And this is for one simple reason: At some levels, gold, as an investment, is absolutely ridiculous”
What’s ridiculous is the notion that any and all fiat currencies will end up with any value other than totally, flat as a pancake worthless. Gold is a store of value and it has filled that role admirably for much, much longer than any fiat has ever approached. The $ only looks good because it’s being valued against a basket of even more worthless fiats.
There’s a race to the bottom that has accelerated dramatically over the past few years that will result in most financial assets being wiped out. Late 08 and early 09 was a foretaste. You don’t solve debt issues by creating more debt which is all we’ve done.
We are not in a gold bubble, one has to only look at the valuation being attached to the mining stocks along with silver’s relative value wrt gold to clearly see that truth. Gold has much further to run in a world where it’s being valued in rapidly depreciating currencies.
As for being a "store of value," anyone who bought gold in the late 1970s and held on lost nearly all their purchasing power over the next 20 years.
“What’s ridiculous is the notion that any and all fiat currencies will end up with any value other than totally, flat as a pancake worthless.”
Fiat currency does not have to be worthless if the issuing government is well run and people have confidence that it can live within its means. Remember that a fiat currency has one huge inherent value: you can pay your taxes with it. In the great scheme of things, the invention of pieces of paper that held the power to make gun-toting men from the government go away without stealing your stuff was a huge civilizational advance. As long as government continues to accept tax payments in its own currency and takes steps to match money supply growth to growth in real productivity, a fiat currency can be rock solid stable.