Quote:
Originally Posted by skinnerd
Gold is one of those things over the long run will always go up I think.
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Oh, you mean like real estate?
Sorry to pick on you, but it does sound an awful lot like what people were saying about RE for the last 10 years or so. Makes me wonder if there's not a "gold bubble" right now. Personally I think there is.
I do own some, but not an enormous amount of it. Mostly I don't see it as an especially valuable commodity. If the SHTF (which I think it very well could in the near future) and there's a radical breakdown of social order, law, government and all the rest, the most valuable things are going to be practical things to barter - food, water, clothing, shelter, fuel, tools, weapons, etc. While a lot of people might accept gold in exchange for things as kind of a de facto currency, a lot might not. So as such I question how much real value it has.
Other than appealing to the attraction of us hairless monkeys to bright shiny things, what practical uses does gold really have? It's too soft to really be of much use for making things other than decorations (which aren't practical or ultimately necessary). I'd think pound-for-pound steel or aluminum are probably "worth" more in the sense that you can actually make useful objects out of them.
Again, just my $0.02. I don't claim to be an expert in the precious metals markets or anything, just when I see it at $500 and then double that in five years with people claiming "it never goes down", the alarm bells go off. I'm seriously considering cashing out my holdings now... When those stupid "send us your gold jewelry" informercials stop airing then I guess I will. Probably won't be long...