Conclusion. Art, And Bonds Are Problematical

Art, And Bonds Are Problematical

Third, the history of Europe during World War II indicates gold and jewelry work fairly well to protect a small amount of a wealth. Think of them as your “mad money.” However, as noted previously, the history of World War II warns not to keep them in a safe deposit box in-country. Conquerors demand the key, and your bank will give it to them. Have your own safe deposit box at home or secrete your valuables in a safe haven. Above all don't tell anyone. When your neighbour's children are starving (as so many were in the lawless winters of 1945 and 1946), they will do anything. If the barbarians come next time as a terrorist attack or a plague, you are going to want to have your mad money close at hand.

Fourth, art is not particularly good either. It is vulnerable to destruction by fire, can easily be damaged, quickly plundered, and it's difficult to hide. At the end of the war, Warsaw alone reported 13,512 missing works of art of one kind or another. That said, some Europeans successfully removed valuable pictures from their frames and smuggled the canvases out of their home countries and transported them to safe havens. The caveat was that when they tried to sell them, they were only able to get a fraction of their true value.

Fifth, at least based on the last century, fixed-income investments are nowhere near as good as equities. Even in the Lucky countries, they provided returns far below stocks, although they did offer much lower volatility. Across the various countries, bonds had a standard deviation about half of that of equities, and bills had volatility about a quarter that of equities. In terms of liquidity, they were fine. Fixed income markets remained relatively liquid in London and New York throughout the war years.

In the Losers [Germany, Japan, Italy, et al.], fixed income had severely negative returns, and although government paper is normally considered to be relatively risk free, German bill investors lost everything in 1923, and German bonds investors lost over 92 percent in real terms after World War I. Admittedly inflation was virulent in a war-torn world, and fixed income is not the place to be in such an environment. In the chaotic, disorderly environment of the war years in the Loser nations, you can't sell bonds or cash in bills any more that you can trade stocks. However there was a period in the 1930s when because of deflation, bonds were the best performing asset everywhere.

Precious metals, especially gold, jewelry and high in demand items such as perhaps weapons, armour, ammunition, gasoline, survival kits, hermetic food/rations and investments/buying stocks in “production facilities” such as farms is likely to be considered relatively safe investments. However, farms or other production facilities may be expropriated by the cultural Marxist regime or the resistance movement for shorter or longer periods. Investing in foreign companies located in a neutral country that produces f. example weapons, ammunition, rations or offers transportation in some way (shipping, bulk, tank etc.) are likely to be good investments.

Дата добавления: 2015-05-31