Gold is Precious

January 26, 2008

The Anti-Gold Gospel According to Kaletsky
by Antal E. Fekete

Antal E. Fekete
Gold Standard University
e-mail: aefekete@hotmail.com

Anatole Kaletsky is the author of the most recent Anti-Gold Gospel (www.gavekal.com, January 21, 2008.) He is an establishment journalist, Associate Editor (formerly Economics Editor) of The Times. He says that he instinctively dislikes gold because "historically gold has been a terrible investment and, even in the short term, gold has failed as a store of value". I am satisfied to leave this statement to stand on its own, and wish Kaletsky good luck in seeking a better store of value in fiat currencies.

It is patently disingenuous and unfair to compare the gold price to stock indexes. It would be fairer to compare stashed-away gold to passbook savings. A portfolio of equities takes managing. It may be beyond the reach of most wage-earners and pensioners while their savings is the main target of the pilferers who run the nation's banks and monetary system. Who said pilferers were after wealth invested in the stock market?

I strongly object to the idea that "gold is an investment". Gold is better described as a non-investment, more precisely a place where you park your savings when you cannot find satisfactory investment outlets either because interest rates are too low, or because the risk of holding equities is too high, e.g., after a bull run of the stock market driven by printing-press money. Gold is not an investment any more than a fire-insurance policy is. Governments have a sacred duty to protect the value of funds of the weak, who cannot fend for themselves in the investment arena. Without protection their funds would melt away like butter left in the blazing sun. Governments have failed miserably in discharging this sacred duty. The Biblical curse is upon them for "tormenting widows and orphans". READ THE REST