Article:
hey, thanks, i should have read all the entries before i asked the question up above. thanks again. makes more sense than my brother-in-law talking about gold & silver & other stuff like got confiscated in 1938 germany. guess we all forget about the lessons of history.

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Replying to Original Article:

A visitor ("name:confused") to the Guestbook says his parents-in-law "lost a wad" on precious metals' investments and Asked what he could do to "put away a little something" for emergencies. WELL, NOW, The Old Man don't claim to be no investment-counselor, and everybody's personal situation is different, but sounds like the young man's parents-in-law didn't get such good advice, either. I'll tell you what an old guy once told me, if you like it you can use it... Start out one morning, and make a list of all the things you absolutely can't do without, or would be real distressed if you couldn't go to the store and buy more of for about six months: Grains to grind into wholewheat cereal & flour... grits to use like they were intended, or to grind finer for some cornbread ..Salt ..Sugar ..Honey ..yeast ..spices ..Bakin' Powder ..cornstarch ..Beans ..Rice ..Pasta ..canned veg's ..canned greens ..canned spuds ..Canned meats ..Teas ..Coffee ..Beef/chicken Bullion ..soaps ..toothpaste ..Medicine ..eggs ...?? Well, you get the idea. "But", the investment counselor says, "With silver & gold (usually pay somebody to store them, btw) you can buy all that common stuff from the poor people..." Yeah, I suppose so, maybe, if they want to sell, but I'll tell you what the old guy told me: "Somebody brings me a sack of gold, son, and wants to trade me some for a sack of beans, it'll likely cost them the whole dang bag unless I like 'em a whole lot!" Same thing with stuff like sporting goods... If I have a -40degree sleeping bag, and it's winter, you think I'm going to cuddle up to your brick of gold while you sleep in my warm bag? Not very likely! SO, you ask, what should I put away for tradin' stock? Well, just what other people would want to trade for, but don't take up a lot of your storage space... A plug of good tobacco keeps real well if it's tightly sealed and kept cool. One of my friends ties a string on the plug, dips it in warm wax and puts it in the fridge when it cools. Another friend buys pints of fermented grain squeezins, claims he can trade it for anything if times get tough. Don't know if that's the truth, but he thinks so. Another friend buys ammo for the same reason ...don't know as how that'd work for me but he's happy. The thing I remember most is the poor folks trying to get out of the way of Government in 1938 Germany: Their gold, silver, gems, paintings and big houses just got confiscated in the name of the Government. Most would have liked to trade their gold for a good pair of shoes and a warm coat, if they were lucky enough to live. Folks in Europe were growing bunnies in their bathtubs and lettuce in their window-boxes for food, as I recall. G.I.'s were tradin' two-bit packages of silk stockings for just about anything... "Can't happen here!", you say? Well, can anybody tell us for sure if the Government already has the power to send troops around the neighborhood and summarily confiscate supplies or property in "emergencies", and is there any situation where the personal, citizen-held, Constitutional Guarantees can be abridged? Can the President declare your local Lions' Club a "subversive organization" and confiscate everyone's firearms? If our Constitution is abridged, either entirely in one sweep or bit-by-bit over time, are we safer than the people presently lucky enough to flee Kosovo? Anybody want to hazard a guess? Well, this reply is getting too wordy for this medium, but to finish up the young man's question, ...If I was going to put something away for emergencies, first thing is to rotate it, don't just "store" it, if you're going to be the one using it. If you don't already use it now, don't store it unless you want it for barter fodder. If you're lucky enough to have extra cash right now, you might save up enough to keep your house from getting repossessed for a few months, or whatever serious contract needs you may have. If times got rough, and a sack of beans sold for a thousand dollars, you still only owe a pre-set number of dollars on your contracts that could get something serious repossessed, and the banks ain't gonna take a sack of beans worth ten thousand dollars on a contract that wants a ten-dollar monthly payment, nor can they demand the sack of beans instead of the ten bucks, even if they'd like to! During the Great Depression, some folks got rich buying up properties that had overdue taxes or mortgages.. Anyway, good luck, whatever you decide on. And thanks for the question, there, young man, you'll do just fine I believe. The Old Man.