Marketsurfer's bold gold proclamation

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This whole eternal argument over what has value and what is backed only by faith is really silly on the most basic of levels. All items, regardless of what they are, have value only if someone else agrees that it does. If I begin to mine and collect dog turds, and then consider them valuable, if no one else agrees, or if I cannot get anything for the turds, then no one cares what value I place on it.

The same with a rookie Pete Rose card. I can say it's value is estimated at X$, but if I cannot get anyone to give me currency or things that I need for it, then it's not worth what I say it is.

Gold is like this. It has value only because everyone says so - similar to the dollar or the euro or whatever. The question is not what has value - the dollar or gold - but what will lose it's value first. I think we can argue that paper currencies will lose their value faster.

The problem then becomes one of liquidity. Can you shave a sliver off a gold bar and go to the store to get milk? No, you can't. So it's not liquid. I can take it to the store to buy clothes and the only thing I'm going to get is a wierd look from the cashier.

So then, the only way I can compare it is to the value of paper money. So I'll go into gold as a hedge against falling currencies. Nothing more. I won't buy bullion and bury it in my back yard for some cataclysmic event, because if said event comes, I'll just be the starving guy with a lot of gold.
 
So you would hedge via gold future contracts? What if they default?

Quote from Ivanovich:

This whole eternal argument over what has value and what is backed only by faith is really silly on the most basic of levels. All items, regardless of what they are, have value only if someone else agrees that it does. If I begin to mine and collect dog turds, and then consider them valuable, if no one else agrees, or if I cannot get anything for the turds, then no one cares what value I place on it.

The same with a rookie Pete Rose card. I can say it's value is estimated at X$, but if I cannot get anyone to give me currency or things that I need for it, then it's not worth what I say it is.

Gold is like this. It has value only because everyone says so - similar to the dollar or the euro or whatever. The question is not what has value - the dollar or gold - but what will lose it's value first. I think we can argue that paper currencies will lose their value faster.

The problem then becomes one of liquidity. Can you shave a sliver off a gold bar and go to the store to get milk? No, you can't. So it's not liquid. I can take it to the store to buy clothes and the only thing I'm going to get is a wierd look from the cashier.

So then, the only way I can compare it is to the value of paper money. So I'll go into gold as a hedge against falling currencies. Nothing more. I won't buy bullion and bury it in my back yard for some cataclysmic event, because if said event comes, I'll just be the starving guy with a lot of gold.
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What if they default? What if the Dow goes to 0? Investing is about risk. The choice is to hedge as best you can against that risk.

The alternative, to me, is NOT to go the way of a lunatic and put on the tin foil hat, hide in the basement with my HAM radio and gold bars.
 
Quote from Ivanovich:

What if they default? What if the Dow goes to 0? Investing is about risk. The choice is to hedge as best you can against that risk.

The alternative, to me, is NOT to go the way of a lunatic and put on the tin foil hat, hide in the basement with my HAM radio and gold bars.
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Right now it's about security, nobody needs to hide in a basement LOL, gold is more secure than currenncies right now & since the whole financial world is losing trust why would you want to hold future contracts? Perhaps you know something we don't, ie the future.
 
Quote from Ivanovich:

This whole eternal argument over what has value and what is backed only by faith is really silly on the most basic of levels. All items, regardless of what they are, have value only if someone else agrees that it does. If I begin to mine and collect dog turds, and then consider them valuable, if no one else agrees, or if I cannot get anything for the turds, then no one cares what value I place on it.

The same with a rookie Pete Rose card. I can say it's value is estimated at X$, but if I cannot get anyone to give me currency or things that I need for it, then it's not worth what I say it is.

Gold is like this. It has value only because everyone says so - similar to the dollar or the euro or whatever. The question is not what has value - the dollar or gold - but what will lose it's value first. I think we can argue that paper currencies will lose their value faster.

The problem then becomes one of liquidity. Can you shave a sliver off a gold bar and go to the store to get milk? No, you can't. So it's not liquid. I can take it to the store to buy clothes and the only thing I'm going to get is a wierd look from the cashier.

So then, the only way I can compare it is to the value of paper money. So I'll go into gold as a hedge against falling currencies. Nothing more. I won't buy bullion and bury it in my back yard for some cataclysmic event, because if said event comes, I'll just be the starving guy with a lot of gold.
More...

Looks to me like you don't know the history of gold and paper currency.
 
Greenlight Founder Takes Grandfather’s Advice on Gold (Update1)
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By Stewart Bailey and Saijel Kishan

Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Greenlight Capital Inc. founder David Einhorn is finally taking his grandfather’s advice. The $5.1 billion hedge fund is buying gold for the first time amid the threat of inflation from increased government spending.

Since Einhorn was 10 years old, his grandfather has warned him that investing in bullion and gold-mining stocks was the only “sensible” thing to do given the threat of inflation and the risks of so-called fiat currencies, New York-based Greenlight said in a Jan. 20 letter to clients. The firm had never before considered buying bullion or mining-company shares.

“To everyone’s dismay, we believe some of Grandpa Ben’s predictions are playing out,” Greenlight said in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Bloomberg News. “The size of the Fed’s balance sheet is exploding, and the currency is being debased.”

Greenlight is turning to the centuries-old currency to mitigate the effects of the economic collapse and government efforts to end it. Bullion gained for the eighth straight year in 2008 as governments in Europe and the U.S. rescued banks from collapse.

Greenlight said in the letter that in addition to buying gold, it has added call options on gold and the Market Vectors Gold Miners exchange-traded fund to its other investments. Call options are the right to buy a security or commodity at a set price, within a set period of time. The owner of the call profits when the security rises above the set price.

Gold & Silver Index

The 16-company Philadelphia Stock Exchange Gold & Silver Index gained 90 percent in the three months through yesterday while the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 0.4 percent. Gold rose 21 percent in that period. Gold futures for April delivery fell $11.30, or 1.3 percent, to $888.20 an ounce today on the New York Mercantile Exchange’s Comex division.

Steven Lehman, who manages Federated Investors Inc.’s $1.3 billion Federated Market Opportunity Fund, beat the S&P 500 by 30 percentage points last year. The fund, which outperformed 99 percent of its competitors in that period, also has bet on the precious metal and counts Toronto-based Yamana Gold Inc. and Goldcorp Inc. among its top holdings.

‘Too Many Mistakes’

Greenlight, which Einhorn, 40, started in 1996, has returned an annual average of 20.8 percent from its Greenlight Capital LP fund. The firm said it made “too many mistakes” last year, when it lost 23 percent from its main fund, its first annual loss. Mary Beth Grover, a Greenlight spokeswoman, declined to comment.

The Federal Reserve’s policy of taking unorthodox steps to boost the supply of credit is essentially “printing money,” Greenlight said. The government’s “aggressive” fiscal policy also signals all efforts will be made to stem the effects of the current economic problems, the fund said.

Hedge funds are private, largely unregulated pools of capital whose managers can buy or sell any assets, bet on falling as well as rising asset prices and participate substantially in profits from money invested.

:D
 
Quote from Ivanovich:

Gold is like this. It has value only because everyone says so - similar to the dollar or the euro or whatever. The question is not what has value - the dollar or gold - but what will lose it's value first. I think we can argue that paper currencies will lose their value faster.
More...

gold exists for millennia, dollar in its present form for 37 years, euro for 10 years. so what is a better yardstick of value over longer period of time?

there are good reasons why gold is THE metal that was used as money and store of value over centuries - try to figure out why before you start to write about shit (literally).

fiat money is a fata morgana when it comes to value. it is central to the modern money theory that you maintain some small inflation to keep the money running to the most efficient enterprises - i.e. people don't fall in love with cash - while keeping inflation in check to maintain the confidence/faith in the fiat system.
it is the fact that the cash value gets destroyed over time - it is a definition of fiat.
 
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