How much of your money will only exist as a computer record on the day the global banking system fails?
When you log in to your online banking account and view your account balance, do you really think those electronic digits on your computer screen are real money?
Most people keep the vast majority of their savings and “cash” in electronic form, existing only as a computer record in a distant bank so far away that they don’t even know its physical location.
All electronically stored assets are not REAL, and they can all disappear in the blink of an eye for a long list of reasons.
When the global banking system fails — now a mathematical inevitability — banking customers will be shocked to discover that electronic numbers on a digital screen are not real wealth. As they say in the gold bug business, if you can’t touch it, it isn’t real.
Gold, silver and other precious metals are real wealth for the simple reason that they don’t vanish as banking systems fail.
The stock market, bond market or real estate bubble market can crater all they want… your gold and silver are still just as real (and just as heavy) as they were before. More importantly, they’re just as valuable… or even more so because precious metals tend to skyrocket in value when fiat currencies collapse.
What I’m trying to get at here is that if you don’t own gold, silver or other precious metals as at least part of your savings portfolio, you might find yourself in real trouble when SHTF.
Only real assets will outlast the cataclysmic financial “day of reckoning” that’s coming. That list can include any or all of the following:
Things of real value that are portable:
- Cash (green paper money, which may become instantly worthless, so don’t hold too much)
- Pre-1963 coins (that contain silver content)
- Physical metals (gold, silver, platinum)
- Collector’s coins, stamps and historical firearms
- Practical firearms and suppressors (silencers)
- Bearer bonds or corporate stock shares
- Natural medicine, seeds and essential oils
- Iodine, useful for water purification and protection vs. radioactive iodine-131
- Museum-quality art
- Valuable yachts or boats if used as the bugout transport of choice
- Small aircraft, if you fly out as your bugout strategy
- Deeds to land assets (paper proof of ownership)
- Antibiotics and prescription painkillers or insulin (high value, easy to carry)
- Bitcoin [and Ethereum] wallets on a thumb drive, hopefully encrypted and backed upsomewhere else (will only work if the internet stays alive)
- Night vision equipment (PVS-14)
- Small radiation detectors
- THINGS YOU KNOW: (all the things you know are, by definition, portable)
- Medical knowledge / first aid / surgical experience / infectious disease
- Communications knowledge / HAM operator / shortwave radio
- Firearms knowledge / gunsmithing / long-range shooting
- Natural medicine knowledge / natural antibiotics / wound healing / prevention
- Food knowledge / harvesting / preparation / preservation / seed saving / wildcrafting
- Workshop knowledge / repair / making tools / blacksmithing / construction
- Navigation knowledge / compass navigation / topo map reading / area knowledge
- Rural living knowledge / animal care / roping / knot tying / butchering
Things of real value that are not (easily) portable:
- Land, real estate and commercial buildings
- Ranch animals / cattle
- Vehicles, tractors and even construction equipment
- Ammunition
- Ammo reloading equipment / brass / bullets
- Storable food
- Water filters
- Honey (it’s food and medicine, and lasts for decades)
- Salt (very heavy but also invaluable if you need some)
- Water wells, springs or flowing water sources
- Large water storage containers / tanks
- Recreational vehicles that can be lived in
- Solar power systems
- Defensive bunkers / underground homes / shelters
- Alcohol stills
- Communications gear: HAM radios and antennas
- Machine shops or heavy tools
- Large generators
- Fuel stores (diesel, propane, natural gas)
- Ballistic protection gear (helmets, vests, shields)
- Heavy equipment grease, hydraulic fluid and engine oil
- Knives, machetes, hatchets and tomahawks
- Tactical optics (binoculars or magnifiers)
- Portable light sources: Lanterns, flashlights
- BIC lighters and magnesium fire starters (easy to barter, may be portable but are not very valuable per kg)
- Protective gear vs. biological agents and infectious disease (masks, surgical gloves, body suits, etc.)
- Personal hygiene items: toilet paper / feminine hygiene / soap
- Canning equipment, food dehydrators or smoke houses
- Bicycles and other human-powered gear
This Article Could Save Your Life: “Consider This Your Last Wake Up Call”
Things that will be (mostly) useless in an apocalyptic collapse:
- Pensions
- iPhones, Android and all mobile devices
- Digital bank accounts holding “money” in electronic form
- Paper currency (might hold value temporarily, but could collapse suddenly)
- Check books (nobody will accept a check when the banks are down)
- Anything that runs on gas (will be hard to find fuel)
- GPS navigation devices (won’t work without satellites and power)
- Apartments at very high levels of buildings (no electricity means “vertical hiking” up dangerous stairwells)
- Luxury vehicles with heavy reliance on electronics (the simpler the vehicle, the better)
- Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter and social media
- Your Blu-Ray DVD collection
- Cell phone communications
- Government entitlements: Food stamps / Medicare / Medicaid / Unemployment
- Academic degrees in “social justice” topics
- Electronic books (Kindle)
- U.S. Treasury bills or other forms of government debt (including municipal bonds)
Right now might be a good time to trade VIRTUAL assets for REAL assets
The bottom line? Right now might be a good time to start trading your virtual assets for real assets. Otherwise, you might end up losing your virtual assets when the financial house of cards implodes.