I’m fascinated by this silver hoard. It affected my breakfast. Here’s a photo:
That’s a stash of 293 silver coins. About 1,800 years ago, some dude buried them in what is now Switzerland. The timing is interesting. AD 200 is just about the last era when Roman coins were fully silver. After that, the Roman government debased their coins. They inflated the fuck out of their currency; good and hard. Eventually Roman coins were nothing but bullshit and hope. Of course, the Romans lacked the technology for our impressively, almost cosmic, levels of currency debasement. “It’s electronic data representing debt.” (You thought inflation was new?) At any rate, the coins have actual value and that would be true in all times. (This is in addition to the obvious historical and numismatic interest.)
It got me thinking. What would I bury if I had anything of value? A mason jar full of greenbacks? Why? That shit’s bled so dry it’s barely worth anything now. For example, suppose some farmer in 1920 buried half a year’s salary in greenbacks. It would be about $1634.70. If the farmer knew math he might change it out to silver at “then prices” of a $1.30 an ounce, leaving 1,257 ounces of silver. Who wouldn’t want 85 pounds of silver? That’s about $17,000 at current prices. The moral of the story is this; burying currency is basically setting it on fire but burying silver is taking a risk that someone else will enjoy it but not you. (Put another way, nobody’s going to buy futuristic space beer with a green slip of paper buried by an irrelevant blogger 1,800 years ago.) Luckily, it’s just idle thought. I have nothing of value to fret over… or at least nothing I’d bury to hide from Barbarian Hordes. I’ve got a freezer full of bacon; priceless but not a good thing to bury.
I read on the news that the government is going to “fix” infectious disease by squatting over the nation and defecating $2,000,000,000,000.00 in debt. Is this the same money that was going to change the weather as a Green New Deal? I doubt viral DNA will recognize the gesture, but I didn’t expect you could use money to change the weather either.
I guess you can’t expect mediocre minds to think up anything better. Since Congress is a corralled herd of mediocre thinkers, they’re going to keep shitting money. Meanwhile, there isn’t 2 trillion of anything in your personal experience. Molecules in a burrito? Grains of sand in the Sahara? Our government just pissed away a number beyond human scale.
If I get myself a hunk of that “free money” what would I bury for archaeologists to find in 1,800 years? Green paper representing data that designates debt? An iPhone? Tax forms? Ammo in calibers long forgotten? Nope, none of that. There’s only one thing I’m going to bury in 2020 and that’s my dead dog’s ashes. (Waiting for the ground to thaw.) Let the future archaeologists ponder that one.
Back to the poor bastard that buried the coin hoard… he was a baller eh? The pile was roughly half the annual salary of a Roman legionary! I’d love to have a shoebox with half the annual salary of a Navy SEAL. What did our guy do with it? He buried it. And then what? He died.
Seems like a waste doesn’t it? Dude’s got a wad, he buries it with some sort of plan in mind, and then he gets whacked. For extra irony I wondered if he got nailed by an epidemic. Unfortunately, he buried his shit after the Antonine Plague (year 180) and before the Justinan Plague (year 541) so it wasn’t likely an epidemic. Lucky bastard! I’ll just assume he died when an ox fart exploded the hut where he was sleeping. (It’s my imagination, I get to make the rules.) Then, through the rise and fall of empires, nations, cultures, languages, and a brief horrific moment called the disco craze, his wealth just sat there.
Such a shame. He never got to spend it on hookers and blow. It was too early in time to buy a motorcycle. He didn’t use it to make the down payment on a nice little starter castle. Aside from sex, motorcycles, and a fortress; what’s the point of money?
Why was I pondering this? Because I’m in quarantine. Society is giving me a chance to avoid whatever crud is carried by Gladys and I’m taking it. Even if this isn’t the zombie apocalypse it’s at least a full-dress rehearsal for when the space aliens/Canadians/weaponized elk attack. And that means I have to allocate my scant resources in a different way right now.
What am I doing with my tiny bit of wealth? Short answer is “not burying it”. At some point, the time is now. How about a global pandemic of hyperventilating people who are bad at math and hopped up on social media? Is that not a good time to you use the food and resources you squirreled away? Why not?
Tomorrow doesn’t always come. Ask our pal with his bag of Roman silver. Yes, the ant stored food while the grasshopper fucked off… but the ant followed through. The ant ate the food in winter. He didn’t put it in a pile and lay on it like a dragon. If not now, when?
A few years back I liquidated my chicken flock (they were delicious) and now eggs are scarce. What to do? Do I go to the store and queue up with the other putzes trying to score a dozen eggs? Give that hag Gladys another chance to infect me? Fuck no! Use your stores. I dusted off some of my older cans of Mountain House. I hate to use them. They cost so much per ounce that I only use them while camping. Or perhaps for the end of the world? They make a pretty bang up scrambled egg breakfast. (Especially when paired with a shitload of freshly cooked bacon.)
If you’re the ant, remember the ant followed through. If there doesn’t come a time to use what you stored, you might as well be burying Roman silver.
Also, If you didn’t store, it’s too late. There is a time to reap and a time to sow. You don’t need more guns and more ammo and more bacon right now. You need what you’ve got. (OK fine, there’s never a bad time to buy ammo…. but there are better times and this ‘aint one of them.) If you’re scurrying to “stock up” at this particular moment, you’re doing it backwards. Stock up in times of plenty. Consume in times of disrupted supply chains. Whatever you do, don’t die in an Ox-fire, taking with you the location of the silver which will now only serve to amuse bloggers two millennia in the future. Kick back and be happy with what you stored… or learn what you should have stored but didn’t… but don’t bury a damn thing. Eat it all!
Happy freeze-dried eggs with fresh bacon y’all,
A.C.
P.S. I’ve already ordered chicks for summer. I love me some eggs for breakfast. It was always my plan to gear up again and now I’m a little more motivated.