Back in the 1860′s, right after the War Of Southern Overconfidence, that Confederate money was worth….what? Nothing, right?
Back in the Weimar, around 1920-something, the Marks you got paid on Friday would buy only half of what they bough the previous week.
In Harare, your life savings of 1,000,000 dollars suddenly became 1 dollar at the stroke of pen. And it still wouldn’t buy you a dozen eggs.
If there really are bank runs going on in Greece, where do you think people are sinking their money to keep it’s value? I would guess that, like the Germans, it’s going into durable goods, food, medicine and those shiny little bits of metal.
FERFAL wrote about this a week back or so. He recommended the fellow pull out a month’s worth of expenses in Euro’s and stock up on food/ etc. I think he also mentioned PM’s but can’t recall. He said if you had more cash then that to take a trip to another country like Switzerland to set up an account.
This is why I went ahead and snatched a chunk out of my 401k to buy rather a lot of stuff recently. Because the $ won’t be worth much later – assuming they let one retain the 401k $’s.
I reckon I won’t be able to retire anyway.
Agree with TOR and LauraB. I only keep the bare minimum in my checking account to pay that month’s bills. As soon as my check is deposited (employer will only do direct deposit) I yank everything extra out and convert it to sensible tangibles and PMs. To avoid having too much tangibles I convert large chunks of stuff into real estate when I can.
IMHO the retirement industry is a scam. Why work as a slave for some mythical point in the future when you can enjoy yourself? Enjoy yourself NOW, not 30 years from now.
Real estate is always a good idea. As Will Rogers said, “Buy land…cause they ain’t making it no more!”
That was Germany 1923 and the hyperinflation that ensued was both devastating and exhilarating. See Vance Haffner’s work, “Defying Hitler” for further discussion of that bipolar reaction. He noted that his father, who was paid once a month, would go to the market, the very next morning and buy one month’s worth of goods and they would hunker down and hope to get through the month and then the cycle would begin again. Of course, stories abound of people buying a cup of coffee paying for it and then purchasing another an hour later only to discover the price had gone up in the meantime and they could not now afford it! Peace to all. Prepare in part by purchasing tangible good–ABCD–anything Bernanke can’t destroy!
Keep in mind the somewhat inverse relationship between the Euro and Dollar. The worse things look for the Euro, the more the dollar goes up (USDX) as money flows from Euro to $ assets. So the dollar will look good for a while and the spectators watch the EU burn. Then, after a while, the reality of the financial situation in the USA will cause a change in mindset. Since there will be no other place to put investors money, it will turn into a full-on race to the bottom to devalue the currency faster than the other countries. Weeee! Wont that be fun!
Actually, Im counting on it…way I figure, the Euro takes a beating, the dollar looks stronger so the price of metals goes down and I take advantage of the depressed metals price to load up.
Yup!!
WHEW… I’m just glad that could NEVER happen here… right? 2nd person replies. ‘nope, because we’ve got the federal reserve.
I actually heard a couple thirty somethings say that when talking about it after seeing it come on the TV at the bar yesterday. I just looked at them and shook my head thinking… boy this is some good beer.