patrick.net

I have mixed feelings about real money. I like silver and gold and copper and nickel coins but they are much more useful for other things. Real money is real because you don't have to trust a third party. A one troy ounce silver eagle has a distinct look and feel and would be difficult to counterfeit. It has intrinsic value. That same ounce of silver could be used in manufacturing some cool stuff.

If we had a government, or central bank, that we actually trusted then fiat money might work but we don't. our money has been pure fiat for more than 50 years and we are headed for the inevitable crash that all fiat money systems have gone through. Unless they can pull off the great reset...

We live in interesting times.

richwicks says

People don't understand the purpose of commodities as money.

If the government collapses, there can still be trade possible. That's the purpose, to make government irrelevant in survival.

Yes, it would be a fundamentally different economy. There will be bartering. Homesteading would prepare someone to survive this.

There may be lawlessness and more rampant crime because there is no organized government.

People would have to take matters into their own hands as far as survival as they can't call 911. That is why homesteaders are very prepared for this.

Small neighborhoods would have to form partnerships and alliances to protect themselves as a collective, such as provide for their own security or police.

But it will be survival mode. No easy life as far as running down to Walmart to buy cheap electronics, and food.

Likely services from health care to utilities (electricity, internet, etc.) will be non existent.

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AmericanKulak says

When the government collapses, the thugs that work for the mob boss that runs the flea market sees the guy pull out silver rounds to pay for some antibiotics, a few of the guys follow him home, kill him and his sick kid, and take his stuff and his silver round stash.

Good point on physical safety/security. The US has the advantage of having high statistically armed civilians: so that thugs living off robbing people won't live long before running into civilians shooting back at the would-be muggers/home-invaders. Seems even today with the Soros DA's releasing thugs on minimum bails, the plan is avoiding wasting prison resources on them and hoping someone not in uniform would shoot and kill them, so that the government doesn't have to pay for more prisons, prison guards and prison doctors. IMHO, if/when the government collapses, even a full ounce silver round would be too valuable for buying random supply at the flea market or farmer's market. When the former soviet bloc countries collapsed, they all resorted to vodka/whiskey, cigarettes and tuna cans as circulating currency. In the US, the 90% silver quarters and dimes minted up to 1964 (and 40% silver half-dollars up to 1972) might become more convenient circulating currencies than alcohol/cigs/tuna. 100% silver rounds tarnish too quickly, and gold coins are too small unless making major purchases, so both are likely to be reserved for capital purchases or major appliances/equipment/car purchases.

ad says

Likely services from health care to utilities (electricity, internet, etc.) will be non existent.

There might be disruptions of utilities (but internet is designed to survive nuclear wars; the solar promotion in recent years might have something to do with survivability during power generation disruption); personal services will continue because doctors and nurses will have to eat as well (same as plumbers, electricians, etc.). Regulators preventing people from practicing medicine might have a hard time getting paid so they may have to practice medicine instead of stopping others from practicing medicine . . . which means the price of medicine will likely be lower (with much higher percentage of the money, close to 100%, going to the doctor/nurse doing the actual work, instead of myriads of paper pushers and legalized drug-pushers in the middle) but quality will depend on practitioner (as always is the case anyway, especially given the way med schools admit students based on race nowadays).

Reality says

Good point on physical safety/security. The US has the advantage of having high statistically armed civilians: so that thugs living off robbing people won't live long before running into civilians shooting back at the would-be muggers/home-invaders.

That is why employees are paid in company script. You certainly don't want half of your employees getting killed leaving the pay station, with their bag of gold dust and ingots.

Tenpoundbass says

That is why employees are paid in company script. You certainly don't want half of your employees getting killed leaving the pay station, with their bag of gold dust and ingots.

I don't think employees are paid in company script (company script would be a bearer instrument therefore just as enticing to robbers as cash) but usually checks drawn on whatever bank the company banks with (i.e. a check instrument with specific recipient name), mainly as a way of avoiding clerical errors. In any case, check-cashing (helping employees to turn pay checks into bearer instrument, usually cash) is a thriving business despite those check-cashing stores usually being located in neighborhoods that have high crime rate to begin with. The casualty rate at check-cashing stores are fairly low (understatement of the year; nearly non-existent), in fact lower than the average of the specific neighborhoods where they are located. At current price, $100 bills weigh less than the equivalent value gold (i.e. 20 Franklins weigh less than 1 troy ounce), so it is actually easier to grab-and-run $1M cash in $100 bills (22lbs) than grabbing-and-running with $1M worth of gold (about 34 lbs). I don't know, do you think the nicer neighborhoods where the former SVB customers showed up in their Porsches to run on the bank had more shootings at bank counters where checks get cashed?

We're not actually giving China Gold are we? What are we giving other countries when they call our loans?

Tenpoundbass says

What are we giving other countries when they call our loans?

A flyover by high level bombers?

Tenpoundbass says

We're not actually giving China Gold are we? What are we giving other countries when they call our loans?

The loans were made in fiat dollars; why would there be any need to pay back in gold? OTOH, under sound money system, those treasonous acts of shipping American jobs (and more importantly, American manufacturing bases) overseas would have been stopped a long time ago . . . and the huge highly centralized empires like China and Russia would have collapsed a long time ago because their giant bureaucracies wouldn't be able to survive without export trade adding liquidity to their economies that are constantly being sucked dry by the bureaucrats.