Topic: When I hear "people should spend all of their money" instead of saving... (Read 4328 times)

"Gold is not worth anything. It can't even be eaten."

Funny how the idiots who say this kind of nonsense don't actually eat funny-looking pieces of paper with cultish symbols intaglio'ed on them.

Even if people hold gold as a saving medium, the available goods/services corresponds to those savings are continuously degrading. The best way to avoid degrading is consume those goods immediately. and that consumption in turn support other type of production. Otherwise the inflation will be unavoidable

I will be very happy to accept your worthless, unedible dollar bills then.  I' ll even give you a cookie for all of them.

True, but depends on just how bad the situation gets.


You sir, are a funny man !

"Banks are the cancer" is too simplisitc, I would differentiate a bit:

• sound commodity money: very good
• banks (depository and lending services with sound money): not bad
• banks (fractionally operating) and currency not fully backed: slippery slope to bad
• a banking cartel, fiat currencies with no backing, existence of a lender of last resort. all controlled by a small group of men: very bad

so i think we will go from the last point (we currently have this) to the first one (with bitcoin a contender for the money to be used)

I remember some old german woman on youtube being interviewed. She said something like this (paraphrasing): "Let me tell you: money is worth nothing! I tell you a story: after the war [I'm assuming WW2], my cousin and his child [or someone else, don't remember] went to a new city. After one week, they had a car and a bicycle... why? Because he had SILVER!"

After a disaster, there will be rebuilding and that requires some form of money... cigarettes, gold, silver, whatever will be used. If you have it: bingo. It's probably not going to be laundry detergant, but who knows.

This assumes saving == investment. OP talked about hoarding, though, which means "putting under matress". That money is not available to the economy.

hoarding != saving

These threads always seem to turn into worst-case-scenario worldwide disaster discussions. It's fun to discuss what would happen if society as we know it ceased to exist and all, but really, the chances of that actually happening are slim.

Don't get me wrong: like most guys, I find the thought of staking out my property against zombies with a 12-guage to be somewhat appealing for some reason, and it's interesting to ponder what would happen if the only value left was in the necessities.

It seems like conversations such as this start with a balanced "scale", but then people keep piling more and more weight on the side of the scale that leads to complete anarchy. It seems that this is extremely appealing to some people, myself included, because it taps right into our primal instinct of survival.

Seriously though, it's probably more likely that aliens decide to blow up the earth before that happens.

It'd be more worthwhile to discuss ways to save without too much risk in an economy that isn't going to evaporate.

I don't go for the "intrinsic value of gold" either *but* there's no doubting that it would still have some trade value (even greatly reduced) should the worst happen. If nothing else, *someone* will want an ostentatious display of their wealth.

if you would read the whole thread, i also suggests "frozen carrots" as a store of value.

i might lack knowledge of history, but you clearly don't read very well.

Quite right!

In modern economic theory, they always say that today's saving = future's spending. But that spending could come 20 years later when majority of people are feeling unsafe, so it is quite different view from long term perspective

If consumption = production, goods and services will be consumed very quickly and the amount of money needed for transaction is minimum (if you earn and spend 3000$ every month, money supply require maximum 3000$ throughout the year)

If consumption < production, you will create excessive amount of goods/services and they will be stocked and start to depreciate. At the same time, the amount of money supply will be magnitudes higher than previous case (If you try to save 30000$ for one year's life, money supply need to reach 30000$)

If consumption > production, then you are consuming value that has not been produced by you, you are in debt, and your future labour is contracted to pay back today's consumption. But that is risky since no one can guarantee the future

I think you should find a balance in between spending and saving.

If nobody spends anything, then there would be no economy.

Actually, you must use a balance between spending, investing and saving.
You should save money but also invest it.
But again, what are you if you only invest and save money?
Nothing, if everyone is doing that.  (You have people living minimalisticly just to save money, while they could be partly spending it on things they enjoy.)

Someone on this world must SPEND his money to make your INVESTMENT a good deal. You should SAVE money for the day you must SPEND the money.

That's how I think about it, you might say that I'm thinking with blissful ignorance but w/e.

Well, as mentioned by others, there are ways to 'save' that don't involve fiat dollars. Here are a few ways I 'save':

1. I buy materials that I'll need for my business (sole proprietor). I know what I need the most of, so I've stockpiled lots of those.

2. I buy PMs, Sure you can't eat gold but 5000+ years of history say that someone out there will be happy to trade some food for some gold or silver if there is a major catastrophe. If not, consider it a long term investment and it will probably pay off at a decent rate.

3. I buy long term storage food. You can buy #10 cans of Mountain House and similar style items that have a 30 yr storage without losing nutrition or flavor. You can also store your own foods long term, for up to 30 yrs depending on what you are storing. Look up "long term food storage in buckets" online and I bet you find a lot of suggestions. If food prices ever soar, I'm covered despite the declining purchasing power of my grocery budget.

4. I buy firearms/ammo. Check the demand on firearms over the last decade. I've heard of some people buying them as investments, plus you have the weapon in question in the meanwhile for defensive purposes (if necessary and if legal in your state).

5. Invest it into an appropriate alternative energy for your area. If you own your own house, why not own your own power as well. You'll save in the long term by not having to purchase your electricity from the power companies. Might take a few years to pay itself off but, you want to earn a real negative interest rate in a savings account instead I've only done a little with this one, still researching my possibilities and have a few tests set up.

6. Spend it on books or classes to teach you things you'd like to know. Knowledge is always a good investment.

7. Improve your land (if you own some) or buy some if you don't have any.

The list could go on and on and on. You can find lots of "alternative saving" plans online. I personally keep enough fiat cash around to pay the next month or so of bills, the rest goes into anything but fiat that I know I'll eventually use.

Thralen

Hello lets all go back to basics. The reason why we are having this problem is due to the wealth being diluted through inflation. Fractional reserve banking has been banned before.

The fractional reserve banking has been allowed to run its course and it hit the iceburg in 71 and since then whatever had given a positive value to what we had in our pockets has been removed. It is now a negative value or aka debt.

How do you save in a wealth vacuum other than PM's . The problem is everyone feels this shit we have in our pocket is worth something. Actually it is worth something, its only worth paying taxes with it. I would never give up my gold or silver to pay state taxes.

Yes I know we are given interest for the currency we hold in banks but at a level that is below inflation and can't even hold a flame against their creative fees that eat away at our lives.

nuff said. BANKS ARE THE CANCER AND THE PROBLEM

If people had a place to put money that was safe and honest I think little Johnny would spend less and save more.   

You misunderstand the definition of "fiat". Fiat money is money that can be created without restriction by the issuer. Shares of a company do not have that property.

what about the stockmarket?  would you consider buying them saving?  It's like you're spending fiat to try to gain more fiat.

The simplest and easiest to understand is land. Buy property with all your money. And if you are fearing a zombie apocalypse, buy the firepower you would probably need to defend it.

Saving is only for those 99.99999% of disasters that harm you and not the entire world.

No freeze 

trade.

you could invest in frozen carrots instead of gold.

If you save a lot of gold, then comes natural disaster, what is the use of those gold if all the factories have been wiped out in an earthquake?

Even if a private person think that he is saving, his saving at bank will still be loaned out for investment projects

Saving means: consumption < production, it always created excessive goods/services. If those goods/services can not be used to support future investment,  then they will just degrade and become useless. So when people put saving in action, it is very high pressure on investment front

And today's problem is that there is really very little choice that you can invest and make sure you can make money, maybe only long term investment will generate some return for sure