Let's talk gold and silver

[Randy Ray]

I like what Warren Buffett had to say about investing in gold: "Gold gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head."

Personally, I've never seen any upside to investing in precious metals. I'd much rather own percentages of good businesses. If you make intelligent stock market decisions, you should do fine in the stock market. Go read Ben Graham's The Intelligent Investor or one of the many good books about Warren Buffett.

That being said, I invest most of my money into my own businesses. I can buy a domain for $10, spend $10 a year on hosting for it, and do enough development on it in a day to make $100+ a year. That's a huge return on your investment compared to almost any other business.

[Bryan]

Personally, I've never seen any upside to investing in precious metals. I'd much rather own percentages of good businesses. If you make intelligent stock market decisions, you should do fine in the stock market. Go read Ben Graham's The Intelligent Investor or one of the many good books about Warren Buffett.

man randy, you are gonna be so screwed when the global financial system collapses!

[PokerDude]

That being said, I invest most of my money into my own businesses. I can buy a domain for $10, spend $10 a year on hosting for it, and do enough development on it in a day to make $100+ a year. That's a huge return on your investment compared to almost any other business.

Randy, that's a great point, and this philosophy is quite scalable, although their may be diminishing returns after you hit 'N' number of websites (the maintenance may kill you). Still, real good point.

[Spry]

while it is true that gold is horded, silver is consumed.

Silver is used in all sorts of technology that are growing in demand (computer chips, cell phones, etc). And while it is mostly horded, gold is useful in many sorts of electronics and space technology - but i totally agree that the value of gold is not because of it's usefulness in a consumer metal. It's value is in what someone else will trade you for it and historically other people have always traded things for it.

[Randy Ray]

man randy, you are gonna be so screwed when the global financial system collapses!

Nah, man. We're practically off the grid out here where I live these days, and I'll have plenty of booze to barter with.

[scrawnybob]

"That being said, I invest most of my money into my own businesses. I can buy a domain for $10, spend $10 a year on hosting for it, and do enough development on it in a day to make $100+ a year. That's a huge return on your investment compared to almost any other business."

that outlook is pretty much my conclusion why I'm going to stop paying into my already pitifully inadequate pension

when they send you a letter proudly telling you that you have paid in x over the year and your pension is now worth -3x

you kind of think - hell I could have lost 3 times as much of my money in a year having a whole lot more fun with it than giving it you muppets

if you built out websites to make only a 100% profit at the end of a year - thats easily ahead of my pension predictions over a 25yr period

cheers SB