Pages

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

The "New Case for Gold" Stirs Old Debates and Offers up New Ones

Best selling author Jim Rickards is at it again with a new book on gold. For some reason gold seems to stir up debate and emotional reactions in people for and against it as a form of money. In "The New Case for Gold", Jim takes on the age old criticisms against gold and offers a new reason why people need to consider owning some gold today. 


Below are some questions related to gold that Jim answers in the book.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

- Is gold really money?

- Why did the gold standard go away?

- Is it possible to return to a form of a gold standard today?

- Isn't there too little gold in the world to use it as backing for currency?

- Isn't there not enough new gold mined to allow for an expansion in the money supply?

- What price would gold need to be in order to back the money supply currently?

- What is the "Shadow Gold Standard"?

- What future monetary event could lead to increased demand for gold for wealth protection?

- Why are Russia and China buying so much gold?

- What is a new reason people need to own some gold in a modern technology world?

- What is the best way to own gold in a portfolio and how much is enough?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jim explains why he wrote this book in this video




----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My added comments: If you want to look into the subject of gold without being bombarded with emotional arguments for and against it, this book will be for you. Jim provides a fact based analysis in support of gold as form of wealth protection without any hype. Since Jim does not sell precious metals, he can approach the subject in a purely analytical way. Readers can do their own fact checking and decide if Jim makes his case.

I will add that one question I get here is what the average person can do who might want to follow Jim's advice on acquiring gold, but cannot afford gold. I would say that you can apply much of what Jim says about gold to silver. There are differences in that silver is less regarded as a monetary metal and is also viewed as an industrial commodity more so than gold. However, in a crisis situation like Jim is predicting, silver could certainly function somewhat like gold for those who cannot afford the higher priced metal.

We have long said here on this blog that precious metals should be viewed like an insurance policy and that the emotional reactions surrounding gold seem silly when looked at in this way. "The New Case for Gold" seems to take the same approach.




Added notes:

CNBC Interview with Jim Discussing The New Case for Gold

In depth discussion of gold and the new book with Greg Hunter

No comments:

Post a Comment