I got interested in stacking precious metals in mid-2015 when two very significant political events happened around the same time which led me to an important realisation.
I realised that the debts of Western governments around the world will NEVER be paid off due to it being too unpopular to cut deficit spending. Politicians in democratic nations like winning elections and that generally means spending lots of money on stuff that they think voters want. They only ever have 3 or 4 year terms anyway, so they can buy up the votes and let the next poor sap deal with the bill they rack up. It’s now a well-worn playbook and the national debts around the Western world are only getting bigger from here - just take a look at North America and Europe on this map :-
I starting trying to figure out where all this unchecked deficit spending was going to lead us because it didn’t seem sustainable. Spiralling global debt? Didn't we learn anything from the Global Financial Crisis of 2008? Apparently not. I discovered the situation is even worse than back then, the debt is bigger, everything is over-leveraged and under-capitalised. The financial system is totally integrated and all these banks are co-dependant to the point where if a big one goes down….they will fall like dominoes….
In my mind it now wasn’t a question of IF the current financial system will fail, but WHEN. I wanted to get out of the system and so I started looking at alternative “off grid” ways of storing wealth so that I could protect my family’s future. That’s when I found the first community of stackers that helped me along the way at www.silverstackers.com. It was here I was introduced to stacking precious metals and I met a lot of like-minded and similarly concerned people who were happy to bring me up to speed. This was a community of Australians and New Zealanders who became almost a second home to me online. I could discuss politics and economics here and it was a great place for me to buy and sell precious metals peer-to-peer on the secondary market with NO FEES or middle-men involved. I am forever grateful to those helpful guys and girls who helped set me on this path.
This community first introduced me to cryptocurrencies and seeing the potential of building some alternatives to the current financial system I became a full on crypto enthusiast trying to learn everything I could. Finally I stumbled across STEEM and even though I was never big on social networks, once I decided to get involved on Steemit I was hooked.
It wasn’t long until I came across the #SteemSilverGold group on Steemit and it immediately felt very familiar to me. It was basically the same sort of people I’d been collaborating with on www.silverstackers.com for the last 2 years, but this was a global group and one which was a bit more crypto savvy. I could immediately see the potential synergy between the two communities but up until this point they seemed to be totally unaware of each other.
When the discussion started about producing the STEEM silver coin I knew straight away that this was an opportunity to try and make a connection between these two communities so I volunteered to do a group buy on behalf of the Australians. I posted my intention up on www.silverstackers.com and I was overwhelmed with the response.
It has taken a little while, but I finally took delivery of the 150 coin order and sorted them all to match the certifications, spreading them out on my office coffee table. It’s not a great picture but it was pretty cool seeing them laid out like this.
It was a bit of work figuring out all the postage options, sorting out all the payments and getting them all packaged up with tracking numbers and signatures required etc. I have to give lots of thanks to my darling wife for helping me out with pulling it together.
Anyway, I am pleased to say that the coins are on their way and all I have to do now is pray to the postage gods that everything arrives on time and in one piece. I am appreciative of all the supportive comments and the few generous people who threw in the odd tip. I didn’t do this to try and make a profit though, it was all done at cost as my hope is only that these two great communities that I am now part of will become more aware of each other and perhaps support each other.
If there is even just a couple of people who cross-promote or join forces across these communities then it will be very worthwhile. From what I can tell this is already starting to happen so if you want to help out then just sign up and get involved!
Images and Credits
http://www.ibtimes.com
https://www.theodysseyonline.com
http://knowyourmeme.com
https://www.brainyquote.com
https://www.silverstackers.com
https://www.nirandfar.com