Mike Lassiter is a Chartered Life Underwriter and Chartered Financial Consultant. He is a Licensed Insurance Counselor and a Registered Investment Advisor. He can be reached locally at 770-786-2781.
FYI….. Information that may be beneficial to you in your planning…
Should Hard Assets be a Part of Your Financial Plan?
In my opinion, absolutely. Let me draw on my University of Georgia history degree and add some editorial comment to make my point.
The Federal Reserve Bank was created in 1913 at Jekyll Island. Since that time, the dollar has lost over 90 percent of its purchasing power and our national debt has risen over 500,000 percent. When you include unfunded liabilities, our nation’s actual debt has risen to over 100 trillion dollars. That’s not pretty.
Two other events have damaged our economy badly during the past 50 years. Lyndon Johnson’s removing silver from our coinage to finance his Great Society Program and also the Vietnam War has generated significant long term debt.
The other significant event was removal of the gold standard via an executive order from Richard Nixon. The Federal Reserve printed a lot of money after World War II to reduce unemployment. By 1970, foreign banks held more dollars than the US had gold in reserve. The Economic Stabilization Act of 1970 provided that US would no longer redeem their paper dollars in gold.
Currently, our country is dealing with interest rates that clearly are artificially suppressed by the Federal Reserve. Fifty years ago, interest rates were less than 2 percent, then rising to 16 percent by 1980. Today, it’s very hard to find current interest rates over 1 percent for short term money. History tends to repeat itself and I feel strongly that the interest cycle will too.
To wrap up today’s lecture, if you feel as I do, that you should own some silver and or gold, what should you consider buying? For gold ownership, the American Gold Eagle, South African Kruggerand and Canadian Maple Leaf are attractive. They all contain one troy ounce of gold.
Silver is in constant demand for industrial usage including photography, military, solar energy, appliances and the list goes on. The American Silver Eagle is excellent as are circulated silver coins, also referred to as “junk silver”. These include pre-1965 dimes, quarters and halves along with pre-1935 silver dollars. These coins are 90 percent silver in content.
If you wish to buy coins strictly for the bullion value, you should avoid coins that add a premium for the coin collector. That’s a fun hobby, but shouldn’t be used as an inflation hedge. Other items that are not good buys for bullion would include older proof sets, complete sets of later date coins and basically anything from the Franklin Mint.
It has been many years since I had any involvement in the buying and selling of these items. If you have any interest in this type of investment, please let me know and I will be happy to put you in touch with my long time recommended dealer. I accept no commission or fee for a referral.
Mike Lassiter is a Chartered Life Underwriter and Chartered Financial Consultant. He is a Licensed Insurance Counselor and a Registered Investment Advisor. He can be reached locally at 770-786-2781.
