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Hidden Dangers in Gold
Hidden Dangers in Gold
Based on an article by Dr. Paul Price in the Dec. 4, 12 issue of the Market Shadows newsletter: A Failure to Communicate: Numbers, Rates & Lies
Why isn't Paul currently buying gold bars, gold Electronically Traded Notes (ETFs), and mining companies? Wouldn't owning gold offset the (understated) inflation that we see daily and that may soon spiral out of control? While Paul argues that Washington’s Biggest Lie is its denial of real inflation, he also believes that pouring money into physical gold, gold-tracking assets, and shares of mining companies, is very risky, even if it makes logical sense. (Gold - The Biggest Risks Are The Ones You Don't See)
It makes sense because the supply of gold is limited and gold cannot be magically created by the Central Banks. Gold has also been used as a store of wealth for centuries. And of course, gold is presumed to be a good inflation hedge. But is it really?
Going back to 1980, gold peaked at about $850 per ounce. It bottomed in 2000 at about $250 per ounce. Annual inflation in 1980 and 1981 was in the double-digits. Later in the 1980s and through the 1990s, inflation fluctuated from under 2 to over 5 percent, drifting lower over those two decades.
Paul's chart below shows the nominal price of gold beginning in the 1970s. The second chart shows the nominal price of gold from 1979 to July 2012. (Click on charts to enlarge.)
Nominal Gold Prices 1979 - 2012
Chart from allaboutinflation.com
Paul notes that from 1980 to 2000, the CPI inflated by a cumulative 137% (compounded). Gold dropped to $250 during this period. But what about yearly inflation rates vs. the price of gold - is there a correlation?
The following chart shows gold prices vs. annual inflation rates. Apart from a clear correlation between inflation and the price of gold in in the 1970s, the correlation has weakened in recent years.
Gold Prices vs. Inflation Rate
Chart from Bloomberg
Describing the chart above, SymmetricInfo wrote,
It's clear that the lines seem correlated back in the 70’s and 80?s, but lose their relationship in the past decade. This makes it difficult to believe that the recent increase in price of gold has been solely due to a change in realized inflation and weakens the case for gold as a good inflation hedge... There isn’t much empirical evidence to make one believe that the decade long gold rally has exclusively to do with either realized inflation, inflation expectations or the federal reserves balance sheet. (Is gold really an inflation hedge?)
In Gold vs. Inflation, Barry Ritholtz noted that the link between gold prices and inflation is limited. The correlation between gold and inflation year over year is 0.42. On a month over month basis, it's only 0.11. According to Merrill, "Gold is not a great hedge against inflation. Investors would be better off owning TIPS if they are looking for protection against a potential rise in inflation." (Merrill Lynch via Barry Ritholtz)
Paul doubts that gold prices will soar to new heights anytime soon. He questioned the wisdom of amassing physical gold, buying gold in a custodian's care, and loading up one's portfolio with assets reflecting gold prices:
Recent history shows at least some custodians of your warehoused Gold to have been unreliable. For example, commodity brokerage firms MF Global and Peregrine Financial both failed to protect customer interests in the physical gold ‘safeguarded’ by them.
If you correctly bet on Gold going up you still may never even see your original stake returned, let alone any paper profits. Speculators were willing to risk price fluctuations. They didn’t know they were also subject to outright theft of their property.
Many traders today play Gold movements with ETNs (Electronically Traded Notes) without knowing these have bigger risks than simply the metal's price action. These ETNs are unsecured obligations of their issuing financial sponsors....
Physical delivery of Krugerrands, American Eagle gold coins and or bullion bars, and holding them in your own safe seems to avoid the custodial problems. Now, word from ZeroHedge.com confirms that Chinese companies have been actively promoting the sale of assorted counterfeit gold plated items ‘for legal purposes only’. (Gold - The Biggest Risks Are The Ones You Don't See)
Fakes and Frauds
Besides the risks that inflation won't skyrock and that custodians of your gold-based assets will go belly up, Zero Hedge noted that tungsten is being used to fill fake gold items. A firm called ChinaTungsten Online is marketing its broad 'tungsten-alloy services.' These services include "the gold plating of various tungsten formulations among them 'gold' bricks, bars and, yes, coins." The company is openly advertizing its tungsten gold-plating and precious metals replication services.
Zero Hedge also relayed a story about counterfeit gold being found in Manhattan's Jewelry District. "Myfoxny reported that a 10-ounce gold bar costing nearly $18,000 turned out to be a counterfeit. The discovery was made by the dealer Ibrahim Fadl, who bought the PAMP bar in question from a merchant who has sold him real gold before. 'But he heard counterfeit gold bars were going around, so he drilled into several of his gold bars worth $100,000 and saw gray tungsten -- not gold. The bar was filled with tungsten, which weighs nearly the same as gold but costs just over a dollar an ounce.'"
Will we soon be drilling into the cores of our shiny golden trinkets, bars and coins to test for purity? This is expensive, time-consuming, and decreases value and transferability.
The fraud in the metals market is here in the US, and not limited to physical pieces. In a Fool’s gold? CFTC says 12 firms sell phantom metals, Rob Varnon reports:
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission announced Wednesday, it filed a civil injunctive enforcement action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida against 12 firms and their executives for fraudulently marketing illegal, off exchange retail commodity contracts...
According to the CFTC complaint, the defendants claim to sell physical metals, including gold, silver, platinum, palladium, and copper, to retail customers in retail commodity transactions. Under the defendants’ retail commodity transactions investment contract, customers allegedly make a down payment on certain quantities of physical metals, usually 25 percent of the total purchase price. Defendants allegedly claim to arrange loans for the balance of the purchase price, and advise customers that their physical metals will be stored in a secure depository.
But the CFTC alleged that the defendants do not purchase any physical metals, arrange loans for their customers to purchase physical metals, or arrange for storage of physical metals for any customers participating in their retail commodity transactions. Instead, all the transactions are just paper transactions, according to the complaint. Defendants allegedly do not own or sell metals to customers; customers are charged storage and insurance fees on metals that do not exist; and are charged interest on loans, which are never made by the defendants... (Fool’s gold? CFTC says 12 firms sell phantom metals)
Mining companies may seem like viable alternative to other gold-based investments involving trusting custodians or stockpiling one's own gold supply. However, particularly for mining companies with foreign operations, forward estimates and past performance may not be good predictors of future profits.
I used to favor shares of international resource and mining companies as a safer, liquid, back-door play on rising inflation. Worldwide political forces and heavy government debt have been catalysts for repudiation of long-term contracts and unilateral nationalization of foreign assets. This puts downward pressure on the earnings power of resource companies with significant assets in less developed countries.
Argentina-based oil company YPF (YPF) lost about half it value overnight some months ago after local authorities basically seized its assets without fair compensation. Indonesia has threatened to abrogate signed contracts with FCX because it now wants bigger royalties than previously agreed to. Australia is raising taxes dramatically on BHP, which cut back on its development there in protest.
The good old days of paying contractually promised royalties to less developed nations while mining their natural resources appears to be coming to an end. This explains what look like bargain prices on industry leaders like BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto (RIO), Freeport Mc-MoRan (FCX), Newmont Mining (NEM), American Barrick (ABX) and others.
All forward estimates may be shot to hell in the political climate that looms just over the horizon... (Gold - The Biggest Risks Are The Ones You Don't See)
A Gold Bubble?
It is not easy to find financial gurus and writers who are currently bearish on gold. There is Warren Buffett, who prefers buying something that generates income. Joe Weisenthal posed the bubble question in writing about Felix Salmon's attempt to go shopping with a gold bar. "It sounds silly, but if gold is a currency, then it should be usable as a medium of exchange... Felix goes up to a guy loading wholesale beer, and the guy knows instantly (!) what a gram of gold is worth: right around $50! When the guy loading wholesale beer knows the price of a gram of gold instantly, you've just got your famous example of the taxi driver giving you stock tips. DANGER!" (This Is The Best Proof We've Ever Seen That Gold Is In A Bubble)
Safe Haven Built on China?
Jordan Weissmann at The Atlantic argues that China's problems are gold's problems.
Investors who love gold tend to think of it as a sort of bomb shelter. It's supposed to be a secure place to park your money when the rest of the financial world is blowing up...
In the past decade, much of the new demand that set gold off on a wild tear from around $300-an-ounce at the turn of the century to almost $1,900-an-ounce last year has come from two places: India and China. Combined, they account for 45 percent of the world's demand for gold jewelry and bars...
For today, let's focus on China, which passed India as the world's top gold market earlier this year. The country deregulated its gold market in 2001, and since then, it has gone from consuming about a third as much gold as the developed west to overtaking it by 2011. Let me repeat that: the Chinese buy more gold than the entire west combined...
Just as China's rich have found new places to invest, the country's economy has been slowing down frighteningly, which dropped demand for jewelry this last quarter by 9 percent from a year earlier.
Source: Why Is the Price of Gold Falling?
Updated and based on Paul's article in the latest Market Shadows newsletter: A Failure to Communicate: Numbers, Rates & Lies.
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There is nothing I personally could remotely argue you on.
And ZH helped me when it first opened its doors. Which is why I go bat shit crazy when I see crap like this on a great blog. Not to mention I've contributed here not on CNBS.
the price of Gold can't rise whent the supply of money in the real economy is falling falling falling -
phantom accounting entries do not count. the money the central bankers imagine they are creating DOES NOT EXIST.
the powers of deflation are completely overwhelming the ability of the bankers to "print."
think of it this way: over the course of the last 30 years, HUNDREDS OF TRILLIONS of dollars we're created in via shadow banking AND THEN SPENT into the real economy.
that money is now gone. no new money is being created. banks aren't lending. people aren't borrowing. any new "money / debt" that IS being created is being gobbled up by banks and goverments.
that is all a recipe for 30 years of deflation, mounting bankrupcies, rising unemployment, falling asset prices, falling commodity prices, and LOWER prices for money metals
please elaborate
Stagflation perhaps ? The cost of what we need to live will inflate like crazy. The value of things we own like houses etc. will deflate like crazy.
The question of gold is an interesting one but history has shown it operats outside the laws of traditional supply and demand. The rich and Governments will continue to accumulate gold and therefore it will preserve your wealth. BUY GOLD.
One should not confuse the impact of bringing more Gold Cargo which is equivalent to money printing with excitation of trade. Completely different phenomenons.
I advise you read the episodes of Andrew Dickson White. The assignats episode is an excess of stimulus and credit money, the assignat episode is an episode of deflationary collapse and continous plunge of economy in real terms and overcapacity with yet massive increase in prices.
We agree the rise in prices has nothing to do with an increase of activity none. But as Andrew Dickson White describes the assignat period of rising prices and massive unemployment, wages not rising but the price of everything else rising, misery and economy falling back flat after each issuance of stimulative assignats.
The concept of multiplier fails totally under those circumstances because the newly printed capital skips, does not go into circulation but into speculation, like Andrew Dickson White describes. Hyperinflation and slow mode hyperinflation are fascinating phenomenon which are not well studied in recent studies because of the idiocy of the multiplier concept.
Also Spaulding describes the same dispear in the economy while prices rises fast during the episode of the greenback.
What you are describing would happen if tge debt is restructured and powerless in trying to reflate, but would assume that stopping the printing would have any impact on treasuries prices. Given that scenario the Fed might be tempted to print a last time and then the loss of faith in currency makes the situation move from hyperdeflation to hyperinflation. Hyperinflation events are always always hyperdeflationary in nature. But if that happens Gold goes down but its purchasing power is not much reduced. If you hold Dollar you might be fine in that case and even better off, but if you are wrong you are much more hurt than by holding Gold.
and yet gold is up 11 straight years.
I'd really love to have some of that deflation you mush for brains people are always talking about. Every time I go get gas or food, or pay my health insurance and medical costs I think, oh fuck there's that deflation again!
and still, you guys don't understand why gold is going up, it's not just inflation, it's meaningless fiat currencies - and this time, unlike 1980, gold will not come back down until someone pegs it to their currency - and it won't be the U.S. It will be the BRIC's and gold in USD's will be higher than any of you deflationists could ever imagine.
Bubble my ass.
The only thing this lady said that made any sense was about the miners. They suck.
Deflation...hmm...which means the politicized Fed allows the US debt to get more expensive to pay off over time? Who will be buying trillions of new debt any time soon? Or will the usgov say to all the dependents sorry we can't borrow anymore you're out of luck? And tell creditors sorry we can't pay you back? Or...will they come up with new euphisms for currency debasement and print? Place your bets!
I'm betting on the last door.
Another fucking clueless economic moron. Dude, we take in $2.3 trillion. $2.03 trillion goes out in Social Security, Medicare, Tarp, student loans, unemployment....
Key words fat cow goes out.
$230 billion goes out in interest.
That is almost the total of the $2.3 trillion we take in.
Then another $1.3 trillion goes out on 3 wars and everythin you and I think of when we see or hear the word government.
That money is being spent. It is inflationary. It is why your dollar has a purchasing value of .02 cents today down from 100 cents 100 years ago.
ilene, I have the producers of CNBSs email addresses, let me know if you want them, maybe we can shit all over ZH with Cramer the Clowns crap and Liesmans turds too.
I have Larry boy Summers email too. I sent him the last article I did Moronomics, it was dedicated to him. http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/d-sherman-okst/moronomics
Or maybe you can get Edwin Truman to write something you can crap up ZH with. His last piece was so bad I did an article and dedicated it to him. He actually accepted the award I gave him. http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/d-sherman-okst/nobel-award-in...
You see ilene, I hate crap. I let the shitheads who fucked up our economy, economists and our kids with this stupidity know. I fucking write them and tell them that they are morons. If more people stoodup to this crap we wouldn't have had derivatives.
Now we have people advocating shit like this.
Why don't you just find people who feel we should drive drunk with kids unbuckled and out of car seats while your at it?
Fucking brilliant Sherman, seriously.
Illene,
Pay attention I'll make this as simple as possible you shill whore:
1) 17 Trillion debt
2) Huge Fed balance sheet
3) Bernanke
4) endless fullretard monetizing.
Take your "gold is a bubble" scare tactics and blow them out your ass.
It's not the $ 17 T Federal debt that should scare us , but rather that $100-125 T in underfunded pensions and social security coupled with the State and Municipal debt probably totaling another $ 100 T..... Gold is the only way to go. In 1902 gold was $ 20/oz. and that could rent you a fully furnished nice two bedroom apartment. Today the Oz. does the same. PROTECT your assets -- BUY Gold.
+1 www.usdebtclock.org
$16 trillion SS.
$84 trillion Medicare.
$21 trillion Prescription Drugs (the real cost to win the election in FL without the SC ruling for you when you are 50,000 votes short)
$16++ trillion National Debt
$6 trillion GSE crap hidden away not on the debt clock. (Fannie and Freddie's mess)
I don't claim to know anything and even I know that skimming this long winded piece about nothing was a waste of my time.
I'm not just trying to be mean, what is the takeway from this? Was there any actionable information?
This piece has a perfect purpose: To keep anyone on the fence away from buying physical gold. It's fancied up with a buncha charts that mystify most common folk. It's like your lawyer throwing about terms of art in the courtroom. "Boy, he must be smart! I don't have the slightest idea what he just said." As has been stated above, any treatise that even hints that the CPI is a worthy factor in this type of discussion renders the argument moot. I read it all simply because I hate those who say, "I stopped reading at...". I read it. Wish I had my time back. It's so wrong it's not worthy of rebuttal.
Ya gotta luv all these jerks what pull out their favorite rubber rulers (in this case, the CPI) and proceed to show how gold is not priced correctly, never understanding the inertial frame of reference for all things economic is (and has been for thousands of years!) Gold itself!
ilene's genius friend from Merrill Lynch, A.G. Edwards, Wheat First [now Wachovia Securities],Ferris, Baker Watts writes: "Will we soon be drilling into the cores of our shiny golden trinkets, bars and coins to test for purity? This is expensive, time-consuming, and decreases value and transferability."
Only a dentist and Rudy boy Guliiani would think to drill everything.
Oh, gee wait, Paul Price practiced dentistry....
Stock up on gold spray paint and tungsten
"Going back to 1980, gold peaked at about $850 per ounce. It bottomed in 2000 at about $250 per ounce. Annual inflation in 1980 and 1981 was in the double-digits. Later in the 1980s and through the 1990s, inflation fluctuated from under 2 to over 5 percent, drifting lower over those two decades."
Volcker pulled us back from the cliff then.
Does Price even know how many millions are in a trillion? That SS is $16 trillion, that Medicare is $84 trillion that Prescription Drugs are $21 trillion?
Does he know the GSE off balance sheet debt is about $6 trillion.
Does he understand that government spending breaks out into 3 areas, mandatory, interest on the debt and discretionary? And that mandatory is stuffed full with welfare and TARP and is $2.03 trillion. Add $230 billion of interest and we're at what we take in, giving us no money for 3 wars and everything people think of when we say the government.
When you monetize 46 cents of every dollar you're in Zimbabwe.
I've seen shit like this on crap blogs and CNBS.
This guy shouldn't be allowed to so much as comment here.
Any text which even consider the bogus CPI is worthless.
"Any text which even consider the bogus CPI is worthless."
+1
John Who? Williams of Shadow Who? Stats who publishes inflation at 11 percent. Or Chris Who? Martenson's Crash Course on Fuzzy Numbers.
I agree with Davos, the CPI calculation was changed in the early 80's. It isn't a real measure of inflation. Gold will go as high as the debt goes deep. It will also be necessary to back a new world reserve currency because no one will trust this paper garbage anymore.
I read this the other night before it got taken down. It still sucks today.
anybody have any suggestions for an alternative asset which can be easily hidden from the taxman or from those tasked with verifying that you "means qualify" for benefits?
and coming soon to a civilization near you ...
"For the mob," Polybius [athens] writes, "habituated to feed at the expense of others, and to have its hopes of a livelihood in the property of its neighbors, as soon as it has got a leader sufficiently ambitious and daring, being excluded by poverty from the sweets of civil honors, produces a reign of mere violence. Then come tumultuous assemblies, massacres, banishments, redivisions of land; until, after losing all trace of civilization, it [the mob] has once more found a master and a despot."
Polybius of Megalopolis (200 - 118 BC)
Yeah cash
You know the thing that buys shit
Yah really should look back at how that worked out for people in times when CB's of their country were printing...
Many found themselves panning for gold to buy food.
Memo to self - get a couple of good pans and maps of any nearby prospects. Gold is nearly everywhere. All it takes to find is time and luck.
The proper way to phrase this is:
"The shit is everywhere! And only $5 to dig from the ground!"
(Oh, wait, that's the other metal.)
According to David Rosenberg, those people in Zimbabwe were panning for gold strictly as a hobby to relieve their boredom. The inflation wsn't a result of central bank printing - the Zimbabwean people demanded inflation.
They demanded inflation because they, unlike we Americans today, could "afford to pay for it", apparently.
"I read this the other night before it got taken down. It still sucks today."
+1
I'll have to have a few more beers before calling her a clueless economic moron [again over this three legged dog]. Maybe then she'll pull it again. Sad day in ZH land. Least William had some great Christmas cards on his latest work, I like the Santa & the Drones.
hmm all of this took place in a functioning market and with no Central Bank manipulation going on?
right.
+1 in truth, the biggest "danger" in owning physical gold is the fact that the biggest owners & "players" are central/national banks
that's why seriously rich people have "fine art" next to gold. A couple of Picassos or Flemish Masters have some of it's properties though with a different pros/cons factsheet
strange article indeed - I wonder if some reverse psychology is involved
The issue I have here is with the inflation numbers. The CPI has been more and more adjusted for political reasons, and to the point now of being a bogus number. We here in thew USA have seen our standard of living being eroded starting with "Free Trade". As the jobs were lost, so was everything else (for the 99%). As long as we are under "Free Trade" we will have to keep lowering our standard of living till it is lower than that of others world wide. So just how much more can you take of this? I don't know ether, so I'm buying GOLD till it changes.
Eric Who? Sprott and all his fine work on 2,600 tons mined & captured from scrap verse demand of 3,000 tons which were delivered with heavy speculation that the CB's leases were sold....
Crap.
You know ilene, I went off on you the other night and you pulled this piece of shit down doing ZH readers a huge favor.
A new "dawler" is coming. I fucking guarantee it. All currencies will be re-issued. For the first time in history, all within the same decade.
It'll be the usual MO, bring us 1 million, 1 billion, 1 trillion old dollars and pick up 1 new dollar or your coin portion there of.
Whether or not we like a gold doesn't fucking matter. At all!
There are intelligent ways to check gold aside from drilling asinine holes in gold. This is a prime example personifying the scope of rational thinking and problem solving from a former employee of Merrill Lynch, A.G. Edwards. Wheat First/Wachovia, Ferris, Baker Watts? Drill a fucking hole in it? There are scales, digital calipers and electronic sonogram devices, just for starters.
The only thing you have to wrap your fucking mind around is what happened already, (Read: The Fiats are dying and gold is maintaining its value.) Here is an example of why I don't give a fuck about some Merrill Lynch, A.G. Edwards, Wheat First [now Wachovia Securities],Ferris, Baker Watts clueless fucking economic opinion on gold is:
Weimar 1921 gold 1,700 marks per ounce.
Weimar 1923 gold 87,000,000,000,000 (87 trillion) marks per ounce.
And here is what you have to understand to come out the otherside of this without going through the abortion straw is this one simple fact:
December 1923 new currency Rentenmark issued, 1,000,000,000 (1 billion marks) for 1 new Rentenmark. People took marks to paper recyclers.
Now ask yourself, if you had 1 fucking ounce of gold who many Rentenmarks would you have gotten? $87,000.
And if you listened to the douchebag noise of the time, what would you have? Shit.
And one more thing: Look up a bubble before you use the word. 1.) Disturbance, 2,) Expansion, prices rise, 3,) EASY CREDIT and there are 4 more google Minsky.
There is no easy credit buying gold. There is easy credit creating "dawlers" and that is the bubble, and gold is the canary in the dollar mine.
Tylers: Seriously? In 1987 he made a full-time career switch by joining Merrill Lynch. Over the next 13 years he also worked with A.G. Edwards, Wheat First [now Wachovia Securities], and Ferris, Baker Watts.
Dr. Price had enough success to retire in October 2000 but continues to help friends and family [luck them] with their investments. He continues to give occasional investment seminars for civic groups and business schools. [luck them]
WTF is happening to the blog I heart the most?
The inflation figures don't make it clear (which is the point, of course..) that unpayable (in value terms, not nominal currency terms) government debt & structural debt (that which is spent each year in addition to total tax revenues) will be repaid, but with devalued money - in the future. The current price of gold reflects the implied (and required inflation) inflation necessary to do that.
The price of gold prior to the debt 'event horizon', was rationally traded as a hedge against ambient inflation, or safety plays in times of tension etc. What changed though, around the turn of the millenium, was the realisation that cheap oil was over & no matter what efficiences were made or what new reserves were found, the ability to produce wealth would never be in such surplus as to repay the soveriegn & current account debt. The only solution is to devalue the currency, so the nominal debt can be repaid. The only alternative to fiat (for wealth preservation, not investment) are gold & silver - the traditional monetary metals.
The precious metals, in the new era of unpayable debt, act as a 'current account' for money with no counterparty risk (either of theft,fraud or devaluation). It really is as simple as that. Investing is an entirely different activity altogether & nothing to do with gold ownership as capital.
I never sign in...I only took the trouble to give you a thumbs up...WTF kind of shrooms did Ilene eat?
DavosSherman... +1
Piffle! As has been pointed out here on numerous occasions, the Price of Aurum is more closely correlated to the US Govt debt ceiling! Inflation is TOTALLY mis-measured by the very same buttheads that are printing FRNs by the wheelbarrow-ful. I don't know who this Price character is, but I hope he follows his own advice and owns NO gold, that way, we can all throw copper pennies (pre 1982) at him when he's begging on the streets.
Au/Ag/Pd/Pt/Rh is WEALTH INSURANCE, nothing more need be said.
Right. Where are the graphs combining gold price and public debt or the monetary base. They show a near perfect correlation. The author is a f***ing jerk.
completely overlooked the Single Biggest Hidden Danger --
(drumroll)
Gold. Is. Not. Backed. By. Anything.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aX8lx9Mglcg&t=20s
best analysis ever
Gold is backed by the inability of people to create it out of thin air. It is just a token, but the beauty of this token and mean of dirculation is that despite all attempts to create Gold from lead, noone managed. The day it is as easy to print Gold as to print dollars it is over. If people could be trusted with not debasing paper currencies, Gold would be worthless. Gold is valuable only because central planners cheat, and boy they cheat a lot.
WRONG ... Classic fail in progress. Gold is absolutely unique, which means it has intrinsic value. NEVER worthless. At a specific gravity of 17 plus, combined with almost infinite malleability and non-corrosion and outstanding electrical attributes, Gold will always have value and be desired by others, as in trade.
In truth, the Dollar is a piece of paper - no more than a note from a private corporation operating a Ponzi conspiracy for the last 98 years. These United States and the Republic were sold out to the banksters at this time of year in 1913 by an unconstitutional act of CONgress which was signed by the President and given the force of law, ie: guns to enforce "legal tender" and the rest of the world took as little notice.
If the Supremes had not been bought off, they would have found the act unconstitutional.
They should all have been hung for Treason, as provided for in the Constitution, which also specifies the worth of Gold and Silver and the right of the people to use them in commerce.
But then the Constitution and BoR is not taught in the elementary classroom anymore, is it? I do remember a '60s classroom with the documents proudly displayed on the walls everywhere - wonder why they seem to have disappeared?
A gram of gold will always have worth to others, and it is just plain beautiful to look at and work with.
You must not have any gold. Gave it away for worthless paper when the price hit 1800 plus, did you? Poor move, grasshopper.
You just had to fucking do that didn't you? The famous "dawler" video. Now I gotta go find my wife, I just love the way she says "dawler". We could watch that video all day long.
You know, I deleted all my old email, but I did send her an email. The gist was when looks go, and trust me, they go fast with age, you're going to be fucked because you are a clueless fucking moron. She didn't like that all to much.
Zerohedge posted this video a while back and they got a ton of mail at that "news" station.
What a fucking mainstream media joke.
ilene, you should write for that dump.
I don't know where you found that video, I wrote an artricle and had it in it and that TV station pulled about every youtube copy known to man.
I signed in just to rate this as the silliest shit I've ever read.
me too, I havent commented for months, but really, WTF IS this shit?
Ilene clearly wants to be the new Leo.
Oracle
it is not silly if you believe everything is going to happen like it did in the past. It is only silly if you are one of the rare one (not here on ZH but in the world) who see a collapse of the magic dollar. The FED is monetizing. That is different is it not?
I'll be worried about physical gold holdings when I see that the governemnt has found a way to fund itself that does not involve getting money fron the FED.
The lies are growing thicker, the end is near.
gold does well in secular bear markets: the '30's and the 70's, for example.
as many posters note, the central banks of the world are competing at currency debasement. how can this not be bullish for gold? it is the first of the commodities to reflect this kind of inflation expectation.
after the precious metals make their move, the torch is passed on to other inflation hedge stocks (industrial metals, oil, etc.), particularly coming out of a deflationary depression (what we have now).
even in the terrifying bear market of the '30's, gold stocks generally rose. when the new bull market began they rose multiples of their price. http://www.oilngold.com/analysis/research/gold-a-gold-stocks-during-peri...
Best aternative to GOLD is TIPS?
How laughable!