Government can take away all your gold: https://theconversation.com/how-the-us-government-seized-all... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102
The government can do whatever it wants as long as they pass a law and you respect it.
Costco gold bars are selling out within hours
291–300 of 515 posts
Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its not just a belief. The ratio is something in the region of 100x. Its also not just a precious metal thing, most markets function that way due to long and short positions. The paper market is always quite a lot larger then the actual one.
[[citation needed]]
Edit: This should do
>The ratio of iron-ore derivatives to physical trading volume was about 25 times, far lower than the 80-100 time for more mature commodities such as gold and copper, according to a study by Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing.
https://www.bloomberg.com/professional/blog/expect-chinas-fu...
Silver is quite a lot worse btw
Might be worth pointing out that this isnt surprising given the activity of speculators in the market. Without markets would get cornered for investment and industry would cease.
edit1: There is however also an incentive to keep individuals from investing into precious metals due to monetary considerations. Derivate induced volatility is one way to do that. https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/1974LONDON16154_b.html
edit2: Also worth considering is that the large central bank holdings can and will be loaned out to maintain price stability if push comes to shove and gold were to rise drastically.
Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've used decades old dollar bills in SE Asia that have been pretty much detached from the US economy for decades and have held value better than bitcoin ever has. I'm not sure what makes you feel that way. Gold and Bitcoin are up against the dollar in the past decade, and by a significant margin. Bitcoin is up ~225x against the dollar. Gold is up ~50x against the dollar going back five decades. The US dollar is pr…
Yes… but it’s a great currency, unlike gold or Bitcoin. You could also find individual stocks or maybe even the S&P500 and compare those to the dollar as well (and to each other).
Sure. If you want to buy a pad Thai in Thailand, US dollars are probably going to be more widely accepted. On the other hand, if you have savings in an inflating currency, you might want to convert them to a medium that holds value well in the long term, rather than US dollars. That does include S&P500 stocks but those are not bearer instruments and not easily accessible, especially in foreign countries.
Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours
#294Earlier quoted context omitted.
Argentina has 100% annual inflation and going up while the US has less than 10% and going down. The USD is not going anywhere spectacular, because there is no more stable country to flee to. The one thing that can reliably trigger inflation in almost any country is oil/gas shortages on the global market, and you can't hedge that with precious metals nor store a 20 year supply in your house.
> the US has less than 10% if you read the plea from the Argentine above.. they say "peer networks to measure value" .. it implies that the entire inflation is NOT one single number. It is in sector by sector, with local "shadows" .. In the USA, it is housing obviously in large populated areas, but also health care and the cost of a University education. Those measures have climbed triple digits while yes, petrol and…
This concept is so important, but people are so unwilling to embrace it because regime economists dismiss it as nonsense.
Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours
#295Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not exactly. I just sent this link to my (Argentine) friends with a different observation. My observation was: The United States is starting to look like Argentina. You must understand: Most Americans are not accustomed to shoving a third party currency under their mattress, or buying physical gold. The phenomenon of hyperinflation is foreign to them, and there's a steep learning curve. The actual significance of thi…
> If I had an hour, I'd like to expound on the significance of Americans buying precious metal at a loss through a giant vertical monopoly. Costco occasionally sells gold below spot if Reddit is to be believed. Most of the time it's right around spot. These 1oz bars were going for $1900 give or take, which is spot give or take. It's fairly common to see a small ~$50 ish premium on small quantities like this, around 2…
Costco's not a monopoly by the current definition, but they do occupy a very cozy spot between wholesale and retail, and they do vertically control everything Kirkland from mayonnaise to roast chicken. We have a strange situation right now, in the US, in which any company with at least one major competitor is considered good for the free market; and it takes a hell of a lot of work to show that those two competitors are working together. But they don't actually need to be price-fixing with each other in a classical way. One has $5 roast chickens and the other has free oil changes. This, then, is the apotheosis of consumer choice? Fuckit, I own stocks of both of them and I just hope the American consumer goes broke before I do.
Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours
#296Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I’m drawing conclusions from your statements. Flawed conclusions. > What do you mean “blocked off transport” See the upthread link to the Canadian Charter. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_2_of_the_Canadian_Ch... Follow the links to see how "freedom to assemble" allows the "Right to protest" but doesn't guarantee the a right to "substantial disruption". Unions (for example) have (location dependant) a right…
I already asked if you don't consider burning down stores to be at least as impactful to commercial trade as blocking roads, but you didn't answer. I'd argue that burning down multiple businesses has a far higher impact than just blocking the street temporarily when it comes to "blocking access to a business", as you put it. And whether or not the protest has that as the "stated goal" is irrelevant. It happened, thus…
There's a world of difference between a protest that sets out to blockade and gets shutdown for blockading because that goes beyond the granted freedom to protest, and a protest that assembles, protests, and incidently, coincidently has additional actors rioting and looting.
There's no issue there with the protest, go nuts arresting the rioters, arsonists and looters.
You're all over the shop and struggling to make a point here ..
> just blocking the street temporarily
for a month, 24/7.
What exactly, BTW, is my belief?
Scroll to the top and my first comment - I simply correctly stated that the Canadian Trucker protest didn't have a Freedom of Speech clash with the Canadian Gov., they had problems as they overstepped their right to assemble.
That is my belief and I stand by that.
You seem intent on imagining things.
Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours
#297I'd love to see an economists take on the value to a consumer of holding gold in this form, at the price. Investment gold is usually kept in vault, and you trade ownership arms length. Direct gold ownership is rife with risks: fineness, substitutions and overpriced purchase. Yes, you can always sell at a mall gold trader but that's way way off market price. So it's an inflation hedge with a lot of cost and risk and d…
I don’t imagine you’d ever sell these, but what beats having a gold bar in your home? A very tiny one, but still.
Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours
#298My dad, near the end of his life, was "convinced" by his UBS money managers to move most of his assets into gold. He had a signficant amount of money, and this yielded a major payday for the fucktard at UBS that told him to do it. I can't see any reason for it!
That's really strange. I've spoken to UBS investment managers, and they're incredibly cautious about everything they suggest. There's a lot of red tape, almost wonder if something dodgy was going on.
Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours
#299I'd love to see an economists take on the value to a consumer of holding gold in this form, at the price. Investment gold is usually kept in vault, and you trade ownership arms length. Direct gold ownership is rife with risks: fineness, substitutions and overpriced purchase. Yes, you can always sell at a mall gold trader but that's way way off market price. So it's an inflation hedge with a lot of cost and risk and d…
I don’t imagine you’d ever sell these, but what beats having a gold bar in your home? A very tiny one, but still.
I dunno, a 1956 Fender Stratocaster, maybe?
Something you can actually do something with?
Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours
#300Earlier quoted context omitted.
I notice this when travelling the world and it's one of the main reasons I think the many of the arguments for cryptocurrency are flawed. I've used decades old dollar bills in SE Asia that have been pretty much detached from the US economy for decades and have held value better than bitcoin ever has. The value of the dollar is linked not just to the US economy but also a global black economy and that has some unoffic…
> I've used decades old dollar bills in SE Asia that have been pretty much detached from the US economy for decades and have held value better than bitcoin ever has. I'm not sure what makes you feel that way. Gold and Bitcoin are up against the dollar in the past decade, and by a significant margin. Bitcoin is up ~225x against the dollar. Gold is up ~50x against the dollar going back five decades. The US dollar is pr…
If you had bought something productive like the S&P500 50 years ago, would have outperformed gold easily. No-one wants to long-term just store value unproductively (which is also bad from a macro perspective).