What’s In Your Go Bag?

The price of gold topped $4,000 per ounce on Tuesday, October 7th, the second anniversary of the massacres by Hamas in Israel two years ago. A coincidence? You decide.

My wife Risa and I know a local pawnbroker who deals in precious metals and jewelry. We asked him if he would take some of Risa’s inherited gold jewelry and turn it into tiny gold ingots that could easily be hidden.

This may sound crazy to you, but not if you know Holocaust survivors or had family flee Russia and Poland during periods of pogroms (events like October 7th).

We did this several years ago. Gold sold for around $1,200 per ounce and we treated it more as a defense against a recession worse than 2008, or a woke-fomented civil war in America.

Trading unused jewelry for tiny gold ingots was not intended as a bet on the price of gold. I have never speculated on commodities because I know less about soybeans or corn prices than the spread on Bears’ games. It was simply a hedge against calamity. It was part of a getaway bag that included some cash, food, toothpaste, and medicines in the event we had to run because of flood, fire—or insurrection.

I understand that many of the Silicon Valley billionaires have safe homes and bunkers in New Zealand if AI is a bubble or the “smart” robots decide to turn on them, but our tiny gold stash was more about jumping in the car and heading for the Gulf of Mexico.

Today things are more ominous. I saw our friend, the pawnbroker, over the weekend and he said his precious metals business, which used to be a small piece of his small shop, has become a big part of his daily operation.

Some people are playing the gold and silver markets, others need liquidity, and some are in the “what if” category like us.

As I read about the probable future Mayor of New York lauding the October 7th massacre that killed 1,200 people in Israel, I wonder what has happened to my country.

Personally, I have not felt threatened by antisemitism, but we had guards and police at our synagogue over the holidays as a safeguard.

The progressive left has turned against Israel, and much of academia seems to regard Jews who dare speak out for Israel to be heretics, to be shunned.

Jews in Europe are headed to Israel in growing numbers.

Gold coins and ingots saved the lives of so many folks who fled the Nazis in the 1930s. Diamonds, according to our friend, have little value today because of “lab diamonds,” which are almost indistinguishable from mined diamonds.

I know that gold at $4,000 an ounce is mainly an announcement by speculators about fear of inflation in America, but to me it is a signal, still faint, that Risa and I, or our children, might one day have to flee America the Beautiful.

Question: What do you have in your go bag?