No Stupid Questions

When the world collapses, nobody's going to care about gold.

Stock up on bottlecaps instead.

It is not as stable as most currencies and market etfs (I can't remember the right term, but stuff like VOO) generally have more reliable and higher returns than gold (ie XAU) over the long run

VOO started about 15 years ago. Over it's life:

This is not specific investing advice for anyone here. I cannot offer that without knowing your specific situation and I charge for that, and once I give the advice you've paid for you'll think I overcharged because it's really simple (but reliable).

Complete societal collapse, hard to say what, beyond the basics, would be useful as a medium of barter.

But, in a society facing major issues, e.g., hyper inflation, or say, a US government default, yeah, gold is a pretty decent hedge bet.

The traditional safe haven has been government debt but that's been seen as an increasingly risky bet where you could lose a lot of money to inflation or worse, government default/intervention.

So, while not ideal, gold at least seems a better bet than most other "safe" places to put one's money.

If you invest in gold that is not physically in your posession, then yes.

If society breaks down, who is going to honor that piece of paper that claims you own gold in some banks vault? You don't even know where that gold actually is...

If you don't hold it, you don't own it.

Investing in gold someone else holds is silly. Having a few ounces stashed away is just illiquid asset that should be a hedge against inflation.

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: Yes. Tune all of that nonsense out… But don’t fret if you own a tiny bit, either.

I kind of like Warren Buffet’s ramblings on it:

Gold gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.

You could take all the gold that's ever been mined, and it would fill a cube 67 feet in each direction. For what that's worth at current gold prices, you could buy all -- not some -- all of the farmland in the United States. Plus, you could buy 10 Exxon Mobils, plus have $1 trillion of walking-around money. Or you could have a big cube of metal. Which would you take?

It's... Not really a scam so much as a thing for weird cranks who think the apocalypse is coming. If you have gold then you have gold. And gold will likely hold its value for a long time because it's a rare resource. Unless we find some alchemy that turns common materials into it, it will likely stay that way. So if you buy gold at market value then you can always sell it later at market value, and that market value is almost guaranteed to be higher than when you bought it.

The people who are really into it though are the weird cranks. And I'd imagine certain stocks or even bonds are arguably better returns in the same time span.

The only gold worth a damn is the stuff in your hands. Gold speculation is not a hedge against financial crises

Fungible, portable, valuable. Gold isn't a scam, as far as the concept of wealth and hierarchy isn't a scam.

Gold is only as valuable as people deem it to be. It's a solid investment because it doesn't suffer from things like inflation or short sellers. Gold is like a treasury bill in that you're not going to make a bunch of money short term, but you can be relatively sure you won't lose you investment long term. I heard something about a decade ago which still holds true: as long ago as the Roman empire, an ounce of gold was worth enough money to get you a top quality outfit including top quality sandals (shoes) and still leave enough for you to get a top quality meal. Will you get those things with gold in an apocalyptic situation? Nah, but assuming human civilization continues to survive, you can expect the value of gold relative to products and services to stay strong while currencies lose value.

Would you trust this guy's advice?

I'm acquiring a little gold. Not a lot, but enough.

What's enough? When my family was escaping persecution, they managed to travel under the cover of night and stayed in people's barns and homes during the day. They planned and managed these arrangements via transactions using gold coins, links or pieces of jewelry, or other relatively universal valuables. They also got away a couple of times using the same goods to bribe authorities.

A small number of generations of my family dealt with being told that their money or credit was devalued due to their religion, profession, or relationship to public figures. In those instances, the family members who fled survived, and most of the ones who didn't flee died.

I don't know that I have much faith in my ability to flee anything, so I'm not investing that much time or money into acquiring gold things. Found some old watches from my grandparents/great-grandparents that claim to have gold in them. Have a couple of my own little things and jewelry I've given my wife. All just things when the time to survive arrives. Which it might not ever.

I hope this somewhat answered your question.

If there is complete societal collapse, then gold is going to be worth nothing, because you cant eat it. Bullets on the other hand you can use to take peoples food, or hunt for your own. So invest in bullets!

Now if you just expect financial collapse but not total societal then sure gold, silver, bonds are probably fine if you want "safe" stable ways to hold your investments.

In most cases, its just fear-mongering and gold has no more actual value than paper currency since they both derive their value from sentiment or perceived value. So if you show up at my house and offer me a small gold bar, you value at $10,000, and I value it at a potato, then your $10,000 is actually only worth a potato.

People buy gold cos it just keeps going up. But here is the truth. Gold doesn't go up, the dollar goes down.

If they ever get around to capturing an asteroid to mine, your hoarded gold will suddenly be worthless.

Gold is not going to save you. I'd we get to the point that gold becomes currency again, that will be the least of your worries. Those are just prepper fantasies.

If you are considering investing in gold as an asset, sure that's legit.

In the event of a collapse like you describe, I'm going to need something I can eat or wear, something tangible I can trade. If you can get enough people together that agree gold is a valuable bearer instrument then you've got a government. That's not really a collapse.

In case of complete societal collapse ? Yes.

But if you have to flee from your homeland, gold is a universal currency.

Almost always yes, it is a scam. Theoretically, it’s a hedge against inflation, but in practice, it’s just grifters selling it to paranoid right wingers

It's a commodity that's widely used as a way to keep the value of a portfolio in case of inflation. Gold has a lot of utility but recently because of uncertainty about the US dollar central banks have been stocking up on gold.

Complete societal collapse is very unlikely and we have studied economics enough to the point where hyperinflation is avoidable.

For investors keeping some gold (10-20% of portfolio) can be very nice since it allows you to buy the dip and is inflation proof. On the other hand, gold can become a speculative asset so it's value can be inflated just like any other commodity. So in a way currently it's either a nice tool or a bubble (or scam as you call it).

Silver, used in solar panels, is also pretty good for same reasons.