Gold is pointless

Pincher

MatthewAinsworth wrote: »

I have a cunning plan involving digging up people's gardens for time team.

Old Chinese adage "There is no three hundred ounces of silver here."

Old farmer needs to dig up some land for planting, but the ground is too hard. He puts up a sign, saying: "There is no three hundred ounces of silver here." He comes back a few days later, and it's all dug up for him.

Alas, they have metal detectors these days.

markj113

MatthewAinsworth wrote: »

I fail to see why anyone would keep it, as cash seems superior in every way - cash is a more reliable non-correlator, more liquid, more productive, and you shouldn't hold an excessive amount of either, and being bearish over the long term seems unlikely to ever work

The only thing i can see about it is active etf speculation, which i don't believe is a good idea Vs just indexing equities

Tell that to the people of Zimbabe and Venezuela.

TrustyOven

markj113 wrote: »

Tell that to the people of Zimbabe and Venezuela.

Why should he tell that to the people of those countries?
How is that relevant to the discussion?
Are you trying to point out something very important but failing to do it?
Shouldn't you try to educate us about it instead?
Are you suggesting that a lot of people in those two countries have gold, instead of cash?
Are those people therefore very rich?
Do you not think that keeping some gold, for the very long term, as perhaps 5% to 10% is ok, but having excessive gold, and having a gold fetish is not so good?
Do you not see how trading with cash is better than with gold? Won't you have bid-offer spreads and commisions when selling your gold to raise cash to do shopping etc?

Malthusian

markj113 wrote: »

Tell that to the people of Zimbabe and Venezuela.

A Zimbabwean who put his savings in gold to protect against hyperinflation when Mugabe assumed dictatorial powers in 1987 would have seen them grow by 284% to the present day.

A Zimbabwean who put his savings in a globally diversified portfolio of equities to protect against hyperinflation would have seen them grow by 802% over the same period.

For two Venezuelans who decided to protect themselves against hyperinflation when Nicol!s Maduro took power, Señor DiggerVZ would have seen his savings grow 12.7% and Señor Diversific!cion 55.6%.

Gold protects you from hyperinflation in the same way that, pace Ian-D, it could protect you from bandits in an economic collapse scenario because you could fling it at people's heads. There are, however, much better weapons available.