31-03-2009, 11:20 AM
David
Your last post is a Gem if I may say so. (just can't get away from those age-old yardsticks of value can we??)
As you are no doubt beginning to divine, my interest in paper contracts is confined to the factors that influence both short-term and medium-term price trends though, the better not to get fleeced on my ultra-short-term trading activities. Those activities, when one has actually survived and profited from them over any length of time, inevitable involve developing a keen interest in the deep stuff that drives it all. I would no more consider INVESTING in gold, gold miners or ESPECIALLY the various Exchange Trade Funds than I would in the future of packaged holidays to Mars.
I do agree the prudent private long-term 'in case of total catastrophe' stash though and have helped my own family similarly. The thing is, I sense there are a LOT of people doing exactly the same thing - especially the seriously wealthy. That in turn implies a LOT of official, documented, hall-marked etc gold exiting the vaults so-to-speak and I suspect that, in addition to the black obligations/collateral scenarios you paint, serious amounts of it are being systematically laundered to replenish otherwise empying vaults. I am very curious to discover mechanisms employed - and 'curiosity' killed the cat didn't it?
Your last post is a Gem if I may say so. (just can't get away from those age-old yardsticks of value can we??)
As you are no doubt beginning to divine, my interest in paper contracts is confined to the factors that influence both short-term and medium-term price trends though, the better not to get fleeced on my ultra-short-term trading activities. Those activities, when one has actually survived and profited from them over any length of time, inevitable involve developing a keen interest in the deep stuff that drives it all. I would no more consider INVESTING in gold, gold miners or ESPECIALLY the various Exchange Trade Funds than I would in the future of packaged holidays to Mars.
I do agree the prudent private long-term 'in case of total catastrophe' stash though and have helped my own family similarly. The thing is, I sense there are a LOT of people doing exactly the same thing - especially the seriously wealthy. That in turn implies a LOT of official, documented, hall-marked etc gold exiting the vaults so-to-speak and I suspect that, in addition to the black obligations/collateral scenarios you paint, serious amounts of it are being systematically laundered to replenish otherwise empying vaults. I am very curious to discover mechanisms employed - and 'curiosity' killed the cat didn't it?
Peter Presland
".....there is something far worse than Nazism, and that is the hubris of the Anglo-American fraternities, whose routine is to incite indigenous monsters to war, and steer the pandemonium to further their imperial aims"
Guido Preparata. Preface to 'Conjuring Hitler'[size=12][size=12]
"Never believe anything until it has been officially denied"
Claud Cockburn
[/SIZE][/SIZE]
".....there is something far worse than Nazism, and that is the hubris of the Anglo-American fraternities, whose routine is to incite indigenous monsters to war, and steer the pandemonium to further their imperial aims"
Guido Preparata. Preface to 'Conjuring Hitler'[size=12][size=12]
"Never believe anything until it has been officially denied"
Claud Cockburn
[/SIZE][/SIZE]