When it hits the fan and your country’s wasteful spending and extreme debt finally come home to roost, this is what happens:

And there are those who wonder how Sprott’s PHYS could have traded at “ludicrous” NAV premium of over 20%. Coinupdate.com reports that prices at which the Greek Central Bank is selling one ounce gold equivalents are as high as $1,700 (40% over spot), and prices on the black markets are even higher. The punchline, as Athens slowly returns to a forced gold standard: ” A popular spot for street vendors to sell their coins is near the Athens Stock Exchange.  There the traders wait for citizens to bring payments received from unloading their paper assets like stocks and bonds.” That’s good – downtown Manhattan close to the NYSE has some free space for gold vendors to set up shop as well, they just need to push some of the frontrunning/collocation boxes off to the side. And in other rhetorical ruminations, is it safe to say that the last days of the fiat experiment are among us now that people themselves are bypassing the government and enforcing their own gold standard?

[source: Zero Hedge]

Those Greeks that have money are willing to pay a 40% price premium just to make sure they have something left if their government collapses due to debt crisis. While this may be regarded as panic buying because obvisouly the price of gold outside of Greece has stayed in the $1000 – $1200 price range, it is clear that when a country’s private sector loses confidence in its government, there is only one feasible place to go for safety because it’s liquid, readily recognizable, and globally accepted as a trade instrument – precious metals.

Learn more about the ins, outs, why, what and how of precious metals from the most recent Schaef Report Special In Depth Precious Metals Edition.

Also read Collapsing Public Confidence and Gold to learn why gold is not just a hedge against inflation, but a hedge against out-of-control governments.