Bartering And Horse Trading (Part Duh)

[Spectrism]

Tag sales.... I always ask: Have any old coins or silverware for sale? Sometimes I get lucky.

In the pic, the top two items shown next to a quarter- spoon and spreading knife are 2.4 t.oz Sterling. I got them today for 25 cents each.

The knife at bottom has a Sterling handle. That was 75 cents.

[agnut]

Thanks all. So much to write about. Went to a Chinese buffet a couple of days ago and noticed that there was no shrimp being offered in any form. Usually there are three types offered.

Maybe there is a lesson to learn here. When something we have been used to getting all our life suddenly vanishes like shrimp, we adapt and eat more of the other dishes served.

But what happens when something like toilet paper or canned tuna or coffee suddenly disappear from the market shelves ? Or something for which there is no substitute ? This is the reason why we stock preps (not “hoard”; I hate that word).

Ponce’s post on the general section about a toilet paper bargain may well be a future necessity as well as a bargaining item. Think about it; trading food, liquor or bullets is a no no. But toilet paper used for bartering is about as safe as you can get. Think of the factories making toilet paper. What if they shut down in a collapse ? Toilet paper is something there is no equal substitute for. Used newspapers ? Sears catalogs ? A sponge ? Yuck !

And think of the ladies out there. Imagine the points you will make in their knowing that you had stocked a huge “load” of several years’ toilet paper. Boxes of Kleenex may become a rare luxury. Of course, you might have a hard time getting any away for trading material. Just saying.

A toilet paper scarcity would give new meaning to “three squares a day”.

And what other items that we take for granted would be very desirable trading material ?

And which items bought at X dollars now will be worth multiples in a few years ?

What did Ponce take to Cuba some years back ? Yep, you guessed it. TOILET PAPER. And large bottles of aspirin. His family acted as though it was Christmas morning. Do you know where their bathrooms are ? Well, you take a shovel and dig a hole in the back yard….. And pray you don’t hit pay dirt.

We are so incredibly spoiled with more conveniences than in any place or time in history. And I hear a lot of bitching about many inconsequential petty problems. When the wheels fall off the economy, I think millions will go into shock. I expect that we who have prepped will have enough difficulties to deal with but the unprepared will be overwhelmed. As Gerald Celente often says, “When people lose everything, they lose it.”

I’m writing this to tell you that we may have only a few months to finish getting ready. Don’t think so ? Well, I have reread the first bartering and horse trading posts about 3 ½ years ago (Jan 2007)and things were so different then. We had Bush jr as president and thought things couldn’t get worse. Hoo, boy were we wrong. Real estate hadn’t yet become unreal estate. Unemployment wasn’t on everybody’s minds. And we didn’t have an oil volcano going off in the Gulf of Mexico. And so on…

So if things have changed this much in the last 3 ½ years, just imagine what the next 3 ½ years will bring. Not to disparage anyone’s quantity of preps but we ALL, no matter how prepped, will come to the end of our preps at some time in the future. What then ?

Well, bartering and horse trading has the ability to lengthen the time of exhaustion of our preps. Remember, Cuba has been going through privation for several decades with no end in sight. Anyone thought of how many years it will take for us to recover ?

Another answer is to have skills developed which will be in demand in hard times. Shoe repair ? Good idea but you better have tools and material set aside. Baking bread ? Better have ways of baking as well as a continual supply of wheat and sugar. And in my case, better have plenty of parts to repair transmissions. The critical factor in all skills is that, aside from the demand, there must be the raw materials to complete the job. Wise to think through possibilities from the beginning to the end and what materials it will require in order to carry through the years. Otherwise a skill to be offered will cease when you run out of “prep” material. Like food preps as opposed to growing your own food. Think renewable resources.

Best wishes,

Agnut

[agnut]

Gotta go; please post any experiences you may have. This thread is meant to be for all of us to share.

Whew! I have been saving this photo for weeks now waiting for this new Bartering And Horse Trading thread:

o-->

Hi Book; that is sooo wrong ! We all had a good laugh though.

Best wishes,

agnut

[Ponce]

Ponce <--------waiting to read Agnu's new post........get your butt moving, and I don't mean up and down

[agnut]

Greetings all. I have been thinking about where we are on the timeline of general financial well being. There is a reason for this post which I will get into at the end. The following thread is chock full of points to ponder. Please read it in its entirety. But first, a couple of posts from this thread that are appropriate to bartering and horse trading :

“Yep, it's called the barter system.....and bartering will become more and more common as this depression deepens.”
Doctor fungcool (posted 12,522 times) post #16

And :

“People who denigrate bartering as impractical never needed a bag of potatoes to feed to their family that night, or the family would go hungry. They're still imagining a world where their lawn gets mowed every week, their 401(k) is intact ( if not very good ), they have medical care available somehow, they have an automobile or three, they have their eye on that new 5-iron or GPS device. They can't imagine how it would be possible to line up all those trades for the goodies they have always enjoyed. It gets a heckuva lot simpler in the worst of times.”
UncurledA (posted 3,733 times) post #18

“Yes we are in a Great Depression”

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/showthread.php?t=362526

And finally, Troke with 29,771 posts sums it up :

“Well folks, lots of (wishful?) thinking here.

Now we all know we cannot have the Big D until O declares a bank holiday. I have read that on this very forum.

Now the purpose of unemployment, FDIC etc was to prevent the Big D. And it has. So to run around claiming we are in the Big D is bullsh*t. Not yet, anyway.

How will you tell? Easy. No cars on the street, nobody at WallMart, half the restaurants closing, nobody at the car dealers etc etc etc. That is what happened in the 1930's. I was around at the end of it and I heard the stories.

We ain't there yet so it is stupid to claim we are. Kind of like those folks running around here claiming we were in the Big R at the precise time that Gov revenues were the highest in history.

Are we heading for the Big D? Sure looks like it to me but we are not there yet..

BTW, 40 million on food stamps? That is about 12% of the population. Yet everybody 'knows' that the real unemployment rate is 20-25%. If so, why is not 20-25% of the population on food stamps? One would surely think that.

Anyway, I tremble for my grandchildren. I don't see a way out of this because of the large number of people in high positions who want us further into it so they can consolidate their power.”

So after having read this thread, where are we on this financial being timeline ? Well, there are many things to consider before taking drastic action.

1. What is our individual savings situation in relation to our ongoing expenses ? In other words, how much money do we have socked away against our living expenses ? A month’s worth ? A year’s worth ? As stated in the above thread, 43% of Americans have less than $10,000 for retirement. How many months would that last ?

2. Can we reliably get this money when we need it ? Is it in stocks or bonds ? A 401K or IRA ? Let me know how that works out for you.

“If you don’t hold it, you don’t own it”
Ponce

Now is this quote becoming more starkly apparent to you as time passes ? In other words, are you losing confidence in what assets you believe you have that are NOT in your possession ? You should be. Bigtime too !

Years ago when the gold and silver funds GLD and SLV came into being, I had a gut feeling of foreboding because they were being created and run by two big banks. Banks that were heavily shorting gold and silver on the commodities exchange. And now, years later we learn that they have only 1 ounce of physical gold and silver for every 100 ounces they are supposed to have. Now it appears that there is naked shorting on the commodities exchanges as well as the GLD and SLV funds. Doesn’t that make the hair stand up on the back of your neck ? It should. The term “fractional reserve gold and silver” comes to mind. You know. Like fractional reserve banking where the banks keep only 1 or 2 percent (if that) of your/their money in cash. A sin to do with unbacked (or debt if you will) fiat paper currency but to do this with gold and silver…. I can’t even think of words to describe the depth of my disgust and revulsion.

Fractional reserve should be called fictional reserve.

And quantitative easing should be thought of a qualitative sleazing. (as in sleazy). By the way, have you managed to get any of the trillions of dollars created out of thin air ? Not even a buck ? Me either. This reminds me of a word I made up years ago to describe what I saw coming. Hyperstagflation. That is, a scenario in which wages are going nowhere or decreasing as taxes are rising, costs are rising, unemployment is rising, etc. The end result is the driving the middle class into poverty. Isn’t this happening now ? As I have written in the past, we are in the midst of WWIII. But it is a financial war so most are missing the impacts of the money/debt bombs being lobbed in. There are millions of casualties but hard to calculate. People aren’t actually dieing but a considerable portion of their happiness, security, health and futures have been destroyed. I also wrote about this years ago and called it “actuarial murder” This financial war leads to feudalism through central banking. The rich and powerful in their castles overseeing the serfs slaving away for crumbs.

3. Will we continue to increase unemployment ? Real unemployment, not the govt figures. With huge numbers to fall off the unemployment rolls, they will not be counted as unemployed thus making the govt figures look better than they actually are. Neat trick if they can get away with it. Figures don’t lie but liars figure.

4. Will inflation get worse ? As far as the govt figures, perhaps not. Remember, social security payments did not get a cost of living increase this year as they had in past years. Of course, govt workers got an increase. Cute, huh ? But when viewed from the perspective of the average retiree, the costs of damn near everything went up. So yes, inflation will continue to ravage by stealthy price rises, content downsizing, new regulations, tax increases, etc. A sort of backdoor method to take away what you receive as well as what you have to pay more for.

5. Will housing prices fall further ? As govt ends their temporary home buyer tax credit (government bribe), home sale volumes should fall noticeably, putting more unsold homes on the market.

And face it, if unemployment is high and going higher, who will be foolish enough to even think of getting into a long term debt nightmare ? In my view, the height of stupidity. A sort of Darwin’s law working in matters of finance.


6. Are food prices going to take a bigger “bite” out of our income ? Do I even have to go into this one ?

7. Are taxes going to go up ? Do I even have to go into this one either ? Aw, what the heck; I can’t help myself.

Federal, state and local govts are all deeply in debt. The federal govt has a credit card with the Federal Reserve and will continue to spend like a drunken sailor until Doomsday (which is closer than we think). But the state and local govts have no such credit cars and legally balance the books. So they will be forced to cut back drastically. And soon. Stata and local govt employees may soon be laid off by the droves unless the feds somehow give/lend them the many billions to kick the can down the road.

When the day arrives that the Federal Reserve takes the Treasury’s credit card and cuts it in half and says “No more”, that will mark the day that we go over the falls together. And at that time I do wonder what will happen to all of the stocks and bonds. For you see, 99% of all U.S. stocks and bonds are owned by an outfit called Cede and Co. And who owns Cede and Co. ? Why, none other than the Federal Reserve ! Is this to be the form of calling in on the trillions of debt to the Federal Reserve ? Hmmm… And where would that leave the average American ? Is this the planned end game ? We’ll see (or cede, as it is defined as “to yield, grant, assign, transfer“). But we should question why 99% of stocks and bonds are in the ownership of a subsidiary of the Federal Reserve.

American debt ? “Why, we owe it to ourselves. No problem.” Or is that a fantasy ?

8. Is your job becoming more or less secure ? And if you have a job, are you doing the work of two or three people to make up for all of the ones that were laid off ? Did the management double or triple your wages to compensate you for the increased workload ? No they didn’t; the savings went to the bottom line where they appeared more profitable. They actually were more profitable but on a smaller scale; not a good trend for the future. And many in management got fat bonuses for this. I have to wonder what they will do next as their volume of sales decrease. Lay off still more workers and the few remaining will be expected to work as much as 9 times harder as in the past ? No, the layoffs was a one shot deal as far as I can see. If management lays off workers they will have nothing to manage. Kaput. Shot. End of story and company.

Now we get to the reason for this post. What can we do individually in view of all this bad news ?

1. As contradictory as it may seem (especially on THE premier gold and silver website), gather cash in hand. Don’t have ANYONE between you and your money. “Sorry, we can’t do that” is a financial door slammed in your face. Could be a bank holiday, stock, bond, IRA 401K refusal of redemption.

And don’t be overly concerned that someone will rob you; the banks, govt., bond and stock markets have been doing that for years.

Additionally, don’t be overly concerned that the cash you hold will become worthless. The fiat dollar is all that 99+% of the populace understand and not until they know its true worthlessness, the fiat dollar will continue to hold purchasing power.

The two downsides to holding fiat dollars are inflation and govt. issuing new currency with a 100 to 1 old for new currency exchange. So don’t have so much cash as a proportion of your total assets that its loss could seriously damage you.

Ponce and I see advantages in holding cash in the form of coins, particularly in bricks of nickels. I have read that this year may be the last one for minting nickels out of 75% copper and 25% nickel. One way to dodge the bullet of a 100 to 1 paper dollar devaluation.

2. Sell anything that you don’t need or will need in the future. Could be an extra car, boat, snowmobile, trailer, collectables, etc. Most of it is going to become heavy baggage in the future.

3. Stock lots of canned food, especially canned tuna (Ponce just bought 1,440 cans of tuna to add to his preps), toilet paper (you can’t have enough), Jelly, etc. This is for long term storage and possible bartering material. Also, what will a can of tuna be worth in two or three years ?

4. Cut your living expenses as much as possible. Take a lunch to work or when you are going to be tempted to buy fast food while on the road. Roll your own cigarettes. Don’t laugh; a pack a day smoker could save over $1,500 a year by making his own cigarettes. And that’s after tax money. Probably have to gross over $2,000 in before taxes money. How many hours do you have to work in order to gross $2,000 ? Two weeks ? Four weeks ?

Lots of possibilities to save.

If you do cut expenses, know how much you saved and put it away or buy more preps. Make it a game for now because it won’t be a game after a collapse. Tight money management will then be an absolutely necessary skill to have.

5. Repair what you can yourself. Service your own car, machinery. Labor for car repair can run as much as $100 per hour.

6. For food, buy mostly sale items. And when there is a significant sale, stock up heavily. A while ago I bought half gallons of cherry ice cream for $1.29. I still have a few in the freezer.

7. Buy next winter’s clothes in the spring and summer. Garage sales are best. My closets are jam packed with clothes I have bought over the years from garage sales. Most was 5 cents on the dollar.

8. If you have payments on a car, sell it if you can and buy a good used car, preferably one that gets high miles per gallon. If gas prices go through the roof, you will have a bargain to enjoy for years to come.

9. Housing. Now this is a tough one and my opinion probably won’t fit in with your thinking. This is a highly subjective area, although it holds the potential for immense savings.

I have been advising a friend to sell his home for years. It peaked at $900K a few years ago; he just had an offer for $500K. What happened to the other $400K ? That is what accounting calls lost opportunity cost. He who hesitates is lost. There is a time to buy, a time to hold, a time to sell, a time to run away.

Although home prices have received a beating in the last three years, this does NOT mean that they are a bargain at this time. There is potential for them to fall much further. I would watch and wait; it is foolish to be anxious to buy a house. Impatience and rationalization are mental games that can get you into trouble, not out of trouble.

If you have a house or are thinking of buying one at this time in history, you should be weighing the pluses and minuses for the future, for the purchase and ownership of a house is the largest investment decision that most people will make in their lives. With that said, let’s look at the pros and cons. Feel free to add any I may have missed.

Pros Of Home Ownership

A. As long as you pay the mortgage payment and property taxes you will have a place to stay.

B. You can make changes without having to ask the landlord’s permission.

C. Mortgage interest can be written off against your income.


Cons Of Home Ownership

A. Price you paid for a house can fall enough that the mortgage owed is greater than what you can sell it for. In other words, upside down. In fact, this tragedy has been happening on a large scale for some time.

B. Many times, resale of a house can be difficult and take a long time. In other words, illiquid.

C. Mortgage cost with property tax and maintenance costs are typically much higher than renting a comparable house.

D. If you lose your job or income source, owning a house can become a heavy burden. I hear about this all the time.

E. The higher cost of ownership is lost opportunity cost. This is both in the down payment cost in the beginning as well as the higher costs paid out over time. And don’t delude yourself; the average house turnover is about 5 years. So thinking you are paying down the principal is an illusion since the principal pay down is back loaded. In other words, the first mortgage payment is practically all interest while the last mortgage payment is all principal.

This lost opportunity cost of buying rather than renting could have been wisely invested and potentially pyramided into a fortune. Having the power of liquidity (cash in hand) when others don’t is a tremendous advantage for profits as well as peace of mind.


Best wishes and JMHO,

Agnut

[Ponce]

LOL Agnut, looks to me like if you had a good time with your fingers ahahahahahah, pretty good advice..........keep it up.......the writing I mean LOL.

[agnut]

Hey buddy, WELCOME.............

Day before yesterday I went to my favorite store "The Senior "Thrift Store" here in town.........looks to me that someone very very rich bought the farm not to long ago because I found two coats with matching pans and one coat by itself with a western motive, I would say one set alone is worth at least $125.00 if not more and then five more like new pair of pants, I would say that the whole thing is worth AT LEAST $400.00 if not more.........all that for $6.00.

All the clothing that I am collecting if for later because there will be very little in the way of clothing coming in from overseas and what there is will be very expensive.

Hey Ponce. As usual, you are buying items at borderline giveaway prices. A while ago I told my older son about the thrift store clothing you had been buying and he has been bringing home some great deals. Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. Thanks to you.

Lately I’ve been buying hoes, rakes, pickaxes and other hand gardening and manual working tools. Doesn’t hurt to have spares as well as enough to sell/trade later. Some would cost $20-25 each and I have been paying a dollar when I see them.

I remember years ago, a local guy was picking up broken shovels, hoes and rakes for free to 25 cents each. He found some light wall pipe and welded them up and sold them for $10 each. Those were the best hand tools I have ever owned. I heard that he was selling them like hot cakes.

I’m still wanting to get a large quantity of canned tuna for preps or bartering later. I wonder if many realize that the spawning ground for some Atlantic tuna is in the Gulf of Mexico. And with the current oilcano going off, there may not be as much tuna harvested in coming years. A price rise in canned tuna ? Hmmm…

Best wishes,

Agnut

[agnut]

What Do Silver and Gold Buy?

Hi JohnQPublic. Wow ! I was about to answer your short question and then I realized that it was a heading to an article that you had written. I have hard copied it and will take some time to study it. Some great insight there. Thanks.

At the 2010 World Mining Investment Conference in London, James Turk gave a presentation in which he stated that “Over 60 years, the oil price which has risen sharply in all major currencies, has effectively been absolutely flat in terms of both gold and silver, apart from very minor short term fluctuations, as an indicator of the precious metals’ wealth preservation characteristics. “

There have been other writers alluding to the same thing recently; gold and silver may not make a “profit” in relation to purchasing power in the future. However, they will preserve purchasing power as they have through the centuries.

This reminds me of Warren Buffett’s quote, “It is not until the tide goes out that you discover who is swimming without trunks.”

Is this “naked shorting” ?

Point is, in a collapse of fiat currencies (and perhaps the whole damned system), almost everyone will be stripped naked (not a pretty picture). And the few with precious metals will be the only ones left clothed and financially powerful. Being rich is relative. When nobody around you has anything and you have the same as you had before a collapse, you will be relatively rich. Something to think about.

I never expected to become rich from precious metals. My goal has always been to be able to be left the Hell alone. And continue with my and my family’s life in a quiet, respectable manner. Along with being out of debt and having preps, physical gold and silver complete the picture.

And if that ain’t good enough, I don’t know what is.

Best wishes,

Agnut

[agnut]

opening a new GSUS quotes file with these two


“What else do you have for sale ?”

I’m buying with the belief that many things will dry up in time and the screaming bargains I get now will become in greater demand some day

futurist thinking

what will have value in the future ? / what will become more valuable in the future ?

agnut

===============================================

Good to hear from you SHTF2010. I like your website name; prophetic. I noticed you are Canadian. Any gorillas living up there ?

Some nice roadside freebies you got. That Snap On crescent wrench would cost a bundle if bought new off the truck. Instead, yours must have fallen off the truck.

I find plastic gas cans, chains and other goodies along the roadside.

Yeah, that question , “What else do you have for sale ?” has made/saved me a lot of money over the years.

How things have changed in the last few years. My focus has shifted from things I need to things that are a screaming bargain AND at the same time will be needed someday. Primarily because of Ponce, I have been collecting items that likely will become more in demand in the future. Nails, galvanized pipe, tico fittings, etc.

It appears to me that the money circulating around has been getting scarcer and scarcer. I am thinking that if this continues for too long, we won’t have hardly any money available for day to day dealings. I am reminded of my father who bucked hay for 25 cents to 50 cents for a 12 hour day. And he shoveled coal at the local high school for 50 cents a day. He told me that at the end of the day, he had worked so hard that he could brush the salt off his back. This was during the last Depression.

Will we experience a time when there will be so little currency circulating that people will work for a pittance ? Well, in our twisted world, anything is possible.

Last night I rented the movie “The Road”. My son and I watched it together. It was more grim than any movie I have ever seen. Survival and flight after a financial and social collapse. After watching it, I came to realize that it was about as accurate as you could get. And that realization was the scariest part.

The movie begs the question, “Would you rather be prepped with all the planning and sacrifice it demands or be on The Road ?

Best wishes,

Agnut

[agnut]

Tag sales.... I always ask: Have any old coins or silverware for sale? Sometimes I get lucky.

In the pic, the top two items shown next to a quarter- spoon and spreading knife are 2.4 t.oz Sterling. I got them today for 25 cents each.

The knife at bottom has a Sterling handle. That was 75 cents.

Hi Spectrism, thanks for the photos. Quite a score there. What is that; a 50 bagger ? HaHa

I’m always looking for sterling silver in my travels but rarely find any. As the spot silver price goes up, there will be less and less offered for sale. Also I think the public is/will be becoming aware of silver and gold prices. We may have a dip this summer but that is just a buying opportunity to me.

I suggest you look into catalytic converters. Sometimes they can be gotten for free or almost nothing except removing them from old derelict cars. Some of them are worth as much as $200 on eBay. You have to cut the ends off to sell them on eBay. There are professional buyers and they can be contacted for prices offered. You should know what model and year car the converters came from; it has a lot to do with the value.

Best wishes and happy hunting,

Agnut

P.S. I’m in the middle of writing a looong post about various types of buying opportunities. Summer is here and I believe the months ahead will be the best in years. I’ve already made two big scores, one I wrote about a few weeks ago and the second I did last Saturday.