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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

#241

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…

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…

This piece seems like it was written by someone writing strictly from American perspective without seeing what happens elsewhere.

Inflation in America is not, and was not anywhere in this post-Covid episode, worse than in any other developed nation except Japan, which has so many problems hardly anyone will want to use it as a point of reference. U.S. economy is in better shape than almost any other advanced nation (and poor countries may be doing better but exactly because they are poor, they are playing technology catch-up, once they are caught up they have no avenues for quick growth and are stuck on Eastern European level). It is both currently richer, and grows faster, and is more stable, and provides more ways for an everyday, layman person to invest. Europeans don't buy stocks of European companies - because they know those companies are ridden with protectionist rules and omnipowerful unions - in all of which they actively, and cynically, participate - and will never give a good return. They buy American stocks.

America is virtually insulated from global warming because it's so big and diverse: some places may be wrecked but others will even win - no other nation is like that. It is virtually insulated from potential wars or invasions due to protection of the oceans. It is safe from any demographic issues because it has a guaranteed stream of immigrants with a lot more brains and money than any other country can hope attracting. It has an attitude to politics where people don't expect politicians to do much, apart from entertaining them, an expectation current generation of politicians fulfils brilliantly. Because there is no way America can be wrecked by politicians NOT doing something (as everything was built from the ground up with exactly that expectation - the government not doing anything), only threat comes from government actuallY DOING very wrong things - but American political system is built to very effectively prevent that.

All in all, comparing America to other rich places, it is evidently the best place to be for the rest of XXI century, at least as long as you have cash.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#242

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…

> You have to figure out how to convert that gold into something somebody will actually take You need coins. You can't walk around with a gold bar. I would say silver coins to keep the value down, too. As a "my government made our money useless" back up. USD cash are good too unless you are American, obviously.

You can't use coins without someone enforcing rules against counterfeit.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#243
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…

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 unoffical influence on exchange rates & dollar value.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#244

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…

> You have to figure out how to convert that gold into something somebody will actually take You need coins. You can't walk around with a gold bar. I would say silver coins to keep the value down, too. As a "my government made our money useless" back up. USD cash are good too unless you are American, obviously.

Seems if you’re an American, having your money in USD would be doubly useful!

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#245

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…

> You have to figure out how to convert that gold into something somebody will actually take You need coins. You can't walk around with a gold bar. I would say silver coins to keep the value down, too. As a "my government made our money useless" back up. USD cash are good too unless you are American, obviously.

>As a "my government made our money useless" back up.

I think that's where you first get into "some other governments money may be less useless" as a first stage backup. Precious metals in direct ownership are really a hedge against all or most other governments money collapsing.

Until you reach a global societal collapse, having gold in your possession seems like a negative ROI and I wonder if, should that case happen, would precious metals again become the medium of exchange or something else (peoples' opinions have changed and a fist full of diamonds might not be as valuable to me as say fresh drinking water should such a thing happen). It would likely depend on the cause of global collapse and what people consider valuable (obviously, but it probably needs stated).

Precious metals seem to be a good medium of exchange historically only at a certain level of assumed societal infrastructure, similar to our fiat currencies. Cavemen and small tribes cared little of precious metals and would rather trade land, access rights, livestock, etc.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#246

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…

> You have to figure out how to convert that gold into something somebody will actually take You need coins. You can't walk around with a gold bar. I would say silver coins to keep the value down, too. As a "my government made our money useless" back up. USD cash are good too unless you are American, obviously.

These aren't really "bars" like ingots. Trading sealed packages of 1oz gold tabs is probably better than trying to trade gold coins of unverified composition/weight.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#247
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physical gold might have value in situation where financial institutions and markets start to lose any trust in themselves. Either by manipulation, government confiscation or fraud. But, things will be pretty bad at that point from every viewpoint. As essentially global markets are crashing. On other hand, in even bigger crisis gold won't be that valuable at least for a while. If food and fuel are first priority peop…

I don't understand why people keep thinking that a financial meltdown means societal meltdown. There's plenty of places where the economy is or has already melted down even right now -- Sri Lanka, Argentina, Venezuela, etc. We can observe what happens when political institutions completely and utterly collapse, because it's happened multiple times already . What happens is not immediate apocalypse where people riot a…

> it's happened multiple times already. What happens is not immediate apocalypse where people riot and society breaks down; it's mass protests, shows of solidarity, people help each other out, etc

What a bizarre interpretation.

To this date more than 20% of Venezuelans left the country.

What happens over and over is that fiat currency becomes worthless and that people who have the means to leave leave.

Obviously if you own some gold you have a better chance of being able to escape to another country.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#248
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…

In the current market, you can invest and make interest in gold and silver: https://monetary-metals.com/

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#249

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…

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…

I bet the vast majority of gold being purchased at Costco is by Indian and Chinese immigrants who buy gold culturally and not as a response to global financial events and movements.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#250
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The phenomenon of hyperinflation is foreign to them, and there's a steep learning curve. LOL. What the US has is in no way, shape, or form hyperinflation. I've lived in a place with hyperinflation and less than 10% ain't it, chief :-)

Just as with the people who wake up every morning expecting the Second Coming, or indeed a Nuclear War, these folks fixate on a hyperinflationary US economy so much they begin to hallucinate. Everything must be a sign. Strong job figures? Those are a precursor to hyperinflation. More mortgages fail than average? Hyperinflation on the horizon. Trump gets elected? He'll certainly cause hyperinflation. Trump loses? Demo…

HN seems to have a lot of kooks these days, or maybe the kind of people who would push back have just stopped.

I've seen a surprising amount of vaccine denialism, xenophobia, unsubstantiated pop Econ takes, Peter Zeihan bullshit, etc.

YC should just cut the cord on this forum tbh. It's not about "Hackers" or "News" anymore.

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