RANSVESTIA

value- they are receipts of value. Originally money was a receipt for a unit of gold stored someplace and recoverable upon demand. In the U.S. today, (a) there is only a small amount of gold in the treasury compared to the amount of money, and (b) the dollars are, by presidential order, no longer redeemable in gold anyway.

17. A word about margin buying. If you have a limited amount of cap- ital at the moment yet will be able to pay the interest, it is worthwhile to buy on margin because this means that you are able to tie up more metal at a time to profit on its subsequent increase in value. For example, you buy 3 bags of silver coins at a net price of $3500 (net means including the sales commission of 2%) on margin. You will have to put up about $1200 on each bag, or $3600 altogether. Or you could have taken $3500 and bought one bag outright. Now, say that after a year the value has risen to the point that you could sell at $5000 net. You have paid $1200 per bag and borrowed $2300. If you now sold only 1 of the 3 bags for $5000 ($1200 your original investment plus $3800 profit), you could take that money and pay off the loans on the other two bags - 2 x 2300 = $4600– have $400 in cash and own the two bags outright, for an actual value of 2 x $5,000 or $10,000 ($2400 being your own money). On the other hand, if you had used your original $3500 to buy 1 bag outright it would be worth the $5000, all right- but you would have only $3800 profit in it. So properly done margin buying can increase your assets substantially. My trip to Europe last year was paid for this way.

18. Finally, once you have bought either gold or silver for the purpose of asset preservation, forget the market price. It makes no difference whether it falls below what you bought at. You bought for the long term - 2, 5, 10, 15 years. All during that time the market will fluctuate temporar- ily up and temporarily down, but in the long haul the trend will be inev- itably upward because of (a) inflation, (b) demand by others for the metal for the same reason you bought it, (c) the inherent scarcity of gold and silver to begin with. So my motto is, buy it – store it – forget it. I don't mean forget where it is stored, but forget concern with the market value. In- cidentally, if you do take delivery of either gold or silver coins and if you stash them away somewhere other than a safe deposit box, be sure that the location is known to your wife or your executor or someone. People are all the time dying with unrevealed assets. They turn up every so often when houses are being wrecked or someone spades up an old garden, etc.

19. One word of caution: I have, in the beginning, indicated that there is a good chance things may get a lot worse. If you buy gold or silver and

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