Pity the lil’ goldbuggers.

Echad : To quote myself :

Governments unfortunately CAN print gold to the extent that a monopoly on force is required to protect and secure gold reserves. Gold’s physicality bug – and make no mistake, for physicality is a severe limitation in the implementation of gold as sound money – means that only state-level and near-state-level actors can secure the stuff. As such, what’s traded are paper promises of delivery for ‘gold’ ; delivery that can never occur for anything more than a few kilos due to the inherent risk and cost of effectively securing it. Bitcoin, of course, resolves this mathematically, digitally, and weightlessly and therefore allows individuals to control their wealth, and thus their destinies, for the first time in history. It’s no wonder some people are so excited by it!

Shtayim : To quote the ever-relevant and ever-enthralling logs :i

mircea_popescu: This century will be the rare earths century. (Brazil and Australia pretty much own the known Hf supply atm). In any case, pretty fucking weird that goldbugs and silverheads still insist with their “precious” metals. They’re useless. PM freaks of 2015 really should collect Hf. Cerium. Lanthanum. Europium. Etc. […] Meanwhile buying a kilogram bar of non radioactive rare earth metal is perfectly feasible as-is.

decimation: Yes, not such a bad idea. If you are going with industrial usefuless, Palladium or Pt are also good metals to hold.

mircea_popescu: My concern was more cultural, so to speak. Here are these dudes, maybe 100k of them, all heads counted.ii They’re mostly over 50 white men, who have for 30 years been buying and hoping. Meanwhile, during THAT EXACT INTERVAL, this set of 10-20 metals did EXACTLY what they had hoped their dead horse would do. Went up what, 10x a decade. Easy. Yet somehow in their minds the idea doesn’t form that… hello ? Anyone home ? It’s pretty interesting a phenomenon.

Shalosh : The future :

BitBet - Gold to drop under $1000 before October 2015

What’s it say about your precious little precious when, in a hyper-inflationary monetary environment as we at present have, that you’re only getting 5:2 on your money for it not to lose 8.5% in just the next 57 days ?

As MP noted, this goldbuggery mental malfunction is a FASCINATING phenomenon. While older Porsches are running away with the moon, art’s on the loose, Bitcoin’s doing things that shouldn’t be possible, and even obscure rare earths are making men very wealthy indeed, there remains a devout orthodoxy dedicated to the Alter of Ore.

This very religious reluctance to face the music is the tragic fate of monometalists, to say nothing of bimetalists,iii and everything they purport to believe in. There’s scarcity, non-counterfeitability, and non-governmentally controlled wealth all around them, it’s just not in a silver- and gold-coloured rock.

So look, guys, the Gold Rush! was from 1848 – 1875. Taking your time and being fashionable is one thing, but it doesn’t do much good to show up to a party 140 years late. You won’t find the never-say-die troopers ready to watch the sunrise with a drink in hand and a smoke dangling from their lips just-so, you’ll find their dust. And dust is neither valuable nor a particular amount of fun.

What’s say you get with the program ?

___ ___ ___

  1. In general, and MP specifically.
  2. For a roughly accurate estimation of this, find the traffic figures for ZeroHedge.
  3. See The Wizard of Oz for a pop culture nod and wink to the turn of the 20th century American battle between goldbugs and so-called “bimetallists” who was not just gold to be recognised as money, but silver too. Silver, however, is too plentiful to be valuable, as it has always been and will always be. Just don’t tell that to the ever poorer lil’ buggers betting on that even lamer pony. They truly are delusional beyond help.

One thought on “Pity the lil’ goldbuggers.

  1. Pete D. says:

    Updated. Somehow I forgot to add ‘Shalosh’ initially, despite it being the precise impetus for this whole shebang. Funny how that works sometimes.

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