699 for a second doesn't mean it will ever be in the 600s again any time soon, nor does it mean that you could have ever picked up real gold for less than 750-800$.... also i'm not talented to pick the one day of the year when gold hits its absolute lowest point... if you are then that's great for you but I will just keep dollar cost aaverging into silver thx v much

The premium doesn't look too bad. APMEX has a $1000 face value junk silver bag, approx 715 troy oz, for $10,875 or about $15.21/oz. Spot at the time of this writing is about $12.22...so you're looking at a $3 premium or so. Not too bad considering Silver Eagles remain in the $17 range. Junk Silver doesn't approach the low overspot premiums of say, 100 oz silver bars (usually only a buck or so over spot) but the divisibility of junk silver (and not having to worry about shaving/cutting bars) can't be touched.

Don't bust on Silver shot. I'm considering getting some silver shot and loading my own shotgun shells...best to be prepared for a worst case werewolf scenerio. I kid.

yes it is pretty funny how we can go over the same things over and over again... i gave up a while ago after you failed to answer simple questions about what drives your economic hypothesis and what would cause you to presume it wrong.

your response of " i can't see anything" pretty much demonstrates your lack of understanding of this type of analysis. especially since you're betting SO MUCH on such a tiny portion of the distribution of possible future outcomes.

that just doesn't make sense to me and you should, almost REGARDLESS of your belief, be able to say you may be wrong (no matter what you think, this is not 1+1=2) and be invested (or at least considering such investment) across the distribution of events (based on your conviction of course...it seems you are doing this to a very small degree...i.e. your conviction is 100% on a super tiny portion of the overall distribution).

regardless of the hate you get or how you feel you repeat yourself etc., you fail at the most basic concepts of investment analysis. i'm sorry to have to tell you this and i know it is useless as your response/action/thought of course will remain identical irrespective of this post. i just want to inform those that may be following your advice with the conviction and purpose that you appear to recommend. to be clear, i of course some silver (and / or gold, platinum etc...i.e. precious metals) is an important component of a given portfolio. the illiquidity of physical metals though + premium of it make me recommend "ponzi scheme" versions where you will be exposed to the price movements of the underlying metla but not be able to hold it in your hand (since there are more than 1 claimant per oz of metal).

if you want some protection for that event, then sure some physical silver/gold etc. can be good. but anything above 5-10% is ludacris imo. especially with risk premiums so large right now across even some long term strong, well positioned, productive companies (and even more especially in the fixed income arena).

i don't plan on responding to your response since i can predict what it will very likely be and this post isn't to convince you or engage you but to protect those who may follow your advice as it seems you intend them to.

best of luck,
Barron

It seems the markets are becoming less fearful of either hyperinflation or a deflationary catastrophy, and I do not think mildly deflationary (or mildly inflationary) economic stagnation is good for gold. Therefore, I am interested in taking a short position to hedge my long term gold bullion and (to a lesser degree) mining stock fund holdings. Would DZZ or DGZ be reasonable for this purpose? Would a 2 to 1 ratio of gold bullion value to DZZ (double short ETN) come close to approximating a 100% hedge (i.e., market neutral position)?

Would short selling GLD (or something else) be a much better alternative? If so, I would have a learning curve to climb since I know little about short selling.

best of luck to you as well Barron, I am glad you have came around and at least started to add a few precious metals to your portfolio! trust me you will not regret having them in a few years from now.

I try to imagine how I would act if I shared his beliefs. Posting endlessly of the collapse of fiat money, war, famine on the business subforum of a poker site that has less than 100 regulars would definitely not be on my list of things to do.

Its obvious that this is an attention getting mechanism and its obvious that he has a natural bias and inclination to it. I suspect he has throughout his life consistenly underperformed in school/work and faced social rejection numerous times and thus he is attracted to the vindication of a systemic collapse. His intent in posting is self serving to feed his own esteem.

imo, $3 premium is huge!

Buffalo rounds can be had for $1.29 over spot when in quantity, and you can get Phils, Maple Leaves, and Eagles for about $3. The bars can get pretty cheap--a buck and some change voer spot as well if you get 10oz bars or so. I looked at the junk silver to buy, but I'd rather have some nice new shiny things to admire than a heap of scratched old coins.

I'm a noob though, and not interested in buying any additonal PM's at this time, so what do I know?

lol. gotta love yows keepin it real.

hits the economist...which typically means fall in price lol

http://www.economist.com/finance/dis...ry_id=13415838

lolz wow


I don't really watch TV but the transformation of the content on faux news over the past year has been amazing to say the least- but completely expected at the same time for obvious reasons

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZMdA06xbcU