Don Diego may be right...................

Kool. You grow the food, and we'll come avisiting right after harvest time. We'll even leave you enough to get by so you can do our farming for us next season, as well.

You do understand that the taken from typically gets tired of it and he who takes either gets killed off or looses their food source. Typically due to folks leaving and not growing food to be taken away from.

And you are aware that they call those Benjamins valuable for a reason. Now go look up the word tautology and get back to me.

And getting back to Las Vegas, sort of. Nevada is called the Silver State because of the Silver Rush. At that time, silver was more "valuable" than gold. Again, it was just a matter of opinion. Just like paper money.

How long ago did they start using gold for money? If the answer is more than 2,000 years, then your argument for precious metals is moot. Paper on the other hand, well it should burn quite good.

If I remember, they mined silver in Nevada back then AND they used paper money to buy things.

Unless by placing the word "valuable" in quotes allows one to define it however one chooses [note 1], this is not so.

In 1834, the US Congress set up a "bimetallic" [monetary system], based on both silver and gold:
1 ounce (troy) of gold = $20.67. (This valuation lasted until 1934.)
1 ounce (troy) of silver = 1/16 ounce of gold, or $1.29.
This [16/1] ratio had to be abandoned in 1873, as huge deposits of silver were discovered and mined. The US went on the gold standard.[This newly discovered/mined silver includes the "Silver Rush" to which forkush refers. It wasn't called a "Silver Rush" because silver was more valuable than gold, but because, umm, . . . well, . . . because the Comstock Load of western Nevada contained silver, not gold. - DD]
Ref: Gold and Silver Standards



Ref: Gold/Silver Ratio


The value of precious metals vs paper money is reflected in the 20th and 21st century as well.

Through the year 1964 US change, . . . specifically halves, quarters, and dimes, . . . contained silver.
When DonDiego was in elementary school he could place a dime in the slot of the Coke-machine on the front porch of Meterko's Meat Market next to the elementary school and receive a cold, refreshing bottle of Coca-Cola. (Mike Meterko, son of the owner, was one of young DonDiego's friends.)
If DonDiego were to insert a dime into a Coke-machine today, it would likely fall through the slot into the change tray and DonDiego would remain thirsty. But if DonDiego were to have saved a dime from, say, . . . 1958, when he was in the 5th grade, . . . he could sell it at a local coin dealer for over $2 (the actual silver is worth $2.56 today, but the dealer would pay less), and then buy a Coca-Cola.

It seems the price of refreshment has remained relatively constant; only the value of US money has changed.


note 1: "'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'"Through the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll

DonDiego might want to take a cruise back to WWII. During the war silver usage in coin was reduced as well as copper. The 1943 zinc penny is and example of such.

My childhood contained $0.17 Pepsi's, although I did get $0.05 for the deposit on the bottle.

I'm still confused about this gold and WROL thing. Unless you got the gold in your pocket, how do you use it for currency equivalent? Ain't no more Internet or mail service. You better have your gold in little pieces. No one is giving you change for a Krugerrand. Buy some canned soup and hide in your basement. Break your windows and throw some crap in your front yard to make it look like your house was already looted.

DonDiego shares snidely333's opinion.

He is hoping to be able to cash in his investment shares before the SHTF. But for the moment his mining shares are appreciating more rapidly than the gold metal itself. And he opines bits of gold smaller than a Krugerrand would be more useful, . . . maybe British Sovereigns, . . . or even pre-1964 US silver coins.
(Under the appropriate conditions a Krugerrand could be very valuable. It is DonDiego's recollection that upon the Fall of Saigon the fare charged by boatmen on the South China Sea to evacuate a Vietnamese refugee was 1 Krugerrand. If one didn't have one, . . . one ended up in a re-education camp, at least for a little while.)

DonDiego may well employ snidely333's tactic of throwing crap on his front yard and breaking a less-important window. And then he'll hunker-down inside with his Ruger 357MAG revolver.

Ok Snidely, here's how the end of the world works:

Once everything (money standard, mainly) has fallen, we will be on the barter system. If you have something I want then we trade for something to get it. Else, I shoot, you die and I take everything.

Typically we band together and build a fortress, pull all of the resources together and barter with other folks to get what we need. Also helps in fending off (killing those looting bastards) bad guys.

After a period of time, when some (a few) well stocked folks take over and decree themselves lord of the land. Then you follow what that person says, unless the more powerfull one wants to kill you.

Do you get to spend the gold after you build the fortress?