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A little caveat to that. I heard a report that when a Chinese ship pulls into port in CA, Chinese youth armed with big wads of cash carried in book bags, get off the ships and hit all of these C4G stores as well as others, and take the goods back to China.

China does have quite an excess of Dollar holdings to dispose of.

Cash4Gold and their ilk are horribly cynical organisations preying on the ill-informed. If you own any gold and you feel you have to sell, you must shop around (coin dealers will often give you a good price). If possible, hold on to your gold.

Whether these organisations have links to government, I doubt, however. Many Western governments (UK, Canada, Netherlands) have shown themselves to be pretty stupid by selling large amounts of central bank gold when the price was at historic lows, so running a scam like Cash4Gold would probably be too smart for them.

As an aside, the situation in India is interesting, however. Whilst the price of gold is artificially suppressed in the West where most gold bought by investors is "paper gold" (ie it doesn't exist), Indian investors buy huge amounts of real, physical gold. This is putting enormous pressure on the Indian rupee, and the Indian government is starting to get nervous. They have been introducing new import taxes, sales restrictions etc to steer investors away from gold. These overt mechanisms ultimately have the same objective as the covert mechanisms used by the US (eg the massive scams represented by the Comex and GLD; Fed intervention in the gold markets; mass media disinformation and financial press psy-ops against gold etc etc.).

Many Western governments (UK, Canada, Netherlands) have shown themselves to be pretty stupid by selling large amounts of central bank gold when the price was at historic lows, so running a scam like Cash4Gold would probably be too smart for them.

Thanks Brown, asshole.

"Cash for Gold" stores pay in CHECKS only NO CASH!

This bugged me, I tried for a few days to get a straight price for pure .9999 gold per troy, I could not get in contact with anyone from the company, nor get any sort of numbers from them. I was not planning on selling any, but was curious to see what they would tell you. I deal in silver anyways, too poor for proper gold buying.

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I honestly assumed you would never see your precious metal back again and only get burned in the end. Edit: I should also add they only enhance fencing of stolen goods too, assuming the crackhead is willing to make the effort to mail and wait.

No. The gold trade is very real with bona fide private parties. Every seller matches a buyer. Central banks buy direct from major refiners. Refiners buy from miners, dealers, and scrap businesses like cash4gold. Dealers buy from refiners, the US mint, individuals etc.

Margins are big for scrap dealers and scammy numismatic dealers. Everybody else earns modest margins of 1.5 to 3% trading standard bullion products.

I do NOT have any reason to the the government is directly involved in any aspect of the trade but I DO think that the media chooses carefuy which gold related ads it will run. Have you noticed how all the gold ads are just kind of ridiculous and make you feel like it's something only a frightened grandmother would buy? The ads never talk about the real reasons for gold... the reasons central banks hold gold.

This documentary covered it pretty well.

That did indeed have some great in-depth info!

And a nice hat!

Well said.

I always found it a little strange to see ads for gold dealers when reading a blog or article about the future collapse of the dollar. I wonder how much of it is hyperbole.

The webmaster sells ad space and those spaces are populated by an avertising company. He doesn't actually contract directly with the gold dealer. It's probably a bad idea to buy from a gold dealer who spends a lot on marketing though - he needs to charge more to pay for it.

When a currency fails gold is pretty much the only asset left standing. Not sure what you mean by hyperbole - that is just the reality of hyperinflation.

Just curious, do you believe hyper-inflation is happening now?

Also, I'm sure what you are saying is true, is it uncommon for any type of industry to directly sponsor articles or blogs?

Now? No. But there is definitely a lot more inflation than the government would like anyone to believe. They exclude commodities from their metrics

is it uncommon for any type of industry to directly sponsor articles or blogs?

Yes. It is a rare exception as it requires a lot of work for both parties to set up and measure how many ads have been sold, billing etc.

Most people sign up with somebody like http://www.valueclick.com/ and they place the ads. This is a mature industry, they are really good at targeting ads based on the content of the site and the demographics of the reader. Most of it is done automatically, they just put the ads where they'll get the most clicks, but they also follow the browser around and profile the individual reader too. Posting gold ads on an article about inflation is kind of a no brainer though...

You should just install this hosts file and you won't see any of that crap. Makes it much harder to profile you too. http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/hosts.htm

I guess I just don't understand the day to day use of gold after a collapse. Do gold holders just wait for the next currency to be issued and then trade their gold for currency? Or do they use gold in their day to day trading (like buying a gallon of milk, or a pack of cigarettes)?

You sell gold during the panic when everyone else is buying. Trade for stocks, rental properties, land, equipment.

If you save it until after the next currency comes along you will preserve your savings but you won't really profit.

Not trying to be a wise-ass or start an argument. But you do know the government made private ownership of gold illegal? Sorry for making assumptions, it's something that boggles my mind that the government did it.

On April 5, 1933, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 6102 making the private ownership of gold certificates, coins and bullion illegal, reducing the pressure on Federal Reserve gold.

Yes of course I am aware of that... so?

Order 6102 was not actually implemented, although it wouldn't surprise me to see something like that in the future. You can be sure if they're coming after gold that things are real bad and everything else is worthless. In that scenario gold is being circulated directly, not sold for dollars in a reportable and taxable transaction.

The thing about gold though is they'll have to kill people to get it. Unlike your bank account or stock portfolio which can be seized with a keystroke.

so?

Not sure how one could trade directly trade gold for stock or real estate without the state knowing.

Well if you wanted to break the law you could just not tell them.

Or you could try the face value loophole which would let you report a 1oz gold eagle as a $50 payment.

Of course this assumes the seller wants gold. Which they would if the USD is losing value fast.

Proof?

I would be more concerned about the water grabbing companies.

If the value of paper money ever plummets (especially American dollars), you will definitely not be USING that gold for anything related to paper money.

The kind of global economic apocalypse you're talking about would certainly involve total chaos, where MAYBE you could convince someone to honor a transaction in a gold coin.. but most likely they'll have a shotgun and just shoot you and steal your gold.

I am stocking up on toilet paper.

People will trade anything for it after the collapse.

One could use leaves from a tree...

So your toiletpaper is wortless.

But even worthless, it is still better then gold in post-crash world.

At least you can eat toiletpaper (hey, i'm not saying it's good for you, but it fills your stomach and has a better taste then pure gold).

One could use leaves from a tree...

After a year of doing this, and I show this person a fresh roll of toilet paper: This person is mine to own.

That explains why the government sued them out of existence. Totally.

You've no doubt heard of Zimbabwe inflation???

(Now this is what I want you to think long and hard about...)

Show me a Zimbabwe coin.

What will these coins be worth after inflation: http://www.coinflation.com/ ?

[edit] We are temporarily out of stock of Zimbabwean Coins http://www.wcoins.com/Zimbabwe.htm

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Coins do not have a good value of metal.

Get those rolls of silver-wire they use for jewelry. It's available and almost cost price silver, and will be easy to cut into very small pieces. (i'll accept 0.5cm for 1 egg, OK?)

gold is just as worthless as paper money

Could you explain why you think so?

Historically, gold has held its value better than any currency/commodity I know of... It's a truly scarce resource, isn't it?

I mean, I agree that food, shelter, arable land, education resources, transportation, etc... are the things which actually hold value (not to mention life, human or otherwise). However, it's not likely that bartering with bags of oats is going to be your best bet for living comfortably when fiat currency fully collapses.

Gold has worth because humans think its valuable, same thing as paper money, it is not, it can be used to make electronics, but at a much lower value. The true money is energy and other commodities.

You already explained why he thinks so.

Obviously, once the collapse comes, you think people will get through it quickly, so gold will hold value.

He probably thinks it might last a long time, thus not leaving any 'worth' for luxuries such as gold.

China does have quite an excess of Dollar holdings to dispose of.

Many Western governments (UK, Canada, Netherlands) have shown themselves to be pretty stupid by selling large amounts of central bank gold when the price was at historic lows, so running a scam like Cash4Gold would probably be too smart for them.

Thanks Brown, asshole.