But 1971 is a very peculiar year to use as the starting point for measuring everything in gold.
Gold hadn't simply been freely trading at $35 an ounce and then gradually appreciated with inflation. $35 was the official Bretton Woods price - a price the United States had maintained for decades. The free-market price had already begun breaking away from it by 1971.
Then Nixon closed the gold window in August 1971, ending the ability of foreign governments to exchange their dollars for U.S. gold at that official price. Like France and other countries had already done in the 1960s, converting hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars into gold at the official $35-an-ounce price, much to the concern of the Johnson administration. I've written about this previously on my Substack.
Look what happened as gold was allowed to reprice:
1971 official price: $35/oz
End of 1972: about $65/oz
End of 1973: about $112/oz
Late 1974: nearly $200/oz
And there's another problem with the F-150 example: there wasn't a Ford F-150 in 1971. Ford itself dates the F-150's debut to the 1975 model year. The comparable half-ton Ford in 1974 was the F-100. The one you have pictured in your story.
A 1974 F-100 Styleside had an MSRP of about $3,282. At $200 gold, that truck cost about 16.4 ounces of gold. The first actual F-150, in 1975, had an MSRP of about $4,002 — equivalent to about 20 ounces of gold at $200 an ounce.
Compare that with the example today: a $40,000 F-150 divided by today's roughly $4,360 gold price is about 9.2 ounces.
That's still a substantial decline in the truck's price measured in gold. But it isn't anything close to the drop from 73 ounces to 8 or 9 ounces claimed by starting in 1971.
Using the post-Bretton-Woods repricing, you're looking at something closer to 16–20 ounces then versus 9 ounces today. Roughly a 44% to 54% decline, not nearly 90%.
And that's really my point. In 1971, the measuring stick itself was in the process of being radically repriced. Starting the comparison there makes virtually everything else look extraordinarily cheap in gold today.
The numbers tell me to sit tight and watch the world go by. A pile of cash, and a bigger pile of metal. Should do me well for the next 20 years,,,,,if I live that long.
I was going to rant for a while, but then I thought better. If anybody thinks that sitting on a pile of gold is going to provide for them, when everyone around them is in a state of suffering, they are living in a bubble. You best buy some property in the backwoods of upper British Columbia and start stalking it with food, water, ammunition and medical supplies. Because historical experience tells us that those that don't have take from those that do when push gets to shove.
Pretty much. If/when the SHTF, the 2A will have value in first dealing with the wandering packs of feral third world illegals who will descend upon the defenseless like a swarm of voracious locusts.
True. Although in that scenario, your precious-metals portfolio may need to include a little lead.
But if things actually turn into The Walking Dead or The Last of Us, a property in the backwoods of B.C. probably just delays the inevitable. Eventually, somebody finds you.
If the more likely future looks more like 1929 than a zombie apocalypse, though, the calculation changes. At some point you're going to want to trade for food, medical supplies and all the other things you can't produce yourself. And when that happens, an ammo crate isn't nearly as portable, divisible or universally recognized as a store of value as gold.
That's why Tom has us at roughly one-third precious metals, one-third cash and one-third stocks.
Try not to keep all your eggs in one ammo box, so to speak. Or all your ammo boxes somewhere "they" can find you.
It's why Bill has properties in four different parts of the world, and why Tom and his family remain mobile.
Dan is more your style: building a bolt-hole somewhere in Wyoming.
Apparently, Argentina suffered an economic collapse in 2001. Fernando Aquirre documented his experience living during such a collapse in his book, "The Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse". Basically, people function with no security. You'll want to trade in your F150 for an armored car, if your lucky enough to find one.
High in the mountains of West Va, Virginia. Coming from a blue State five hours away. All the essentials. Yet still I’m looking at the next five years with trepidation. We will see. May God bless us all.
Bill soon all your daily messages will be assembled by Claude, all those years of text are already part of your LLM and this daily message reads like a compilation of what you've said before so no need to write anything new eh? but I suspect when the s**t finally hit the fan some new twists will appear for which even 'Claude' won't have words .. until you feed them to it .. RIP BPR
But 1971 is a very peculiar year to use as the starting point for measuring everything in gold.
Gold hadn't simply been freely trading at $35 an ounce and then gradually appreciated with inflation. $35 was the official Bretton Woods price - a price the United States had maintained for decades. The free-market price had already begun breaking away from it by 1971.
Then Nixon closed the gold window in August 1971, ending the ability of foreign governments to exchange their dollars for U.S. gold at that official price. Like France and other countries had already done in the 1960s, converting hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars into gold at the official $35-an-ounce price, much to the concern of the Johnson administration. I've written about this previously on my Substack.
Look what happened as gold was allowed to reprice:
1971 official price: $35/oz
End of 1972: about $65/oz
End of 1973: about $112/oz
Late 1974: nearly $200/oz
And there's another problem with the F-150 example: there wasn't a Ford F-150 in 1971. Ford itself dates the F-150's debut to the 1975 model year. The comparable half-ton Ford in 1974 was the F-100. The one you have pictured in your story.
A 1974 F-100 Styleside had an MSRP of about $3,282. At $200 gold, that truck cost about 16.4 ounces of gold. The first actual F-150, in 1975, had an MSRP of about $4,002 — equivalent to about 20 ounces of gold at $200 an ounce.
Compare that with the example today: a $40,000 F-150 divided by today's roughly $4,360 gold price is about 9.2 ounces.
That's still a substantial decline in the truck's price measured in gold. But it isn't anything close to the drop from 73 ounces to 8 or 9 ounces claimed by starting in 1971.
Using the post-Bretton-Woods repricing, you're looking at something closer to 16–20 ounces then versus 9 ounces today. Roughly a 44% to 54% decline, not nearly 90%.
And that's really my point. In 1971, the measuring stick itself was in the process of being radically repriced. Starting the comparison there makes virtually everything else look extraordinarily cheap in gold today.
The numbers tell me to sit tight and watch the world go by. A pile of cash, and a bigger pile of metal. Should do me well for the next 20 years,,,,,if I live that long.
Jim Marshall
As from the song ….’ To look in the mirror in total surprise - at the hair on your shoulders, and the age in your eyes ‘ …
When you are old you look back and remember your history and with some philosophy on your time left.
That reflection only occurs when you are old and didn’t occur when we were young. Always with some regrets.
Oh....so true!
Jim
I was going to rant for a while, but then I thought better. If anybody thinks that sitting on a pile of gold is going to provide for them, when everyone around them is in a state of suffering, they are living in a bubble. You best buy some property in the backwoods of upper British Columbia and start stalking it with food, water, ammunition and medical supplies. Because historical experience tells us that those that don't have take from those that do when push gets to shove.
Pretty much. If/when the SHTF, the 2A will have value in first dealing with the wandering packs of feral third world illegals who will descend upon the defenseless like a swarm of voracious locusts.
2A?
2nd amendment to the US constitution.
"𝘼 𝙬𝙚𝙡𝙡 𝙧𝙚𝙜𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙈𝙞𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙖, 𝙗𝙚𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙣𝙚𝙘𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙖𝙧𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙚𝙘𝙪𝙧𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙤𝙛 𝙖 𝙛𝙧𝙚𝙚 𝙎𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙚, 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙩𝙤 𝙠𝙚𝙚𝙥 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙗𝙚𝙖𝙧 𝘼𝙧𝙢𝙨, 𝙨𝙝𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙣𝙤𝙩 𝙗𝙚 𝙞𝙣𝙛𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙚𝙙."
True. Although in that scenario, your precious-metals portfolio may need to include a little lead.
But if things actually turn into The Walking Dead or The Last of Us, a property in the backwoods of B.C. probably just delays the inevitable. Eventually, somebody finds you.
If the more likely future looks more like 1929 than a zombie apocalypse, though, the calculation changes. At some point you're going to want to trade for food, medical supplies and all the other things you can't produce yourself. And when that happens, an ammo crate isn't nearly as portable, divisible or universally recognized as a store of value as gold.
That's why Tom has us at roughly one-third precious metals, one-third cash and one-third stocks.
Try not to keep all your eggs in one ammo box, so to speak. Or all your ammo boxes somewhere "they" can find you.
It's why Bill has properties in four different parts of the world, and why Tom and his family remain mobile.
Dan is more your style: building a bolt-hole somewhere in Wyoming.
Don’t forget many bags of junk silver. I am too old to bang shingles, but I do intend to have something to barter with
Apparently, Argentina suffered an economic collapse in 2001. Fernando Aquirre documented his experience living during such a collapse in his book, "The Survival Manual: Surviving the Economic Collapse". Basically, people function with no security. You'll want to trade in your F150 for an armored car, if your lucky enough to find one.
High in the mountains of West Va, Virginia. Coming from a blue State five hours away. All the essentials. Yet still I’m looking at the next five years with trepidation. We will see. May God bless us all.
And now imagine if you held on to that gold from 1971 those 682 ounces could have possibly bought you 6 or more homes by the end of the decade.
You can’t buy a new F150 for 40k. Just sayin…
Amazing how a modest .25% interest rate bump by the Fed has instantly spawned End of the World scenarios.
Maybe the world as we know it (e. g., perpetual wars throughout recorded history) will end, but I don't think it will collapse anytime soon.
Certainly it will slow down due to higher prices, a deflating dollar and DJT's ready-fire-aim disposition, but stop it won't.
I wonder how long it will take for the "woke" to realize. Denial is the first stage of grief,
Bill soon all your daily messages will be assembled by Claude, all those years of text are already part of your LLM and this daily message reads like a compilation of what you've said before so no need to write anything new eh? but I suspect when the s**t finally hit the fan some new twists will appear for which even 'Claude' won't have words .. until you feed them to it .. RIP BPR