Just a different perspective… You go to the ATM and get green paper when you wish to by a gun (or whatever), I go to see Jerry and get green paper from metal to purchase the same things. The only real difference is that savings in the bank resulted in less goodies I was able to obtain (inflation) than converting the metal which maintained its purchasing power much better by comparison.

Over just the last few years I personally have made every effort to ask for Precious Metals in all of the things that I sell and offer metal to buy. Goats, Chickens, supplies, guns, ammo, food etc. etc. have been a regular part of my transactions in personal transactions with people that I know well and people I never met on Craigslist and other Internet transactions (www.WalletVoting.com was created in recognition of this trend).

I’m not sure what I need to wait for to say “I told you so”, It’s happening now.

Of course the vast majority of my financial transactions are in FRNs, but if I know that there will come a time when that paper will devolve to its real value (Paper and the faith and credit of the US Gov’t.) then I’m very comfortable finding, and even helping to create, a network of others that understand and have a daily comfort in bartering,… and it’s not always just Gold and Silver. I had no idea how valuable our organic eggs were until we had more than we could use and were able to barter for almost anything of comparative value (at about $5-10 a dozen,… which is another reason we got a lot more chickens).

When my children told me that they were saving their money I corrected them and said that they were only practicing “Delayed Spending”. Once they had enough for the ‘Shiny Object’ that they just had to have they would exchange their green paper for whatever it was that had captivated them. And regular bills (cell phones, insurance, and later came car payments etc.) were merely a transfer of green paper, and its digital equivalents, to someone else. But real savings took years for me to make a regular part of their life. Silver bars were placed in Christmas stockings, given as rewards, marriage presents etc.

10 years later the lesson has been learned. The Guns, Ammo, Precious Metals and non-perishable foods that each of my children have in Real Savings is seen as wealth preservation. Over the last few years they have created their own barter networks that I hear about often. One of my son’s has a computer guided mill in his garage and is very willing to take barter in exchange for his services… and often does. When he purchased his first home at age 22 with his wife and just born 2nd child, he sold his accumulated silver and covered all of his down payment and closing costs with real money that had maintained its purchasing power (by being worth more green paper than it took to get it) had he taken my advice and allowed me to front him the money so he could have kept his silver he would have doubled his money. But government/bank regulations and ‘tracking’ forced him to sell his silver in a prescribed manner to show “seasoning” of money (another expensive lesson that our system helped me teach to my children).

My family and friends likely use green paper in its various forms as much or even more than you do. But that has nothing to do with where we store our “financial wealth”. I see the storing of medicine and toiletries and food as a very good investment above Gold to a point. The value of Gold is its portability as a compact store of the ability to get stuff. I remember once that I didn’t have time to go to the bank before I had to travel to Missouri so I just grabbed an ounce of gold from my safe with the full knowledge that if I needed to I would just stop by the local coin shop and get spot price for it in cash and more silver, which I did.

Eric is the one that turned me and a lot of others onto the use of 90% silver as a regular medium of exchange that is catching on across the country. Just a few days ago the following post was blogged on LewRockwell http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/88179.html - which prompted a post with 3 of 4 links to efforts spawned by Eric http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/88205.html - ( in the news video below the news crew didn’t do a good job of educating the people about what was really going on, they continually leave that up to us :) http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/Article/090024-2011-05-17-news-video-gas-20-cents-a-gallon-what-kind-of.htm - Immediately the Internet was ablaze with a solution that we had already helped create…

And Yes,… I do expect “junk Silver” and its other variations to tell “Green Paper”, “I told you so”, but no one will be laughing then.

Peace,
Ernie