ATMs That Dispense Gold Bars Coming To America 482
tetrahedrassface writes "As the US economic woes continue unabated, a German company is bringing gold-bearing ATMs to Mainstreet America. The machines accept credit cards, and will dispense 1 gram, 5 gram, 10 gram and 1 ounce units, as well as various gold coins. The company hopes to install 35 bullion machines in the United States this year, and will hopefully have several hundred up and running by next year. The machines will be decorated like giant gold ingots and be over two meters tall. Physical gold has both pros and cons, but from a safety standpoint would it be fine to have a couple of ounces in your pocket while walking around the mall? The giant, gold-dispensing ATMs will monitor the market conditions for gold every 10 minutes in order to reflect spot price changes as they occur." We already covered similar machines installed in travel hubs across Germany.
Already here (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm just grateful it wasn't "ATM Machine's". I probably would have had an aneurysm. I already feel like I need a shower just from typing it for the sake of example.
Here, let me plug this cable into your VGA adapter. I will also need to plug this cable into your NIC Card. It also looks like your computer can use some additional DIMM modules.
Just trying to help...
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Re:Already here (Score:5, Funny)
He came to some prototypes we were working on, and proudly showed off his Tech Skillz to the assembled masses by announcing that "Here's where we assemble our prototypes using printed PCB circuit boards".
I kid you not
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Re:Already here (Score:5, Informative)
Here, let me plug this cable into your VGA adapte
VGA stands for Video Graphics Array [wikipedia.org]. VGA adapter is not redundant.
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For initialisms and abbreviations, an apostrophe is usually acceptable for the non-possessive plural but is generally now considered deprecated; it is more widely used where confusion may otherwise result: A's and B's.
Put them right outside the dungeon? (Score:5, Funny)
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I have a magical bag of holding that you can put them in. Its call my pocket.
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If you can carry that much weight in your pocket, you must have maxed out your strength attribute.
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Not unless I take off this ring and these gauntlets.
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And his.. pants.. attribute?
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I know this is pedantic... but I'm pretty sure there are no maximums with pen and paper. ;)
Re:Put them right outside the dungeon? (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought pedantry was a crime. If it isn't it really should be.
Cue the crying (Score:5, Funny)
I bet Glenn Beck is pissed about this.
Re:Cue the crying (Score:5, Interesting)
What you're missing is that Glenn Beck's radio show is sponsored by a competitor "Goldline International" and he gets significant money for doing regular TV and radio ads for them. He used to be listed as a "paid spokesman" for their product until someone notified Fox with regard to his regular rants on his Fox News Channel program about how everyone should buy gold. Since that is against Fox's policies, the gold peddler changed all the adverts to say he is a "radio sponsor" and Fox ignored the issue, which shows how much they actually care about the integrity of their programming.
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The point is that, agree with him or not, a lot of people listen to Beck and do/agree with most of what he says.
Convincing people to buy gold because the economy could collapse while simultaneously being a paid spokesman for a company that buys gold and melts it is a bit asshatish...don't you think?
Re:Cue the crying (Score:5, Informative)
Um, no, Goldline is a scam, whether or not investing in gold is a good idea.
Why? Because Goldline is selling gold at a 150% markup, and hence no one will ever get their investment back.
You call, they give a little spiel about how the price of gold has gone up and is thus a good investment, or has gone down and hence is a good time to buy, and they they sell you gold at absurd markup and fail to mention that it has any markup at all.
They're pretending to be a commodities broker, and talk a lot about 'reselling' and whatnot. They're actually conmen, and under investigation by the Senate.
And Glenn Beck and Fox News knows this damn well, but are paid a lot.
This is totally irrelevant to whether or not gold is a good investment. It might be if you actually purchase gold at market price, but it sure as hell isn't if you purchase from Goldline.
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Yes, it's amazing how Beck's 'excellent advice' is neatly bracketed by conmen who are willing to con people by having a con that appears to be exactly what he recommends, but is not.
And I should point out that investing in a market that's at the highest it's ever been is not, technically speaking, a 'good idea'.
It is, in technical jargon, 'fucking goddamn stupid'.
But, hey, we've need a new bubble now that the rich can't defraud people by having them 'invest' in housing anymore. With the economic downturn
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I'm not saying it's 150% markup from the value of the gold. It's 150% markup from the value of the coins.
The average Goldline markup is 90%. It goes as high as 208%.
It's a huge increase from the price you'd actually expect to buy the coins from at a rare coin dealer, which have a markup closer to 15%, sometimes 20%.
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You mean telling people to buy at the peak is good advice?
Re:Cue the crying (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are expecting collapse, then gold is not that good of an investment, as not much will be worth a whole ounce of gold and buying smaller pieces exposes you to way over spot prices.
1, 5, and 10 ounce silver rounds/bars, ammo (for trade and protection), salt, durable foodstuffs, and toilet paper are the most valuable commodities. With those you will likely be able to trade for anything else you need.
Depending on your morals, level of need, and the social situation at the time of need if you can not trade with any of the above, you have a realistic chance of *taking* what you need by way of the stored ammunition.
-nB
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The point is that ethical news organizations -- which Fox News, credible or not in doing so, pretends to be -- don't allow employees who are also paid advocates for a product or cause to address that cause through the news organization without disclosing that interest.
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I would have to say no, because Gore isn't on the payroll of any news organizations...he is, for all intents and purposes, "self" employed. He can say whatever fool thing he damn well pleases.
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The question makes no sense. The statement I made was that "ethical news organizations ... don't allow employees who are also paid advocates for a product or cause to address that cause through the news organization without disclosing that interest."
Al Gore is not a news organization, or an employee of a news organization, so that statement has no applicability to him.
Re:Cue the crying (Score:5, Interesting)
Humanity won't end, but this gold bubble will, and these ATMs are the surest possible sign.
Remember those round-the-clock commercials for mortgages, and the reality shows about flipping houses, the last year or two before the mortgage bust that wrecked the economy? This is that, but for gold. When half the teenagers in shopping malls adopt your investment strategy, it is time to sell.
Now, I have to give the gold standard guys some credit, they said it would go up, and it did, bigtime. But you only profit from getting in on time if you also get out on time, and IMHO that could be any day now.
Especially since their actions are backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
What I mean is they claim that the US dollar is going to become worthless, that only gold will hold any value... Yet they are willing to take your worthless US dollars in large amounts and sell you valuable gold for them. That tells you something, specifically that they are full of shit.
If I honestly believed gold would be the only worthwhile currency I sure as hell wouldn't give you any for dollars.
They are just playing in to a craze they know to be false and, as you said, this is an ultimate form of it. These things allow people to purchase with nothing more than a credit card, and do so at a massive price premium.
Re:Cue the crying (Score:4, Informative)
There's not going to be a jobs recovery. A huge big chunk of our economy was dedicated to developing real estate and financing the sale of that development. The value of real estate is just not coming back for decades. Those jobs are permanently gone, just like the textile jobs of yore. There are no replacements in services or in manufacturing. Our technology edge is eroding and as it vanishes, so too will the production of the remaining expensive manufactured goods that we make here.
Gold ATMs are not useful except in the most dire emergencies. If you need to use one, it's already too late. No one is going to sell gold in the midst of a currency crisis. These things exist to take advantage of the fool. The reason they will make money is that even a fool can see that there is a crisis coming, while very few have any good plan for dealing with it.
If we buy one with the magic chocolate ticket (Score:5, Funny)
will we win a trip to Glenn Beck's magical crazy factory?
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You know, there are quite a few people carrying a massive debt load who would love to see some hyperinflation.
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Most economic growth has come from technological growth. Most of technology throughout history has been about finding ways to use mechanical energy to replace human labor. Until the "information revolution", that was the only useful definition of "technology", really.
And we have far more leisure hours for a given standard of living. People choose to divert leisure hours to improving their standard of living. For example, it's now quite reasonable to have both parents working and still have a reasonably
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I had a long conversation with my brother once about what classical liberalism really means (small government, more freedom for everyone, no partnerships between government and business, be willing to try out new policies when it looks like they might make life better for everyone). And what it truly means to be conservative (small government, if it ain't broke, don't fix it).
Neither point of view has any meaningful representation in modern government. "Both" parties have been hijacked by collectivists.
It t
Spelling nazi (Score:2)
Bullion != billion (Score:5, Informative)
how much is "35 bullion"
Probably more than three Brazilian [about.com]. (If you thought it was a typo for billion, see bulk precious metal [wikipedia.org].)
35 bullion? (Score:3, Funny)
It's spelt billion. ;)
And 35 billion ATMs is rather much for a start-up, and more than current market demand...
oh gawd, there will be more of these than McDonalds and Starbucks...
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It's spelt billion.
Never spoken with a Kiwi have you?
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Re:35 bullion? (Score:5, Funny)
I hear those 35 bullion ATMs will be repaired and maintained by 4 Brazilian technicians.
Re:35 bullion? (Score:5, Funny)
You just got woosh-served.
Re:35 bullion? (Score:5, Insightful)
You should learn what words mean before you correct people as it just makes you look like a total fool.
You should learn what a joke looks like before you correct people as it just makes you look like a total fool.
Re:35 bullion? (Score:5, Funny)
You should joke with a fool look-a-like before you correct people as it just makes you joke like a fool.
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You should fool with a joke-a-like before you correct people as it just makes you learn like a look.
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Will they dispense other kinds of bullion other than 35?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullion#Bullion
Gold bullion would be coins made of gold. Therefor, 35 bullion machines would be 35 machines that dispense coins minted from precious metals.
Re:35 bullion? (Score:5, Informative)
It's spelt billion.
This article has nothing to do with grains!
That's how us Brits spell "spelled": http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/spelt [reference.com]
I see a hack waiting to happen... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I see a hack waiting to happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
then sell it for $300 an ounce
Uhhh, you haven't checked the price of gold in a while, have you?
Re:I see a hack waiting to happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
then sell it for $300 an ounce
Uhhh, you haven't checked the price of gold in a while, have you?
This is the same guy whom thought gold ownership was illegal... not exactly the most up to date...
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It was illegal for a time, but those laws were later repealed.
Re:I see a hack waiting to happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it was only illegal until the 70s or so, then the market was flooded with people who had been secret hoarding gold from earlier.
By the way, if you'd be willing to sell me your gold for $300 an ounce, then I'd be willing to buy it from you. In large quantities. Seriously.
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If he's willing to sell at 300 an oz, I'd even by at small quantity.
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You definitely missed his point:
"Hack the machine to get it to sell for $10 er ounce, sell at $300 per ounce so that you can dump your ill gotten gold very quickly for 30 times what you spent."
When it's effectively stolen gold, being able to dump it quickly is far more important than getting full market value out of it, just like any other stolen property.
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I can't imagine a legit coin dealer / jeweler buying a couple ingots that have been carefully defaced in that way. Admittedly it would make the cops job much harder.
Unless you are going to try and source the gold through measuring radiation or minor trace elements (Which is not cheap or easy), gold bars are gold bars.
I have/had a couple ingots that I made from melting down old bits of broken jewelry. Twisted necklaces, broken settings, old dead water damaged watches, basic wedding bands.
Hire a trusted comp
Re:I see a hack waiting to happen... (Score:5, Insightful)
Government did it once to force dollars into the market, it can do it again. What it can't ban is gold coinage. That is why even modern gold coins have a value of the countries currency stamped in it. So if they outlawed gold again, the "value" is stamped on the coin. That is the value that you would get back from he government if you were forced to turn it in.
Lets see, a 50$ gold eagle (1oz) sells for 1368.+/- Currnt value of 1oz of gold on market is 1297 as of now. US Mint sells them at bullion price, so you'll never buy one for the $50 strike value. That is just a matter of semantics in case they ever recall them. You just gave the government $1318 profit.
The other reason to have coin instead of bar is for "numismatic" value, so that even if US dollar is nothing the collection value of the coin would be worth something more than just the gold. (At least one would hope.)
I understand Beck's POV on gold, but it is NOT for everyone (and he says so), and an ATM for it it more of a marketing twist than anything.
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What it can't ban is gold coinage.
Because of the magical exception not allowing them to ban gold coinage. Oh, wait, that doesn't exist, that's just part of the Goldline scam to sell gold at 100% markup.
'Oh, we're not selling gold bars, because we've invented a reason that the government might come take those. Take this gold coins instead.'...'Oh, did we forget to mention that, after all that talk of 'investment', that we were selling them at a huge markup, so gold would need to double or even triple in
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Except the machine takes a cut.
(Or rather than company that owns the machine.)
Re:I see a hack waiting to happen... (Score:4, Informative)
It was never illegal to sell gold to the public. Jewelers, dentists, and electronic connector manufacturers would have pitched a fit.
What was illegal was ownership of non-artistic non-numismatic gold beyond a certain rather minimal level.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102 [wikipedia.org]
Yet another problem (Score:2)
Why don't they put up a giant sign labeled "Rob This Machine"?
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How is it diffferent from a regular ATM, apart from the loot being less liquid?
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Gold in your pocket is safe. (Score:2)
Re:Gold in your pocket is safe. (Score:4, Interesting)
I live in a state with a large number of concealed carry permits. Forceful robberies are becoming less common.
Why? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the point of selling gold in a vending machine when no one is going to take a gold coin as currency?
The idea is to make money .. for the people who make the gold dispensing ATMs. Its nothing more than a capitalistic response to a fear based environment.
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I guess filling consumer demand while reducing consumer costs and making a profit is evil in your world. Might I suggest you move to North Korea? I guarantee no-one is making any evil profits there.
In times of financial crisis (Score:2)
If memory serves, didn't the US government make the private ownership of gold illegal in times of severe crisis in the past?
Don't they have a precedent for seizing precious metals from their citizenry, without recompense?
Re:In times of financial crisis (Score:4, Informative)
And considering the massive failure that was the last gold seizure (they only got 500 tons total), and the fact that we aren't on a gold standard, so they can devalue the dollar just fine as is, there is no need and little likelihood of future seizure of gold. Your retirement accounts will probably be nationalized long before your gold is seized.
Will we be able to trade furs for it? (Score:2, Funny)
Market penetration (Score:5, Funny)
To put that in perspective, that's over a hundred machines per person, or 3.3 machines per square foot of land. Talk about agressive expansion!
That will come in handy (Score:2)
Surprised at the "useless" and "aprilfools" tags (Score:2, Insightful)
How secure is the pricing (Score:2)
Secure payment communications is old hat. I wonder how secure the pricing information is.
You could hack the communication to the local vending machine or do some DNS hacking on the source to the upstream feed where it reads the actual market price.
Set the price per ounce to 1/10 (1/100, 1/1000) of the actual market and you could make some pretty good money.
Wait, wait... let me get this straight... (Score:2)
You trade your cash for gold at these [cnbc.com] ... then you go to Cash4Gold [cash4gold.com] and trade the gold for cash?
ATM thefts will rise (Score:2)
I've seen a lot of ATMs get stolen. It just takes a pickup truck, a crow bar, some chains and a couple of guys willing to take a risk.
If they'll do it for cash, anyone want to bet the percentage of gold ATMs that get stolen will be a lot higher than the percentage of regular ATMs?
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It just takes a pickup truck, a crow bar, some chains and a couple of guys willing to take a risk.
I can only assume you've never weighed gold before. Good luck moving one of these things with anything but a forklift.
Is that really gold bars? (Score:2)
Unless it also ACCEPTS gold bars... (Score:4, Interesting)
...I'm not interested.
All the goldbugs keep telling me that gold is money, regardless of what economists say or what governments decree. So if gold is money, why won't these machines work either way?
Your choice, put in fiat money and get a gold bar, or put in a gold bar and get some crisp green U. S. of A. "Cyberbit Certificates" (or whatever it is that backs the currency nowadays).
I'm sure the technical problems could be solved--it only accepts gold bars slabbed in polycarbonate with a barcode on them, or something. Methinks the real reason is that it would exposed the bid/asked spread.
You can't eat gold. (Score:5, Interesting)
Gold is only useful if you can hang on to it and survive the years between total collapse and the rebuilding of a new world.
Generally, gold is seized by whatever autocrats and strong-men are vying for power in the interim. In any case, during the hungry years, nobody has any use for gold.
But what's interesting this time around is that we're entering an age where canned goods are stable and good for years. We've never been through a societal collapse which has had access to high-quality, preserved goods.
Whatever. Skill sets are more important in the long run. Can you farm or make useful things? What value do you personally hold? Do people like you?
-FL
Analysis is too simplistic (Score:4, Interesting)
Gold is useful if the currency of your country collapses in value prior to your purchase and the world economy is still strong enough to buy your gold.
Economic collapse is not an all-or-nothing event, sometimes the economy in a limited number of countries collapses. An example of this would be Argentina in 1999.
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Better yet, hack into the network to make it think the gold is 20-40% lower in cost.
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And hope that
1: it doesn't go down again before you can sell it
2: the increases were significant enough that you can still make a profit after any relavent fees.
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Re:Arbitrage? (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly.
Don't be dumb and buy anything when it is near historically-high levels. You'll only be the "greater fool" that allows those people who bought near the lows and rode the price up to cash out just before the price collapses.
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Re:Arbitrage? (Score:4, Insightful)
Certainly that's common sense advice, but if you'd bought gold at the historically high level of $1000/oz last year, you'd be doing quite well now.
Sometimes prices really aren't cyclical, and sometimes the cycles are quite long.
That said, I'm not buying gold. And I certainly see no reason for gold prices not to be cyclical, aside from a possible impending total crash of the world's economies. In which case gold will go up a lot more shortly before euros and dollars become worthless -- but shortly thereafter, you'll be wishing you bought food and ammo instead, and if your gold was on paper rather than holding up your mattress, you won't have it anymore anyway.
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If they had had this vending machine technology in the 1920s, they would have been rolling out stock certificate vending machines in 1929.
Gold does not pay dividends. Gold does not have buy-backs. Gold can't be rented out for cash flow. It is traded purely on speculation. And like all speculative bubbles, it will crash. If history is any guide, the crash will come shortly after the mainstream press starts highlighting it, and the common schmucks start buying in.
Fox News is our mainstream press. Vending mach
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Speaking on which, who even buys physical gold at market prices?
If it's worth 1300$/ounce on the market, who will offer you that for each bar you have stockpiled?
The jewelry store? Doubt it.
Cash 4 Gold? Lolz
Put it on Craigslist? Someone's getting robbed...
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Except that the dispenser most likely calculates the price as market price + obscene markup. You'd have to cause a huge spike in the market and then employ a gang to simultaneously buy up gold from all the ATMs at the cheaper price and somehow prolong the spike long enough to sell your bullion at the raised price in order to ben
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Dunno, I currently don't actually own any gold. Might be kind of cool to have a few weight units of gold around the house.
You'd really pass up the opportunity to own some actual gold bullion? I don't think I could. :)
Gold around the house (Score:2)
My problem with having gold around the house is when I went to pay for the pizza he totally wouldn't give me change. What is that, about a $150 tip for a pie?
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It does to me for several reasons. How long before one of the machines is stolen? And why would anyone want the physical gold? It's not like you can purchase anything with pure gold now.
I also don't know why anyone would buy gold at this price. I always thought the mantra was "Buy low, sell high", so I have no idea why anyone would buy gold when it's almost $1300 per ounce, as I don't see it getting much higher (although I could be really wrong).
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***Does this sound silly to anyone else?***
Well, I HAVE been wondering how one asks "What could possibly go wrong?" in German.
Google tells me "Was koennte schief gehen?" but I wonder if that isn't a bit literal.
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Re:Bouillon ATMs (Score:4, Funny)
The demand for bouillon has cubed.
Re:boggles the mind (Score:5, Insightful)
If we're going mad max, farming is not where the money is. Subsistence is important, but you can always *trade* for food. Which is where gold comes in, as a near-universal currency. If you have enough of it, you can manipulate local markets to your benefit.
But anyway, the people who make out best in a mad max situation will be the merchants. Being able to supply many people with what *they* need is way more profitable than just being able to supply yourself (and family) with what *you* need for baseline subsistence.
So I say, rather than hoard gold or learn to farm, hoard farming tools and steel knives. And guns and ammo. And fuel. But don't neglect the high-profit luxury items and their inputs... someone needs to supply (at a profit) the local warlords and their mistresses. Hoard silk. Hoard glassware. Hoard dyes. Oh, and don't forget to make sure you have the resources to employ heavies to keep those warlords from taking your stuff for free.
And while you're at it, you might as well just become one of those warlords, and synergistically apply your brutal local enforcement methods to ensuring you are the *only* supplier of durable goods in your area. Then you can make sure to maximize your profits.
Wait, sorry, did I get off track with a libertarian fantasy?