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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

#491

Post by specialist »

jabroni_salad wrote: post #330
icepat wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> and they're incredibly cautious about everything Have you ever heard a precious metals ad? The line between cautious and paranoid can wear thin, and that's who the target market is.

Predatory ads are shown 24/7, with some infotainment filler, to the elderly.

While doing familial eldercare, I have to wear earplugs, to protect myself from the sensory overload.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#492

Post by pcdoodle »

alephnerd wrote: post #250
tialaramex wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Kooks? The flip side of that coin is the NPC (Non playing characters) that have trouble dealing with any information that could harm their little "comfort cocoon". Nobody has your best interest in mind, not even yourself if you step back far enough.

I appreciate this place.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#493

Post by bluGill »

fragmede wrote: post #481
bluGill wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

tell that to the war on drugs. drugs are winning, btw.

Many more drug supporters have died in the war than government agents.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#494

Post by pcdoodle »

kylebenzle wrote: post #357
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…

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 th…

Another speculation: people hate making financial decisions with any perceived risk. Fear of Shame.

So imagine the cognitive dissonance when a sizable "team" picks a product that's not part of the perceived friendly and safe. These "alternative" products also require responsibility without anyone else to blame but yourself for mistakes.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#495

Post by more_corn »

bluGill wrote: post #328
idiotsecant wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Eventually, but that eventually shows no sign of stopping soon. There are two cases where it stops: the US decides to replace the dollar with something else, and there is a clear trade in program (the EU went to the Euro, and India did something similar); or things change slowly over time so you will have plenty of time where your dollar maybe isn't worth what it was yesterday but still is worth almost a dollar - odd…

This may change tomorrow when the republicans again hold the economy hostage demanding increasingly unhinged political concessions. They can do this till the dollar isn’t a useful currency anymore.

It probably won’t come to that but we don’t know. And uncertainty is bad for business.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#496

Post by more_corn »

VHRanger wrote: post #272
idiotsecant wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Cryptocurrencies are inherently bad currencies because of price volatility (except stable coins). That also makes them good speculative assets fwiw

Stanlecoins are even worse. When they unpeg as all must, everything falls apart.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#497

Post by Izkata »

mlinhares wrote: post #290
noduerme wrote: post #111

Earlier 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…

Comparing the US with Argentina is wild. Americans are buying gold because there's a lot of propaganda about how the country is going to hell, the economy is fucked and there's plenty of marks out there that fall for this, while unemployment is historically low and the mcdonalds close to me is offering 17 an hour for line workers. There's been a huge increase in ads about "buying hold to protect yourself" instead of…

> unemployment is historically low

This is a marker of a coming recession. The spikes happen after recessions begin, and it's bizarre that it's been so low for so long: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/UNRATE

Not exactly the same thing everyone's talking about here, but "historically low unemployment" isn't exactly a good thing overall - IIRC the theory behind why it signals a coming recession is something like "reduced job mobility because people are afraid of losing their jobs", because it only counts people who are unemployed and looking for a job.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#498

Post by kaliqt »

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 don't understand, Bitcoin has gone up in value much more than any currency you must be referring to.

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#499

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Costco gold bars are selling out within hours

#500

Post by kenneth »

uptown wrote: post #218
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…

Who would you sell the bullion to to cash out?

There are various precious metal trading companies that will buy the bullion from you at close to spot if it's kept in its original assay and has documentation. If not in assay, they will have to test its purity and potentially remelt it so that adds to the spread.
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