Is Silver or Real Estate a better long-term investment?

    Believe it or not, there are some very famous financial experts out there who see more value in precious metals than they do in other asset classes such as real estate.

Robert Kiyosaki for example, the renowned author of the famous Rich Dad, Poor Dad book series, discussed his views on long-term investments at one of his seminars.

Kiyosaki’s comments on the matter might come as shock to most, considering gold nor silver have never provided passive income streams (UNTIL NOW). Kiyosaki is well-known for encouraging and reinforcing passive income investments for long-term, (especially real estate) but now has admitted that he finds more value in precious metals, specifically silver, above real estate.

Why? Kiyosaki defends his position by noting that there is an intrinsic value that can be found related to precious metals like gold and silver, and there is also the potential for those metals to eventually skyrocket significantly in value in the coming years.

The same cannot be said for something like the US dollar which over the years, since the inception of the Federal Reserve back in 1913, has already lost over 90 percent of its value or more. The government hasn’t come in to strengthen money, what they have done is diminish it and destroy it.

 

    If you are familiar with Kiyosaki’s books, then you will know that his popular saying is “savers are losers” and “cash is trash”.

Don’t just leave that money sitting in an account earning absolutely nothing.

He encourages the idea that you should invest it into something that will have your money work for you, and not you working for money.

Unlike gold and silver, the US dollar has no intrinsic value, and is artificially propped up. We might often mistake fiat dollars for money, but there is a difference between money and cash. Precious metals are TRUE money, “God’s money”, but cash is a fiat currency that is “man-made money”.

They are two completely different things.

When the US got rid of the gold standard many years ago, they did everyone a disservice. As Kiyosaki has noted, that fiat currency paper money has been a driving force behind financial volatility worldwide for many many years.

    This sort of system cannot be sustained forever, and as Kiyosaki has admitted, he too believes that someday the US dollar could collapse because of its artificial foundation. Those who have cash savings, Kiyosaki warns, might see some major losses as a result.

In one of his Rich Dad, Poor Dad seminars, it was noted that currencies often go through a five-part life cycle. Included in that life cycle is the intervention of government to regulate money, to strictly control it, and establish a monopoly over it. At this point, other than the government’s “promise to pay you back”, money no longer has any value.

    They continually debase that money by opting to print more and more into oblivion. Once you reach the end of this cycle, that money truly has no more value whatsoever and has been eroded significantly.

Once a currency loses its purchasing power as we’ve seen happening with Venezuela’s hyperinflation, which has greatly deteriorated the lives of those living there, it is gold and silver that will rediscover their true value and bring life back to the financial system.

If you believe that hyperinflation cannot come to the US then you need to look back in history. During the Civil War (1860–1865), in the Confederate states, the United States was very close to hyperinflation, and some believe it was actually reached it.

    Silver is a good investment, unlike fiat currencies, but Kiyosaki prefers silver above any other because he sees enormous opportunity there. Some might passionately disagree, but he even sees an even greater opportunity with silver than with real estate.

    The Rich Dad, Poor Dad team advocates that you try to invest in gold by as much as 40 oz, or silver by as much as 500 oz, and that you hold onto those investments until the median home prices are seen to be equivalent to either amounts. If that happens, they recommend that followers of the game plan for metals trade these assets and convert them into real estate.

Eventually, as the US dollar continues to erode in value, precious metals will not see the same fate. Real estate then is a value that rests upon the intrinsic value of real money like gold and silver.

This is why Kiyosaki frequently emphasizes the importance of precious metals and his belief that only those should be considered true money. They have proven to survive for centuries and are still regarded just as valuable today as they were thousands of years ago, and they will always have value as a medium of exchange.