Last night I made a personal convert to gold and silver. A longtime friend (let's call her Jane) who is a college graduate, and has taught Jr. High math for 5 years was in town visiting. Over dinner, she asked me what type of investment I recommended she make with her life savings, which was currently sitting in a savings account. She informed me that her life savings was roughly $7,000 (which was what remained from the $8,000 federal stimulus refund she received when she purchased a new home in 2009).
When I responded that I would recommend she invest in gold and silver, her response
"What is that?"
Not "gold is a barbarous relic", or "what about storage fees and issues", or even "gold doesn't pay interest or dividends". No, her reply was "What is that? "
As you can imagine, I was nearly speechless. Even my wife had to struggle to suppress a laugh.
This is a middle American, college educated, financially stable, teacher of America's youth who DOES NOT EVEN KNOW WHAT GOLD AND SILVER ARE, much less ever even CONSIDERED investing in either!
Now to her credit, literally around 90 seconds into my sound money/impending dollar collapse thesis, (and after I pulled out a roll of silver Eagles for her to hold) Jane said "ok, can I just buy it now?"
10 minutes later Jane had a gold Canadian Maple and 100 US Silver Eagles being shipped to her house from an online dealer.
I don't tell this story to embarrass or belittle my friend, who is actually very intelligent, much more so than the average sheeple we meet every day.
I tell this story to make several important points.
1. The average American has absolutely no personal savings.
2. The average American does not even know what gold and silver are! To most of our readers the concept of gold and silver as the ultimate insurance and preserver of wealth is basically second nature. It takes a conversation with a normal American to fully grasp what little understanding the common man/woman on the street has about gold and silver!
3. Trust is an incredibly powerful tool at influencing the investing decisions of the masses. Jane put her entire life savings into physical gold and silver because she trusted my advice. She did not make the decision based on any information/evidence I presented. Jane did not make her decision based on silver's supply/demand fundamentals, because she learned JP Morgue/ HSBS have sold over 100 million ounces of silver short and are manipulating the silver market, or because gold and silver are sound money and would protect her wealth and savings from inflation or a collapse of the US dollar. No, Jane purchased 100 silver Eagles and 1 gold Canadian Maple because she trusted my opinion. Pure, blind faith.
Honestly, is Jane any different than the average American who walks into Edward Jones and meets with his investment adviser? Average Joe hands over his money and basically tells his investment adviser "I'm too uneducated to wisely invest my money, can I pay you to do it for me? You say California MUNI's are giving great rates, T-bonds are the safest thing ever, and AAPL is the best stock since Microsoft? Whatever you say Mr. Jones!"
4. Don't listen to anyone who attempts to scare you out of gold and silver by telling you that they are in a bubble. When the common Jane does not have a clue what gold and silver even ARE, it is clear that we are not even close to the INITIAL STAGES of the 3rd leg of the massive precious metals bull market, when the general public becomes involved, rushes all-in, and takes out 2nd mortgages to invest in gold, silver, and their related stocks.
5. We need to start doing more to help educate others outside our community. This is why our upcoming Silver Viral project is so critical. We will be initiating discussions about silver in forums, blogs, and social sites where silver is not the focus or common knowledge.
It's time to graduate from student into teacher.
It's time to take the message of the freedom that gold and silver provide to the masses.
It's time to take Silver Viral.
-The Doc
11 comments:
you didnt tell her to invest in t-bonds? lol
love everything about this!
I like this.. Would you advise people in the UK to buy silver.......
Definitely, Anonymous! The UK's debt situation is nearly as bad as the US'. Gilts could conceivably take down the system before US treasuries do! Even if the US goes first, the UK won't be far behind. Silver and gold will protect you from that.
Doc, any thoughts on investing in the Sprott, BMG, or CEF mutual funds?
I've loaded up on phyzz but need to defer tax $$ buy rolling my severance into an RRSP. Otherwise the tax man will kill me!!
From what I've read these mutual funds load up on the real stuff.
Any thoughts or comments would be appreciated.
Even though I think she made a good decision, Its unwise to TRUST ANYONE!
Now she needs to do her own due diligence and gain self-conviction. This will allow her to handle the extreme volatility in the PM complex.
The best place to start is to understand the nature of fiat currencies and how they all eventually fail. In fact, we are all now caught up in a vortex of fiat failure via debt saturation. This is the end game and why PM's are our insurance policy.
I thoroughly enjoyed Doc’s story on converting the “Average Jane.” I spoke with Doc personally the night of the convert and know “Average Jane” personally. The story is real. We seem to get lost as silver investors and actively seeking silver news daily that we lose touch with some of the people who have no idea on their financial future. While most people know the words gold and silver, their knowledge stops at jewelry. Actually buying pure gold and silver….most individuals put minimal thought into the idea. If they have, the top questions I run into are where would I buy it (without being scammed) and how would I store it? Few actually follow through with the purchase. I will share my convert story on SilverDoctors.com soon.
Anonymous 6/12 12:58pm:
taking the tax hit and picking up the physical is the safest route to go, if you already have plenty of physical and really can't stomach the tax hit, I'd probably go with Sprotts PSLV.
Doc
Thanks Doc. My plan was to 'defer' taxes today but over the next year or so bleed the money out of the RRSP (taxed at a lower rate than today) to buy more phyzz.
Cheers!
utilizing the levy struck along with buying the particular bodily may be the most dependable option to proceed, should you curently have a good amount of physical and really can not belly the levy strike, I might probably go with Sprotts PSLV.
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