Three Safe Investments To Survive An Economic Meltdown

As everyone who lived through the recent economic meltdown painfully discovered, economic collapses like the Great Recession are not a thing of the past. During the Global Financial Crisis of 2008, the U.S. housing bubble burst, millions of home-owners defaulted on their loans, and the entire banking system had to be bailed out to the tune of 700 billion taxpayer dollars. Global interest rates were slashed in an attempt to soften the damage, and the stock market suffered one of the largest drops since the famous recession of the 1930's. The current situation is more stable, but the U.S. government still owes nearly $18 trillion in debt. To account for the enormous interest costs of these loans and keep up with inflation, the U.S. Federal Reserve prints more and more cash dollars each year, injecting over $80 billion into the U.S. stock markets and banks through a process called quantitative easing. 

Does this overwhelming national debt indicate an impending financial collapse? Billionaire Donald Trump thinks so. A complete global financial collapse is extremely unlikely, but it's always good to have a solid plan B. Here are three safety net investments that will survive a financial crash.

1. Gold and silver

The dollars printed by the U.S. Federal Reserve aren't tied to a specific real-world material, and theoretically could be printed and printed until hyperinflation makes them virtually worthless. In contrast, gold and silver coins and bars are tied to real-world precious metals with a limited supply. Unless the science of alchemy takes a sudden leap forward, no one is going to be picking gold and silver coins out of thin air any time soon, so their real-world value is relatively stable. Gold and silver coins have been used as currency for thousands of years, and are a good safety net to have in case of a financial emergency.

2. Property and real estate.

Much like gold and silver, physical land is a real-world commodity with a fixed space and limited availability. While the housing market does fluctuate along with the economy in the short term, most property markets are safe long-term investments. When looking to purchase property as an economic safety net, houses and physical plots of land are much safer investments than condominiums or apartments, which are sold as part of a building but do not include physical land. Property developers can always build more condos, but they can't create more land out of thin air. The land itself is where the property value lies.

3. Non-perishable supplies like food and water

In the worst case scenario of a major global disaster, investments like precious metals and property might be difficult to transfer into real-world value. In such an extreme event, goods that have immediate use value will be much more precious than silver or gold. It's a good idea to have a backup of non-perishable goods like food, water or raw materials that could be traded and exchanged in the event of a major disaster.

One thing financial experts warn NOT to keep large sums of money in is… CASH.

In theory, cash is tied to the issuing country's credit reserves, but what is the real-world value of paper money? Some believe that if an extreme disaster were to sweep the world, cash dollars would be as useless as monopoly money. Better to invest safely in gold, silver, property or non-perishable goods.