Originally published at: Costco's gold bars sell out within hours | Boing Boing
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While gold bars have their uses for shady wealthy people (and the politicians they purchase), there’s no practical use for them for ordinary people – even in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the prepper’s dreams. Do they imagine themselves trading painstakingly weighed shavings for truly valuable items like food and tools and medical services?
The only bigger idiots are the preppers who pay a premium for numismatic gold from Fox News advertisers, presumably on the assumption that Immortan Joe is really into the artistry of Augustus Saint-Gaudens.
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there’s no practical use for them for ordinary people – even in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the prepper’s dreams. Do they imagine themselves trading painstakingly weighed shavings for truly valuable items like food and tools and medical services?
Hahaha I seen prepper folks on youtube trying to argue for that stuff in their videos before. I mean like bruh, stuff to clean water and wounds would be so much more valuable than a few small chunks of precious metals you kept in your wallet in those kinds of situations.
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Even as portable assets meant to get you out of a jam, gold bars are sub-optimal. You’ll do just as well using a piece of jewelry or an expensive wristwatch to bribe a border guard, plus you’ll be able to use it in your everyday life before things go wrong.
Gold bars are just totemic, a perfect accompaniment to the prepper’s other fetish collectible, the semi-automatic rifle.
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Yeah, I’d say coffee will be more valuable than gold in the after times.
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The only reason (and I use the term very loosely) for stocking precious metals would be to carry wealth through a breakdown to the recovery on the other side, when bank accounts and currency are assumed to be obsolete. It’s a prepper fantasy world, and a waste of time for the most part. Even as an investment, it’s not very good. An ounce of gold in the 1800’s would buy you a really nice suit, an ounce of gold today? Yup, a really nice suit.
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Doesn’t pretty much all the food that they sell come with at least 150 servings? If you buy a simple tub of Nutella there it’s nearly 7 pounds. That’s roughly 5,000 servings.
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I’m a little surprised by that, since I thought they only sold them in packages of 48 or 96 bars 
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But of course the gold bar buns only come in packs of 52 or 104!
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ISTR that an ounce of gold in Roman times would buy you a really nice suit too.
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Pah. Who bothers with traditional retail for your gold bars- we need a more hi tech solution
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Hoarding up nut products like hazelnut spread or peanut butter is usually not a optimal food strategy. Oils in them break down over time leading to peanut butter tasting like wood butter in about a year or so haha. Something to do with how water and the oils interact over time so the only long term option is to get them in powdered form and then adding in the water to the amount you need. Pretty much anyone can get a big tub of powdered peanut butter at Big Lots
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“Everything will be alright as long as you have your -ing potato.” - Mr. Tulip.
Plus maybe a knob of butter and some salt.
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Skills would be much more valuable in a total collapse. Growing and preserving food, carpentry, animal husbandry, etc., will get you a lot further than some shiny trinkets.
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Now hold on there, how else am I supposed to fend off the varmints trying to steal my stash of gold bars!?
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Hence my strategy of stocking up on skills. I am a virtual Renaissance Man, man!
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Okay so how did that skinny old dude end up as Lord of the Compound?
Cuz he’s got mad skillz, man. Seems like he knows how to do pretty much everything!
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Old? Yup. guilty as charged. Skinny?
You must be thinking of that other guy!!
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You may be plus sized now, but just wait until you start subsisting on dried peanuts and water.
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