A Tiger in Your Tank?

Those of us with a bit of age on us well remember the Standard Oil commercials with the tiger urging us all to "put a tiger in our tank," meaning of course, that the gas sold by them was powerful, and similar to placing a huge beast in your gas tank. I remember even getting free fake tiger tails to place on the gas tank cap. I did it! Remember, gas tank caps were exposed then, and it became common to see cars with tiger tails flopping around the filler caps of their gas tanks. I tried to get Sinclair to make fake dinosaur tails, and use the gimmick to prove that dinosaurs were stronger than tigers, but they refused. I only wanted a small reward for my idea.

We are not all self employed, or have extra cash with which to purchase precious metals. Readers of gold-eagle.com know that pieces of paper with ink on them indicating dollar values have no tangible value. Readers of these columns know that all paper money in history has become worthless eventually, and even though it smarts to think our dollar can become so, it already has lost over 90% of its purchasing power already. Is it really a big deal if it goes the way of all flesh? When it does, all those government bonds will go the same way, because these have dollar denominations also. For crying out loud people, GET OUT OF DOLLAR DENOMINATED INSRUMENTS! And this includes your IRA accounts!

PUT A TIGER IN YOUR IRA ACCOUNT!

We are all concerned about our retirement, and many of us have IRA accounts. Isn't it about time to cease placing those withered stocks, mutual funds, and dollar denominated instruments in your retirement accounts? If there is any value left, why not put something VALUABLE in your IRA? It's YOUR future you are messing with! You say you didn't know that was legal? Well it is, and it's about time you realize it, and do something about it. Especially now that gold has been manipulated to, or even below its production cost, and silver far below. There is nowhere in the entire world that silver can be produced at under $5 per ounce. So NOW is the time to get rid of those paper instruments, and place gold and silver in those IRA accounts. Yes, it is legal.

The one catch is that by placing tangible gold and silver in your IRA's, you cannot personally hold the metals in your hot little hands. Uncle Sam wouldn't allow that! BUT, you can buy the gold and silver, and place it in the hands of an approved trustee. In the trustee's hands, as the buck slides down the greased slide to oblivion, and the grubby gold and silver manipulators finally are defeated, your retirement account will look bright indeed, rather than being filled with worthless dollar denominated "things" such as stocks that have lost 70% of their value or bonds that mean the government owes you more worthless dollars when you are too old to push the wheelbarrow full of them to buy a loaf of bread.

What types or forms of gold and silver can you place in your IRA? American Silver and Gold Eagle coins, Canadian Maple Leaf gold and silver coins, and even Austrian Philharmonic and Australian Kangaroo gold coins. How to do it? It's not hard. Simply contact an approved trustee, sign an original investment direction form, and mail the original form back to the trustee, which will state from whom you will purchase the gold or silver. Buy the metals for your IRA account. The trustee pays for the metals upon their delivery to the depository account, and the IRA trustee holds the metals in your IRA account.

Is it risky? Not if you believe that paper money and currency denominated items will hold true. My Mom and Dad bought a 6 bedroom, 3-bathroom home in Washington D.C., where I was born and raised, for $3500 in 1935. It had a garage, full basement, two fireplaces under fancy mantles, high ceilings, butler's pantry, large yard, and was on a lovely tree lined street. The bought a new 1940 Plymouth for $660. Have prices gone up? No, the dollar has gone down. Has the dollar reached the bottom of its slide? No unbacked paper money in history has ever survived. Will the buck be different? I doubt it, as the term "dollar" has been the title of three American currencies that have already gone to absolute zero in our history already. History generally repeats itself; (stock market bubble we all warned about) and those who will not learn from it are doomed to repeat it.

When you do indeed retire and have access to your IRA with no penalty, the gold will be turned over to you; as you bought and paid for it. What will it be worth in dollars then? I don't know, but the more basic question is, what will your dollars be worth when they are turned over to you? Will the gold pay interest when it is stored in your IRA? No, but your dollar denominated instruments which do pay interest, hardly will keep up with inflation, plus the taxes you will have to pay when you remove them at retirement. Will you have to pay taxes on an increase in gold's dollar price? I don't know, but it seems reasonable to me that your gold and silver should simply be turned over to you in the form you placed it in trust, and as a matter of fact, the same gold and silver. Shouldn't you be able to do with it what you want then? Maybe an American Silver Eagle will have acquired a numismatic value due to its older date when you remove it from the trustee, but at the least it will buy a lot more than the $6.50 or so you paid for it when you placed it with the trustee. Your gold and silver will undoubtedly far exceed any interest you may earn with dollar denominated instruments. You just have to get over the fallacy that switching from one dollar denominated thing to another is smart. It is like selling houses and buying hotels in a game of Monopoly. It's a game that has no real values. A share of depleted stock means you own maybe a billionth of GM, and a government bond means the government will owe you so many of their controlled, manipulated, continually depreciating, legal tenders, in a lot of years from now, and neither are true value to this scribe and precious metals dealer. I've been though it, and have watched the purchasing power of the dollar melt like a Hershey Bar on a Phoenix pavement in July. Want to bet that that pavement will suddenly grow cold? Only a fool would do so, yet hundreds of millions of foolish Americans believe in the dollar.

This ability to store precious metals for retirement in your IRA is for some strange reason, a fact that is not well known, but it is about time it is, and especially for you readers of GOLD-EAGLE.com! Do it! Protect yourself.

Don Stott

March 16, 2001

Don Stott has been a precious metals broker since 1977, has written five books, hundreds of columns, and his web site is www.coloradogold.com