[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pup55', ' ')I bet 10 rounds of AR-15 ammo will get you 10 pounds of beans, no problem.

[Kingcoal]

The first money was in the form of contracts. For example, an agreement to exchange a certain amount of grain for another commodity. In other words, the first money was based on commodities. Commodities such as grain are the real basis for money - always has been, always will be. Gold and silver didn't enter into the picture until kings started to lust after it. Gold became a convenient repository of value because it is rare, it has magical powers (people used to believe that) and it makes kings feel happy and powerful. Nonetheless, if these kings didn't have enough grain or other resources, they were poor. Gold has always been a proxy for something else of value.

The following things have real tangible value:

Food/fresh water
Fire
Building materials
Skilled labor
Technology
A trained and equipped army to defend these things of value.

These essential elements are the basis and they get factored into the economic equations of the day. Just having these things isn't the only thing of importance, you have to have them in the necessary quantities, which is a constantly changing equation. Our current money systems are based on the economies which are built on these fundamental things, which is why simplistic rules of thumb don't really work. You can have a lot of gold, but not have the ability to feed your people, for example. Few countries have all of the elements to be able to dominate the world, which leads to the world economy. That's where our current problem is. "Fire" (oil) has become vastly important in keeping the world trade systems running. As it becomes short in supply, economies are adversely affected. Right now, gold is useful for buying more oil. Oil is our gold.

As far as the individual person is concerned, being in the right place at the right time with the right skills is vastly more important than having a stash of gold.

[mattduke]

Why buy PM on the retail market when you can take delivery from the COMEX at the 40% discount paper price? Why mine it when you can get it cheaper from the COMEX?

The COMEX countdown is on.

link

[Jotapay]

How would I make an order and take delivery? Isn't this limited to something like 100,000 ounces or more?

[ducky]

I wanted to share some info that has not been widely publicized but of which I have personal knowledge that may be helpful to others. My mother had 700k corp funds in "safe money market" account which was supposed to be transferred to a Defined Benefits Plan (tax deferred retirement plan) by the end of 2008. This fund has been frozen since October 2008. She gets statements saying that there is money in the account but she can't access it and now will have to pay taxes on it since she couldn't move it to her DBP. It's a nightmare. How do you pay taxes on money you don't have?

http://blogs.courant.com/george_gombossy/2008/11/tdameritrade.html

I am no market expert, in fact I have generally not paid attention to such things most of my life, but that news will certainly wake you up. The market is crazy right now but I did find that you can rollover existing retirement accounts into a PM IRA which is backed by physical gold, I found a very inexpensive custodian at about $175 for setup and storage for the first year, cheaper after that. Given what happened to the currencies around the globe last night I do not have faith in our fiat dollar. If the dollar is hyperinflationary it only follows that what it buys will be worth less in relation to the dollar.

[Micki]

Can't help you with IRA's but have heard tghe same thing. Perfectly legal to invest in PM's.
Having that said, many people (going from the tone of my colleagues) seem to be getting very nerveous now and have finally started to pay attention to gold.
My trading charts however suggest we may be in for a pullback now.
Besides the markets getting a bit too excited several of my shares have shown Elliott Wave 5 parablolic rises. (Counting weekly bar charts). A healthy pullback here would possibly set this move (Wave 1-5 and ABC pullback) to form larger wave 1. That suggests the big moves are still ahead of us and that there will be a final good entry position.
Elliott wave counts frequently get invalidated and recounted so one cannot rely on them alone but I have been looking at PM's pretty much daily since 05 (you can find a fair amount of commentry here at PO) and my stomach tells me not to buy more now and maybe offload some trading positions.
If in doubt, the approach I usually take is to buy half of what I inteded to buy. If price goes up I am in and can pile in more having missed some of the run and if it goes down, I can look for entry position for the other half. This is with a very long term view though spanning years. If you are looking for shorter term moves you need to follow trading discipline.