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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Greg Ford who wrote (3381)	11/21/1997 6:36:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116815

Greg, The Economist article albeit provocative, is nothing more than a silly/clever joke. One can argue the very same point by arguing that Mercedes or BMW should cut the prices as certainly no one needs Yugos.That would certainly eliminate Yugos but also quickly eliminate Mercedes and BMW as they loose the storage of prestige and luxury. The fact that CB hold not just commodity but one that was accumulated by investing what eqivalent to 100 years of human labor and increadible resources is as credible as abandoning Florida out of fear of Hurricanes. De Beers Co would probably become a reachest Co on Earth with multiples that perhaps only Bill Gates can afford. Diamonds of course would be seen as the only rare mark that distinguishes "lady" from your average "commoner". Worse the entire industry would be killed for a benefit of 10 year respite of necessity of "waisting" money, that of course if The Goverement dared to even embark on such a move will stay in power beyond first sweeping depression, in a world flooded with useless paper.

To: Greg Ford who wrote (3381)	11/21/1997 6:44:00 PM
From: PaulM	Respond to of 116815

That's "in your face" journalism if I've ever seen it. Looks bleak, doesn't it. Why make all this expensive gold for the jewelery industry when we have lots in our vaults? You can pay us (the citizenry) paper dollars for it, which we know will maintain its value through the centuries because us central bankers and govts will adhere to non-inflationary policy through the centuries. IMO, if the CB's really were going to sell large scale, the price would be talked up, not down, ....and they certainly wouldn't all be selling at the time, even if the centuries-in-the-making discovery that we need nothing of value in our central bank vaults is just now dawning on us. Necessity is the mother of intelligence. When things go awry--whether inflation or deflation--capital will again rediscover what safety means.

To: Greg Ford who wrote (3381)	11/21/1997 11:08:00 PM
From: John Barendrecht	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116815

Greg, several things bother me about this article and others like it. First he is comparing gold and the stock market. This is comparing apples and oranges. Why not compare gold stocks and the stock market. The other is that gold is not a store of value. Tell that to the Asians. If they held gold, they now have 35% more purchasing power than if they held local currency. Not a bad return over 3 to 4 months. Certainly better than the Asian or American stock market over the last 3 to 4 months. If you had invested the $100 in bonds, after 10 yrs you would have $170. But I bought a mini-van in 1987 and priced on in 1997 - it has almost doubled. So, I would need $190 for every $100, I had in 1987. So after all those years of saving my money, I would not be able to buy the same minivan. Yes, it's true that gold has not kept its value over the last 10 yrs. But I can show you a 10 year period that if you held some of the blue chips stocks like IBM, you would have gone from $100 to $50. Does that mean we should shut down IBM or Chrysler? As for countries making more interest by holding bonds rather gold, in Japan the interest rate is 0.5% but the gold lease rate is around 2 to 3%. Switzerland had a negative interest rate for a while.