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Gold/Mining/Energy : Precious and Base Metal Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: 200ma who wrote (772)	12/12/2001 12:24:55 PM
From: pater tenebrarum	Respond to of 39344

re. AIDS, although it is a great tragedy, and the epidemic has become THE biggest problem Southern Africa faces, i don't expect that it will impact the SA mining business much. consider that unemployment is in the region of 40% (of course, that figure doesn't account for the huge "informal economy"), so even though many are likely to die prematurely, there won't be a shortage of workers. regarding the role of gold, as far as i can see it remains an important central bank reserve asset. it is imo extremely unlikely that it will ever be "demonetized" as it is the only monetary reserve asset that does not at the same time represent someone else's obligation, or "promise to pay". in fact, the re-monetization of gold is already in full swing, with digital gold payment systems springing up everywhere (a trend that is still in its infancy, but catching on quickly) as a parallel currency system that challenges the central banks fiat monopolies. there is also a strong movement in the Muslim countries that aims to re-introduce the Islamic gold dinar as a means of payment accepted throughout the Islamic world. the ECB in the meantime has begun to occasionally and subtly point to the big gold reserves that the Eurozone member states collectively hold in an attempt to enhance the Euro's appeal as a currency that promises stability. recently the Austrian, Russian and China's central banks have been buyers of gold, which is imo the first sign that the trend toward reducing official sector gold holdings may reverse. gold remains an excellent hedge against monetary and fiscal profligacy, as people across Latin America and South East Asia will readily attest to. it's in a raging bull market in many non-dollar currencies in fact. last but not least, one of the best contrary indicators on the planet, Professor Rudi Dornbusch of the MIT, has recently declared in the FT that "gold is dead". that by itself makes it virtually a certainty that it will regain quite a bit of its former prominence in coming years. :)