Right now, in true terms, gold trades at 14.8% below it's long run price since Nixon ended the US$35 dollar for gold exchange rate in 1971 ($116.66 vs $99.36).
The Great Greenspan-Bernanke Inflation is the main reason why gold rose from the December 2001 low to credit peak of March 2008. The banking crisis and uncertainty aftermath from the credit collapse of December 2008 to the peak of September 2011 is other reason why gold rose. In the first run, True Gold hit $157.04. In the latter run, True Gold hit $196.09.
Many of Aaron's gold idol worshipers say all must bow to the gold idol and own gold as sort of insurance because sooner or later, the Zombie Bankers' Apocalypse is going to happen. Without doubt, if a Zombie Bankers' Apocalypse were to come, everything would come to a halt, including production of all products. Likely, then, you couldn't buy anything anyway.
So why hoard gold if a Zombie Bankers' Apocalypse is going to happen? Why not hoard Levi's jeans?
If credit disappears, so do prices. Worse, all products will disappear.
Within days, most likely from looting, all supermarkets will be cleaned out. There won't be any re-stocking of shelves. There won't be any electricity for any refrigeration.
There won't be any fuel for trains and so no trains will run to carry crops. There won't be any futures markets to form prices insuring against glut or shortage.
Everything will stop. Gold will be as useless as everything else for a long time to come. Anyone would be better off with stacks of Levis in various sizes with which to barter.
And why would anyone own gold outside the USA? Likely, if a Zombie Bankers' Apocalypse were to come, there would be no way to leave behind the USA.You along with everyone else will be stuck here. You might get lucky to get into Canada. However, there would be no chance you could ever get to Australia or Singapore, two popular places where many store their gold.
If a Zombie Bankers' Apocalypse were to come, if you owned an ounce or two of gold, you would be rich and at least well enough to have a running start against everyone who owned none.
Were a Zombie Bankers' Apocalypse to happen, when prices were to come back because production and credit were to come back, every day products would sell at pennies. A couple of ounces of gold would buy much.
As well, those who claim gold as insurance do not understand insurance at all. Insurance requires insurers. Insurers are parties other than you who specialize in compensation against loss by splitting losses into fractional duties against which losers have rights. In this way, insurers broker fractional duties.
If you have property (right of ownership) in gold, you don't have insurance. You wouldn't say that you have insurance because you have property (right of ownership) in a television.
If someone acquires property (right of ownership) in gold, whether they take possession of it or not — landlords have property in apartment houses but never take possession — that someone has a thing, which might or might not become an asset, which can be sold at street prices for something else.
It's flat out bad financial advice to tell anyone to own gold, much less own it outside of one's respective country and away from one's easy access.
Much smarter advice would be to own land in another country, land that can be farmed readily, preferably in a country that shall adhere to Anglo-Norman jurisprudence. Even smarter advice would be to buy that farm land and move there now while one can still freely move out of the USA.
Even telling someone to own a sea-worthy, blue ocean sailboat would be far better advice.
Gold preppers are as bad as all other mind-disorder suffering hoarding preppers. If a societal apocalypse were to come, among the first to be attacked and likely killed are hoarders. Bands of rovers will scour everywhere looking for stashes of products, outgunning the lone wolf hoarder. By sheer superiority of numbers bands of rovers will win any struggle for hoarded food, water, clothing, bathroom tissue and so on.
In the era of floating exchange rates and fiduciary, legal tender cash, there isn't a case for gold under the usual course of commercial activity. As I have shown elsewhere, the true price of gold tracks the true prime rate and its magnitude of tracking depends upon the state of bank credit.
Anyone who would have bought gold after Q3 1980 until Q1 2001 would have taken a bath, with the first washing done from Q3 1980 until Q2 1986. After a head fake through Q4 1987, gold buyers continued to lose buying power every year until the end of Q1 2001.
Only twice since the era began has gold risen, once to dizzying heights and more recently to a much smaller degree. The first rise, the spectacular one, happened because the true prime interest rate when through the roof, between the first quarter of 1977 to the fourth quarter of 1980.
The second rise, between Q1 2001 to Q3 2011, happened in two waves. The first wave happened because of a once in two life times massive inflation of bank credit (the true definition of inflation), the Greenspan-Bernanke Great Inflation, the largest credit bubble in the history of mankind. Excessive-credit fueled speculation billowed that wave between December 2001 to March 2008.
The second wave to the top happened from the banking crisis and the uncertainty aftermath from the credit collapse between December 2008 to the peak of September 2011. In the first run, True Gold hit $157.04. In the latter run, True Gold hit $196.09.
Everyone can be almost assured they will never experience in their lifetime another inflation as the Greenspan-Bernanke Inflation. And if ever there comes a massive rise in the true prime rate, there will be enough time to buy gold.
The only ones you see pumping gold are those with commercial interests in selling gold and the fools who believe them.
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