James:
Just a hint to my SurvivalBlog friends, if I had cash in the USA, then I would start buying gold now, and continuing to dollar cost average into the market since it may still go lower than Au @ $600 and Ag @ $11.02. Both are good investments for long term hedge/wealth preservation. Proviso for the record: I would never make a suggestion or advise in financial matters since that carries personal legal risk.
I suspect that we are witnessing the final metals manipulation before Euro conversion of some oil trading and inflation driven dollar devaluation. Do some web searching and find out how sales and bogus leasing of gold reserves by central banks to funds has been theorized to have manipulated gold markets for many years, pummeling prices.
As always beans then hardware a few bullets and then some gold/silver, cover your mundane survival stuff before making an expensive hobby with gold coins or gadget guns.
Don’t expect to be able to get too much survival stuff off of your gold gains as prices for this gear will likely rise as well, but be watchful of deals from the uninitiated. Try to do business as far from home as possible as you don’t want to break from your Grey Man “nothing to see here” image.
JWR Replies: I agree that gold and silver are great investments in the current economic environment. Of the two, I prefer and recommend silver for anyone that has sufficient vault space. At the current price of just under $11 per ounce, silver is a screaming buy! After the summer doldrums, I expect precious metals to break out substantially to the upside.