Is gold losing its charm given the dire necessity of possessing hard cash to pay for emergencies? Intuition tells me that the central banks may not know much more than we know. In lieu of the volatility of the markets and economies today, as well as the oil spills and everything else going on, I think that this move is more of a precaution than anything else. Presently, cash and liquidity is more appealing than the old secure gold standby. If the volatility of current events diminishes, then I think the gold will regain it's charm.
Intuition69: Is gold losing its charm given the dire necessity of
This was a very interesting article. I still think gold, silver and other precious metals are a good investment. The prices of metals can fluctuate, but they always retains some value because they are useful. Fiat currency, on the other hand, can potentially lose nearly all of its value. Fiat currency crashes have happened in many countries before. Since the U.S. dollar was taken off the gold standard, it has lost more than 90% of its value in about 4 decades.
lightningbolt: This was a very interesting article. I still think gold,
I don't think the U.S. will let the gulf states use their own currency for oil. Most of the gulf states are already controlled by the U.S. One of the main reasons Iraq was invaded was because Saddam Hussein was switching to the Euro for oil trading. As soon as his government was defeated by the U.S., the U.S. switched Iraq's oil trading currency back to the dollar.
lightningbolt: I don't think the U.S. will let the gulf states
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Wait until the Gulfo comes out. The USD won't be used in selling oil. Their currency will be used and backed by Oil.
Bad times.