I have had a couple conversations with close family members lately. One about precious metals and another about rifles. We will talk about them as part of the need for a quarterly rehashing of all basic topics.
A relative asked what I thought about silver and gold as an investment:
For the sake of avoiding repetition check out this post on getting into precious metals. I told him that I do not like PM's AS AN INVESTMENT. Making money buying and selling commodities requires buying low and selling high. If you have those skills that is great. Personally if I knew how to do that reliably I would be doing it for a living. That makes it basically gambling which probably is not smart.
I do like PM's as a conservative piece of my overall financial situation. Sort of like insurance or an alternative savings plan. I like them for protection against high inflation, currency debasement and even an outright economic collapse. They generally move opposite to more modern instruments like stocks and such which is nice. For most people assuming they are halfway financially squared away (no huge credit card balances, etc) putting some money into PM's makes sense.
We talked the qualities of both silver and gold. To recap silver is affordable and valued appropriately for day to day type transactions but it gets heavy fast while gold is very compact for it's value which would be useful if you have to move it. For his situation I said it would not be a bad idea to buy a big bag of silver then put the balance into gold, mostly 1 ounce bars/ rounds.
As to total amounts I recommended not to go crazy but maybe to put a certain % of your liquid assets into PM's. Depending on your situation and where you think the doom thermometer is this could be lower like 5% or more like 25%. Like most things somewhere in the middle is probably the way to go.
Another relative asked if I would recommend that he purchase an AR-15 or an AK-47. I told him to go with an AR. This is for a variety of reasons. First the price gap between the two weapons, which was part of the AK's advantage has closed drastically in recent years. Second given his military experience muscle memory lies with the AR. Third the logistics of potential resupply are probably better for the AR. John Mosby makes a case that the AR is a better weapon which is hard to argue with. That being said (and this is how I closed the talk) both are good guns that should serve you well.
There was also a separate thread of the conversation about specific builds for AR's and barrel twist rates. The answer was that considering that his intended uses of casual plinking and potential SHTF I suggested not to bother. If so inclined he could do a lot of research and spend a bunch of money. However my recommendation was that a good basic carbine like a S&W MP would do everything he wants for a lot less money.
Maybe these questions give a bit of insight into what normal non whacko survivalist folks are thinking about these days.
A relative asked what I thought about silver and gold as an investment:
For the sake of avoiding repetition check out this post on getting into precious metals. I told him that I do not like PM's AS AN INVESTMENT. Making money buying and selling commodities requires buying low and selling high. If you have those skills that is great. Personally if I knew how to do that reliably I would be doing it for a living. That makes it basically gambling which probably is not smart.
I do like PM's as a conservative piece of my overall financial situation. Sort of like insurance or an alternative savings plan. I like them for protection against high inflation, currency debasement and even an outright economic collapse. They generally move opposite to more modern instruments like stocks and such which is nice. For most people assuming they are halfway financially squared away (no huge credit card balances, etc) putting some money into PM's makes sense.
We talked the qualities of both silver and gold. To recap silver is affordable and valued appropriately for day to day type transactions but it gets heavy fast while gold is very compact for it's value which would be useful if you have to move it. For his situation I said it would not be a bad idea to buy a big bag of silver then put the balance into gold, mostly 1 ounce bars/ rounds.
As to total amounts I recommended not to go crazy but maybe to put a certain % of your liquid assets into PM's. Depending on your situation and where you think the doom thermometer is this could be lower like 5% or more like 25%. Like most things somewhere in the middle is probably the way to go.
Another relative asked if I would recommend that he purchase an AR-15 or an AK-47. I told him to go with an AR. This is for a variety of reasons. First the price gap between the two weapons, which was part of the AK's advantage has closed drastically in recent years. Second given his military experience muscle memory lies with the AR. Third the logistics of potential resupply are probably better for the AR. John Mosby makes a case that the AR is a better weapon which is hard to argue with. That being said (and this is how I closed the talk) both are good guns that should serve you well.
There was also a separate thread of the conversation about specific builds for AR's and barrel twist rates. The answer was that considering that his intended uses of casual plinking and potential SHTF I suggested not to bother. If so inclined he could do a lot of research and spend a bunch of money. However my recommendation was that a good basic carbine like a S&W MP would do everything he wants for a lot less money.
Maybe these questions give a bit of insight into what normal non whacko survivalist folks are thinking about these days.
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