I would like to make my own modest effort to put to rest a trite little phrase that gets trotted out every time silver and gold are getting trashed (which has been the case for years now). “I just checked, and my pile hasn’t gotten any smaller.”

These precious metals kooks – sometimes called “stackers” (since they stack up coins, as well as losses) somehow make the point that since their physical asset hasn’t changed shape or amount, it hasn’t really dropped in value. Not in a real sense. Honest Injun.

I don’t think I’ve ever used this word before on this blog, but here we go: bullsh*t.

If I bought a house for $5,000,000 (which poor saps are doing in my fair city right now) and a few years later it is worth $2,500,000, I have lost $2,500,000. Period. End of story.

The analogous retort: “My house isn’t any smaller!”

Ummm, yeah, that’s right, you pinheaded moron. But you’ve still had a severe diminishment in asset value by the metrics we here on Earth like to use. Your house still has utility (which is far more than one can say of a bunch of shiny coins and bars), but you’ve had your ass handed to you anyway.

And I don’t say this as a person pointing and laughing at precious metals kooks. I am one of them, as I accumulated a meaningful horde of silver and gold, largely prompted by the lunatic rantings (albeit very convincing rantings) of gold bugs over the past few years.

If the fabled “things will go wrong someday” ever does come, and precious metals soar in value versus meaningless fiat, well, great, then the kooks will have, in the end, been right. But that day may never, ever come, and owners of metals should recognize that their beloved stacks are indeed the same height, width, and depth…………but these people (and I) would have been a hell of a lot better off buying Amazon and Starbucks in the first place.