Gold, Silver & Other Precious Metals
Investing
Gold and Silver have been used as currency longer than any other assets. Gold and Silver have been a traditional store of wealth for thousands of years. Paper or fiat currency has been the primary medium of exchange in the US since 1971. This means since 1971 US Paper dollars have not been backed by anything except the governments own credit. Before this, each dollar could be converted into gold at the US Mint. Let's take a look at the value of Gold vs. the US Dollar over history. As you can see from the chart below gold does not lose value over the long term. The US dollar on the other hand has lost 1/2 of it's purchasing power in the last 8 years under President Obama and the Federal Reserve. This means if you had $100 in the bank before Obama was in office then at the end of his tenure that $100 now has the purchasing power of $50. You can buy half the stuff you could before the US debt was doubled and the money supply had been doubled. Instead of keeping your money in a savings account earning 1/4 of 1 percent interest and then paying banking fees to store your US dollars that are continuously losing value over time, you should probably keep some of that savings stored in Gold or Silver.