Interesting factoids…
March 19, 2007
christine has spoken
When I was a kid, way back in the Stone Age (1960’s/70’s), I remember going into Mike & Carl’s candy store, at the corner of Nostrand & Foster Avenues in Brooklyn, NY. It was right near our school, St. Jerome’s. My brother and I would go home for lunch every day, and before heading back to school for the afternoon, my mother might give us each a dime to buy some candy.
I don’t think you can buy much of anything with just a dime now. But back in the day, we could get a Hershey bar for a dime. How much are they now…60, 75 cents? Anyway, if you had a dollar back then, you could buy TEN Hershey bars. However, if we wever ever THAT rich, we’d go across the street to Marks’ Toy Corner, and buy a decent toy. You could actually get some cool stuff for a buck back then.
Here’s the interesting factoid: I come from the days when U.S. currency was actually backed by precious metals, which of course were kept at Fort Knox. But now the government prints up so much paper money, that there’s not enough silver and gold to back it up. Therefore, a U.S. dollar is no longer worth what it once was. It’s not that the prices have gone up…it’s more that the value of money has gone down!
But did you know that if you took the same amount of silver that backed up a dollar when I was buying those ten-cent Hershey bars, you could walk into Mike & Carl’s (if it’s even still there) TODAY and buy ten Hershey bars with it? The fact is, these precious metals retain and even increase in value. This is why buying silver and gold bullion can be a great, safe investment.
