Guest Post by Jeff Thomas via International Man
Recently, an eminent gold advisor, whom I know and have a high regard for, stated that holders of precious metals would be well served by keeping their metals in a remote location, saying, “Distance equals security.” (He lives in the US and recommends storage in New Zealand, as it’s as far away from him as possible.)
Another prominent metals advisor, whom I also know well and respect, contacted me after the release of this statement to say that he doesn’t necessarily agree with the idea, even though he himself stores gold in a country outside his own.
So, what’s the real answer? Is the investor better off keeping his metals as close to home as possible or as far away as possible?
Well, the answer should not be defined by distance at all. It should be defined by accessibility and safety.
Accessibility
Keeping your precious metals as close to you as possible is the ideal. You unquestionably maximize your control over them by having them within arm’s length. But there’s a caveat: This works only as long as safety can be achieved and maintained.
The old idea of “midnight gardening” – keeping metals in a box buried in the back yard – is regarded as primitive, but conceptually, it’s quite a good one. I’ve often advised people to keep a stash of wealth at home. Granted, a box under the rosebushes has its disadvantages and a more sophisticated choice might be a home safe.
A home safe is costly to install but absolutely worth the expense. Hopefully, you’ll be handy enough to install it yourself, as you won’t wish to trust workmen with the job.
You’ll want to prepare yourself by having some of your wealth (however great or small) in gold bars or coins, plus some silver coins or rounds. These latter items annoyingly take up more space than gold, platinum, etc., but should a currency crisis occur, as appears very likely, you’ll have a stash of coins that are worth about $25 each (at current value) as spending money. In any economic crisis, precious metals quickly rise in popularity as being “real” money, and soon, even your grocer or gas station attendant will know what an ounce of silver is worth.
This is likely to work well in a crisis, but your salvation would be brief, as it would only take a period of weeks before your neighbours – who are holding only worthless paper bank notes – begin to realise that you’re the only guy in town who has something of real worth. They will not think fondly of you as you become the only one in the neighbourhood who repeatedly is able to secure essential goods, when they cannot.
Therefore, this security is only a temporary condition.
Safety
The second concern will be that, your government, if it’s the EU, US or Canada, has already passed confiscation laws. Historically, countries that are in the throes of monetary crisis almost always institute protective tariffs, then currency controls and confiscations.
This means that, if you live in one of the above jurisdictions, you can expect sudden implementation of controls that would disallow your ability to use precious metals as currency and/or result in confiscation.
In the latter scenario, the precious metals you have would be taken from you unless you hide them, making you a criminal. Either way, you’d be robbed of your ability to use your wealth.
Therefore, you’d want to possibly keep a small amount (say, $5,000–10,000) in silver for emergency use, but no more. Your real wealth would need to leave the jurisdiction prior to the implementation of controls.
So, does that mean that it’s beneficial to send your wealth as far away as possible? Well, not necessarily. What you’d want to do is find the safest jurisdiction. There are several in the world, so you’d pick the one that’s closest, not the one that’s furthest.
Well, then, what constitutes the ideal safe haven?
- No direct taxation of any kind. No taxes or duties that apply to the purchase, ownership, storage or sale of precious metals. No capital gains tax; no inheritance tax.
- World-class financial system to provide auxiliary services.
- Stable government with consistent history for economic stability that caters to international investors.
- Minimal wealth legislation and regulation, to ensure a minimum of red tape in processing purchases, sales, transfers and shipment of metals.
In such jurisdictions, the wealth and power of political leaders is based upon satisfying international investors. If they were to suddenly betray investors, their power would evaporate in the amount of time it would take for investors to transfer their wealth out of the former haven. (In today’s world, that often means a keystroke on a computer.)
This is not to say that there’s a guarantee of safety anywhere in the world. There isn’t. The idea is to select the safest of all jurisdictions, where loss is the least likely. The reason for expatriating wealth is as simple as:
Home jurisdiction – loss highly likely;
Selected jurisdiction – loss highly unlikely.
In moving your wealth to relative safety, you pick the closest jurisdiction that satisfies all the bullet points above. Then you find the best facility in that jurisdiction. In Asia, that might mean Singapore or Hong Kong. In the Western hemisphere, that might mean the Cayman Islands. In Europe that might mean Austria or Switzerland.
To sum up, ideally, you want all your metals at arm’s length, where you can grab them if necessary. You only push them further away to attain greater safety, but no further than necessary. After all, you still want to get to them as quickly as possible.
Once a crisis is under way, it quickly becomes impossible to expatriate wealth.
However, if you’ve previously successfully expatriated your wealth, all you need do is move to where your wealth is waiting and sit out the crisis.
Editor’s Note: As these trends continue to accelerate, what you do right now can mean the difference between coming out ahead or suffering crippling losses.
That’s exactly why bestselling author Doug Casey and his team just released a free report with all the details on how to survive an economic collapse.
It will help you understand what is unfolding right before our eyes and what you should do so you don’t get caught in the crosshairs.
Click here to download the PDF now.
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I don’t think there is a government in the world that would not confiscate your gold, if they had a need for it. The reason to hold PM is for bartering purposes after the world’s governments fail.
If I can’t touch it when I want to, I might as well not have it. I can touch my guns when I wish, so don’t try touching my PM.
I don’t trust the bank down the street, let alone one in the Cayman’s, and certainly not with physical gold/silver. At least money I can transfer (in theory). Lots of folks exist as global vagabonds with their wealth spread everywhere. That is fine for them…not for most. I will sit tight and die defending what I have if I have to.
If you cannot put your hands on it without anyone else’s permission or clearance, you don’t really control it at all, you just paid for it like someone else’s drink at a bar. When that gold storing party needs or wants the (gold, gems, cash, whatever) more than they need or want a pleasant relationship with you, that (whatever) will be out of your life forever. Oh, a foreign national government or court is going to protect you in a SHTF situation? A stranger with a gun and in a desperate place is going to unlock your gold and let you just leave with it? A person who knows where the storage facility is will NOT rob the people (probably old men, mostly) that come out of it? Not the way to bet.
The only gold you can hope to keep for better times is gold you have secreted, and told NO ONE about. Not your wife, kids, attorney or accountant. You paid cash for it, and hid it, giving no one reason to think you have it. After the crisis, and after some new secure system has emerged and been tested for durability (over years, not weeks or months) you can begin to think about reclaiming some of your wealth.
Way more than 1/2 the people you know in this world will kill you for a sandwich or a pair of shoes. If you have gold, you better keep it on the QT or you won’t have it long.
Ridiculous essay. United States goes to shit, and you think you’re going to hop on a plane and head to Jacinda (I already took your guns) Adern’s New Zealand, and that’s asset safety? This might have made some sense pre-covid-19 lockdown, but it’s completely out of touch today. The real world is changing faster than dumb fuckers like this can keep up.
Star- This is some stupid shit right here, I agree with you. These morans write this babble for the sheep or the folks who just have no clue as to the in’s and out’s of PM’s.
Let’s get this perfectly straight, the US goobermint did not confiscate American’s gold in the 30’s. The sheep lined up VOLUNTARILY to sell their gold to Uncle Sam for $20 per ounce. Again, that is a voluntary act. No goobermint goons went door to door and ransacked Joe Average’s house and took his gold.
After .gov figured they had gotten as much gold as the sheep were going to bring in and VOLUNTARILY sell to them, the US promptly raised the price of gold to $35 per ounce .
For the love of Mike, you can always go full retard PIRATE and bury the stuff if you iz scerd of the government.
Star, BL,
I have three junk long guns in brand new gun cases in tight socks in the master bedroom closet, and under the bed is an old strong box full of quarters, nuts, and a couple of bolts. Rattles like treasure. That will satisfy anyone who smashes in while the alarm is screaming (County Deputy response time is 22 minutes). Just in case.
Worst case…Gotta give’em something to find quickly and get out, 22 minutes is a long time.
I have a mason jar buried with a little gold and more silver in case I’m forced to divulge where it is. It is an insignificant percent. Just in case.
Worst case…Gotta give them something to confiscate.
I rehearse with my wife what we both will do if she is ever in a hostage situation with a gun or knife held to her head/throat, and the bad guy orders me to drop one of the guns I have hidden in every room. I will act horrified and scream out her ‘middle name’ in a panic (I don’t panic) – a name that I never use…and she will jerk straight down or flip forward depending on how she is being held…and I’m taking whatever shot I have…as I’m not giving up my gun. She needs to know that…just in case.
To assure her I practice with this target and show her the results. (Only didn’t show her one target so far – I had a hangover that day).
Worst case…hmmm…never mind….
“Only didn’t show her one target so far – I had a hangover that day”.
I hoped you saved target to remind you to keep getting better!
James,
I did not keep the incriminating evidence of my fuzzy headed misplaced shots…but I have perfected my Happy 90 minute time with some temperance!
However, we are attending our first house party since the hoax hit this evening, and temperance may not be invited. I doubt there will be any hostage money shot shooting tomorrow.
The way I hear it, the gubmnt drilled locks off of bank storage boxes to confiscate gold in the 30’s. It was not the bank’s gold they stole.
Here is a detailed snap shot of what really happened:
ROOSEVELT’S GOLD?
Author: Don Stott | Publish Date: 08/26/2019
« Back to Don’s Column
“Well, suppose they confiscate my gold just like Roosevelt did 75 years ago?” If I have heard that once, I must have heard it a hundred times. Did Roosevelt confiscate everyone’s gold back in 1933? If he did, how come there’s still a lot of it for sale in a thousand coin shops and numismatic dealers?
Let’s start at the beginning and see what really did happen. The first thing we must remember, is that America was in the midst of a severe depression, caused by loose money issued by the Federal Reserve, which they still are doing. There was such an enormous amount of “liquidity” floating around, as today, that everyone was buying stocks on margin of over 90% at times, which is not happening today. The stock market was on everyone’s lips and minds. Bootblacks and janitors were buying stocks. Stocks would supposedly go up forever, and there was no risk. Ha Ha. The market crumbled and crashed, leaving everyone out on the well known limb, owing for stocks which often times weren’t worth not much more than the paper on which they were printed. The result was that in fairly quick order, over 25% of the American work force was on the street selling apples, on the dole, or in bad shape in one way or another. Times were tough, to make it sound kind!
Roosevelt wanted to pull America out of the depression. He thought up all sorts of make-work schemes, and anything to put people to work. But he didn’t have any money. Remember, unlike now, the dollar was BACKED BY GOLD. He therefore needed all the gold he could get, so he could print more dollars to spend in placing more people in those make-work jobs. Everyone knew that gold and dollars were synonymous. Americans were carrying gold coins in their pockets just like they were money, which they were. Small, dime size gold coins were a dollar, and there were $5, $10 (Eagles) and $20 (double Eagles) coins in general circulation everywhere. Gold was money, dollars were money, and the two were the same. How could FDR get gold, so he could print more dollars to spend, to get us out of the depression?
He also had the farmers on his neck. They wanted higher prices for their crops, and there wasn’t any money around to give to them. On March 9th, 1933, FDR declared a “Bank Holiday,” with all the banks closed. Bank “runs” had posed another problem for the “New Deal,” as Roosevelt called his massive move towards abject socialism. People were closing their savings accounts and bouncing checks by the millions, just to survive in some cases. Today, we have millions of credit cards maxed out for the same reason. There was no FDIC then, so no savings account was insured. (Today, the FDIC has less than a nickel in its accounts for every $100 worth of insurance). Banks had made huge margin loans on now worthless stocks, and they had no money to pay for savings account closures. FDR allowed they could close for a ‘holiday,” so they could get their troops in order. Many didn’t, and never re-opened again. My Parents lost money in a bank which never re-opened.
Banks were in deep trouble. People were demanding their money, and the banks didn’t have any. There was no FDIC, and dollars were backed by gold. The treasury had to have gold to print more dollars to make everyone happy, banks whole, and to fund make-work projects. What to do? Get some gold! How? The mines were producing all they could, but more was needed. More dollars were needed for stuff that didn’t help get us out of the depression at all. Nothing Roosevelt did, got us out of the depression, or even help a bit. As a final effort, he outraged the Japanese enough that they bombed Pearl Harbor, and we were at war. The depression was over.
Roosevelt had the brilliant idea that he would order everyone to turn in their gold in exchange for paper dollars, which were backed by gold. On April 5, 1933, Roosevelt issued Executive Order # 6012, which ordered Americans to surrender their gold to the government by May 1st, 1933. Violations were to be subjected to a $1,000 fine and as much as ten years in prison. First of all, an Executive Order is not in the Constitution, and an Executive Order could never levy a $1,000 fine or ten years in the slammer! But Americans were broke, miserable, and that $20 gold piece they had squirreled away would buy a lot of food, with bread at less than a dime a loaf. Those who couldn’t afford to hold their gold, turned theirs in and received brand new paper dollars for their gold.
The gold allowed more dollars to be printed, which were foolishly used for nutty things, and none were of help in fighting the depression. A couple of days later, on May 7th, FDR had one of his “Fireside Chats” over radio, to soothe the American outrage. He said that if Americans continued to ‘hoard’ gold, there wouldn’t be any left, and therefore in the interest of fairness, government should own all of it, and use it wisely. Ever hear of such claptrap? Gold markets have existed for thousands of years, and gold has endlessly changed hands around the world! Smugglers and black markets in gold have flourished in times of war, peace, or dictatorships. FDR also persuaded Congress to wipe out the gold clause in existing contracts, which specified payments to be made in gold. In a Joint Resolution of June 5, 1933, all gold payments in existing contracts were made null and void. Even Congress, stupidly went along.
On January 31, 1934, Roosevelt signed into law the “Gold Reserve Act,” which set the gold price at $35 per ounce, as opposed to the former $20.67 In other words, he had stolen hundreds of millions of dollars from Americans by raising the price of gold by about 70%! What in reality he had done, was to lower the value of the dollar by 70%, in relation to gold. It is estimated that Roosevelt hauled in $7 billion worth of gold from submissive Americans, and still the depression kept right on going.. My Dad was a corner druggist in Washington D.C. for 36 years, and I grew up in that drug store. I’ll always remember those days as being educational, and lots of fun. I can still hear my Dad calling Eleanor Roosevelt “Old Horseface,” and bellowing about Roosevelt, calling him every name in the book. He hated the Roosevelts, as did all businessmen, and anyone with a farthing of sense.
Did Roosevelt’s Executive Order # 6012 “seize” everyone’s gold? No! How could anyone know who had it? Gold coins have no serial numbers, and practically everyone had them. Could government seize socket wrench sets if it passed a law saying that everyone had to turn theirs in? Could government ever know how many people had bought socket wrenches from hardware stores, auto supply stores, Sears Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, et al? Socket wrenches have no serial numbers, and they certainly don’t have to be ‘registered’ when you buy a set. Both have uses, and both may be about the same size I suppose. Those who didn’t need the dollars, undoubtedly said to themselves, “Me? Give you my gold? “Hell no!” Those who were living at the edge of starvation, having lost their jobs, having lost their savings in closed banks, and seen their stocks go to virtual zero, naturally gave their gold to the government in exchange for bread money. No one was ever fined, and no one ever went to jail for an Executive Order which could never have been enforced. There are actual laws against prostitution and drugs, but they flourish on a daily basis. Hookers and drugs have no serial numbers either, and aren’t registered like car titles, real estate deeds or stocks.
How could government “seize” your gold, when no one knows you have it? Registered guns have possibilities for seizure, because of their registration, but when they come to get yours, as I am certain they will, you “had it stolen,” “sold it at a yard sale,” or “gave it away,” hopefully. No gold coin is “registered,” and no gold coin has serial numbers other than the Credit Suisse 1 oz gold bars. A decade ago, in Silverton, Colorado, a miner was accused of stealing gold from a mine, after lots of it was found under his bed. It went to court, and Henry Kolego’s lawyer asked the prosecution if the supposed stolen gold looked different if it came from one mine or another? “No.’ Does the supposedly stolen gold have serial numbers for identification? “NO.” Henry K. went free. Did he steal it? Probably, but it was totally un-provable.
Can anyone from the government, seize your gold like Roosevelt did? How could they? Gold is not radio-active, so a Geiger Counter wouldn’t work. “Well, they’ll check your supplier or seize your records.” If you had gold at one time, how could anyone prove you still had it if you had given it away, sold it, or had it stolen? Like registered guns, if you please. The thought of government going through a million court cases, violating the Fourth Amendment, trying to “seize” your hoard of Krugerrands, borders on the insane and, at least is laughable. As a refresher, the Fourth Amendment says in part, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated.” Is it illegal for you to purchase gold or silver? No. Is it illegal for you to own them? No. Ever hear of the legal term “ex post facto law?” Just forget the “seizure” nonsense, and protect yourself.
you fail to mention Wall Street abruptly tightened the margin percentage and deliberately crashed the stock market–repeatedly–to crash the stock market. You also chose to mention criminal penalties were declared on anybody who failed to turn in their gold holdings and that bank safety deposit boxes had the locks drilled to gain access to stored gold.
In a real economic collapse, all PM’s will be rendered essentially useless. Those who understand what the situation is likely to be will have stocked up on what will be necessary to survive; food, water (filters), shelter, fuel, guns and ammo. When the SHTF, prepared individuals will not part with their stores of goods for shiny paper-weights. The inevitable barter system will be based on physical needs. There are no good recipes for gold or silver casseroles. Also, PM’s stored in remote locations will be unreachable, as severe travel restrictions are a certainty during any widespread economic collapse. To misquote, “keep your gold close, but keep your consumables closer”.
DFJ150
I get your point BUT….. How far will beans and rice go toward paying your doubled or tripled property tax bill? That is a whole other situation that you should consider. Look DFJ….you need both food/ammo and PM’s to have the insurance you really need and I truly hope you have included metals in your stash.
What government do you think will still be functioning in a SHTF situation to send you a tax bill? And who do you think is going to going to try to collect in that situation?
King- Short of the merciful SMOD, you can bet there will be a tax bill sent to you by your sheriff in your county. Dream on if you think taxes stop due to reset.
both points of view are actually valid- during different stages of the collapse of this whole circus, there will be a lot of messy in-between where there will be governments still demanding taxes, still keeping records of who hasnt paid, still keeping records of what property they claim ot have confiscated for unpaid debts they dreamt up, and yet at the same time, there will be no functioning mechanism or means to even pay those, short of some kind of informal deal. you show PMs or much of anything else nice, portable, expensive, potential status symbol, during such times and not only will it be stolen at the first opportunity, but try convincing anyone that that was all you had. they might eventually give up searching for the dream stash of bured treasure but only after theyve done away with you in the process. if youre still alive some goon, whether or not in uniform will matter less and less, will be waterboarding you to get you to reveal where the dream stash is hidden. even if it never existed they wont believe you.
eventually this situation will settle back down to something more stable but it’s very hard to say how long that will take. could be a couple generations even. meanwhile w need to get used to living much more frugal lifestyles. even those of us who know this and try to put it into practice, still have a long way to go. i know i do. we tend to have been the hardest working of our generation, even in an age of declining wealth we still managed to be middle class.. thats already starting to make some difficulty for us as we’re still too used to the good life we managed.
maybe in some places and some cases during some stages of things falling apart, youll be able to make some kind of deal with an official or a banker or something, to cover some of those fiat ‘debts’ with PMs or something else out-of-band like that. it will be risky to let on that you had any, just as it will be risky to let those ‘debts’ pile up and some neo-feudal boss somewhere get the idea that your land, house, etc, are now ‘his’ on paper. he might come round with some goons to enforce it. then your precious metals will be lead and iron.
im not saying dont have any PMs, but know that most of them will be buried or hidden for decades before theres a stable environment in which they will be of much or any use. this is especially true for gold, silver might circulate a little more , specially in the states where it was more recently money. in europe silver was demonetized a very long time ago and people dont have a feel for it.
A lot of whats coming, we still need to adjust our mentality and our actions. Constant introspection and questioning one’s assumptions and reevaluating ones conclusions. Willingness to part with ‘things’ , to keep a lower profile.
mitigation of what’s already been done and cannot be undone , as well- you already were known in your small rural community where everyone gossips about everyone, as that guy who worked for 15 years in a six digit tech job, then came and bought that farm down the road? you think they dont _all_ call you ‘that rich guy from X’ behind your back? even if theyre friendly and genuinely mean you no harm they will still see you as someone much wealthier than they. even if theyre relatives, they will still imagine that youve got a stahs somewhere. As things go even more to shit youre gonna have a very very hard time convinving them that it’s really all gone, especially as most of us will have genuinely spent most of it on trying to get our ducks in a row, by then!
Think back to previous eras of really rough times. You might have some ancestors who lost homes, property, even their lives, or had very narrow escapes with just the clothes on their backs, because people around _thought_ they were rich and closed in for the kill. The ones who were able to let go of it all were the ones who escaped such a fate.
John,we know what happens to agents for the govt. who come collecting those tax bills.
you dont really think theyre actually going to come to your door?
no, these days thats the whole point of trying to make everything electronic and shove everything into the Matrix (TM)! they can just confiscate your land and house etc from some office on the other side of the world , and sell it to some ‘investor’ which might be some megacorp or whatever which will come in, when they do, with at minimum lots of cops plus squads of informal goons to do all the things the cops wouldnt want to officially dirty their hands with. why do you think theyve been putting so much effort into forcing people to get new surveys of land, rolling out new electronic property registries with draconian confiscation by default if you dont register it there (and all at your own expense and risk, of course!) , ever more intricate databases of all the details of your house etc, why the hell do they care where the door or window is, what color paint, what style of doorknob or trim etc? mainly because any last tiny thing that changes will be one more excuse for a heavy fine to push you into debt and dependence. .
of course this varies from place to place. in many parts of the US property titles, taxes, etc, are still pretty local, at the county level or municipality. here in europe this stuff has been aggressively jammed into naitonwide databases and cross-referenced to everything else about a person, in the past decades. i remember when property titles etc here too were solely at the local level and only kept on paper records. nobody, government or anyone else, had any easy way of finding out who owned what, or what you owned, without going to enormous expense of manually searching through those deed books. The usual dipshits were endlessly complaining about this, which only played into the hands of the monsters who started rolling out national registries.. and oh hey, property taxes too, what else did you expect!
but this time theres gonna be an electronic government in matrix-land still thinking it owns you, even if they dont come round very often.
You really well stocked out metals then have a place in the nest of valuables,they are inflation hedges in somewhat crazy times and perhaps things go real crazy and you survive and world mellows out a jump start in the new world financially.
I would only metal invest after all goods to keep you/family/clan going for at least a year with other good like seeds ect. for the longer term are bought/stored.
Always in your hand,make thieves work for it at least and not just pushing a few 1’s&0’s to steal your savings.
We all know that you can’t eat gold or silver, my concern has always been that if there is no food just how do you survive. I would suggest as many have , that being well armed is the best option, because as sad as it may seem, the ability to take what others have will always be a key to survival. Survival of the fittest as is often said.