Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Is Gold a dead asset?

The following if from one of my favorite websites FOFOA:

'The falling price of Gold has had various effects on people. The common person says, "Of course it is falling, because Gold has been demonetized." The Goldheart knows better, so the falling price has a more remarkable effect, bringing out insecurities and irrationalities of some. Though these people don't question that Gold is money, their insecurities start to question whether the world really needs money at all... that somehow this greatest device of mankind has been antiquated. Simply preposterous. If they knew the truth they would confidently buy today at triple the price and call it a bargain of a lifetime. People ask, "Why waste effort to dig up Gold from the ground, only to rebury it in vaults?" I say, "For the same reason the central banks toil to print millions of fancy notes that nobody reads. If you've read one, you've read them all." The effort is needed to prevent cheating, though we easily see the fancy cash does not stem the abusive tide of money from nothing. People also say, "Gold is a dead asset. It does not earn interest." What is the point of such a comment, to demonstrate their naiveté? Did banks not pay interest when coins were stamped from Gold?

You see, it is not the nature of money itself to earn interest, but rather, it is the investment risk that maybe earns a reward. A modern dollar in a shoebox is as a Gold coin beside it. No interest for either. You should know the interest paid by a bank savings account is not a product of the money itself, but instead it is the rewards on the risk the bank takes with the money you have provided for their investment use. Sometimes these banks choose poorly, and in those cases even the modern dollar earns no interest, and does not come back at all--lost with the closing of the bank doors. Money must be risked (invested) to expect a yield, and in this regard, the big players in the world risk Gold money as they do paper money (though often not as aggressively), while the small players are content with the shoebox yield. You are forced to be more aggressive (more risky) with paper because its value dies quickly, unlike Gold that stands forever even in a shoebox of no risk.'