Chris Olson

You're exchanging one debt for another.

So they haven't actually taken possession of actual true wealth, which is what gold is, or any other type of asset or capital asset.

But when you have gold, now you have actual wealth crystallized, physically incarnate, so to speak, in a tangible form that is no longer subject to any other counterparty's duty to perform on your behalf.

Amazing.

Well, right now, because of the way our economy works, you need dollars for practically everything.

Even Bitcoin, as popular as it's become, if you go to a merchant that accepts Bitcoin, that merchant isn't actually taking the Bitcoin and keeping it on a wallet somewhere.

They're converting it to dollars almost instantly in most cases.

So the same is true for gold at this point, largely, that you can't really easily spend it directly because most people need dollars to operate on a daily basis, to pay their taxes, to pay their mortgage, to go buy food at the grocery store.

So to spend it, it usually involves converting it back into dollars, selling it to somebody who's making a market for it,

Well, you could usually contact the firm that sold them to you.

And if they're in your possession now, you're going to have the challenge of getting them back to that firm.

You're going to have to transport them through a common carrier like FedEx.

How hard is that?

It's usually not hard, especially with gold.

Silver is a little more challenging just due to the mass.

But there is some risk involved in that.

So there's the cost to ship it.

There's the cost to insure it.

So that's added friction.

Normally, when you're dealing with a major market maker or distributors who's involved in precious metals, they should normally, in most cases, have a strong market.