Month: July 2021

Reuters/Gavin Jones/7-11-2021

“At times when inflation has significantly accelerated in the past, such as in the 1960s, markets have lagged rather than anticipated developments.” – Lawrence Summers, former Treasury Secretary

USAGOLD note: In short, don’t look to the markets for a clue as to where we are headed next. At the moment, investors have bought into the transitory theme, but that can change, as well know, in a heartbeat.

The post Today’s top gold news & opinion first appeared on Today’s top gold news and opinion.

GnSEconomics/Thomas Malinen/7-7-2021

“Finance has always been a crucial feature in the development of human civilizations, and it has been guided by freedom. It has spurred people, merchants and households, to borrow from the future to pay for something today. The first financial interactions were driven by the free will of people to develop financial contracts to liberate themselves from the slavery of time and the arbitrariness of rulers.”

USAGOLD  note: Malinen offers an interesting and little known history of finance going all the way back to its very beginnings in third millennia BC Sumeria. “A likely first-ever personal loan was made in the mid-twenty-fourth century BCE in Ancient Mesopotamia,” he writes, “between Puzur-Eshtar and Ur-Garima for “40 grams of silver and 900 liters of barley”. The most intriguing point he makes, though, is that financial markets may have been the most important innovation of all time making  possible all other innovations.

Image: Black and white photograph of a cuneiform tablet ca. 20-19th century B.C. documenting a loan of silver from the Metropolitan Museum of Art

The post Today’s top gold news & opinion first appeared on Today’s top gold news and opinion.