Gold has not failed to store value. Its risen in the last five years, it is a long term asset and maybe thats inconvenient for most people. I can easily see bitcoin as best for small transactions but for life savings I'd still rate gold. To try and argue against more then 3000 years of successful use and storage of value is futile almost comedic
Of the last 15 years gold has fallen in value just one year which was the last year.
and then there's my newest argument that gold is/has been failing miserably at fulfilling its historical role as a check to rising bond prices.
i don't need to know the exact reason why; i just need to know that it's a fact. and it is. in that sense, what good is it for the average US citizen and the economy except as a potential speculative vehicle? all those trillions that have been pumped into Treasury bond prices over the decades since 1980 creating the greatest bull market ever in world history
and yet and so little into gold. gold: the supposed enforcer. what a failure.
Not to be too morbid, but one explanation for why gold is not fulfilling its role this time is simply that everyone alive during the last gold standard has since passed and are no longer with us. With that the memory of gold as a sound money vehicle has passed as well.
1980 was only ~57 years after FDR broke the gold standard and so there was probably still a bit of cultural remembrance. But today in 2014 it has been too long, no one alive remembers living and working under the gold standard as it properly existed (OK some were alive but quite young, and they are elderly today and not active investors).
yes, that may even a more appropriate starting point to pick a "peak" in gold sentiment from the public's view. the defaults by the US gvt have been sequential; first in 1933 with FDR, then in 1971 with Nixon. Bretton Woods was an interim step where the USD luckily was made the world reserve currency from 1944 to 1971 with supposed gold backing. the root event which made these defaults all necessary was the establishment of the Fed in 1913 which blew up enough bubbles to make them necessary in the first place.
As a result there are not enough people "running to gold" to counter excessive bank debt and CB printing. Layer on top of this the fact that anyone who has "fought the FED" has lost for decades and wealth has consistently been transferred to those who blindly followed the FED's direction.
yep. right now, i'm totally out of the stock mkt and my portfolio consists of BTC, pm shorts, RE, my business, and cash. at least, if i'm wrong about pm's and BTC and pm's move up together, i'll be hedged. but i doubt it, given all of my above explanations as well as the price action and numerous charts i've put up.
I think one consequence of this is the world is now setup for a very sharp dislocation. In the past gold acted as a brake and would force sanity before things got too far out of hand. But today it is full steam ahead, which means if the current monetary system breaks, it will be a very hard event.
maybe. hedge your bets accordingly.
i'm hoping gvt's and banks recognize what Bitcoin can do to save the system. hope never being the best strategy.