I have some extra money lying around in USD being slowly devoured by inflation. The conventional wisdom is to invest in stocks or bonds in the US. Fundamentally, that’s just gambling on the continued success of empire. Should I buy gold or other metals instead? Are there non-dollar-denominated ways to invest in economic development of the global south instead? I don’t care about returns I just want long-term stability of value
The reason I say to hold the physical metal is because if you just hold an ETF, you are holding an IOU for gold, but you are not holding gold. Whereas if you own the physical metal and you can hold it in your hand, then you own it. And if somebody wants it, they have to take it from you by force. With an ETF, they can just say, oh, well, we’re not going to give you your money back. Sorry.