You don't think it is safe to assume that gold will retain the role it has played for 99.9% of human history?biffvernon wrote:[
I don't think it's safe to make assumptions about the real value of gold in the post-climacteric world.
Why not? I accept that we are in uncharted territory for all sorts of reasons, but I don't understand what any of them have to do with the likely future value of gold.It might turn out the way you guys are suggesting but it might not. The past is certainly no sound guide.
This is possible, and it is a risk I'm willing to take because I don't think it is a very large risk. You are suggesting that the government will intervene to arbitrarily punish the one group of people who made the right call with respect to economy. A lot of these people are precisely the same rich and influential individuals that the government always protects. So I think this theory involves a Ludwig-style paranoia. I just don't think it is likely enough to happen to put anyone off owning gold.Gold has certainly been a good hedge against the inflation of a particular currency, but we are now looking towards a global financial event. One must also consider government's response. If the currency goes belly up will the government allow those holding gold to profit? Maybe all gold stocks will be nationalised without compensation.
That's utterly irrelevant, Biff.Ok, you could say the same about land so that's not the greatest of arguments, but at least with land you'd be in the company of many others so it might be politically less easy. And then there's the issue that digging up gold is just another rape of the Earth, and the workers who do it tend to be at the bottom of the heap.
Fine. I'd rather not lose all my money. I hate the system too, but I don't see that as a reason to financially shoot myself in the foot.And then there's the issue that we've already got tens of thousands of tons of the stuff sitting doing nothing in bank vaults. Is that really worth all the pain and disease? Basically, it's a system that stinks and I'd rather not be a part of it.
Also, you do not seem to realise that buying gold is an act of anarchy. It is about as anti-The-System as you can get. If everybody decided to buy gold tomorrow, The System would collapse instantly. The more people who try to own gold, the close the system you hate gets to collapsing. This is one of the reasons why professional traders don't generally like owning gold. It is their strategy of last resort.
It's the gold bugs who will eventually kill The System. You should be on our side, but you aren't. You are actually defending The System, or rather allowing yourself to be a willing victim of it.
This is crazy, Biff. Gold has gone up in value every year for the last twenty years, and that was mostly before the financial crisis. Meanwhile, money sitting in "safe" cash account in banks is guaranteed to lose about 5% of its real worth annually. Yet somehow you believe that owning precious metals is more risky than leaving money in cash account at precisely the moment the global financial system looks like collapsing????So my advice is that you might be financially sensible to gamble a part of your wealth on precious metals, but don't buy more than you are willing to take a loss on.
You are BONKERS.
Gold, or any form of money, is only of use in trade and not of use in itself. Buying stuff that is useful now and will still be useful in several years time has some real advantages.
Right. So what do you think I should do with the £45,000 I still have losing value in a Barclays account? Buy some land in a random location nowhere near me, maybe? Buy vast amounts of towels and shoes? Or should I, perhaps, buy something small and valuable which is certain to become even more valuable and may just become unimaginably valuable?
Unless I want to be a total idiot, the only sensible thing for me to do is buy gold. Lots of it. The same applies to anybody out there who has a significant amount of money in cash accounts but can't afford to buy land/property. Leave it in a bank and it will erode away. Put it in the stock market or government bonds and it is likely to be blown away. What else is one supposed to do with it?
