The Wall Street Journal identifies a "microtrend" concerning a new generation of mattress stuffers. A generation ago, we might have seen people actually stuffing cash in their mattresses rather than in bank accounts they did not trust. As the story points out, construction crews are still finding cans of cash that were hidden in walls decades ago.
But the new mattress stuffers are using different techniques. The
Journal reports:
The price of gold is down as hedge funds unwind their positions, but the sale of gold coins is up -- because New Mattress Stuffers are stockpiling them for themselves and their children. And this was happening even before the crisis hit in full force. Between May and September of this year alone, sales of U.S. Mint gold coins grew by more than 600 percent. Over one million coins have been sold so far this year.
While almost every company in America is seeing a downturn, sales of home safes and vaults are surging. Sales of guns this year are up 8 to 10 percent.
And cash is the new plastic. Our own just-completed Holiday Spending Survey [PDF] shows that most Americans are going to use more cash and charge less on their credit cards than in the past. Although most of us have lived in a plastic world so long we can barely remember people like my dad who carried around wads of bills, Americans are now seeing the first real dip in credit card sales in decades. Fear of credit and credit cards is a renewed emotion.
Not only do construction crews find old "safeguarded" money, set...
