It was about 4 years ago when I started saving money for the first time. I opened an ING Direct savings account. Didn't know what I was going to do with it all, but I knew one thing: nobody was saving their money. There had to be a reason. Not only that, but saving was frowned upon. It still is. "Live your life, man!" is what everybody would say. But no. I was saving every penny.
At times, I found it somewhat absurd. Why should I keep saving? What's the point? Why not live for today? Life is short, after all. But I kept saving. I decided to treat it like an experiment. I wanted to find out where it would take me. What advantages would I gain (if any) from saving as much as I can?
Mind you, 4 years ago I was 19 years old and was just becoming acquainted with the vastly complex world of finance. I didn't even know where exactly to put my savings. CDs? GICs? RRSPs? What does it all mean?
So 3 years ago I started researching finance, in depth. I started reading online materials on stocks, bonds, GICs, money markets, and everything else. Basically, I wanted to become aware of all the options I had.
A few months passed, it was July of 2007, and I was observing the stock market. I observed one thing: stocks had been rising since 2002. So, it had been 5 years of continuous rise. If I put my money in stocks now, I reasoned, I would probably lose a whole bunch of it when the stock market crashes (at the time I figured it was a matter of months before the next crash).
So I decided to hold off on buying stocks and keep exploring. Maybe there was something I could put my money into that wasn't just a plain vanilla savings account. I turned my eyes toward inflation. At that point, my only recollection of inflation was the disastrous hyperinflation that my parents experienced in Romania during the 1990s. I remembered clearly that there was a time when every week the price of bread would double. I wondered if something like that could happen again, in North America.
After doing a bit of research on the CPI and noticing that inflation had been going on, though at a slower pace, in the western world as well, I realized there was really no difference between Canada and Romania in terms of currency. Fundamentally, the currency system was exactly the same. So, technically, even though my savings account was CDIC ensured, the purchasing power of that money was not.
I decided to look for ways of protecting against inflation. Initially, my idea was to actually start an inflation insurance firm. Yes, I was determined to sell inflation insurance!
But there already was inflation insurance - and in October, 2007, I finally found out what it was. Gold. My research quickly took me on the path of precious metals, which had been inflation-proof for thousands of years. A good enough track record, I figured.
Great, so I decided to move some of my savings into gold. Of course, I realized it must not be too much, because gold is extremely volatile. Not only that, but gold had been going up for 6 years - longer than the stock market. Surely it was due for a correction. I started small, and moved slowly, making sure that my bullion position never exceeded the "safe" limit that I had set for myself.
But how did we end up talking about gold? The topic was savings. In general. And why it's important to have savings.
Well, first I must make it clear that gold is the only true form of savings. Paper depreciates, and is vulnerable to political turmoil. Stocks are risky - companies go under all the time. Real estate also depreciates and is vulnerable to political turmoil. If you want something that can withstand many generations and has a track record of preserving value through time (which is what savings is), that something is gold, and silver. Precious metals.
Now we can talk about why savings is power. What does it mean to have savings? It means you have the power to readily take on adversity, for a prolonged period of time, in the hope of achieving a greater income. For the individual, it means you can go without a job longer, so you have the latitude to negotiate higher pay in full view of the risk of remaining unemployed, because that doesn't bother you, because you have savings. It means you can explore new business ideas and have no fear of failure, because you know you have savings.
But this applies not only to individuals. Savings is power for countries as well. You see, the country that is able to take on the greatest adversity for the longest period of time will come out on top. Wars are won by those countries that have accumulated the greatest savings. In World War II, the US had the most gold of any country in the world. The US won the war and continued to dominate the world for decades thereafter. Remember: gold is savings, and savings is gold.
Now, 4 years after I started saving, I think I can finally appreciate the power of savings. I see now that debt is servitude, and savings is power. For you see, those who are in debt are subservient to those who have the savings. This has always been the case for all of time. Which side are you on?