Here is the basic problem I see in buying gold out of concern for anarchy, loss of value of paper money etc. and a few thoughts for when "times get tough."
Paper money has the full backing of the US government. Until or unless the Government is in near total disarray paper currency is as good as gold.
When/if the Gov goes beyond the point where paper money is useful the situation will be quite chaotic. Food distribution will be hard hit. A bushel of potatoes will be worth more than a hand full of gold. You can't eat gold. Gold will not be all that great of a medium of exchange. Food NOT gold will be valuable.
If you want to bet that you will "weather the storm" and live to see a decent recovery of the US then after the recovery is well underway, gold will again become useful as a form of wealth. Mostly people who believe "things" will substantially normalize in their lifetime would be willing to accept gold as payment for anything because others would have no need for it. Gold has been pounded into our heads as a SAFE means of storing wealth. It is, but only under certain circumstances. Beyond a certain degree of chaos and anarchy gold has little present value. It remains a great hedge for preserving wealth through and beyond the difficult times but requires a recovery within a time frame that is meaningful to the possessor. Are you putting it away for your future or that of your grand kids. How long will it take for civilization to reassert itself and make gold more valuable than food?
There will be a lot of disappointed mislead folks who are unknowingly betting that things will deteriorate to a certain point (paper money devalued and gold appreciated and solid as means of exchange) who will suffer mightily when chaos and anarchy exceeds the point where there is sufficient social order to allow gold to be valuable when starvation is upon the masses.
When food distribution falters in the cities there will be roaming armed gangs of looters "hitting" any food source. There will be no stopping them. The police will be overwhelmed, martial law will be too little too late. Off duty police and military will use there weapons and training to try to get food to feed their families. When there isn't any food to be found in the looted stores and warehouses the armed gangs and probably a lot of really desperate "regular folks" will look upstream toward the source of food, i.e. we country folk.
There is no way that a few armed farmers are going to be able to turn back a multitude of city dwellers faced with starvation. Your animals will be shot in the fields, poorly butchered (much waste), chickens and such taken and on and on. If I am lucky my ponds will not be drained to make gathering fish easier. Hopefully the mob will not be good at seining and leave a few behind.
I'm pretty well armed but I can't stay awake 24-7 and get around quickly enough over 160 acres to protect my place against superior numbers of armed looneys. I do have a couple defensible rooms in my house, each with concrete walls (12 inches exterior wall in one and 8 in the other) Steel storm shutters for the windows in both those bedrooms and extra HD steel FEMA approved triple dead bolted doors. A stockpile of MRE's and canned/bottled water and certain other sanitary necessities will allow me to hole up for an extended period of time if needed. Water is a big consideration. A generator to run a well is a joke. The generator will be stolen. There are manually pumped RO units designed for desalination of sea water and hiking type water filters that can render pond water, rain water, and shallow wells and catchments safe to drink. Fetching water from a nearby pond may be doable as I don't anticipate a long siege. The rest of the house, shop, and garage can be burned to the ground but the master suite and the basement guest room will be fully intact and fairly livable during the fire.
Ahh, gold. If only it had great talismanic power I could put some over the entryway like wolf bane or garlic.
Condensed summary version:
There is a narrow range of conditions under which gold will be a good thing to have compared to food, water, and secure living space. The likelihood of conditions hovering in that narrow window is slight. Being properly armed will be a good thing but no guarantee of your survival in comparison to a secure living space with food and water. Arms will be more important than gold but they too depend on a certain window of applicability which although wider than the beneficial gold window will not be fully applicable and or dependable under reasonably expected conditions. Your wealth might survive as gold but more importantly, will you survive to need/use that wealth?
Pat
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