Product title

Out of stock
Gold $2,582.19 -$0.75
Silver $30.78 $0.04
Sign In
$0.00 0
Cart

No products in the cart.

1-800-869-5115

A Tribute To Michael J. Kosares

An Archive of Timeless Analysis and Commentary


On September 7, 2023, Michael J. Kosares, owner and founder of USAGOLD, lost his multi-year battle with cancer. He was 75 years old.

Despite countless professional accolades over the course of fifty years of dedication and devotion to the precious metals business, he was never one to boast, nor one to seek out acknowledgement or praise. For him, true success came in a well written article - one he deemed 'had what it took' to make a lasting impact, not necessarily just for our company, but for our industry as a whole, for our colleagues, for our clients, for our subscribers and site visitors, and for really anyone and everyone who took an interest in precious metals and encountered his work.

He was an unwavering and tireless advocate for gold and silver ownership throughout his career, educating generations of investors on the merits of owning physical metals as a means to preserve and protect their wealth during turbulent economic times. From his hardcopy newsletter, 'News & Views’, to three editions of his educational treatise, 'The ABC’s of Gold Investing,’ to volumes of original content delivered via our website over the past 25 years, he spent five decades on the vanguard of gold market news, analysis, and commentary.

A truly gifted writer, he made economics accessible, displaying again and again a remarkable ability to simplify even the most complex subjects for his readers. He would take on vast and complicated financial topics, distill them down to the salient points, weave in an interesting history lesson, and top it all off with a bit of clever humor - leaving his readers not only informed and enlightened, but truly entertained.

The following is a hand-picked collection of some of his most impactful work over the past 15 years. Not only is the educational content timeless, but each article is fascinating to read with the added benefit of hindsight, and a deeper understanding of the macro-economic circumstances of when it was originally written.

We invite you to spend time at these pages and enjoy the work of one of the industry’s all-time great thinkers – Michael J. Kosares.

Note: In 2009, USAGOLD commissioned Ed Stein, the highly regarded and nationally renowned editorial cartoonist for the Rocky Mountain News, to compose a series of original financial cartoons. The cumulative result came to be known as ‘The Wit and Wisdom of Ed Stein’ - and arguably the greatest collection of gold-centered financial cartoons ever curated. These commissions are interspersed throughout this page.

Extraordinary popular delusions or the madness of machines

Counter-intuitive forces are at work in the gold market. Europe is moving toward dissolution – erratically to be sure but inevitably nevertheless. Intuition tells us that gold should be moving higher under the circumstances, after all, we are talking about the beginning phases of a major currency, and perhaps economic, collapse.
Read More

Gold’s Century

The question becomes whether or not an investment that has performed so well in the past is likely to perform equally well in the future. Though nothing in the world of finance and economics is certain, we rest the bullish case for gold on the understanding that none of the economic and financial system problems that created a positive price environment for gold over the last nearly nineteen years have been removed from consideration. In fact, a case could be made that they have only intensified – and dangerously so.
Read More

Bridging the ‘Fourth Turning’ with Gold

The Fourth Turning – the influential work by William Strauss and Neil Howe published in 1997 – uncannily predicted much of what has happened in America over the past twenty years. “The next Fourth Turning,” the authors predicted, “is due to begin shortly after the new millennium, midway through the Oh-Oh decade. Around the year 2005, a sudden spark will catalyze a Crisis mood. Remnants of the old social order will disintegrate. Political and economic trust will implode. Real hardship will beset the land, with severe distress that could involve questions of class, race, nation, and empire.”
Read More

A telephone call from an old client and friend

I had the happy occasion recently of receiving a telephone call from an old client and friend – a physician safely retired near the sea and alongside one of the South’s oldest golf clubs. It was good to hear from this student of the markets – one of life’s steady and thoughtful practitioners. Back at the turn of the century, Doc foresaw much of what would happen economically in the United States and purchased what he considered enough gold to see him through it.

Read More
stein cartoon of car driving off cliff

Comment: Pompous Prognosticators

Optimism abounds as stock market crashes – 1928 to 1932
Read More

How 4000 Roman coins found buried in a Swiss orchard reinforce gold ownership today

In 1700 years, not much has changed.  Since 1971, when the United States detached the dollar from gold and ushered in the era of fiat money, the dollar has lost 83% of its purchasing power.  The 1971 dollar is now worth 17¢.   Gold in the meanwhile has risen from $35/oz. then to roughly the $1300 level today (with a stop at $1900/oz in 2011.) Over the long run, gold in the modern era has maintained its purchasing power as it did in Roman times, while the dollar, like the denarius, has been steadily debased. So it is by the circuitous route just taken, you now know why 4000 Roman coins recently found buried in a Swiss orchard reinforce gold ownership today.
Read More

News & Views: Special Advisory January 2021

In 2021, we will come to a dubious milestone – the fiat money system’s golden anniversary. Pandemic aside, the continuing inability of the U.S. federal government to come to grips with its fiscal problems during those fifty years largely explains the enduring, some would say stubborn, presence of gold in millions of investment portfolios around the world – including now those of central banks, financial institutions and hedge, pension and sovereign wealth funds. Until such time as fiscal rectitude takes hold in the halls of Congress – an unlikely proposition any time soon – present gold owners are likely to hold tight and new owners are likely to continue joining their ranks. In the end, contemporary gold owners, by and large, do not own gold to become wealthy, but to protect the wealth they already have.
Read More
cartoon of a hedge fund manager on the phone telling a client to buy gold
cartoon showing the tangle of the federal government getting financial aid to the economy

King Ibn Saud’s 35,000 British sovereign gold coins

Had Ibn Saud known that he was sitting on a pool of oil so massive that it would make Saudi Arabia one of the most important pieces of real estate in the world, he might have asked for more. To this day, Persian Gulf royalty become squeamish whenever it appears the value of its oil is being diminished by the over-production of paper currency, hence a continued, well-known attachment to the yellow metal.
Read More

Past few days a fractal event for the gold market. . . .

On April 19th, over $3 billion in paper gold was sold in the London over-the-counter market dropping the gold price by $14 per ounce in a matter of minutes. Just as quickly, the cries of foul play rose among gold punditry across the internet. Just before the “hit,” gold was trading in the $1286 range. It plunged to $1272. Since this morning’s AM London Fix, gold has been in recovery mode and it is now trading again in the $1286 range. Except for those who took the drop as a buying opportunity, these events will be seen essentially as a sound and fury signifying nothing. At the same time, quietly the notion of gold’s indestructibility has been reinforced – not so much with respect to its physical qualities, but with the place it occupies in the minds of investors across the globe. The recovery today in a certain sense is a fractal event in both amplitude and duration – a hint of a greater manifestation that might be coming down the road in the not too distant future.

Read More

Comment: Will Basel 3 boost gold and silver prices?

Several clients have contacted us with questions on the new Basel 3 accords implementation. This analysis from Patrick Heller, published originally at Numismatic News, is a compelling and very readable interpretation of Basel 3's potential impact on the precious metals market – in fact, the most clearly written we have seen thus far on this complicated subject matter. It is difficult to know if the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision will implement the accord, particularly when one considers, as Heller points out, the negative impact it is likely to have on some large and influential international financial institutions. At the same time, one would think that by now, its net effects on the banking industry would be well understood and factored into the equation. We are still a month away from implementation, we caution, and anything could happen. Heller, as you are about to read, believes that its implementation would have a significant impact on gold and silver prices. We recall the signing of the Central Bank Agreement in 1999 and the subsequent impact it had on the market. Many analysts credit the signing of that agreement, which limited central banks’ sales and leasing of gold, with laying the groundwork for its secular bull market beginning a few years later. Whether or not Basel 3 will have the same impact remains to be seen, but the implications, as Heller describes them, are intriguing.

Read More

Comment: Charles DeGaulle’s “Criterion” Speech

Charles DeGaulle’s “Criterion” speech remains perhaps the most eloquent short discourse ever delivered on gold’s historical role as the final arbiter of value. In 1965, when these words were first uttered at the Palais de l’Élysée, DeGaulle’s intent was to explain why France and other European countries believed it necessary to convert their dollar holdings to gold and have the bullion delivered within European borders for safekeeping. Were the French president alive today to witness the growth of American trade imbalances, their translation to U.S. sovereign debt and gold’s coincident price performance, he certainly would have felt a sense of vindication. Following DeGaulle’s original example, millions around the world from that era forward have owned gold as a standard of reliability – a “criterion” as he put it – against which “no currency can compare.”

Read More

Comment: A Layman’s Guide to Golden Guidelines for Wise Money Management

There is an old saying that not all that glitters is gold — as in the gold coins many of you have held in your hands. There is another kind of gold that inhabits the practical wisdom of the ages. In today’s “go-get-’em,” “read-it-and-forget-it” world of everyday web browsing, it can be a challenge to separate the run of the mill from the meaningful. It is with that thought in mind we offer this compendium of the rules and laws of finance and investment by long-time market analyst R.E. McMaster. Formerly the writer/editor of the widely-circulated The Reaper newsletter, McMaster is known for his occasional forays into the realm of economic philosophy and history. I think you will agree with me that these skillfully condensed descriptions are indeed meaningful — a wellspring of knowledge worth reading, re-reading and passing along to friends and family, especially the kids and grandkids.
Read More

What is George Soros up to in the gold market?

Nick Laird at sharelynx.com developed a chart for USAGOLD supporting the theory that if gold is in a “bubble,’ it is, as Soros suggests, in the beginning stages (See page one). As you can see, gold would need to reach nearly $3500 per ounce -- about 14 times its $260/ounce starting point -- to match the stock market mania that ended in 2000. For those who understand the longer term nature of market trends, like mr. Soros and his colleagues in the hedge fund business, gold probably looks very attractive as it enters into the second leg of the current bull market.
Download Here

Comment: Golden Slumbers

“In a later interview with the Financial Times [early 2012], Kenneth Rogoff reveals that “one of the reasons that Carmen Reinhart and I hit it off, is that we are both incredibly cynical about governments.” Though I cannot vouch for the contents of Mr. Rogoff’s investment portfolio, such cynicism, it has been my experience, more often than not beats a path to gold’s door. Reinhart and Rogoff end the preface to the book with this prediction: ‘Unfortunately even before the ink is dry on this book, the answer will be clear enough.  We hope that the weight of evidence in this book will give future policy makers and investors a bit more pause before next they declare, ‘This time is different.’ It almost never is.”
Read More

Queen Elizabeth Checks Out Bank of England Gold Room

Back in 2008, when the financial system was on the verge of breakdown, Queen Elizabeth asked a now famous question during a visit to the London School of Economics: "Why didn't anyone see this coming?"

The answer she got left something to be desired, so apparently she decided to give it another try yesterday during a visit to the Bank of England's gold vault. Sujit Kapadia, a member of the BoE's Financial Services Committee responded by likening the 2008 crisis to an earthquake saying it was difficult to predict. He also mentioned that "people thought markets were efficient, people thought regulation wasn't necessary."
Read More

Mounting Derivatives Danger and Gold

Four large American banks have a combined derivatives exposure of of more than $220 trillion -- that's trillion, not billion. JP Morgan leads the pack at over $70 trillion. Citibank ranks second at $52 trillion; Bank of America, third at $50 trillion; and Goldman Sachs, fourth at $44 trillion.
Read More

The Dawn of a New Gold Market

We have now entered a new era. In effect, more than 26,000 tonnes of official gold (about 28,000 tonnes of countries covered by or associated with the agreement less 2,000 tonnes of permitted sales) has been taken out of the market, in the sense that there is no question of any of this being available either as a result of sales or lending. Much of the price falls over the last three years have been due to the fear that at least some of this official sector gold would come onto the market, a fear that has now been removed.
Download Here

USAGOLD

USAGOLD has been helping investors make informed decisions on precious metals ownership for over 50 years.
Resources
Company
Contact
P.O. Box 460009
Denver, CO USA 80246-0009
1-800-869-5115
© 1997-2024 USAGOLD All Rights Reserved
Site by Never Settle