Most of the arguments presented as logic are simply circular. Gold is gold and therefore it is valuable because gold has always been valuable.
If I sound angry, I'm really not. But I am bothered that people tell me I'm wrong without waiting to find out what is going to happen. Wait until I'm wrong before you tell me I'm wrong. I do not mind being wrong. I am not invested in metal. It will go where it goes.
Here's my deal. Where I live, I have to collect my own water from rainwater. There are no paved roads or sewers or sidewalks. I grow food from seeds and barter any extra. That doesn't mean I don't need things - I certainly do. But silver isn't one of them until we switch to a silver-based economy and it can't happen.
This week, instead of buying silver, I bought a ceramic water filter which will gravity-purify rainwater down to .02 microns. Next week I'm going to buy 10 gallons of Zeolite. I already make coconut husk charcoal and, with those, I can make a gravity filter to convert a million gallons of runoff into absolutely pure radionuclide and pollutant-free water. Then I can wash it out and replace replace the charcoal - in about an hour - and go another million gallons. Truth is, though, part of the filtration process requires that the ceramic filter be soaked in a colloidial silver solution and dried every million gallons or so. I can make that as well.
I make charcoal for cooking and soap and I can and preserve - and those are the things I think about. Because whatever happens - even if nothing ever happens - I enjoy doing this. I don't have to worry about escaping to anywhere or, really, anything at all - except busting my ass out in the back 40 and dying of exposure.
I have friends who have access to both catchment and county water - fine - the county crap is full of chlorine gas and fluoride and it's only available as long as the system doesn't break down from lack of maintenance. My friends don't have the sorts of catchment filters I have because their minds are somewhere else - they buy silver with their money instead and that is very cool with me.
But when people need this stuff they won't have it and they won't be able to get it and they won't know how to make it anyway - because they were too worried about preserving their wealth and not their lives.
IF one assumes that anything and any product and instant gratification will always be available if you have the silver and gold to buy it, then collect silver and gold. IF, instead, one believes that when the barges stop coming (again), and we run out of rice, toilet paper, bottled water and gasoline within a day - and it happens here - then people need things they can't buy. Silver won't buy things that simply aren't available.
One of the things people can't typically handle is how to deal with a relative or a child's death if there is no one to call. Most people simply can't deal with it so they won't think about it.
Or how to live without toilet paper (and paper products in general). Sure, everyone talks about running out of TP and running water, but they don't really know how to do it and maintain the level of sanitation they will have to maintain because they don't REALLY think about it.
I am not trying to be argumentative...I am merely saying that when I was a kid 11-12 years old, two of us would drive an old WWII jeep out to a ranch a hundred miles from nowhere, catch a couple ponies and ride fence for a week. No phones - no nothing, but salt licks, fence tools and our guns and knives. We took canned food, and K-rations andcanteens and iodine tablets, but we ate whatever we found - typically doves and rattlesnakes and didn't think a thing about it. You can call me a liar about that, too. But I'm not. Ask anyone who grew up in Texas in the 50s and 60s.
Today, twelve-year old kids can't even get to school by themselves and people can't think about anything but money. I don't need lessons to learn how to think like everyone else. I don't WANT to think like everyone else. I don't WANT to obsess over wealth. I don't need any.
By virtue of the way I was raised, I think about things in a different way than most people. That's me and I don't claim to be mainstream or right about it. My priorities are just different. I'm now in my mid 60s and I have no family. If I don't take care of myself, no one will. If I don't plan a way to eat, no one will feed me.
Precious metal to me is a couple bars of .999 fine magnesium because I can light a fire with it in a rainstorm and get warm or cook something. Precious metal to me is a few pounds of powdered aluminum and powdered iron because I can make things with that as well. Precious metal to me is a 'Woodman's pal' because it's a good tool and will get me just about anything I need at my scale of life.
Precious metal to me is ten pair of tri-focal contact lenses. I don't wear contacts and I hate them - but if my glasses break, I may not be able to get any more and I need to be able to see.
In fact, none of this is paranoia. I have broken my glasses before. I have needed to start a fire in a deluge and I have had to chop a trail and make a walking stick. I had to tape my finger back on when I cut it off a couple months ago and keep working. I finally got an x-ray, and you can see the cut right through and the bones sticking out - but I have still never been to a doctor for it. I shoved the bones back in and taped it back together. People can't do that anymore and silver won't help.
I have needed a way to purify and drink muddy runoff - so I have a tiny portable water filter that I keep handy - and a Swiss Army knife and a loud whistle and a tiny, waterproof LED flashlight and a freeze-dried meal and a little tape in a tiny pack that I grab when I head for the jungle. And a cellphone in an Otter case, but I don't depend on it. I depend on me - not who I can pay to help me.
It's not that I don't appreciate silver and gold. If I had some I'd keep it - but I don't - and now you know why.
Wed, Jul 20, 2011 at 02:52, Posterous
<comment-breHxbHCDIiosBB@posterous.com> wrote:
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rrrr just commented on the post "We are ALL fed up but 90% of Americans are still walking in their sleep." on Thus knowledge flows like water / Teachable Moments
http://www.zackspages.com/rb_02.htm This link is to a homepage for gold bugs. It's free. What makes a person a gold bug? And why am I sending you this? When you understand what is going on in economics in our country and across the world, there is a strong tendency to want to protect yourself, and smart money tends to recognize that some types of assets offer more protection than others during hard economic times. For five thousand years, gold has been the best one. In the past ten years it has increased in price from $256.00 per ounce to $1,612.00 last week. From here it is likely to multiply in value. Why is this? You can find the answer on these pages. I would tell you, but it is not just a few words but is a complex process. I am not recommending that you buy any gold. I am only suggesting a way that you can improve your knowledge of economics. You can do so by reading these pages. The US dollar has no real value, just the public's confidence in it. It is not unpatriotic to say this. The day is coming when there will be no confidence in the dollar, at home or abroad, and then the dollar will be worth zero. Maybe this sounds crazy, but if you will learn, you will see that it isn't. On these pages you can find out what is likely to happen to the purchasing power of the US dollar in the near future and why. It is very important. And although you may not have a lot of money, or even enough money, these things will have a very serious impact on your ability to live normally or even survive. If you understand what is going to happen, you can protect yourself. As with any other printed material you read, do not believe everything you read on the pages linked there. Much of it is opinion. But some of it is very sound opinion. If you will just read twenty or thirty of these articles you will get the general idea. You say that the concept of community is essential. Therefore I send you this information to see how you will respond to it, because this is a social type of action on my part. If you get offended by it, I'll know that you don't really mean what you say, and I'll stop. This is all I can do right now. I only hope that you appreciate it.
Posterous is the place to post everything. Just email us.
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