I noticed a new evil fnord circulating. It's directed at Glenn Beck and Ron Paul, for advising people to invest in gold. The message is "They have a financial interest in gold. Therefore, their advice is invalid."
Gold dealers like Goldline advertise on Glenn Beck and Fox News. Since Glenn Beck is getting paid to promote gold, his advice is immoral.
My criticism of Goldline is "Their website is inferior to APMEX and Kitco and other online dealers." Goldline's website says "Call us for prices." APMEX and Kitco automatically update their web quotes whenever the spot price changes.
Ron Paul owns gold and shares of gold mining companies. Therefore, it's immoral for him to advise others to buy gold.
"Getting paid to promote something" is the way celebrity endorsements work. Is it immoral for Michael Jordan to promote Nike, if he sincerely believes their shoes are good? (I noticed that expensive shoes are actually a better buy than cheap shoes, because cheap shoes wear out quickly.)
When a corporate CEO talks on the Communism Channel, he's implicitly saying "You should buy my corporation's stock." The CEO gains financially when people buy his stock, because he can then cash out his option/equity grants at favorable prices. If it's immoral for Glenn Beck and Ron Paul to promote gold, then it should also be immoral for a CEO to promote his own stock.
These gold critics are missing an important point. Over the last 10 years, gold has trounced the stock market by a wide amount. That trend continues so far in 2010. I've never seen the Communism Channel highlight the disparity between gold and stocks over the last 10 years. A lot of State comedians are saying "Just wait. Any day now, the price of gold is going to crash!"
My own personal progress of investment awareness has been:
- money market account
- CDs
- index funds
- individual stocks
- PM ETFs like GLD and SLV
- physical delivery of actual gold and silver (not yet attained)
It isn't immoral for Ron Paul and Glenn Beck to promote gold investing. Gold really is a good investment! People who tout worthless State paper are the true economic criminals.
I've noticed a lot of pro-State troll comments here, when I advocate for gold investing, or when I advocate for no State regulation of money (which would lead to a gold/silver standard). When I mention gold to my father, he starts blindly reciting Communism Channel propaganda.
Around the time of the default on the gold standard in 1933, there was a lot of State propaganda denouncing gold. Keynes was touted as a genius, because he made a fancy theory that told State insiders what they wanted to hear. If you want to be a successful State-licensed scientist, you should reach the "right" conclusions! "Inflation stimulates the economy!" is an evil fnord designed to justify the State theft of people's savings.
I can notice the trance-like mental state of someone blindly reciting their pro-State brainwashing. There is more State propaganda surrounding gold than almost every other economic idea.
2 comments:
for your personal investments, please investigate Harry Browne's Permanent Portfolio concept. 25% each in total stock market index, long term treasuries (30yrs), gold, and cash. You will not believe how good it has performed.
Gold is a reasonable investment when one can take delivery.
When one can not take delivery, one should proceed cautiously. It is currently generally the case that one can not take delivery at near spot prices in quantity because the certificate gold one is buying doesn't actually exist. In this case it is a poor investment since it's not only not real, but it's nominal value is more subject to state confiscation than other paper investments such as currency and stocks are.
Another reasonable investment right now might possibly be to grab a 4.5% fixed mortgage on real estate since hyper inflation is coming and the mortgage can be paid off in a few years with pocket change.
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