Talking Survival Works! Silver Doesn't

With all letdowns I’ve dealt with this week (at the end of the post) I was really thrilled to hear about the 16 year old girl who walked through the mountainous woods for over two days after her grandparents planed crashed.  Her parents said that one of the things that they did as a family was watch survival shows and also talk about survival issues.  It’s the same reason I talked with Boy about walking 200 miles home from camp if a big earthquake struck.  I don’t expect that he’d really have to walk even ¼ of that distance ever.  These discussions and small challenges we give them give the kids the strength to KNOW that they can take care of themselves and get themselves to safety.  This 16 year old girl proved that.  She set her mind to it and didn’t give up on herself even though she couldn’t rescue her grandparents. 

I got thinking about silver.  You know we are all told to save silver and, if we can afford it, gold.  Don’t forget to save nickels too since they are worth more than a nickel.  I have about a month’s worth of take-home pay in silver and small bills sitting in the safe at home.  What good is the silver really?  When we read all the survival books they all use silver coins for payment when they aren’t bartering.  When will this need really happen where silver coins need to be used rather than dollar bills?  Not during Katrina.  Not during Sandy.  Not in Greece when the banks were closed for a couple of weeks.  Only if the entire country completely collapses.  If China succeeds in having world’s oil bought and sold in their currency rather than in U.S. dollars would this destroy our economy so bad that we’d be paying in silver coins?  Would the price of silver skyrocket?  I decided to do a little research.  Most of the websites that show silver prices don’t give a full picture.  I found one that gave me just what I was looking for. 

This chart shows the price of silver for the past 100 years.  This is not the price with inflation included, just the price.  What do you see?  Twice in the past 100 years has the price of silver skyrocketed.  In the late 70s through 1980 it was caused by a frenzy spurred by political issues and investors clamoring to get into the market.  Industrial use during that time fell about 25% although everyone was told that there was a shortage.  What about just a couple years ago? Do you remember that spike?  I do.  People were standing in line to buy silver.  Silver dollars were all sold out in my area and 1 oz. silver coins were all that was available.  I bought some and felt really happy that I bought it for $26 an ounce.  Industrial use wasn’t causing a shortage. It spiked because of political frenzy.  But isn’t the political frenzy the reason hold silver?  The state of Utah will take silver value as payment.  Some stores, mostly survival minded stores will take silver and bit coin.  I can’t find any place that has reverted to a silver economy during disaster, have you?  So silver just sits and waits along with the storage of survival foods.  At least with the foods we rotate the stock!

The bug-out place didn’t close escrow and the reason was because the buyer worked too far away.  Imagine that!  The bug-out place is not close to San Francisco!  According to the lender, and I got it straight from his lender, they can only consider it a second home rather than his primary residence because of the distance.  This means that we may not have enough money to put up the barn/apartment this summer.  I think we still do, at least the barn part.  The apartment portion can be completed once the building is weather-tight.  It also means that I have to put more money and time into the bug-out place.  It doesn’t have a kitchen or any flooring and the bathrooms still need repairs.  I was really hoping that I wouldn’t have to spend any more money on it.  Oh well.  Am I thinking about selling some of the silver?  It’s weighing on my mind. 

New property has the permits for the septic and also has the arrangements for the electricity.  It’s going to cost $17,000 to put the electricity in.  The county has an interesting program that if anyone, within the next five years, uses the additional line that we are having put in then we will get a refund for their portion.  Does that mean I want to hope we get more neighbors?  No.

Girl has been really obnoxious around her brother.  Boy was home for one day before heading back to camp and Girl was with us for the four hour drive.  He couldn’t say one sentence without her telling him to be quiet.  He was sitting in the back seat entertaining himself quite nicely by reading road signs out loud.  She was really annoyed because he was “stating the obvious,” as she put it and that he should be quiet because nobody cares.  As soon as I dropped him off her attitude completely changed and she was happy and cheerful.  But guess what?  I wasn’t in the mood to be happy and cheerful back.  She started doing the same thing that he was doing to keep herself entertained.  I told her she should be quiet because she was “stating the obvious.” She said she thought it was perfectly fine.  I told her she was a hypocrite. She said that people have told her that before. It’s not something to be proud of.