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Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

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Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#351

Post by lifechoseme123 »

rewmie wrote: post #329
pjc50 wrote: post #121

Earlier 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.

> Argentina has 100% annual inflation and going up while the US has less than 10% and going down. Also, most of the world, including western Europe, has been experiencing >8% inflation rates.

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Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#352

Post by lifechoseme123 »

rewmie wrote: post #325
noduerme wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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; (...) Wasn't Amazon just sued by the FTC due to anticompetitive practices?

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Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#353

Post by bluGill »

spuzz wrote: post #291
thelastgallon wrote: post #260

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.

The government has armies so not respecting whatever laws they pass is hard and potentially deadly. In some cases it is worth it, but typically people are better off respecting whatever laws that are put in place.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#354

Post by Dowwie »

Certain cultures are known for gifting gold bars at weddings. Professional thieves know this and target the houses of families meeting this demographic. There's been an organized crime syndicate in my part of New Jersey that has been successfully hitting houses. Local detectives do nothing, aren't any help at all.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#355

Post by ericmay »

olalonde wrote: post #293
ericmay wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well you can sell the stock and convert it into dollars and then use those. That's something I can do easily today if I wanted regardless of the country I'm in so long as I have the Internet and an ATM.

Gold you can't travel with (weight and loss due to theft and also probably actually illegal) and is also not accessible, and Bitcoin you can't buy a coffee with. Other available crypto currencies just do worse jobs than Bitcoin or dollars at their respective functions.

The key here is to understand that monetary instruments have pros/cons. Dollars have the con that they aren't a great store of value (and this is by design). Dollars have the pro that they are widely accepted, hold their value in the short term (i.e. not volatile), and are highly liquid. Bitcoin has the pro that it's a great store of value, but has cons like inability to transact. Stocks are liquid but volatile, etc.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#356

Post by [deleted] »

pjc50 wrote: post #333
noduerme wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> the US has less than 10% and going down First of all, there's no evidence it's going down. Secondly, 10% is a wild figure. That's far over the breach for the population to begin to alter their behaviour by either hoarding or spending. My point was, the mentality of coping with even 10% inflation is very foreign to Americans. But it's a learned skill, and people will learn it. When they do, it will resemble Argenti…

> there's no evidence it's going down https://www.statista.com/statistics/273418/unadjusted-monthl... Prices won't go down, but the rate of change of prices can go down. > begin to alter their behaviour by either hoarding or spending. Median savings is not huge: https://www.usnews.com/banking/articles/the-average-savings-... Not to mention that middle America has fixed rate 30 year mortgages , an absolutely extraordi…

[deleted]

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#357

Post by kylebenzle »

e63f67dd-065b wrote: post #22
ggm wrote: post #8

I'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…

You can see it happening right now in Argentina: the local currency is worthless, and people are flocking to ... US Dollars. Not gold, not bitcoins, but good old benjamins. So gold isn't even a good inflation hedge: if you walked the streets of a failing economy (pick one: Argentina, Venezuela, Sri Lanka, there's plenty more) and tried to exchange gold for goods, you're not gonna get far (and will probably get mugged…

It's unclear to me why so many people seem to think it is difficult to sell precious metals? I can sell my silver gold down the street for 95% of spot any day, or if I want to wait for a check in the mail I can send it overnight to Max and get 99% spot.

Within 48 hours I can easily convert my precious metal to bitcoin, cash or get a check. People's general fear of holding and using gold seems to be very similar to the unfounded concerns with Bitcoin. I think people just don't trust themselves with money.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#358

Post by [deleted] »

noduerme wrote: post #295
arcticbull wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

[deleted]

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#359

Post by md_ »

bsder wrote: post #143
ggm wrote: post #8

I'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'm really left scratching my head about people who buy gold to hold physically and personally rather than as an investment. In any situation where it might be relevant, how are you going to sell your gold? For example, if you bought one of those bars right now , how would you then sell that bar again right now ? And, if things really are completely collapsing, nobody wants gold . They'll want something much more imm…

> And, if things really are completely collapsing, nobody wants gold. They'll want something much more immediately useful--food, clothing, ammunition, etc.

I'm not sure I buy that. Barter for an intermediary is fundamentally useful. In a case of societal collapse, people with food/clothing/ammunition--or people who can provide useful services (like driving me to the nearest border) aren't going to want more food/clothing/ammunition--they're going to want something fungible that they can trade for what they need!

So, sure, there's probably some rare scenario where gold (ideally in small, easily verifiable discrete units, not big bars) is useful.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#360

Post by unusualmonkey »

ericmay wrote: post #355
olalonde wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well you can sell the stock and convert it into dollars and then use those. That's something I can do easily today if I wanted regardless of the country I'm in so long as I have the Internet and an ATM. Gold you can't travel with (weight and loss due to theft and also probably actually illegal) and is also not accessible, and Bitcoin you can't buy a coffee with. Other available crypto currencies just do worse jobs th…

Bitcoin claims to be a great store of value, but is terrible at it.

Seriously look at the last 10 year chart of Bitcoin vs USD (or if you want purchasing power) - its far, far too volatile to be a store of value.

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