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Monday, April 15, 2024

Commentary: High Gold Price Points to Sustained Inflation

The economy looms large in the minds of most people and not simply because it is an election year. It affects us directly. We spend a lot of our waking hours at work, and our jobs are often connected to the welfare of families and children. With everything being more expensive, getting a toe hold on mere middle-class status is harder now than it was for older generations. Many people are slipping down a rung or three.

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I've always kept an eye on the price of gold ever since I was prospecting and placer mining back in the 1980s. Over time I found it was a good indicator of how the economy was doing - when gold prices are stable, so is the economy. When it's rising, the value of the dollar is falling.
What trips me out is over the past couple years, it's been taking big jumps instead of rising or falling a dollar or two at a time s it had in the past. The past couple of months though, I'm seeing the biggest changes in price that I've ever seen - I'm talking 20, 30 or more dollars a day. It usually opens with a drop from last night's closing, but makes up for it by the end of the day.
But above $2300 an ounce? Never in my life did I figure I would see it so high.

20 comments:

  1. Watching gold is a reality check on all the economic BS.
    Good observations.

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  2. I truly believe that market is also controlled - somewhat. It SHOULD gradually change...the big jumps are when the controls are calibrated.

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  3. Wait till it breaks $3000.....

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  4. I used a scale I call the blue jean scale. back when I started working, I got like 5 bucks a day helping with a concrete crew. Levi's jeans where like 10-12 bucks, Wranglers where 7 or so.
    good work boots started at 15 and went up. and all of this stuff was made here.
    now ? yeah, right. God knows where they make stuff now and the price is way more than what it used to be. so, I don't need to look at the gold spot price to know the dollar is damn near worthless and losing more each day. I keep a little cash in the bank to pay bills and anything left over goes into stuff that holds it value. canned food, ammo, tools . stuff.
    gave up on stocks and bonds after 2008. all paper money turns back to it's true value in time, paper and ink. where a box of 22lr ammo always has value.

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  5. You're young. I remember the late 70s when silver was touching $50 and gold was over $800 - highest price rises ever since they started at $2 and about $40 when Nixon was in office. We all wondered what kind of world would we have with Gold at $800?

    Well, now its over $2000 and heading higher as we get into the Iran thing. No worry, we have a senile old man at the helm and a cackling low IQ twit right behind him. What could go wrong?

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    Replies
    1. The price of gold never came close to $800 in the 1970s.
      https://nma.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/historic_gold_prices_1833_pres.pdf

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    2. In 1980 a coworker was super excited that gold was heading for $400. He tried to get me and others to buy in. We didn't and it didn't hit $400.

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    3. Highest looks like $681 on Jan 31 went down from there through the 80s averaging maybe about $400
      https://comexlive.org/gold/ (hit the max range button)
      Steve S6

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  6. I wish people would frame it the right way. the price of gold is unchanged. the value of a dollar is utter crap.

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    1. An oz was an oz last year, 5 years ago, 100 years ago. The value of what you use to buy it is decreasing so it takes more paper to buy it. I hope the BRICS use it as a portion of their base holdings making it money again. Dollar is going down but we may still be forced to use it..

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  7. I was always a silver guy myself. Loved those silver eagles and morgens. Made an average 3X my money with them in 2012 which was enough for a down payment on a nice house. Sold the house several years ago and bought gold coins. I've been kicking myself in the ass ever since. Although gold has gone up by a thousand dollars an ounce the amount of silver I could of had has gone up by multiples of that. ssiiiggghhhh.

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  8. The panning crowd is have orgasms as they crawl over each other on the way to Sutter's Creek.

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    Replies
    1. A Canadian company just announced they are opening old mines across the western states. Globex

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  9. The best economic indicator I found is a truck stop. If there's lot's of room to park, the economy sucks.

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  10. Silver going up $7 and gold going up $400 in 2 months is kind of an indicator. Not a good one, either. Unless yer a PM trader.

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  11. A sideways to look at the price of gold is men's wedding rings. They don't have the mystique of the bride's ring so demand elasticity is more pronounced. The thing is, you just don't see many gold wedding rings on younger married men these days. There's tungsten and titanium, and who knows what else. Gold has mostly priced itself out of that market.

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  12. My wife and I bought 5 ounces of gold in 1999 at $200/ounce figuring it would spike because of Y2K hysteria. Nope, barely a blip in price. The Mrs. wanted to cash it in because we didn't have much spare cash back then but I insisted we hold onto it and glad we did.

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  13. And it is going much higher. If the dollar were fully backed by gold, it would be about $30000.

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  14. The price of gold doesn't actually go up. The value of the Dollar goes down. And right now the US Dollar is approaching toilet paper territory...where it will be cheaper to wipe your ass with it than buy Charmin. And this is all deliberate. Inflation is a hidden tax. One that affects most of us but not the rich, powerful and politically connected. That's why we have inflation.

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  15. Jeff Cooper once opined that an ounce of gold used to be able to buy a SAA 45 or the best rack suit. It still can. Fiat currency always goes to zero eventually.

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