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.

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.

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

Stock up on bottlecaps instead.

Depends on what you want to achieve.

It’s a hedge against inflation. So in times of high inflation and economic uncertainty it will do well.

Keeping a small amount in a safe in case the world goes to shit, well only after you have a pile of guns, ammunution and canned food.

It’s not a productive asset. If you buy stocks you’ll probably be better off in the long run.

That being said your investment portfolio should not be only one kind of investment and gold should probably be a part of it eventually.

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

It isn’t a scam. It is an asset like buying land in the middle of nowhere. It will in general match inflation but underperform most other investments. In the very long term I would expect that with global population stabilizing and declining, the value of gold will also stabilize and decline.

Bitches love gold. Just sayin.

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

Yes and no. If you order your “gold kit” off of an ad aimed at boomers worried about losing their houses, it is probably scammy.

If you’re very rich and worried, you could stash away a bit of bullion at your home. You’ll have other things of value you could trade on the black market of total societal collapse before you’d need to tap into that resource. If you’re not very rich, a gold bar is not going to do you much good because it’s a big chunk of change tied up in one item. You’re more likely to need smaller denominations, like coins or rings, to pay for stuff in the apocalypse. Or you need to learn to smelt metal. The scam of it all is that people with a financial interest will advertize gold as the safe resource in times of high perceived crisis when the price of gold is already high or rising. It makes much more sense financially to watch the market and buy when it’s down.

Gold is also something that needs the economy to come back before you ran out of other stuff to barter with. If our apocalyptical total collapse lasts a long time, gold will not be as valuable as drinking water, food, or shelter. Smokes (incl. vape juice) and booze might be more useful for a longer time.

I’m not rich and I’d sooner go down the prepper route than buying gold.

“this rock I found is special” “why?” “it’s shiny and heavy”

And some poor dumbass was like “fuck yeah gimme that shit”. Same with jewelery…

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

Depends on your threat model. During speculative bubbles capital flows towards gainers no matter how crazy (NFTs anyone?). During corrections capital flows back towards commodities, and gold is … er…the gold standard. It has a lot of industrial uses blah blah blah. Copper is also good for these purposes and is an interesting contrast.

Nobody says “if you can’t touch it, you don’t own it” for copper or oil or pork bellies. That’s because that advice isn’t about using gold as an inflation hedge or safe harbour in a bear market. That advice is predicated on compete monetary collapse and the use of gold as currency. If you don’t live in a space where you can grow some of your own food, and have access to potable water from your own well I wouldn’t worry to much about it. You will starve to death or die in the food riots so gold won’t help anyways.

. It largely depends on how they are investing in it. Gold is a commodity just like lumber, gas, cotton, or livestock. You can invest in them like you would a stock or a mutual fund. Just like those other investments, the price will change daily based on the market. Gold is a weird one because everyone knows it was valuable historically and many people have physical versions of it. People use gold in their investment portfolios to hedge against some of their risk because typically the value of gold would go up when stocks would go down but our money was also tied to gold 50+years ago. The physical versions will change price too but they change differently.

• Gold coins? Unless they’re old or rare, they’re only worth the face value.
• Gold jewelry? It has value if it’s solid and not plated and then you need to get it appraised to know a fair value.
• Bullion? Probably the best form to have it in because that’s what countries and people that want to transfer physical gold will use.

In the event of total societal collapse, gold won’t matter other than it’s a shiny metal. They are better off investing in something more useful like the lumber.

As a finical instrument for investing it’s fine. Makes total sense to have some of your money in gold.
As you describe, being a part of a prepping plan for the end of the world. It’s really dumb, and a total scam.

Some (many? most? IDK) gold sellers are scammers. They will sell you overvalued stuff and insist it’s extra-valuable because of some feature they made up. They are the ones being loud on the web and making you hear about it all the time. So, if you hear an ad, and buy gold, you’ve probably fallen for a scam.

But investing in gold by itself is just like any other commodity. And just to say, the rule on that last phrase is valid for almost everything (it’s absolutely valid for stocks and investment funds).

Owning land is better to store wealth, but gold is better when fleeing to wherever land ownership is still enforced.

Gold is a solid store of value. That’s about it. It isn’t a terribly good investment as it just doesn’t gain value very fast compared to inflation. But, as I said, it is a solid store of value, so if that is what you are looking for, it isn’t a bad option.

If you want to invest, you are better off with index funds held over the long term.

invested a lot in gold under the belief that in the event of like complete societal collapse

If that happens, a better investment is to make yourself as self-sufficient as possible. Have a way to generate power (solar + batteries), acquire water (well water), sewage (leech field), stored food (just extra cans of food you normally eat), acquire food (a rifle and somewhere deer exist), security (that same rifle).

None of that is unreasonably expensive or hard to get. But all of those are what you would want if you are worried about societal collapse.

I’ve seen the assertion that silver is a safer bet than gold. Less glitzy, but still precious and with more industrial uses.

Of course, if civilisation collapses completely, neither will matter unless someone will trade you something for your krugerrands.

I don’t think society across the whole planet will collapse, short of a nuclear war in which case gold won’t help one bit

Much more likely that certain areas will experience famine, war, disease, and reduced access to medicine.

Really the best bet is to be able to be mobile if an area has a significant decline you can move to where it’s better

Gold as a long term investment isn’t great unless it’s one small part of your strategy. This is largely because the value of gold isn’t just going up and up like with other possibilities out there. In the event of a societal collapse people are going to be bartering with food or useful items, not gold.

Lots of things can be used as currency. Gold was the OG because it is scarce, takes work to mine, is finite(ish), it doesn’t tarnish or corrode in air or salt water, isn’t attacked by acids except agua regia, meaning it doesn’t degade over time. It’s a really good medium for labor-value.

Problem is, it’s also a useful metal now, in semiconductors and electronics, so now it is being ‘consumed’ by industry in a way that isn’t readily recoverable except at product end of life, and even then it’s not 100% recycled, probably more like 10%.

So the global supply increases due to work mining, decreases due to consumption as a commodity, and is still treated as a currency equivalent.

Solid gold is easy to store, and will survive calamities, bank collapses, fires, floods, ect where other intrinsic value items don’t.

So it’s a good investment if you believe that you will survive the deletion of society, AND you believe that it will be tradeable post-collapse. Or if you just treat it like a commodity.

But post-collapse, gold isn’t intrinsically useful. In these events, other useful, consumable goods might be better for goods and labour exchange. In the early Australian colonies, there was no money, people bought, sold and got paid in rum.

Rum is a reasonable value holder, it can be preserved against degrading, it is ‘fungible’ and divisible in a way that gold coins arent.

Dried grains are a good currency too. Maize, wheat berries, etc, as long as you accept that your value will be contually consumed and replenished.

Whether a thing has value is largely determined by whether the society you end up in decides it has value.

The indigenous Australians would happily trade a gold nugget for rum or rope or steel tools, because their society had no use for gold, but did have use for steel.

Disclaimer: The only gold I own is in my phone and computer.

Buy Silver instead.

If you look back at the 2k8 crash gold plummeted almost as fast. People sold it off to cover other positions.

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.

The only things that will have value when society collapses are food, water, shelter, off-grid power, ammunition, and weapons.

The thing about the value of gold in a society is that it is only valued within the society. If society collapses, there will be no group or entity that could value it. You’d need to wait until people start rebuilding. But then you’d need to be in a position to shape how currency is decided on and minted. Unless you’ve kept your load of gold secret, it’ll be hard to convince people to adopt gold as a currency without starting on more even ground.

I assume you’re talking about physical gold.

Yes, it’s generally a scam. Some middle man is going to take a cut of what it’s worth before you enter the market - and they’re almost always going to misrepresent it’s value, especially if it’s not in the form of a stamped bar. Then you basically have to store it and shlep it and secure it and keep it secret, which will further diminish profit. Then you have to sell it, presumably as part of your retirement plan…or leave it to somebody who’s going to lose even more of its value when they want to unload it inefficiently.

If you’re not wealthy in the first place it’s only worth investing in as a hobby…because you have to factor in the value of your time and subtract that from its value, as well.

As far as it being a hedge against the collapse of currency? Bad idea. Skills and land you can defend are going to be the only hedges against that. Even if it had value post collapse…it would just put a target on your head.

Yeah but so is having any currency

Look at the zoomed out 5 year chart for its price and you tell me.

$1,839 -> $4,217

If you’re looking for something to buy now that will have value in say 1000 years, gold’s a pretty good choice.

Invest in land: they aren’t making any more of it.

It is an ok hedge on inflation, but it is pushed a lot by scam adjacent businesses to push up consumption.

When was the last complete societal collapse?

Gold is a good hedge against inflation. When was the last hyperinflation in your country?

NFCs, bitcoins, silver, gold, whatever. If the only way people can cash out is to get someone to buy what they’re selling, there’s always going to be an element of grift to it. It’s just some are more grifty than others.

Obligatory not an economist, only know some basics about investing (and quite lazy about it)

I always thought that gold is just a rather unique commodity that people can also have the option of holding physically (not that it’s advised to do so). Professional investors invest in just about anything as long as there is a potential return on investment, like typical stocks and bonds, gold and silver, housing/land, art, literal truckloads of food… frankly gold isn’t even remotely the weirdest or “scammiest” on this list

As for more regular people, I do have a suspicion a lot of con-artists and/or people with suspicious intents heavily promote gold investing though. Also some libertarian types have a weird… fantasy? of total societal collapse with them rising to the top post-collapse, which I do not quite understand. But I’d presume gold would be attractive to those types since gold has been used as a means of transaction for a long time in human history

So much FUD and complete misinformation here. Gold, first and foremost, is a store of value and a hedge against inflation. It’s a terrible investment. That said, if you bought 10k worth of gold 5 years ago, you would now have 20k. Which is obviously a higher return than most savings products or some actual investments.

It’s a hell of a lot safer than BTC and if society does collapse, it will absolutely retain its value.

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.

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.

in the event of like complete societal collapse or hyperinflation, they could use it for purchasing.

They are going to learn that you can’t eat gold. It has next to no purpose other than looking pretty, and that’s not going to matter much anymore in one of these events. It’s value is as speculative as any other.

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.

Yes.

In case of complete societal collapse ? Yes.

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

Absolutely. Invest in silver instead. It’s prettier.

All investing is potentially a scam. That’s why they warn you about securities trading.

I bought some gold a few years ago, the price has gone up quite a lot since. I invested in small little pieces recovered from a lake somewhere. I figured it’s easier to barter with a tiny piece than a huge coin or bar of gold. It’s only a small part of my portfolio. I decided to invest in a mix of stuff, as you never really know the future. A little bit of cryptos, gold, silver, bullets, canned foods, solar panels, batteries, rain catchment and containers, etc. I also worked on my survival skills, tool skills, crafting skills, etc. it’s a huge way to barter with people when you have skills they need. The biggest thing I invested in is raw land in the middle of nowhere. The land has an RV and working on systems to gather water, power, etc. 99% of the stuff will be solar powered, but we do have a diesel heater, it doesn’t use much fuel as we only use it when it’s really cold.

I think gold is just one of the many things needed to survive if things collapsed. If it’s even needed. It’s just one of those things that makes me feel better as an insurance / just in case. But I feel the other things I have done will make a bigger difference if it ever comes down to it.

This is just me, and I’m no expert. But I kind of think that, if you’re legitimately worried about your country’s currency collapsing, you might want to consider leaving your country. Any sort of collapse that leads to hyperinflation or the large-scale elimination of financial infrastructure is probably going to be difficult if not impossible for the average person to survive, gold or no.

That said, precious metals are a niche enough market that I can’t imagine it not being rife with predatory sellers; companies that aren’t offering scams per se—you’ll probably pay them and receive what you pay for—but companies which are counting on people not knowing anything about the market and accepting a terrible price or poor quality goods.

Again, not an expert. But my end-of-the-world investment would be in shelf-stable food, easily-stored seeds (for planting), medicine, hand tools, high-quality camping gear, books, that sort of thing. If there is a collapse, those sorts of things will be immediately useful and also tradeable.

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.

There are a lot of delusional people in here posting about their personal shower-fantasies of what they would do in the apocalypse. You can safely discard all that. If it gets so bad you need guns and tools and… blacksmithing supplies? you are so utterly fucked that gold and bartering will be the last of your concerns. People will be fucking eating each other. You simply cannot run to the woods and start living off the land, you will starve and die without acres of ready land already producing food. Real-life isn’t like a survival video game, there is no tech-tree that you can climb and start producing food.

Read some Cormac McCarthy for a more realistic view of the end of the world. (Then have a therapist on hand for the after-effects.)

For a financial collapse, gold would probably retain value, a society still needs something to base the value of its trading on, we can’t just all carry around sacks of grain. How much value gold will retain is very hard to predict, but people have been using it for so long that it’s already survived several widespread disasters and is still in use.

There was a video essay by Folding Ideas (From “the line goes up” fame) about a weird documentary narrated/hosted by Idris Elba, and If I am remembering it right it was basically a propaganda/ad film targeting people like peepers and that are skeptical of the government and such. So I believe there is at least a push to make gold more marketable and in fashion, like De beers did for diamonds.

I don’t know if I am allowed to link to outside content (because the rule of no reposting outside content) but in any case it should be easy to find for anyone interested.

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?

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

In a societal collapse your best investment is between your ears. If you can build/grow/… things you don’t need to worry about losing value.

<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/1cbe87cb-6dd5-44db-bff4-66a04f12335e.gif">

Would you trust this guy’s advice?

The thing about gold is they are always mining more of it, not great for long term value

Societal collapse? No gold won’t save you. Tools and how to use them will.

Maybe during hyperinflation though.

Gods not a terrible investment but it doesn’t have a short term ROI just a REALLY long term one.

I hate Bitcoin but its probably a better investment (and just as useful) than gold.

I’m a fudd though and ONLY buy stable stocks that yield reliable dividends though. ETFs, S&P stuff.

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.

Generally speaking, precious metal commodities are a hedge investment; they aren’t a primary investment themselves, but they’re a hedge against a loss in value of other investments, like stocks or bonds. If you are investing in gold as a hedge against inflation wiping out stock market gains, then yeah, it’s pretty solid. You probably don’t want to hold on to it forever though; if you’d bought gold just prior to Carter taking office and the stagflation of the late 70s, you be pretty much break-even with things like index funds.

As far as total societal collapse, you would need to have the physical bullion, not just have precious metals in your investment portfolio. And even then, gold might not have a ton of value in a subsistence society. People might trade for it, but if I had food to trade, I don’t think I’d be trading for gold, since I can’t eat gold. The people that will clean up in a subsistence environment? The Amish.

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.

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

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:
<img alt="" src="https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/2ac3489b-e0c8-4e62-98a3-85fda6b7d8c0.png">

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).