Awhile back I wrote an article on my old blog about the value of silver coins in the early 1960s and what they would still buy today and while listening to The Survival Podcast yesterday that topic was revisited by Jack Spirko and I thought it would be good to revisit it here as well for those who follow our blog and are interested.
In 1964 if you had a quarter (they were made of 90% real silver in those days) you could take it down to your local gas station and buy about 1 gallon of gasoline. If you had that same 1964 silver quarter today and took it down to a coin shop and sold it for its silver value you would have roughly enough to buy a gallon of gas today. That’s the value of honest money. Go to Shadow Government Statistics and look at the value of the U.S. Dollar in the past few years. Now, they say the Dow Jones Industrial Average is trading near all time historic highs again but if you look at how far the dollar has declined since 2008 and compensate for that then is it really? In June of 2008 silver was trading at around $10 an ounce and gold was trading at about $800 per ounce and most of the “experts” were saying that price was too high and get out of the metals market. Today, silver is around $32 per ounce and gold is trading at around $1650 per ounce.
So what does that mean? Well if it takes more dollars to buy items than it used to we usually call that inflation right? So there has been a great deal of inflation in those metals which at one time represented real, honest to goodness money in recent years. Jack went into a great deal more detail on this on his show and gave many more examples. I highly recommend listening to it and use the information to keep your wits about you in these times when they are getting ready to strike up the band and declare the economy has recovered. Do, use these times to strengthen your personal financial picture, keep an eye out for opportunities, etc. But don’t let yourself get caught in a debt trap trading years of your life in indentured servitude (i.e. consumer credit devices like credit cards) in exchange for sparkly expensive items that don’t add real value to your life or help you achieve real life, liberty and happiness. Never forget, it’s a big shell game so keep your eye on the pea.
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