You are here
Reuters' James Saft tells Buffett that gold is insurance against bad money
What Is Gold For?
By James Saft
Reuters
Friday, March 16, 2012
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/16/us-column-gold-saft-idUSBRE82F...
An apparent economic recovery and a recent tumble in the price of gold has investors wondering if the precious metal has lost its place in a portfolio.
Gold, having soared higher since the onset of the financial crisis, is down about 17 percent from its September peak, and has fallen 7.5 percent in less than a month. In large part, gold's comeuppance is attributable to improving economic data and a sense that -- terrible as things may be in Europe -- the banking system will not implode.
So, then, if the world's not ending why own gold?
Arguing the case against gold ownership is none other than Warren Buffett, who argues for equities and calls gold a non-productive asset. Why hold gold, which never innovates, never increases profit margins and never opens up new markets?
... Dispatch continues below ...
Be Part of a Chance to Discover
Multi-Million-Ounce Gold and Silver Deposits in Canada
Northaven Resources Corp. (TSX-V:NTV) is advancing five gold and silver projects in highly prospective and politically stable British Columbia, Canada.
Check out the exploration program on our Allco gold/silver project :
-- A large (13,000 hectare) property, covering more than 15 square kilometers of a regional mineralized trend just 3km from a recently announced 1.2-million-ounce gold and 15-million-ounce silver deposit.
-- The property hosts historic high-grade silver workings and many mineral showings as well as former mines at the property's northern and southern boundaries.
-- A deep-penetrating airborne geophysics survey has just been completed on the entire property and neighboring deposits and its results are eagerly awaited.
To learn more about the Allco property or Northaven's other gold and silver projects, please visit:
http://www.northavenresources.com
Or call Northaven CEO Allen Leschert at 604-696-3600.
"If you own one ounce of gold for an eternity, you will still own one ounce at its end," Buffett wrote in his most recent annual letter to shareholders. here
"This type of investment requires an expanding pool of buyers, who, in turn, are enticed because they believe the buying pool will expand still further. Owners are not inspired by what the asset itself can produce -- it will remain lifeless forever -- but rather by the belief that others will desire it even more avidly in the future," Buffett said.
Gold, Buffett correctly points out, has benefited first from a fear trade, bought up by investors who worry that central banks and governments will engineer a raging inflation in order to erode away the debts they struggle under.
Secondly, as with all assets that rise sharply in price, gold has gotten a push higher by momentum buyers, those who add their money to the rush in hopes of getting out when the trend wanes. Remove those supports and gold should fall, sharply and rapidly.
Buffett is surely right about gold's inability to procreate or grow, but I think he presents the fear trade as too much of an all-or-nothing bargain. Gold is a kind of anti-investment, an insurance policy against the bad actions of other people.
Sure, it won't invent a new widget and make you rich, but neither will it, like some company executives, overpay itself and re-price its share options.
It is reasonable, given the recent run of data, to think that another round of quantitative easing is less likely in the U.S. That surely must reduce the current value of gold, which unlike dollar bills can't be made to come into existence by a central banker.
But it is important to remember that the impact of QE isn't over simply if the Fed no longer prints money. There is still the issue of how to retract the huge amount of liquidity from a recovering economy.
It is important to note that longer-term U.S. debt has been selling off very strongly recently. That could be entirely benign, as it could simply reflect a more optimistic outlook for growth and hence a more normal outlook for inflation.
I'd worry, though, about what happens to inflation expectations if and when that move to higher rates is sustained. If the Fed has coaxed growth out of its cave it may then find it hard to get inflation back in its box. Gold is insurance against that, though like most insurance it most likely will never pay off, but has value anyway.
"As an owner of gold (and of Berkshire Hathaway stock) I can categorically say I don't own gold because I think the future will be dominated by monetary malfeasance. I own it because I think it might be," Societe Generale strategist Dylan Grice wrote in a note to clients.
An economic recovery, which is only a supposition at this point, does not solve the long-term indebtedness problem of U.S. and European economies, much less the demographic problem of Japan. It is a bit early to put those worries away entirely.
Grice, cleverly, also points out that the correct comparison is not between stocks and gold but between cash and gold.
Clearly Buffett understands the option value of cash. He is, after all, often ready to step in with a chunky cash investment when a company he admires is in need and gives him a good price.
Like cash, gold offers a kind of option value, and is really simply another form of cash, though one with different risk characteristics than dollars, euros, or yen. Like cash, or equities for that matter, gold is not an all-or-nothing proposition but a useful part of a portfolio.
* * *
Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of our London conference in August 2011 or our Dawson City conference in August 2006:
http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html
Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt:
Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009:
http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal
Help keep GATA going
GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at:
To contribute to GATA, please visit:
Golden Phoenix Discusses Royalty Mining Growth Strategy
on '21st Century Business' on Fox Business Network
Golden Phoenix Minerals Inc. has discussed its royalty mining growth strategy on the Fox Business Network program "21st Century Business" with host Jackie Bales. Golden Phoenix's director of corporate communications, Robert Ian, told how the company narrows its focus to project generation and future royalty streams. He explained why Golden Phoenix believes it's better to own joint-venture interests in several producing mines instead of full exposure to just one project.
"21st Century Business" has been airing for 15 years. Previous hosts have included Gen. Alexander Haig, Gen.l Norman Schwarzkopf, and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Golden Phoenix appeared as paid programming on this broadcast.
To view the program with Golden Phoenix, please visit Golden Phoenix's Internet site here:
http://www.goldenphoenix.us/company-videos.html
