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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

#461

Post by jareklupinski »

idiotsecant wrote: post #268
altacc wrote: post #243

Earlier 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…

This will be true right up until the point it is not. The US dollar dominance is not a feature of the universe, it's a social agreement that, like any such agreement, will eventually come undone.

> it's a social agreement that, like any such agreement, will eventually come undone

unless we agree for it not to. it took faith in a social structure to put the system together, and as long as it's maintained, it will stay together.

there's likely no invisible hand that builds and then ruins all of our achievements (unless we want to believe there is one (which makes it just us again in the end))

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#462

Post by cf141q5325 »

tim333 wrote: post #429
cf141q5325 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Which doesn't mean ETFs like GLD are not real. It just means that if I say I'll bet you the price goes up, we settle the bet at $100 for each dollar the price moves, that is independent of us actually owning any gold. Whats your definition of real if it doesnt involve physical gold? An ISIN existing? Sorry if that sounds passive aggressive, i cant figure out how else to word it. There seems to be another definition…

Ok fair enough - I was unclear on the definition of paper gold. But the idea that >There is a belief that there exists a lot more paper gold than actual gold. So when the run on the reserves starts, the price of gold will explode as billions of dollars worth of gold in the market disappears. is probably not representative of what would happen. Derivative bets can come and go without really moving the spot price.

While again i dont disagree with your conclusion, i believe your arguing here is flawed. The derivatives can and do move the price significantly. JPMorgan payed quite hefty fines for manipulating the precious metal markets (as well as treasuries) through spoofing¹. Thats now happening by dumping significant volumes of derivatives onto the market at times its especially thin. Which can be in the order of magnitude of yearly productions. Combining this with bots trading trends prices can be moved significantly.

But again, due to golds importance from the monetary perspective, significant price increases are not going to happen. It could be seen as currencies devaluing, thus lending out central bank gold reserved to achieve price stability is very much on the table. I believe it was Greenspan that talked about this in the past.

¹ https://www.reuters.com/article/jp-morgan-spoofing-penalty-i...

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#463

Post by cf141q5325 »

kortilla wrote: post #452
cf141q5325 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If i am not mistaken those gold ETFs are backed by derivatives. Please do share a differing definition for "paper". I also didnt disagree with derivative overhang being normal. Not sure why you thought it necessary to repeat.

It’s like two seconds of googling. The biggest ones are backed by the asset. https://www.ssga.com/us/en/intermediary/etfs/funds/spdr-gold... This one even lets you convert: https://www.vaneck.com/us/en/education/investment-ideas/phys... I thought it necessary to spell it out because your understanding is clearly based on the false assumption that most of the gold investments aren’t backed.

Another poster (tim333) made a great summary of the concept behind GLD (your first link) a few posts up. Those backed assets are otherwise owned and loaned against. IShares is the other one with a similar concept. You can read up on this in the context of Basel 3's net stable funding ratio and the exemption LBMA (the biggest backer of COMEX) achieved.

https://www.gold.org/goldhub/gold-focus/2021/06/basel-iii-an...

Or directly from the LBMA:

https://cdn.lbma.org.uk/downloads/Pages/NSFR-PRA-Letter-fina... https://www.lbma.org.uk/articles/pra-clearing-banks-may-now-...

This is not to say that all ETFs work this way. I believe Xetra is one example of being fully physically backed. But this naturally increases running cost due to storage. Last i checked i believe you pay in the rough region of 0.1% a year in storage cost at the reputable physical gold bullion storage sites as a large customers (tons / room). That sums up. This also explains why physical copper is not something you can easily invest in.

But again, this kind of misses the point, i would really appreciate a definition of paper differing from backed by derivatives. I think you might be onto something here, i ran into this argument a few times now so i believe i might be missing something.

I would also like to reiterate that i do not share the conclusion the initial post made about run away gold prices. I elaborated on that in the other posts.

Sorry for the late edits, had to double check the numbers.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#464

Post by andirk »

altacc wrote: post #243
e63f67dd-065b wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 agree that USD, regardless of its waining value, is fairly universal. If I was going to start a country, I would start with USD as the currency instead of risking insane volatility. However, as discussed in the Bitcoin whitepaper, one of its pinnacle features is it is (supposedly) not controlled by a single entity or government or private institution, or really any institution. So the advantage of USD being tethered to the USA government is both a feature and a flaw, and BTC not being tethered to anything is both a feature and a flaw.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#465

Post by hakfoo »

fuzzfactor wrote: post #438
scottiebarnes wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're forgetting the case where the US dollar gets hyperinflated or highly inflated due to something like a debt crisis. Speaking of which...$33 trillion.

A hundred years ago a US silver dollar would buy you a decent steak dinner, and naturally a US $10 gold eagle coin would serve 10 people. Now that same kind of dinner can still be had for the same silver dollar, but the amount of gold in the small 1923 gold eagle[0] would be enough to serve 30 today, not merely the 10 diners of 100 years ago. And some of these are nice restaurants. Today if your dollar does not conta…

Bimetallic currencies were a hairball for every major economy for decades. If you tie a currency to gold or silver alone, and the other a sort of token sense, it generally works.

When you try to do both, you end up with situations where the government gets incentivized to take a metal that's fairly low value, and stamp a design into it to infuse it with new value. Silver bullion in the 1880s that might be worth 60 cents an ounce suddenly went up to a buck and change when you turned it into a Morgan or Trade Dollar. I suspect the introduction of the $20 gold piece in 1849 (and possibly the $3 in 1854) were in part to sop up a glut on the gold market.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#466

Post by rchaud »

ifdefdebug wrote: post #87
jansan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before 2008 quite a few people around me were purchasing physical gold. I even know of one guy who bought 20000€ worth of gold. AFAIK none of them had any idea afterwards what to with that stuff. I assume it is rotting (or keeps on shining) in their basements and will only be touched when they die or move out.

Just looked it up, if that one guy needs money today his 2008 €20k gold would buy him >€40k today. Not so bad.

That would be under 1 kg of gold. For that small an amount, there will only be a small handful of private buyers, and their offers won't be anywhere near the amounts shown on commodities exchange tickers.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#467

Post by manonthewall »

L_226 wrote: post #205
SilverBirch wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if the banks topple... good luck finding someone who will take your gold.

I think you mean "finding someone who will pay you for your gold". WROL means people will just be looting your corpse.

Yep they will be converting a couple hundred grams of lead into a gold fortune if society collapses if they're aware you're hoarding it :(

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#468

Post by refurb »

defrost wrote: post #296
refurb wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

No there isn't. The point in question is the impact - one of them blocks streets, one of them sets fires to buildings.

You keep coming back to intent because otherwise your argument makes no sense. But intent is irrelevant to the impact in the end - temporarily blocked businesses (which can reopen after the blockade stops) versus businesses burned down (which won't open for months or even years, maybe not at all).

If you're willing to suspend Charter rights for a temporary blockade, then logically you should be willing to do the same for something with a far greater effect.

But you're unwilling to do so because you want the political goals of the protest to temper the force of the law against them. Unfortunately that's not not how the law works, we have (or are supposed to have) Rule of Law - every person is subject to the same law regardless of who they are or what they believe.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#469

Post by manonthewall »

infecto wrote: post #257
kenneth wrote: post #216

I used to buy gold bullion as a sneaky way to get credit card points on the cheap (and then use them for first class flights around the world). You could usually do the trade profitably and quickly and quite safely with insured shipping via USPS. $50k at a time. It was a bit sketchy to have that much in bullion at home, and I quickly got bored of it. The things you do when you're young…

Did the same with those $1 US coins when the mint was allowing you to purchase them for $1 free shipping. We would get as much as possible and then turn around and deposit into the bank.

why would you pay $1 each for $1 coins and turn around and put that in the bank? I mean what's the purpose? I could see if you were keeping them as collectors items that might be worth more in the future, but once dropped in the bank you're back to where you started??

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#470

Post by manonthewall »

Dowwie wrote: post #354

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.

why wouldn't you put them in safety deposit boxes? I know there are issues with that but seems safer than under your mattress when it's know that thieves are breaking in and stealing them.
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