What you are really talking about is devaluation of the currency.

Think back to what your parents paid for their first house, now compare that to what that same house is selling for today.

The only protection against devaluation of the dollar (or whatever your currency is) is to own something tangible, real and that has a physical presence in this world. The reason is that whatever you paid originally for this ‘thing’, the replacement cost today is what counts, not its original cost, whenever you bought it.

Bear with me on this, gold is generally accepted as being real money, as distinct from the Fiat currency ‘promoted’ by Central Banks.

At one time paper money was backed by gold. You could demand payment of your paper dollars with an equivalent amount of gold, but no more. Once Nixon took the world off the Gold Standard, Central Banks were free to start the printing presses. The original reason for doing so was given as protecting the dollar from Hedge Funds who were said to be attacking and devaluing the dollar.

Before the dollar was taken off the Gold Standard, gold was fixed at $35.00 per ounce. Today gold is around $1,200 per ounce; that really worked out well, didn’t it?

There has never been a period of more than 50 years when a currency was not backed by gold. We are now over 40 years into this Fiat currency experiment.

http://www.kitco.com/ind/AuthenticMoney/20120925.html

To me, the ultimate Con is not selling the people of the World, Fiat currency but in selling them Fiat gold as protection for their Fiat currency!

If you buy Gold ETF’s, GLD, etc, you have just exchanged one fiat currency for another. Unless you hold the physical gold in a safe, under your protection and in your possession, how can you believe you are protected against a devalued dollar?

There has never been, nor will there ever be an audit of these ‘fiat gold’ vehicles, it just does not suit the ‘powers that be’ (AKA the Plunge Protection Team) to do this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_Group_on_Financial_Markets

Allowing these Fiat gold vehicles is an integral part of the control mechanism that the PPT use to control the value of the currency, stock and commodities markets The controllers of the ‘paper gold’ market are as free to ‘print’ ounces of gold as central banks are to print dollars. To believe anything else is to live in La La land.

I could take up the rest of your weekend on this subject but will leave it there. Now, back to ZEN.

My point is that ZEN has a value and we all have our own ideas of what we think that is. It makes no matter what that value is, ultimately, we will all get our proportionate ‘value’ for it in whatever currency we accept in the locale where we hang our hats, be it Cdn $, US$, German DM, French francs or whatever. The bigger risk is what happens after we get our ‘payout’. Where do you put your ‘stash’?

Governments are now talking about ‘Bail ins’ instead of Bail outs, ie. You will pay for the next bank failure, not the government. If you have money in a bank that fails, you will be charged to bail out the bank.

We are already starting to see countries (Australia, for one) that are levying a charge on bank deposits to help finance the next bail out.

http://www.afr.com/news/politics/tax-on-bank-deposits-in-federal-budget-20150328-1m98oi

My suggestion is to buy something tangible, of lasting value with some of your stash, then look for the next ZEN………….

Boxterfan.