Originally posted by spruce112358
And yet living things are so much more valuable than gold. Some living things are so valuable, we would give all the gold in the world for them.

Sure, but they must be exceptional living things that are very rare. Tulips are not.

Originally posted by Metal Brain
Sure, but they must be exceptional living things that are very rare. Tulips are not.

Not so rare. How much gold would you give to save your daughter's life? Any father will give you the same answer. And daughters are not so exceptional -- they are everywhere. A man with 5 daughters will give the same for each, just as much as the man with one.

How about this:

You have in front of you a completely innocent person, bound and gagged -- you know nothing about them. There is nothing exceptional about them that you can tell. They are "average". And there is also a pile of gold.

And you are forced to make a choice: take the gold, and the person dies. Leave the gold, and they live.

For how much gold would you commit murder?

Originally posted by Metal Brain
My brother said gold would crash in 2 years and that was 3 years ago. Do you have any predictions?

Does gold go up when other investments go down? In the last 4 years or so it seems gold goes up with the stock market. Am I mistaken?

Predictions? Me? They're worth about as much as a handful of Swedish fish in a gunfight.

Sure. How about, at some point in the next ten years, the US government stops paying promised benefits, furloughs workers, there is a period of civil unrest in American cities (those regions where the Democrat Party has made people dependent on government services), the US tells China to go to hell and gives China a "haircut" of about $.40 cents on the dollar, and life, for most people, goes on like normal.

Originally posted by spruce112358
Not so rare. How much gold would you give to save your daughter's life? Any father will give you the same answer. And daughters are not so exceptional -- they are everywhere. A man with 5 daughters will give the same for each, just as much as the man with one.

How about this:

You have in front of you a completely innocent person, bound and gagged ...[text shortened]... the person dies. Leave the gold, and they live.

For how much gold would you commit murder?

You are talking about love for relatives. Can you buy and sell people? Not legally. Not the same thing.

Originally posted by Metal Brain
I think that is rather foolish, but to each their own. Gold has had monetary value for centuries, Tulips have not. Kazet (who is dutch) is quick to point out the tulip bubble in the past.

I find neither tulips nor gold particularly desirable.

Originally posted by Metal Brain
You are talking about love for relatives. Can you buy and sell people? Not legally. Not the same thing.

This is a thought experiment. Imagine that the person is unrelated to you. You are just standing there, looking them in the eye. They are gagged so you can't talk to them. You don't know anything about them -- they are just the average human being.

How much would you need to kill them and walk with the gold -- no strings, no prosecution? You just pick up the gold and they keel over -- nothing messy. Instantaneous. But dead as a door-nail.

You can express in dollars if you like, instead of bullion.

Originally posted by sh76
I never used the word bubble. The group of Chicken Littles that keep the price of gold up may last forever. I don't know.

Incidentally, when I reference the "greater fool" theory, I don't mean to literally call anyone a fool. It's a term of art that describes investing money in something without "real" value on the assumption that someone else will later wil ...[text shortened]... went bust, so forgive me if I don't run to mortgage my family's future on his say so.

I agree with you on all points.

I can see Gold dropping to 1000 or less by the time the unemployment rate drops to about 5%.

Fear about stability in Europe is keeping Gold prices high, but I just can't see Gold breaking its previous high watermark. The high teens may hold for a while, but IMO the ceiling has already been hit so I would not go long at this point.

Originally posted by sh76
I never used the word bubble. The group of Chicken Littles that keep the price of gold up may last forever. I don't know.

Incidentally, when I reference the "greater fool" theory, I don't mean to literally call anyone a fool. It's a term of art that describes investing money in something without "real" value on the assumption that someone else will later wil ...[text shortened]... went bust, so forgive me if I don't run to mortgage my family's future on his say so.

I remember Jim Cramer's appearance on the Daily Show. It was very awkward.

Originally posted by USArmyParatrooper
I agree with you on all points.

I can see Gold dropping to 1000 or less by the time the unemployment rate drops to about 5%.

Fear about stability in Europe is keeping Gold prices high, but I just can't see Gold breaking its previous high watermark. The high teens may hold for a while, but IMO the ceiling has already been hit so I would not go long at this point.

That is interesting that you would say that because you are a rare coin collector. Very ironic. Are you betting against inflation? I wouldn't if I were you.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul303.html

Originally posted by sh76
Gold's value is inflated by an entire society of paranoid people who think the thin veneer of civilization is about to crack (and have thought so for 50 years) etc.

There are parallels between that and petroleum, the price of which is also inflated by speculators.

The major difference is that petroleum actually has an important use in industry. The high value of gold relies strictly on the "greater fool" theory.

That's generally true, it should be remembered though, keeping 5-10% of one's investment portfolio in physical gold can be a prudent safety net if a genuine financial meltdown does happen, not as a wealth building tool, but as a means of survival if paper investments become useless, or lost a major portion of their value. A very unlikely event, but not impossible.

Originally posted by bill718
That's generally true, it should be remembered though, keeping 5-10% of one's investment portfolio in physical gold can be a prudent safety net if a genuine financial meltdown does happen, not as a wealth building tool, but as a means of survival if paper investments become useless, or lost a major portion of their value. A very unlikely event, but not impossible.

If the faeces does hit the fan catastrophically you're probably better off in one of those Y2K or Maya survival bunkers than with a bunch of gold you can't eat.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
If the faeces does hit the fan catastrophically you're probably better off in one of those Y2K or Maya survival bunkers than with a bunch of gold you can't eat.

You are a fool. Central banks don't buy gold because they are stupid. They do it because they are smart.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/petrogold-are-russia-and-china-hoarding-gold-because-they-plan-to-kill-the-petrodollar

Originally posted by Metal Brain
You are a fool. Central banks don't buy gold because they are stupid. They do it because they are smart.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/petrogold-are-russia-and-china-hoarding-gold-because-they-plan-to-kill-the-petrodollar

Problem with gold as a hedge against inflation of fiat money is that the inflated value of gold is in that very fiat currency. If the currency goes bust, so does the supposed value of gold.

In any real crisis, where barter becomes the rule, gold will not buy needed commodities like food, water, medicine, or ammunition.

Originally posted by Metal Brain
You are a fool. Central banks don't buy gold because they are stupid. They do it because they are smart.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/petrogold-are-russia-and-china-hoarding-gold-because-they-plan-to-kill-the-petrodollar

They do it partially because of tradition and partially because they think other people are stupid (and rightly so).

Originally posted by normbenign
Problem with gold as a hedge against inflation of fiat money is that the inflated value of gold is in that very fiat currency. If the currency goes bust, so does the supposed value of gold.

In any real crisis, where barter becomes the rule, gold will not buy needed commodities like food, water, medicine, or ammunition.

Your assertion is based on the assumption that gold is overvalued. Either that or you think that the fiat currency is backed by gold, which the US dollar is not.

If the currency goes bust the value of gold does NOT go bust with it. You are wrong.