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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Follies who wrote (93192)	8/7/2012 10:27:37 AM
From: Maurice Winn	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217789

Quite right: < there is a difference between an investment and a store of value. > When C2 referred to gold as an investment, I let it go because I was busy being pedantic about eras and eons and his meaning was clear. While you can't bury QCOM shares in the ground for 1000 years, you certainly can for ten years and while you have them stashed, retaining their value [and in fact increasing in value], they are depositing money in your bank account too. So it's not only a store of value, it's protection against inflation and also an investment returning serious amounts of money. Because there are risks with individual shares, people normally say to spread the risk so that the risk becomes the more general risk of a country and the world continuing to exist. Gold carries that same risk. If the human population dwindles to 1 billion, then the extant gold will be of reduced value too. Gold is only a store of value while people continue more or less as they are. Here's what is going to happen: When Peak People arrives in 2037, gold per capita will start increasing significantly. Since there is a limit to how much gold jewelry one can cart around, gold will devalue. If it's not so special, it won't be so valuable. When US$ and other fiat money and gold are superseded by my new monetary system, they will be obsolete, like pounds made out of sterling silver. Meanwhile, there is a speculative mania on with gold. The production cost of gold is now way below the wholesale price. All sorts of people are establishing businesses with a view to cashing in on the mania. It's a moai culture, like that of the Easter Islanders who obviously thought a ring of big statues of heads was a really good quarrying idea. Digging gold is a bit different but the same basic idea. Neither cultural idea is good for the long run. But at least, unlike with golf and many other cultural activities, there is something to show for it at the end of the effort. Mqurice