Robert Kiyosaki says, “Savers are losers”. Does this mean you should consume more than you produce, or that saving is bad? Of course not.
There are multiple meanings to the Savers are Losers concept. In addition to drawing a distinction between working for money (saving) versus having money work for you (investing), there’s the problem of money versus currency.
As real estate investors, we put a lot of time and effort into “making money”. And while it’s fun to consume, most of us create profits with the idea of accumulating and storing wealth…at least temporarily until the next great investment comes along.
The challenge comes when the vehicle we use to store the value of our profits (paper currency) is being consistently devalued by its issuer.
With central banks (like The Federal Reserve) around the world “printing currency” at unprecedented rates, everyone doing business in currency (like the dollar) is affected. And the dollar has the greatest effect of all because it’s used globally as the world’s reserve currency.
So while most folks are simply simply focused on how to earn and accumulate more money, we thought it would be a good idea to think about what “money” is, and whether the dollar is the best or only vehicle to use as money.
So put on your golden thinking cap, and get ready to think outside the buck…
Sitting behind The Real Estate Guys™ silver microphones for this episode:
- Your precious silver-tongued host, Robert Helms
- His generic round co-host, Russell Gray
- Special guest and golden boy, Anthem Blanchard
As real estate prices rise (denominated in dollars) and equity happens, real estate investors are going to be the proud owners of bulging balance sheets. Finally!
Of course, we’ve seen this movie before, so while we enjoy booms, we’re very aware of the boom / bust cycle that is inherent in an unsound money system. If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry about it for now. Just remember that there are booms and busts (ups and downs), and when a market is booming, you ride it up. Along the way, you’re extracting profits and storing them up for the next bust, so you can go out into the wreckage and snap up bargains.
So as prices rise and lending comes back into the market, investors will have the ability to realize profits (through sales) or extract equity (through refinancing). Even buy and hold investors (presuming positive cash flow) will be stacking up dollars because the more properties you own, the more cash reserves and operating “float” you hold.
Most people hold this cash in currency, like dollars. In fact, for most people, dollars are the ONLY measurement of wealth.
But thinking outside the buck, we wonder if it might make sense to store a percentage of those profits and reserves in something other than currency?
After watching the “bail-in” that victimized savers in Cypress last year, the concept of “counter-party risk” changed our perception of risk when dealing with banks. Especially considering the miniscule reserves held by the FDIC against the huge amount of bank deposits insured. We already know banks can fail because hundreds did during the Great Recession. What if the insurer fails?
Soif money in the bank isn’t as safe as…well, money in the bank…then where can you store wealth until you’re ready to use it again?
And even if money in the bank is safe from the bank failing to return it (counter party risk), what happens if when the bank returns it, it isn’t worth as much as when you deposited it? Think about putting $5 in a bank account in 1965 when gas was 25 cents a gallon. For five bucks, you could fill up a 20 gallon gas tank! That’s a lot of driving!
But today, $5 won’t buy you 2 gallons of gas. So even if the bank gives you your five dollars back, it’s lost its purchasing power. This is what many baby boomer savers are discovering as the try to sail off into their golden years. They have more money than they’ve ever had, but it won’t buy as much.
So we sit down to talk with Anthem Blanchard, who literally grew up in the precious metals business. His father, James Blanchard, was a pioneer in restoring Americans’ right to own gold. For you young folks out there, you may not know that from 1933 until 1971 is was illegal for U.S. citizens to own gold.
Really.
It’s a long and sad story, but the short of it is that when the U.S. was founded and for most of world history, gold and silver were regarded as “money”. And dollars were just paper coupons redeemable for real money (gold and silver). But in 1933, the U.S. decided it was bad for people to own gold, so they made it illegal.
The reason that happened is at the heart of the challenge faced by savers today: governments wanted to spend more money than they have. Shocker. And it’s obviously going on today in record fashion.
So alert investors are looking for alternatives. In fact, it’s gotten so bad that even consumers are looking for alternatives. There’s a reason Bitcoins are gaining so much popularity. It’s a currency that isn’t controlled (yet) by government.
The fact that Bitcoins are creating such a stir tells you that people are concerned about the dollar. And it isn’t convenience. Because while tech is cool, dollars are effectively virtual too. Just think about credit cards, debit card, wire transfer, online payments, etc. All digital.
The issue with Bitcoins are they aren’t real and they don’t have government backing. We’re not here to put down Bitcoins, but compared to the thousands of years of human history with gold and silver, we’d rather look to precious metals as an alternative to dollars for storing and transporting wealth.
Of course, because metals are tangible, they aren’t easy to use in commerce. But that’s changing!
Just as innovators came up with Bitcoins as an alternative to the dollar, creative entrepreneurs are coming with technologies to make using precious metals more convenient. Anthem Blanchard is one of those innovators.
So listen into this edition of The Real Estate Guys™ radio show as we discuss precious metals as an alternative to the dollar for the long term storage of wealth, and how technological innovations can make the use of precious metals in daily commerce less expensive and more convenient.
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