Talk:Gold as an investment/Archive 1

message: I have removed the following which was the first paragraph of the article. It is not necessary because Wikipedia already has policies covering WP:NPOV and current events.
:It is a place for facts, not opinions. Thus this article may discuss historical prices, and relative values. It may discuss gold's role as an investment. It may discuss asset allocation strategies, and their implementation. It may discuss the different ways to gain exposure to changes in the price of gold. It can cover other markets and how their relative values have performed relative to gold, from a historical perspective. It can cover the factors which influence the price of gold. Any all facts relating to gold as an investment can be included. Please free to edit this page, but do not express any opinions, nor may you refer to specific gold mining companies or investments if the obvious purpose is to incite others to invest or react. No news of short term relevance may be included, such as last month's change in price. 
Any personal opinions can, of course, be placed here on the talk page.
-=# Amos E Wolfe talk #=- 00:12, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

message: I removed the section of text that implied John Maynard Keynes held the opinion that using gold as a banking reserve was an outdated concept. He in fact stated that the 'gold standard' was a 'barbarous relic'. The gold standard being a currency conversion system created before WWI that fixed the currency conversion rates between participating nations. After WWI updated currency conversion rates were needed. This is why Keynes particpated in the creation of the IMF and Bretton Woods agreement. Of course now we've moved away from fixed rate exchange systems (a barbarous relic) to floating exchange systems. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.164.254.45 (talk • contribs)  02:22, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed text that supports common fallacy 

message: I was in the middle of editing when you removed the unecessary paragraph.  So it is back again.  But I agree you have a point.  Wikipedia's policy cover it.  So when i next edit, I will tidy it up. Swiss Banker 00:46, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  You were a bit too trigger happy. 

message: Does anybody think it would be good to merge into this article the Gold bug article, which duplicates much material here -- or make it clearer that that is a subset of this page ??? mervyn 08:56, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it would absolutely be a mistake to merge this article, which discusses "gold as an investment" into gold bug, which describes a pejorative term. That would seem rather POV to me. It would be like merging African American into Aunt Jemima. Not exactly encyclopedic... This page is not a "subset" of gold bug, although both discuss gold. There is already a category for these articles: Category:Gold. Dick Clark 16:29, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What I said was ? merge Gold bug into this article.? --mervyn 13:25, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Gold bug could be merged in?

message: Would this be a good place for a mention of the Price Revolution caused by the metals of the Americas? --Error 04:50, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Gold of the Americas

message: I suggest the following structure, which would change the current article considerably (the article headings are meant to be descriptive, not NPOV-compliant, for now):
*History
*Buying gold for the gold price
**Reasons for buying gold (why would the gold price go up)
**Risks for the gold price (why would the gold price go down)
*Buying physical gold
**Central banks (inherited gold from the gold standard)
**Apocalyptic gold bugs (think fiat money is going to fail)
**Crime and tax evasion
*Gold as money
**history
**digital gold currencies
::(in particular, one argument I'd like to see here is that digital gold currencies' protections against hyperinflation are arguably worse than those fiat currencies with a reserve requirement have:  in the libertarian uncontrolled banking system many seem to envision for DGCs, there is no way to limit the speed of circulation, and there is no way to limit the equivalents of M1, M2, or M3;  even M0 cannot be reduced.  Inflation, thus, cannot be limited.  For fiat currencies, as long as monetary policy is adhered to, money supply and speed of circulation are under control.).
*modern forms of gaining exposure to the gold price
**the current "methods of investing in gold"
I think it would be significantly easier to achieve a neutral point of view using that structure.
Comments?
RandomP 13:49, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed.  By the same token, however, maybe we should remove the comment about gold being "one of the worst investments one could make over the past 20 years".  For that to be true, you would have to ignore every business that ever failed or lost more than ~30% of its value since 1980. MrVoluntarist 23:33, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

text: True, gold would have been a terrible investment if you bought in 1980 and sold today.  However, if you extend the time period it would have been a good investment, as far as I am aware.  For example if you (or your family) bought gold in 1930 and then sold today. Also you are speculating that gold will not become a good investment in the future, if people choose not to sell and hang on to their gold (the price may increase and rise above 1980 prices in real and nominal terms).  It is like saying in 1950 that stocks are a terrible investment following the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression (see Great Commodities Depression). It took until 1955 for the Dow Jones to reach pre-1929 prices and for people to receive at least their original investment back (in nominal not real terms, it would be much longer if you took into account inflation). In 2006, we are told that stocks will always be a good investment long term and will outperform other asset classes.  Well yes this may be true, but not if one bought shares in 1928 and sold in 1950. However if one bought shares in 1928 and sold today, then you have a different story, as they would have been a great investment. I believe the issue we have here is not whether gold is a good or bad investment, it is just a question of timing and timescale.  I suppose what would clear this point up is a graph showing the gold price versus holding cash over the last 100 years (or longer perhaps). There would need to be at least two cash lines plotted - one line showing cash held on deposit in a bank earning cumulative interest (the percentage would vary) and another showing cash stored "under the mattress". It would also have to show all currency revaluations over the period. Plus just a side point that any cash stored "under the mattress" becomes illegal tender anyway because all governments periodically change their currency design, rendering all previous notes worthless if the money is not exchanged by a certain date.  It is a simple but effective system of control. nirvana2013 07:41, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Suggestion for article structure 

message: Please provide sources for these unsourced claims (I'll try a simple google search, but not more) as I will otherwise remove them shortly:
*central banks consider gold a safe haven and store of value
*precious metals are uniquely liquid tangible assets
*inflation is once again rising
RandomP 12:51, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unsourced claims 

message: I see nothing in the investment strategies section that applies to gold specifically.  I think this should be essentially removed, and put into an article on speculative investment.
What needs to stay:
*WGC numbers, though they need explanation
*mention gold-yen carry trade, which is widely assumed to exist
Does anyone want the Dow/gold ratio to stay specifically?  It seems a general case of tracking one investment (I've given up.  I'm officially using the term now :-) ) against another.
RandomP 02:47, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal: remove "Investment strategies" section 

message: Article states that gold bugs 'hope for another Great Depression'. This implies that there are sources stating that gold was used to preserve value during TGD. This makes no sense since TGD was caused by deflationary pressure and iliquidity where assets including gold would be loosing value in currency terms. Can anyone shed some light on this? If not, this needs to be removed from the article. gb 21:38, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The Causes of the Great Depression are hotly disputed. Some economists argue that inflation of the US money supply by the Federal Reserve played a role in causing and lengthening the Great Depression. For those who are inclined towards this theory (and others), gold is a hedge against inflation because central banks engaged in inflation can't "print gold." DickClarkMises 01:19, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Gold and other material assets can be a hedge against inflation. However, that's not my point. If there are no references on gold being used as a shelter during TGD, this statement is false and should be removed from the article or reworded to avoid reference to TGD.gb 22:57, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gold and the Great Depression