The price of gold has soared as every other market has behaved more erratically. Apparently the thinking is that gold is a safer investment in bad times, even good for a spectacularly post-crash, or even post-apocalyptic world.
I still don't understand the allure of gold. It has value in dentistry, say, and jewelry, but that would probably account for about .1% of the demand for it. Of all the magnets for capital, it seems to me one of the most useless.
If you really do think that markets are going to collapse and society is breaking down and want a hedge against this, don't buy gold. Buy canned goods, bottled water, and toilet paper.
R World (Ron Davison muses aloud)
I'm of Dutch descent, and we once had an economy based on tulips. Seriously! Then one day people decided they really didn't need tulips anymore, and that was the end of that.
ReplyDeleteI can kind of see the same thing happening with gold. It's only valuable because everyone agrees it's valuable- but who's to say they won't change their minds?
Maybe it's time to invest in Chinese debt. As their dollar strengthens against ours, we would do quite well.
ReplyDeleteI find it intesting how the "circle of life" plays out. The idea that in a collapse we could go back to our beginnings to a barter system is ironic. "Money" having transitioned from precious metals used as a medium to facilitate trade, to coins, to printed paper (including scripts or checks), to electronic bits in a computer and back to barter. Anybody want to trade a roll of paper for a can of soup?
ReplyDeleteLifehiker,
ReplyDeleteI like you're thinking. You suppose when it's all said and done the necessary bribes would be more or less than what we're currently paying in broker's fees?