What holds value in a worldwide depression?

I am not saying I believe this is likely to happen. But let's assume that oil prices keep going up sky high, food shortages continue, the value of the dollar plummets, Iran attacks Israel and all of a sudden we're in a regional if not global war, and then the U.S. goes into another great depression. Everyone's out of work, riots occur occasionally, bankruptcies and foreclosures like crazy, etc.

In at time like that, what would be a good thing to have? In other words, what could I buy and hold onto NOW that would help protect me and my family THEN. By protect, I mean what would help us through that time. What could we buy now and be able to sell then in order keep food on the table and keep us from going to the poor house?

Gold? Silver? Guns?

I know a lot of people would say food or oil. But I can only stockpile so much food and I don't have a place to store lots of oil. So I am looking for things I could save up that don't take up too much room.

I was thinking Kruggerands or 1 oz. gold bars. Also thinking guns would be handy for both barter as well as personal safety.

Any ideas???

Food and Water will be the best for bartering. But better make sure you can protect what you have.

Instead of stockpiling water Im opting for filtration devices. Easier to store and move in an emergency. As for the food the nessecary staples will be worth the most but you also have to think of you and yours before you start worrying about "What holds value".

Water, food, medicine, skills, bullets and women.

In that order.

Let me ask you this:

Can you eat gold? Can you drink it? If you barter with it can someone else eat or drink it? Can you shoot it to protect yourself?

What angers me is the whole "buy gold" crowd in terms of survival and peak oil. That crowd is just trying to make a buck.

In a future where things settle down enough that people can get together and trade in a marketplace; then great buy and sell gold.

But for the first 5 years minimum of an all-out Peak Oil crisis with civil unrest and global war, famine and crime unlike anything we have ever seen...gold and silver are worthless.

Here are the ten most important things to have:

1. Knowledge
2. Space (minimum 200 miles from a metro area)
3. Guns of common caliber (trading bullets will be worth more than gold)
4. Source of clean water in your space
5. Source if selfsubstaining food in your space
6. Energy (i.e. wood, coal, or even platns to burn in your space)
7. Building supplies (even mud and twigs in your space)
8. Willingness to be communial when the time comes
9. A wind-up or battery powered AM radio
10. Patience and faith.

Related threads to help frame and answer your question:

100 items

Post-Soviet Lesson for a Post-American World

Politics of Food

Luxury items, Whiskey, lipstick, stockings chewing gum, condoms.
If the US economy folds we will shortly be using the Euro.
Euros have gone up 40% in relation to dollar this year.

We are at war with Iraq because we dropped the gold standard and moved to the oil standard. Iraq tried to break the monopoly of trading oil in US dollars only. Iran is doing the same, they must be stopped. If the dollar is decoupled from oil, it will become associated with the next thing the world most associates with America, Coca Cola. We will be on the Coke standard. The dollar will collapse.

China is dumping US dollars, now we are not playing nice with them.
we will war anyone who threatens to dump their bucks. Because they are held up by the rest of the world having so many of them from our debt.
If we did not owe so much, we would have collapsed long ago. They do not wish their warehouses full of dollars to be worthless!

Most important things during economic depression:


* Civil Rights / Freedom

* Productivity in spite of economic conditions:
- Food
- Utilities
- Energy


When the foundation is secure, anything else can be built on it.


If TSHTF, we will have to go to work to make sure the supply of these things continue, whether there is money to do it or not. Money isn't needed for work, only to service debt.

Also, we must ensure that government doesn't become crazy in the collapsing mess to try and maintain control, at the terrible expense of the masses. It's important we all keep our clear heads and realize we're in this boat together.

I think globally there will be a lot of repudiation of the crushing burdens of debt all around the world. People are waking up to the fact that the banks that they are in debt to have created this money from thin air, not worked for it.

booze, tobbaco and gambling in a depression were popular in aus the last time.


in a full on situation run and hide in the wild places, live close to the earth, be nomadic and do not be tempted back to the ways of the world

therefore knowledge is the key