As the world is in turmoil with large financial institutions failing, money supplies in many countries being inflated enormously, and with governments going bankrupt over night, could we find safety in hamburgers? Yes, hamburgers.
In 1964 you could go to a popular hamburger drive inn, park you car and order a .
15 cent hamburger.
They sold a lot of them back then, as they do still today.
Of course the hamburgers have increased in price more than .
15 cents, or did they? Taking the challenge to buy a hamburger for .
15 cents would seem to be difficult nowadays.
Driving up to the drive through and looking at the menu one can see the cheapest hamburger on the menu is for a $1.
00.
However being lucky one could pull out a dime and a nickel and find the dime to be dated 1961 and the nickel dated 1942.
What would the dates have to do with buying a hamburger for .
15 cents? Silver was used in coins up to 1964, after that, the government stopped issuing coins made of silver or severely reduced the silver content, in regards to the 1965-70 Kennedy Half Dollar (40% silver) and the 1971-1976 Eisenhower Dollar (40% silver).
Silver is real money, it has a store of value, whereas currency issued by governments does not have a store of value.
Paper currencies are only as good as the paper they are printed on and the backing of the issuer; it cost no more to print a $100 bill than a $1.
00 bill.
When the issuer devalues the currency by printing or digitizing enormous amounts of currency then it becomes worth less.
One could compare currency to dirt.
Dirt isn't worth much, it can be found anywhere, but gold or silver is of value because of its rarity, history as money, and industrial uses.
Taking the silver dime and nickel to a local coin shop, one can exchange .
15 cents worth of silver and receive in return $1.
20 in current currency.
That would be enough to buy a hamburger and pay the tax.
The formula used by coin shops to purchase silver varies with the spot price of silver; today it paid eight times face value, or in other words 8 X .
15 = $1.
20.
Of course you can find a silver coin in your change now and then.
However, the moral of the story is as paper currencies continue to be devalued the wonderful future of a $1.
00 hamburger may well be in jeopardy.
Having something that will be a store of value will surely keep that hamburger within your budget in the future.