
Overstock.com Has $10M in Gold and Silver Hidden Somewhere in Utah - pmcpinto
http://www.buzzfeed.com/matthewzeitlin/overstockcom-has-10-million-in-gold-and-silver-hidden-somewh
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jacquesm
So, they believe there is a 1:20 chance that 'the end of the world as we know
it' will take place, that having gold will somehow magically insulate them
from such an event because they can ride out 3 months to pay their employees a
wage? That's prepping. Makes you wonder if they also have a vault with weapons
and ammo, generators and a bunker underneath their offices (hm, that might be
a good spot for an attempted burglary, if anywhere that would be where the
gold is).

In other news, Jonathan Johnson taken hostage by criminals that would like to
know where he stores his sugar.

I really hope they have thought about the implications of putting this sort of
knowledge out there for the world to see.

~~~
desdiv
>I really hope they have thought about the implications of putting this sort
of knowledge out there for the world to see.

I don't think they had a choice in the matter. Form 10-Q[0] are mandatory for
public companies, and apparently precious metal holdings have to be listed.
(The article links to Overstock's form 10-Q)

Sure, it's dumb for them to reveal that the precious metal is physically held
in Utah, but then again they're a Utah-based company and gasoline is probably
a scarce commodity in whatever apocalypse fantasy they're imagining, so it's
not hard to put it together.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_10-Q](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form_10-Q)

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Bluestrike2
Trying to meet payroll with gold and silver would lead to some serious
problems. Hell, given how little gold there is in public hands outside of
jewelry, it'd be a bitch to make change for.

As far as weird CEO tendencies go, hoarding precious metals isn't really that
big of a deal. Long-term, they aren't really losing money from it. They aren't
earning much, either so I guess you can chock it up to a wash. But it beats
the hell out of some other habits he could have; at least he isn't freaking
out about blueberry distribution across muffins or something like that.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz_-k9qoYns](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz_-k9qoYns)

Now, replenishing the food stockpiles as food goes bad would be a huge waste
of money unless we're talking about MREs that will last until the heat death
of the universe. But if he tries to serve that to his employees, he might have
a mutiny on his hands.

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rtl49
I find this announcement absolutely bizarre. Even if you believe there's a 5%
chance of a banking crisis, there's a much higher chance many investors will
think you're insane and unfit to manage a company. I imagine publicly
announcing this precaution hasn't done wonders for their stock value.

~~~
Kinnard
I disagree, as an investor and as a CEO, I say— YOU MUST HEDGE!

~~~
jacquesm
I've become more sensitive to this due to some gaffes recently, is this yet
another example of Poe's law at work?

~~~
wisty
I'd guess a CEO of a bitcoin related startup.

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DannoHung
Who is going to shop at an online junk retailer (and make no bones, that is
what Overstock is) after the financial system collapses?

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jacquesm
Precisely. It's not as if people won't have bigger problems than this if and
when the financial system collapses, after all, how will you pay for the
goods.

"Oh, look: 45% off a set of pans & pots at overstock.com, just one moment
honey, how do we pay for it, the financial system has collapsed."

~~~
rtl49
Obviously you pay for it using your gold stash, carefully planned with
denominations small enough to purchase cookware. Overstock will accept your
payment via carrier pigeon, and the product will arrive via caravan within the
next several months.

~~~
jordanb
In the event of the apocalypse I think cheap cookware will be more valuable
than gold. Consider all the things you can do with a pot post-apocalypse:

* Cook in it, clearly

* Use it as a shovel

* Sit on it

* Drink out of it, or eat out of it

* Use it as a toilet (might want two pots)

* Use it to collect fruits and berries you gather

* Use it to collect rainwater

* Conk people/animals/zombies over the head with it

* Sharpen the lip by rubbing it against some rocks and use it as a knife

* Use it as a helmet during the radioactive hailstorms

That's just what I've come up with in a few minutes of thinking. Other than
conking you can't do any of the above with a gold brick.

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batbomb
If you've been around Mormons in your life, this wouldn't really seem _that_
odd.

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giancarlostoro
Everyone wants to save gold, but when money is literally worth absolutely
nothing, you don't want gold, you probably want to barter food for useful
items like ammo, guns, gasoline and car parts, as well as other things that
actually are beneficial to your survival. Gold wont really offer much, you
can't eat it, if you can make weapons with it then you're (excuse the pun)
golden.

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Brotkrumen
History would disagree with you. You need an easy-to-carry, hard-to-replicate
and non-spoiling unit of exchange. You also cant sell 1/7th of a cow for a new
shoe.

Read "the gift" if you are interested. Barter is much rarer than adam smith
thought and serious commerce was never based on it.

~~~
aianus
> easy-to-carry, hard-to-replicate and non-spoiling unit of exchange

Wouldn't ammunition check those boxes and be intrinsically useful as well?
Would also help defend the gold :)

~~~
Brotkrumen
Probably. Iirc ammunition was actually used in america at some point.
Cigarettes could also fit the bill as prisons, depressions and concentration
camps suggest.

There would probably a few currencies and exchange rates floating around. One
of which would be gold.

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mywittyname
“I don’t know if it will be two days or two weeks or two months. But we have
$10 million in gold and silver in denominations small enough … for payroll,”

How exactly will this work? Is USD still the unit of account for your salary,
or does their employment contract state, "$X or X oz. gold at company's
discretion."?

How do they expect to pay taxes? Is this even legal?

I don't see how this actually solves any perceived problems with the banking
industry. Even if the banks go down for a period of time, you can still cut
people/businesses a check. That's certainly easier for everyone involved than
handing out gold doubloons on payday.

" in 2008 we came perilously close to banks not knowing who could accept
counterparty risk,"

This goes to show how deft the Federal Reserve is. Lots of bad shit could have
went down in 2008, but didn't.

~~~
cperciva
_Is USD still the unit of account for your salary, or does their employment
contract state, "$X or X oz. gold at company's discretion."?_

I think the idea here is that if the banking system has collapsed, employees
might eagerly accept gold in place of cheques, no matter what their contract
says.

~~~
jacquesm
The irrational bit of that whole argument to me is that they are effectively
trying to keep 'the lights on' when their customers can no longer use
overstock anyway. After all, if the banking system collapses your inability to
use 'overstock.com' is going to be the least of your problems.

Recently Greece went through something like this on a much smaller scale (and
with daily limits rather than a total collapse but it got quite close). Paying
with gold was never even considered, people switched to cash in stead. It's
not as if you're going to buy a bread or fill up your basket at the
supermarket and expect to pay with gold, people will not be able to ascertain
its value on the spot at the register.

Having $10M in cash in various currencies to hedge against the collapse of
_one_ currency or banking system would already be quite an act of paranoia,
having it in gold is taking that to a completely different level. That's end-
of-times level stuff, it means there is no more trust in any currency at all.
Merchants in Greece would have been happy to take your cash if you had it.

~~~
cperciva
Right, I have no idea why it makes sense for an online retailer of non-
essential goods to be making that particular hedge.

There _might_ be an argument for nuclear power stations and similar critical
infrastructure companies to have such a stockpile, although even there (a) the
military would probably step in, and (b) it's likely that Bouillon would be a
more useful thing to stockpile than Bullion.

~~~
jacquesm
I think they have the Bouillon angle covered:

"Byrne said the company maintains a 30-day supply of food, and has a
distribution system to pay and _feed_ employees in case the banking and
payments systems collapse."

~~~
cperciva
My point was more that food or other _useful_ commodities might be a more
useful form of currency than gold in the complete-societal-breakdown scenario.

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cookiecaper
Food is definitely more valuable than gold when society collapses to the point
where people can't get food anymore.

Related example: [http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/08/19/american-world-war-
ii-p...](http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/08/19/american-world-war-ii-pow-
prized-gold-ring-comes-home-after-70-year-journey/)

Although the food is artificially scarce in that case, it shows that people
value what's necessary for survival above trinkets when they're required to do
so. Gold having value presupposes some amount of social cohesion.

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digitalzombie
hoard food, cash, and precious metal and bitcoin.

If something were to happen I think food and survival gear would be more
useful then cash, precious metal and bitcoin...

Also CEO is in fear of currency crash, is the cash in another currency? And
it's weird to think that in a crazy melt down their employees would care about
getting paid versus survival?

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Animats
That's very Mormon. Mormons are supposed to have a year of supplies in storage
for emergencies.

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jsnathan
When I read the title I thought they were hosting a huge treasure hunt, and I
thought hey, that's a really cool marketing idea..

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n0us
In the event of a banking crisis gold has no value because you can do pretty
much nothing with it and it's difficult if not impossible to exchange in any
meaningful denomination in most situations of a modern economy.

Gold has value because of tradition and scarcity, the available supply cannot
be diluted. If shit hits the wall with banks it isn't going to be gold that is
scarce, it is liquidity.

~~~
adventured
We just went through a global banking crisis, the largest in history. Gold did
not lack value during that time as you're claiming. That by itself proves your
position wrong. Then you contradict yourself by saying that gold is valuable
because of scarcity (true), and then you say that gold won't be scarce if shit
hits the wall - shit hit the wall in 2007-2009, gold remained valuable and
scarce.

~~~
mikeyouse
It's so weird because we just went through a global banking crisis, the
largest in history -- and cash had no problem whatsoever. There just isn't a
realistic scenario in which USD has 0 value and Gold is useful.

~~~
aianus
> There just isn't a realistic scenario in which USD has 0 value and Gold is
> useful.

This happens all. the. time. The USD lost 33% of its real value between 1977
and 1981 while Gold increased in value in real terms by 65% during the same
time period. USD itself has been reasonably stable since, but there's no
guarantee that will continue.

I'm not a crazy goldbug, I don't think we should go around trading gold
shavings with each other in our day-to-day lives, but it's an indisputable
fact that Gold is an excellent hedge against financial and currency crises the
likes of which happen somewhere in the world all the time. Hell, right now
Russia is in a currency crisis where the Ruble has lost 50% of its value in
less than two years.

~~~
dragonwriter
> > There just isn't a realistic scenario in which USD has 0 value and Gold is
> useful.

> This happens all. the. time.

No, it doesn't. About the only times its even approximately happened during or
after the 20th Century to a national currency of a nation that had been a
major world power within the preceding century have been a few cases to the
losing side of major wars (and in those cases, prewar businesses are quite
likely to lose their market and ability to operate as a result of the war and
its loss, independently of the collapse of the currency.) It absolutely
doesn't happen all the time.

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jdoliner
It's like this company is being run by Ron Swanson...

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orblivion
Yes, Byrne is a libertarian.

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x5n1
Well that's one way to tell the government that they can make 6 million
dollars by confiscating your illegal gold stash.

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josephpmay
Gold stashes are no longer illegal

~~~
cperciva
Yes, but the government doesn't need to prove that you've done anything
illegal to confiscate your money as "possible proceeds of crime".

