Hello Wilfred,

On Friday August 09 2019 19:54, you wrote to me:

 WV>>> The paper money is much easier to create, or those numbers in
 WV>>> your bank account can be created at no effort at all, by a push
 WV>>> of the button.

 MvdV>> Creating paper money is still too hard to do it in my own
 MvdV>> garage...

 WV> As is creating gold...

Als, I have not yet found the magic word to transfrom led into gold...

 MvdV>> Indeed. It has value only because there is consencus that it
 MvdV>> has value. If society collapses that value will collapse as
 MvdV>> well.

 MvdV>> My point is that gold is not immune to that process.

 WV> It depends largly on the kind of collapse. But untill such a thing
 WV> happens, gold (and related products), is just another asset class you
 WV> can invest in, with some unique properties, because it has little
 WV> correlation to the value of other assets.

Which can work the othe way as well. It canb devaluate just like that.

 WV> It can protect against inflation and devaluation of your currency.

Then who o what protects against devaluation of the gold?

 WV>>> If that happens I rather have gold than numbers in a
 WV>>> bankaccount, of a bank that no longer excists...

 MvdV>> If society as we know it collapses and we are back to the dark
 MvdV>> ages,

 WV> Gold was valuable in the dark ages...

In the dark ages only those who had the means to protect it with right of might 
had gold. 
If the dark ages return and I had gold, I would not have it very long...

 MvdV>> you and I will not be able to survive. With or without gold.

 WV> How likely is a full collapse? If you think it isn't very likely, gold
 WV> is a usefull investment.

Very few people that invest in gold actually have the metal in their posession. 
Most of it is numbers in a "gold account" in a bank. Susceptible to the same 
vulnerabilities as any other bank account.

 WV> And it's hard to protect yourself against a full collapse. Valuable
 WV> things when such a thing happens, are knowledge about how to survive
 WV> under such circumstances, and weapons.

I would not have a chance. I might have had 40 years ago. But at my age? Forget 
it.

 WV> These help to protect your other assets that will help you survive, or
 WV> aquire them when you don't have them. But it's very hard (in Europe)
 WV> to have these kind of weapons (== illegal).

If weapons were as easy to get as in the US, I still would not have a chance. 
There is always someone faster...

 WV> And knowledge takes a lot of time to study and practise. Time better
 WV> spend on learning about how to invest in gold, if you don't think a
 WV> full collapse is likely. ;)

I am not optimistic. Humanity is unable to control its numbers. I think that 
planet earth can not support another doubling of the number of people as we 
have seen in the last 40 years. The quay will turn the ship somewhere this 
century. I expect not to live to see it, but who knows...


Cheers, Michiel

--- GoldED+/W32-MSVC 1.1.5-b20170303