Never Underestimate The Power Of Federal Reserve

I have a 401K and vested pension.
Faith in my PM's only - "if you don't hold it, you don't own it'"

Targa Resources Partners has a preferred stock I own that has perpetual yield of 9%. They are less risky than common stock and more risky than treasury bonds. If you buy $50,000 of the preferred stock you will get $4500 a year in dividends which are taxed at the 20% rate which is much less than tax on interest or on regular earned income. These things do have special risks but even if the company were to go broke you will get something back. Most of the big banks sell preferred stock which often has a yield of 6% to 7% and insurance companies sell preferred stock. The government will not allow these entities to go broke. You start to see why the 1% has such a huge advantage over they guy who earns his money and does not invest. Everything favors invested money as opposed to earned money.

This is why the US economy is in such terrible shape.
This makes the concept of free enterprise look like a joke and corruption is rampant in the US.

Preferred stocks can be recalled and dividends can be suspended, but if the company survives you will be reimbursed. The thing is that a preferred stock is like a bond, but can be recalled unlike say a 30 year treasury bond yielding 3%. If your preferred stock drops below par value they are liquid and can be sold. If you either buy a preferred ETF or fund and price starts to take a hit sell them. If you pick wisely like preferred stock for Wells Fargo or Goldman Sachs you know they are too big to fail and they own the government anyway. A run of the mill preferred bank stock is yielding 6% at least. I have been counting dividends for years. The reason you don't see much about preferred stocks is that they are not sexy. They are income stocks like utilities, but safer than those things.

Troy
I get where you are coming from since I own some oil stocks which had very good dividends in 2014 and got killed and dividends were cut but they were just common stock. What I did learn is that nobody can predict these things and if you are not invested you can't make money. I got killed in 2009 with my stocks, but I hung in there and now they have tripled in value. PM's are just so volatile you could stack them for thirty years and then they could triple in a year and that is when to sell them.

I know many who vow to never to return to the stock market. It would be have been
helpful if the rule of law was actually followed and the too big to fail
were allowed repercussions for bad investments like the rest of us instead of receiving promotions and bonuses for failure.
Now many markets again seem to be in huge bubbles inflated by the biggest debt bubble ever.
It just seems like a good idea to stack something real.
The fun part is we get to buy these wonderful coins that are pieces of history. They
could help to see us through in the event of bad times...

IF the current Fiat money tanks or collapses the ONLY PM's that will be affected will be the "Paper" holdings, These will probably simply "Vanish"
The Physical PM's will be valued by supply and demand and the government will be powerless to change this and this is what ALL governments are terrified of

I notice that on a day like today with nearly everything in the red
metals are green. They seem to have a non-correlation to stocks and bonds in uncertain
times.