Month: September 2020

Financial Times/Henry Sanderson and Benjamin Parkin/9-29-2020

“Warren Buffett always mocked people who invested in gold, calling it a useless metal that ‘gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace’ and a way of ‘going long on fear’. This year, however, the ‘sage of Omaha’ joined investors including the world’s largest hedge fund Bridgewater Associates in buying into the latest gold rush, which helped push prices to a record high this summer.”

USAGOLD note: Buffett’s interest in gold did not occur in a vacuum, but comes, in our view, from a realization that demand for investment purposes could ramp up considerably in the years to come for reasons covered in detail at the link above – this morning’s featured FT Big Read. We found this quote of particular interest: “Gold ETFs now make up 35% of global demand compared with just 8% just last year …” As we have mentioned previously on this page, one wonders what will happen with the supply-demand equation when India and China come back online in full force.

The post Gold’s east-west divide first appeared on Today’s top gold news and opinion.

Two thousand years of monetary history and what it tells us about fiat currencies

Denver Gold Group/Presentation by  Graham Birch/9-21-2020

“Chancellors of the past would be turning in their graves – envious of Rishi Sunak’s ability to conjure money from thin air.  In the past, there were three ways to increase money supply:  Trade for precious metals, capture the wealth in battle and mine the metals.  Over two millennia, the people of Britain have done all three.  Rishi Sunak doesn’t have to do any of that – so much easier to wave a magic wand like Harry Potter.”

USAGOLD note:  So true, but the process does not read to a healthy conclusion and points up the need to own gold and silver as part of one’s personal defenses against the excesses of the money printers. This point is well made in the ultra-long term chart reproduced below. Note the stability in Britain’s consumer price index for more than 700 years – until it went off the gold standard in early 20th century and launched a fiat money economy. Also, the acceleration in the price of gold from the date of that decision.

Sources: Bank of England, ICE Benchmark Administration Limited, St. Louis Federal Reserve [FRED]

The post Gold and silver in Britain’s coins – where did it come from and how did it get here? first appeared on Today’s top gold news and opinion.