THIS PICTURE TELLS IT ALL
A couple of months ago, I wrote an alert that said it was still possible to buy a gallon of gas for 25 cents. The “trick” was that you had to use a quarter that was made by the U.S. Mint prior to 1965.
The quarters, dimes and half-dollars in circulation 50 years ago were made of 90% silver. Thanks to silver’s meteoric rise in price, today a two-bit piece is worth a lot more than 25 cents. As you’ll see from the photo below, at least one gas-station owner is willing to sell his gasoline for even less than I suggested:
This is far from an isolated event. After that alert appeared, I received a note from a friend, telling about someone he knows in Iowa who had gone to buy an expensive piece of farm equipment. He asked the dealer, “Do you want paper? Or gold or silver?” The dealer’s face brightened and he replied, “Silver! And I’ll even give you a discount if you pay in silver.”
As my friend said, “Behold the new economy!” Yes, it seems that more and more people are realizing that gold and silver are real money. As such, they maintain their value – that is, their purchasing power – when paper currencies do not.
So it has been interesting to see that many states are considering legislation to make gold and silver legal currency in their jurisdictions. Utah has become the first state to pass a new legal-tender law.
Under the terms of the legislation, gold and silver coins from the U.S. Mint will now be considered legal currency in the state. This means that no state sales taxes may be charged when they are bought or sold. And in theory, no capital-gains taxes would be due (on the state level) if they are sold for more than you paid for them.
At least nine other states, including Idaho, North Carolina and Minnesota, are considering similar legislation. All of this is good news, because anything that helps the average citizen realize the huge difference between gold and silver as a store of value, when compared to paper money, is a good thing. As we stressed in our previous email on the subject, the value of an ounce of silver really hasn’t changed all that much in the past 100 years … or 5,000 years, for that matter. It will still purchase about the same amount of milk and bread and other goods as it did a century ago.
Yes, silver at $35 an ounce, or whatever its price is by the time you read this, sure sounds a lot more valuable than silver at $5 an ounce. But what’s really happened is that it’s our measuring stick – the U.S. dollar – that has changed. Since the U.S. went off the gold standard, the dollar has dropped in value by more than 90%. Or to put it another way, it takes 10-20 times more dollars to buy the same amount of goods and services as a dollar did 50 or 100 years ago. And this trend will only get worse in the future.
Please note: We are not predicting the “death of the dollar,” at least not in the immediate future. We do not expect it to suddenly become worthless.
But we believe it is all but certain to become worth less and less.
How can you protect yourself from the on-going depreciation of your currency? The very best way we know of is to exchange some of it for gold and silver. Many experts suggest putting at least 10% of your net worth in core holdings of precious metals. Please note: This does not mean “paper” investments, such as stocks and ETFs. By “core holdings,” they mean the actual metals. This is an “insurance policy” that will protect your assets no matter what happens in the future.
For diversification within precious metals, those same experts recommend that those core holdings be divided between gold (40%), silver (40%), and platinum and palladium (20%).
For metals that you will own and keep in your own possession, bullion coins from the major government mints of Canada, the United States, and Australia are the most popular. For offshore holdings, consider the storage program at the Perth Mint in Western Australia. This “gold you can fold” is the safest, most secure offshore storage program we’ve found.
There are also some excellent storage programs available in Switzerland, London and the United States. We are aware of new ones that are being established in Hong Kong and Canada. We will let you know when our due diligence has been completed and we can introduce them to you as well.
By the way, one word of warning: Whatever you do, do not start using your silver or gold Eagles as legal tender, no matter what the laws in your state say. The gold eagle from the U.S. Mint carries a nominal face value of $50. But the marketplace says it is worth around $1,500. You would be cheating yourself out of $1,450 to trade it for its face value.
The situation with the silver eagle from the U.S. Mint is almost as extreme. This gorgeous coin carries a face value of one dollar. But even after the recent correction in the price of silver, the market says a silver eagle is worth about $35.
If you’d like to add the protection of gold and silver (and some platinum, too) to your own portfolio, call one of our knowledgeable staff members at Asset Strategies International. These savvy professionals are not commissioned salesmen. Their only task is to give you the best assistance they can.
Our goal is to help you Keep What’s Yours, by providing the “sleep at night” comfort that comes from knowing you own the world’s oldest, strongest and safest money – gold and silver.
Chip Wood
Got Silver? Go to SilverSaver and start saving automatically in Silver and Gold. https://silversaver.com/share/J3MAA/
No comments:
Post a Comment