[goose3]

Several things inform my opinion on gold (and silver too).

1. The markets are manipulated. All you have to do is watch someone dump huge contracts into the Asian markets at the most illiquid times to realize something fishy is going on.

2. The spot price isn't the real price. The futures markets can, if they wish, make good on contracts by settling in currency, not the metal.

3. The real price is what you can buy it for. Gold has a "spot" price of $1673, while the price of 10 American Gold Eagles on Apmex runs $1865 each. That's a premium of 11.5 percent over the supposed "spot" price. It's worse with Silver Eagles which are going for circa $36 apiece while the "spot" price is about $19.36. Go ahead, try to buy Eagles at the spot price. The premium is an astounding 86 percent!

4. There are other forms of silver. Some focus on "rounds" which are not usually as recognizable as Eagles, Maple Leafs, Aussie issues, and the like. You wouldn't be able to trade those to me without being able to demonstrate they're genuine silver. Others might have different requirements. Silver rounds are running between $25 and $26, for a premium of 29 to 34 percent.

5. They aren't going to ring a bell at the top--or the bottom. I'm not smart enough to know when those will occur. All I know is that it's much better to buy gold and silver today than it would have been in March when "spot" gold was at $2000 and "spot" silver was at $26.

5b. That suggests to many that silver and gold are on sale. Some people want to wait until the metals are hitting new highs to feel good about buying. When you want to buy, if you're smart, is when everybody is unhappy with their price performance.

6. Precious metals are, for me, insurance. Insurance against a dollar currency collapse, insurance against a major global catastrophe, insurance against things I can't even imagine. Like my life insurance, car insurance, homeowners insurance, I hope I never need it. Unlike a lot of insurance, though, the "premiums" one pays for PMs aren't gone at the end of the year and you have to pay again. Instead, it's permanent insurance.

7. Gold is more about moving significant assets to the future; silver is far more divisible and thus can be used as money.

8. If you want to see what people are willing to pay for PMs, look at completed auctions on Ebay. Factor in the shipping. It's one thing to look on sites like Apmex to see what they're asking, but another to look on sites like Ebay and see what people are truly willing to pay.

9. China and Russia have both been buying gold and accumulating it from their own mining sources. They obviously think gold has great value especially as a reserve currency. I expect that at some point they may try to create a new currency underwritten by gold. In other words, how the US dollar used to be before 1913.

10. Gold and silver are real. They cannot be printed like fiat currencies. Dollars you hold in the bank aren't real; gold always is. If you can hold it in your hand, it's real and it's yours. Fiat currencies obviously can (and have been) printed with abandon. Sooner or later that has to end, as we'll see another Zimbabwe, only this time in the US.

11. Crypto, while having some positive attributes, isn't a store of value. It moves around too much. And now we learn that it's possible for at least some crypto to be created out of thin air. Crypto, IMO, has no more value than the tulip bulbs people paid exhorbitant amounts just prior to the great collapse. If it's not real, it's not real.


I do not have all my eggs in my PM basket; it is, as I mentioned before, insurance against a variety of calamities and catastrophes. But the above is what forms the basis of my thinking about it.