Posted on 02/19/2009 6:27:00 PM PST by Publius
There may be many things to hope for in the oncoming Obama administration. Investing in the bullion ETF, GLD, is not one of them.
1. I'll start with the opening sentence of the gold ETF itself and work outwards to you. The opening sentence of the November 2004 gold ETF prospectus said, "This ETF is intended to track the performance of the price of gold." Note that it doesn't say it will own gold, or anything so prosaic. This Exchange Traded Fund that promises easy gold ownership for America is only going to track it. You know, like your cat tracking a crow in the back yard. And if GLD or your cat never quite gets there, well, it was an interesting exercise.
A careful reading of the first sentence should tell you that this is a document written by lawyers, and it is intended to be read by other lawyers who might be thinking of suing the guys represented by the first group of lawyers. The opening sentence is nothing if not defensible.
(Excerpt) Read more at seekingalpha.com ...
Very sad if it turns out to be true.
Sounds like a scam like Madoff. What about IAU? Maybe better off using NEM or Newmont. :-(
A advertisement on the radio stated that gold has gone up 112% in the last twenty five years. They state that gold is a good hedge against inflation. Since everyone is talking about gold and crude oil prices, let’s compare gold and crude oil prices over the last 25 years.
1980 to 1985: Lets forget that on January 21, 1980, gold closed at $850.00 per ounce. The average for 1980 was still only $675.31 and the low was $559.50. The five year average for 1980 to 1985 was $495.46. Adjusted for 2005 dollars, the average price is $879.27. The average low for the same time was $477.35. Adjusted for 2005 dollars, the average low was $847.13.
http://www.bakercoins.net/learn/articles/gold/gold.html
Newmont and Barrick are the largest miners, and institutional investors prefer them. But Barrick still has that hedge book.
Yup. I forgot about the hedge book.
I have a question....and I don’t know it it’s true. Was it the Nixon administration that did away with the ‘gold standard’? And if so, why?
Paper gold is not real gold. The only real gold is physical gold in your possession.
I Have owned GG and GLD since shortly after katrina. They have both performed extremely well.
Course I bought GG below 14 and GLD below 60. Wish I had not sold any buy you cannot get greedy.
Jeez, I own GLD. Although I have made a nice profit in the past 5 weeks, I’ll have to reconsider holding it long term.
Yes. It was part of a series of measures that intended to deal with the huge deficits run up due to the Great Society and the Vietnam War; trying to inflate our way out. Instead, of course, it’s just opened the floodgates for easy deficit spending.
We were spending a lot of money on Vietnam and the Great Society programs as a result of LBJ's guns-and-butter policies. According to the Bretton Woods agreement of 1944 we were supposed to keep the dollar at the rate of $35 per ounce of gold. To do that while we were overspending we created the London Gold Pool, which was a clever way of keeping the worldwide price of gold down. But the French got wise, and DeGaulle decided to ask for gold in redemption for dollars. (Don't dump on DeGaulle, because it was the prudent thing to do.) The gold drain got bad enough that in 1971 Nixon closed the gold window, and we went to floating exchange rates. Treasury Secretary John Connally said to the Europeans, "They may be our deficits, but they're your problem".
If martial law is declared, they can confiscate food, farm equipment, fuel. Heck they can confiscate you, and put you to forced labor.
>> If martial law is declared, they can confiscate ...
Declaring martial law is the easy part. Enforcing it may be a bit more of a challenge.
I own CEF and GTU as well as the physical.
Fact is the government can do whatever it wants to.
They do not have to confiscate it take it from you.
a 90% tax on any transaction will kill any market value you think it has. If you can not trade it, it has no value.....
Invest in lead and brass and black powder and mre’s bad days are on the horizon
The point here is that he thinks (among other things) that the gold ETF might not actually be holding any gold at all.
Obamas civilian police force will be there to do it.
It would be hard to do it all at once. But not in small doses at a time.
Also, if a large scale national "crisis" happened the chaos and mayhem would make it easier to implement it. In urban areas, people would act much like NOLA, waiting for the government to come save them, however that might be.
Confiscation of guns would be job number one, for safety of course.
Since food would be a need, in order to "avoid" looting, people would be asked to turn in all their food. Others would be asked to inform authorities of "hoarders". Looting by law. Neighbors would be quick to out neighbors, for a promise of their "share" of the food.
Communication brownouts would keep patriots unaware of attacks by Obamas SS. Swat tactics would overwhelm individuals.
Rural areas would come later. But it would be farm by farm. Shut down electricity and communications. Now all accept the self sufficient will look for gov help. That leaves the self sufficient. Catch these in their fields or away from home.
Also in rural areas, chances for gang looting rise. Many people will look for gov. help in dealing with these gangs. What will people give up for gov. help?
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