BARTER ECONOMICS 101 - Part 1
"The Practical Application
of Gold and Silver
in the Coming Barter Economy©"
June 4, 2008 - by Michael Trudeau,
Economic Advisor and Monetary Specialist - ColonialResources.Com

As I sit before my computer reading yet another story of how “due to rising costs,” or “due to world wide shortages,” or due to something else out of my control, Americans are stockpiling or “hoarding food,” it dawns on me that people are beginning to quietly panic.

It used to be that when I read something like that, it would have been published in the Conspiracy Daily News or some other “not to be believed by normal folks” publication. Today, such articles are being published by Reuters, The Wall Street Journal, and other mainstream publications. And as the media industry saying goes, “the story has grown legs.”

I am now hearing on every TV and radio station, and I am reading in every newspaper, how Americans are beginning to hoard foodstuffs. I’m hearing it from my farmer neighbors chatting at the feed store and from other patrons at a café I frequent. It’s not bad advice, considering we are already experiencing shortages of basic staples such as rice and wheat. The rationing of food has begun right here in America.

“Hoard food, gold and guns!” has been the battle cry of many a weary doom-and-gloomer over the years. This is a cry heard many times before. First it was the Y2K event that never happened. Since then we’ve had SARS, Bird Flu, Peak Oil, New World Order, banking collapse (who knew,) the dollar’s collapse, and the threat and actual act of terrorism given as reasons to hoard gold, food, water, guns etc. These are all very credible threats and good reason to be prepared at all times.

Being prepared is perhaps what sets me apart from most of my peers. I was a Boy Scout and apparently this is where I began to run astray of the collective. Like the Boy Scouts motto suggests, “Be Prepared,” I have pretty much always been preparing.

I didn’t run out and buy long-term storable foods, duct tape, plastic sheeting or water purification tablets prior to Y2K, I didn’t have to. I watched the “panic” quietly develop around me, but there was no panic at our house because we had already been preparing for a time without. In recent days, however, it would seem that the collective is catching on.

Should you prepare? That’s a question best answered by ones own self, but I can certainly say there are a myriad of threats facing us right now that could very easily disrupt, or worst case scenario destroy our nations infrastructure or at the very least, our transportation system. Currently the country runs on a system of supply known as JIT or “Just in Time” inventory.
This means that when a store is about to run out of a product, there is a truck offloading that very product at the store’s loading dock to renew the supply, “just in time.” Any disruption to the system and the end result is no more supplies.

One of the reasons we began to prepare at our house was the demise of the Soviet Union. I remember watching the nightly news reports of Russian grocery stores running out of food, while the ruble was being reduced to rubble and people were trying to trade anything of value left in their possession for loaves of bread. As a kid, I had always viewed the Soviet Union as our equal in size and economy so I figured, if it could happen to the Russians, one of the worlds two accepted “superpowers,” then it could surely happen to us here.

Another reason is the knowledge that our fiat currency is losing value at a rate unprecedented in our history. When I was a kid, candy bars were a nickel and I could get twenty Hershey bars for either a paper dollar or a silver dollar. Today, my paper dollar only buys only one Hershey bar; however my silver dollar (based upon its silver value), still buys me all twenty. I think we can all draw a basic conclusion on this; paper dollars are not long for the world.

I also had read Dr. Franz Pick’s book The Triumph of Gold about how his father kept his family alive during Germany’s infamous Weimer Republic with links from a gold chain. During a very brief period of only nine years, Germany’s currency experienced a period of hyperinflation. Beginning in November of 1914, the German mark could be exchanged at a rate of approximately four marks to the dollar. By 1923, the exchange was four trillion marks to the dollar. Reading Pick’s book was enough for me to employ some common sense and to become prepared for a “time without plenty.” It’s uncanny how closely our current monetary policy mirrors the Weimer Republic.

I have had innumerable conversations with those who have for one reason or another decided to begin preparing for a “barter economy” or rather a world without regularly stocked grocery stores, or for that matter, regularly stocked anything else. In fact, this is the reason for my writing this article. I will try to set the record straight and offer up a basic understanding as to just how things might work in such a system of commerce. I will also address some of the more common mistakes I have seen too many people make as they add gold and silver to their positions for barter type transactions..... TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK...

If you have interest in learning how to privately acquire gold and silver coins, or you simply want more information, please contact us at:
Colonial Resources at 1-800-685-4042 or  Email Us Here
TELL US YOU READ THIS ON the MastersConnection!