I dislike gold as an investment vehicle, but it is a sensible investment during a localized civil war that does not impact the global economy.
During a civil war, the local economy will be destabilized. This means that local production will drop off, and most things you want you will have to import (this includes the service of fleeing the country). In addition, your local currency will have become destabilized (possibly permanently), so outsiders won't find it desirable. Gold has a market outside your country, so outsiders would be willing to accept it as currency.
Basically, what you want is a currency with a global value, because it won't be affected by local conditions. Gold satisfies this criterion, as does USD in many cases.
I think most of the debate upthread can be summarized thusly: This criterion depends on a separation between local economic conditions, and global ones. In the US there is not such a distinction. If we suffer an economic collapse (whatever the cause), we're taking the world with us. As such, there is no currency with the properties that people are looking for.
> If we suffer an economic collapse (whatever the cause), we're taking the world with us. As such, there is no currency with the properties that people are looking for.
Yes exactly. And I hear too many people in the US say they feel like we are on the verge of some kind of massive revolution or civil war, which seems preposterous to me. Your average person would rather just get by than get involved in a bloody, civil conflict. There is a growing economic divide in the US, as well as a somewhat large rate of unemployment (mostly made up of the young and self-entitled, and older folks who's skills have become fairly obsolete), but compare it to countries where there have been actual civil wars in recent times and we're nowhere near that level of destitution and disparity. You need to get into multi-generational inequity, corruption, and despair before enough people will put aside their own relative comfortable complacency to get involved in armed conflict.
So buying gold for the coming apocalypse is silly.
Our economies are finally about to collapse under the weight of their impossibility, and that's likely to cause some kind of upheaval. That's not about Ethnic Group A hating Ethnic Group B, even though something like that may well happen all around Europe, for example. Economic rebalancing/calamity will come first though.
> In the US there is not such a distinction. If we suffer an economic collapse (whatever the cause), we're taking the world with us.
You could also argue that if Europe collapses, it will take down the US too. It could go either way, or there may be some kind of localized collapse. All continents have their Powers That Be, and those of other continents might well be able to detach themselves from one continent going down. All that really matters is order, and the ability to keep things chugging along.
During a civil war, the local economy will be destabilized. This means that local production will drop off, and most things you want you will have to import (this includes the service of fleeing the country). In addition, your local currency will have become destabilized (possibly permanently), so outsiders won't find it desirable. Gold has a market outside your country, so outsiders would be willing to accept it as currency.
Basically, what you want is a currency with a global value, because it won't be affected by local conditions. Gold satisfies this criterion, as does USD in many cases.
I think most of the debate upthread can be summarized thusly: This criterion depends on a separation between local economic conditions, and global ones. In the US there is not such a distinction. If we suffer an economic collapse (whatever the cause), we're taking the world with us. As such, there is no currency with the properties that people are looking for.