GoingIn2011

I dont understand what the big deal is in saying that hearing something is tiresome. We're all adults aren't we? Can't we give and take a bit of the rough stuff from time to time?

I have no actual problem with Genesis saying what he has; the bit I was most minded to concur with was the fact that shifts causing 50K changes in your NZ worth are just so far removed from my thinking or reality. That's it. FWIW Genesis is, for more than the most part, a very entertaining and measured poster (at least from what I've seen of him!)

BEVS

To be fair , you spent much of your early years lolling about in that other island's forum

Feel free to call me SVEB by the way.

I'm also interested in the bullion thing. I did look into it once but then shied away with mega cold feet.


As in a feisty good debate & discussion ? You'd think so but it seems not, although I always live in hope.

So, perhaps the thread can move along from the personals now and back to the all important spondoolies .

downunderpom

True, very true, I did, but I did live in Oz for a total of nine years, and have only lived in NZ for just over six years. (Mind you, I didn't make the same mistake again - got my citizenship 5 years and three weeks into the stay, this time! Ceremony was on ANZAC Day, last year, with Madam Mayor, and no nonsense about singing an anthem, either!)

Sorry - totally OT here - I just had to dive outside as my house was being buzzed by a biplane and a single wing prop job with RAF markings!!!! They were flying rings about my house, less than 200 feet up, for at least ten minutes, before heading off to play elsewhere! No idea why, except that Mrs DUP was strolling around outside... but they were beautiful against a crystal clear blue sky. (Temperature outside is presently 31.5C. according to my little weather station readout.)

Where was I? Sorry - sitting here with a silly grin on my face....

Bullion - I think of it like "Old School" money. Currency used to be backed by gold, when it was called "The Gold Standard". Gordon Brown, of course, made a mess of things when he sold off half of the UK physical gold reserves at bargain basement prices, while he was CotE...! Google "Gordon Brown sells UK gold". It's heartbreaking.

In fact, the coins I have bought ARE currency - they have a face value of $5 Canadian, but as they are a PM (Precious Metal) they are worth the value of the silver they contain, as bullion, rather than just the face value.

So, yeah, it's money, like any other currency. The most important thing is to have it in your physical possession, like cash. Of course, you can't "spend" it like "cash", you have to convert it first, unless you are dealing with like-minded individuals who would love to get their hands on some "real value" money. But here's the best bit - the price of PM bullion - gold, silver, platinum, etc - have nothing to do with currency fluctuations. The value is independent of currencies (any of them) as they are worth what the market will pay, and the market is paying handsomely.

As I said in an earlier post, this is not a get rich quick scheme. You have to buy and sit on the bullion for a reasonable period of time before you'll see a profit, but that's what buying bullion is all about - at least maintaining the value of your property, while currencies take a dive into the toilet.

I remember one story of a Chinese family (way back when) who managed to get their family fortune out of China before the Communists took over. They brought out their kitchen implements - spoons, ladels, and all that, beaten, battered and blackened by fire.... only to melt them down when they got to freedom. See, all of those implements were made of pure platinum!! They walked them through customs because they looked like junk.

And that's what bullion is - it's insurance. No matter what happens to your currency, you have something of value. You can start again.

Don't be frightened of bullion - it could be your best friend.

Robbie2010

Gold and silver are just commodities. So called investing in them is no different from gambling on the price of any other commodity such as copper, oil, coal, salt, sugar, tea, or coffee beans, etc, etc.

BEVS

You've reminded I have a pic of the Red Checkers flying over the top of our house a week ago.

downunderpom

Yep! Reminds me of that line of Eddie Murphy's from Trading Places, talking to the Duke brothers - "Y'all are just bookies!!"

Genesis

www.interest.co.nz notes that the RBNZ chief has come out and said "the kiwi is SIGNIFICANTLY overvalued' and they are poised to interevene (apparently). Bit late methinks for all the jobs that have gone down the tubes for so many eh?

Not sure their intervention will do much good now the kiwi has such a head of steam. I really feel for those doing their big exchanges now. Must be very hard to know you are buying something that is so overvalued. I grimaced doing a deal at 2.08 with my pensions 6 months ago, look at it now.

GoingIn2011

pensions (plural), lol.

downunderpom

I brought mine over as soon as I got here - got $2.50 to the pound in the transfer (yay). Unfortunately you can't get it out for 5 years, by which time it had halved in value, despite being in a property portfolio - which I thought would be the safest. Still it could have been worse. Imagine if I'd put it in shares - I would have had to pay them to close the account!

Also, gov't intervention in currency never goes well - look at the Yanks, printing 85 billion a MONTH...

Genesis

mine and my Kates, problem? Is it okay to have one each? Let me know eh?

GoingIn2011

Touchy, are we? Did you not see my post earlier commending your contributions to this board, lol.

BEVS

Pardon? I mean - pardon?

We'd also pensions - plural. There again , we are of an age where it is so, after 3 or 4 decades of bluddy hard work.
Get over it people....Isn't that what some of you say?

TBH I find this a bit weird.

We were given no choice about putting money into pensions schemes. It was mandatory for the most part. Work or "voluntary".

So now some of you want to kick that despite there having been no choice at the time?

Get over yourselves. I had to do without for that pension thing and so did my husband. No choice.

Do the same for yourselves now and in two or three decades to come tell the youngsters coming up behind you that they were crud for doing the self same thing. Trying to look after their adage.


Cheers.

Bo-Jangles

Quite! We have got lots of pensions between us, none of them hardly worth a light but hard to know really where we are at and how many we are up to now since pension companies keep changing, being taken over or generally dicking about shifting us back and forth in and out of SERPS and starting new schemes, closing down and freezing existing ones. We're both onto yet another scheme now with Kiwisaver.

GoingIn2011

Blow me, I seem to have walked into some sort of sense of humour vacuum...

I will leave this thread now, as I find *that* a little weird.

IT WAS A JOKE!

Sue

That's the problem with the written word, you can't see the expression on one's face or the inflection in the voice, so it's easy to interpret. I have to be honest I didn't read it as a joke either. That's why you have to use the smileys

We have a lot of them, they wont' wear out honest

Anyway, no harm done. Now that's cleared up lets move along.

Onward and upward