Notable Quotable
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“Perhaps we slow investors should adopt a mascot. I suggest the sloth. Hanging upside-down, moving at a few metres a minute, is much like trading infrequently: it saves the costs of doing things more quickly. Sloths take almost two months fully to digest each meal — which is handy, given that they eat mildly toxic leaves that would poison them if absorbed too quickly. Investors are reminded, all too often, that the financial world is lush with toxic get-rich quick products. A slower approach to finance makes market movements a great deal more digestible.”
Tim Hartford
Financial Times/The Undercover Economist
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Notable Quotable
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“I’m no insect. Gold is a great way to make a lot of money.”
Thomas Kaplan
Electrum Group
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Notable Quotable
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“Ironically, the beggar-thy-neighbor implications of competitive devaluations will almost certainly incite a response from countries who may not originally even have needed to resort to currency debasement in the first place, raising the potential for full blown currency war. How should one position for such an endgame? As is probably evident, any nominal instrument will be devalued in real terms, so the solution is to hold an asset that maintains its real value – an asset that cannot be printed.”
Rick Rieder
BlackRock Funds
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Notable Quotable
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“Gold has your back when central bankers don’t.“
Jay Martin
Cambridge House International
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Notable Quotable
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“Ask anyone in Germany what they associate with gold and, more often than not, they will say that it is synonymous with enduring value and economic prosperity. Ask us at the Bundesbank what our gold holdings mean for us and we will tell you that, first and foremost, they make up a very large share of Germany’s reserve assets … [and they] are a major anchor underpinning confidence in the intrinsic value of the Bundesbank’s balance sheet. The Bundesbank produced this publication to give a detailed account, the first of its kind, of how gold has grown in importance over the course of history, first as medium of payment, later as the bedrock of stability for the international monetary system.”
Jens Wiedmann
Former President, Bundesbank
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Notable Quotable
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“If you look at the history of currency, gold has a unique role and I don’t think it’s accidental. Some people say that if gold hadn’t been selected as a currency thousands of years ago, it would not have a role today. I don’t agree. Gold has a lot of useful properties and unique features so I don’t think its status is in any way accidental. It’s a monetary asset and I think if you replayed history another way, you would come out with gold again.”
Ken Rogoff
Harvard University
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Notable Quotable
__________________________________________________________________
“Perhaps what gives us the highest conviction on commodities as an asset class is not the similarities to historical bull markets but the differences. In particular we continue to believe that the global focus on climate mitigation strategies and decarbonisation is limiting the supply response to higher prices to an extent that is unprecedented. That breakage of the link between higher prices and a supply response is likely to significantly extend the commodities bull market. When we combine these factors to our belief that we are entering a fundamentally more inflationary age, the case for an enlarged commodities allocation remains compelling.” – Schroders, client advisory
__________________________________________________________________
Notable Quotable
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“I grew up in a purely urban family. We had no relatives in the country. I’m born in 1944. When I was a baby, my mother could only buy food because she still had some gold coins. Without gold, I would have starved. She always told me that. Therefore, this generation already has a certain gold affinity. In extreme times of crisis, this is one of the few things left to be accepted. Gold was the only thing left to the people of the city at that time. Before the silver cutlery was also traded at the farmer.”
Ewald Nowotny
Former European Central Bank governor
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Notable Quotable
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“It’s extremely important to know history, but the trouble is that the big events in financial history occur only once every few generations. In the investment environment, memory and the resultant prudence regularly do battle with greed, and greed tends to win out. Prudence is particularly dismissed when risky investments have paid off for a span of years. John Kenneth Galbraith wrote that the outstanding characteristics of financial markets are shortness of memory and ignorance of history. In hot times, the few who do remember the past are dismissed as relics of the old, lacking the ability to imagine the new. But it invariably turns out that there’s nothing new in terms of investor behavior. Mark Twain said that ‘history does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme,’ and what rhymes are the important themes.”
Howard Marks
Oaktree Management
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Notable Quotable
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“Today, there is a spreading awareness that our monetary situation is rather rotten. Leaving things up to central bankers, who are obviously making it up as they go along, has not worked out very well. Most recently, these central bankers got very aggressive in response to Covid in 2020; and the “inflation” that has followed has not been very surprising. People generally find monetary affairs to be extremely confusing. But, in the end it really amounts to a choice of two alternatives: The Gold Standard, and the PhD Standard.” – Nathan Lewis, Forbes
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Notable Quotable
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“I’ve been saying for years that central banks can never step away from this. They can threaten to. And they can bluff, and they can do some probing bets like they did last year, and the market may fall for that, or call that bluff in the short term. But yes I think we’re in a position now where central banks can never back away, which sort of begs the question how can this ever end. Can asset markets get inflated forever?”
Mark Spitznagel
Universa
Bloomberg interview
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Notable Quotable
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“I’m a fan of gold. I think gold’s valuable in a crisis. If the world turns to hell, the war expands and gets worse, God forbid a nuclear weapon is used, I think people are going to say: ‘How do I know what anything’s worth anymore? I’m going to make sure I have some gold because I don’t want to not have money at a time of desperation.’ It may never come to that, but I think it’s prudent to have a little bit of your portfolio in gold.” – Seth Klarman, Baupost Capital, Harvard University interview at Yahoo
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Notable Quotable
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“The [2008] crisis convinced me that greed, ego, fear, short-sightedness, group-think and other human foibles have at least as much, if not more, to do with financial behaviour as rational thinking does.”
Mike Silva
Former chief of staff to New York Fed president Tim Geithner
(Speech to the LBMA, October 2018)
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Notable Quotable
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“The shrewder speculators* became alarmed. They began to sell their shares of stock, and hoard in gold the enormous wealth they had acquired. This resulted in a demand on the government for metal in exchange for its paper, and soon the government had no metal to give. Then the crash came. Those who had the government paper could buy nothing with it. Those who held the Mississippi stock could scarce give it away. It was worthless. The government itself refused to accept its own paper for taxes. A few lucky speculators had made vast fortunes; but thousands of families, especially among the wealthier classes, were ruined.”
Edward S. Ellis and Charles F. Home
The Story of the Greatest Nations (1900)
* Please see this link for a summary of Law’s Mississippi Company land scheme.
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Notable Quotable
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“John Locke, the British philosopher whose ideas fuelled the American Revolution, had a theory of knowledge and perception, which I always found annoying. Asked if we have an idea of the substance behind our perceptions, he said we had ‘no such clear idea at all, and therefore signify nothing by the word substance but only an uncertain supposition of we know not what’. The philosophical debate has moved on in the centuries since Locke wrote. But his idea captures well the uneasy state of the world’s financial markets. They are driven in the short run by perceptions, not reality. If many have the wrong impression, markets will move on that. But in the long run, markets move on matters of substance. And at present the economic substance is a ‘something we know not what.'”
John Authers
Financial Times
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Notable Quotable
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“Tail wagging dog? Perhaps. But while solving the mystery of gold pricing may continue to defy a quick sound bite analysis, and while the size of investment plus speculative flows doesn’t show any kind of consistent relationship to the size of price swings, it’s plain that the behaviour of gold ETF investors and Comex speculators, although marginal to physical demand across longer time frames, tends to map if not drive the market’s direction.” – Adrian Ash, The Alchemist
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Notable Quotable
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“For a variety of reasons it is likely that central banks that hold gold will tend to husband their reserves and that some with low levels of reserves will acquire more. Gold goes where the money is. After moving from the colonial world to Europe, to the United States, back to Europe it is now moving to the emerging economies of Asia. This is consistent with the view that central bank’s gold position signals economic power and prestige.”
James Steel
Hong Kong Shanghai Bank Corporation
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Notable Quotable
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“Really smart investors are increasingly hedging their wealth created from financial assets (stocks and shares) by putting much of their allocations into Alternatives: outright real assets or cash flow driven assets, assets that are likely to retain value while still paying attractive returns. (The cost is lower liquidity). The idea is that if crisis ever comes, then owning the wheelbarrow might be better than owning the mountains of worthless cash it’s carrying (to cite the classic example of inflationary danger from Weimar Germany…)”
Bill Blain
Blain’s Morning Porridge
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Notable Quotable
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“The population of the world is increasing at the rate of five thousand four hundred every hour. A small percentage of these people will become gold hoarders, people who are frightened of currencies, who like to bury some sovereigns in the garden or under the bed. Another percentage needs gold fillings for their teeth. Others need gold-rimmed spectacles, jewelry, engagement rings. All these new people will be taking tons of gold off the market every year. New industries need gold wire, gold plating, amalgams of gold. It is brilliant, malleable, ductile, almost unalterable and more dense than any of the common metals except platinum. There’s no end to its uses. But it has two defects. It isn’t hard enough. It wears out quickly, leaving itself on the linings of our pockets, and in the sweat of our skin. Every year, the world’s stock is invisibly reduced by friction. I said that gold has two defects…The other, and by far the major defect, is that it is the talisman of fear. Fear, Mr Bond, takes gold out of circulation and hoards it against the evil day. In a period of history when every tomorrow may be the evil day, it is fair enough to say that a fat proportion of the gold that is taken out of one corner of the Earth is at once buried again in another corner.”
Ian Fleming
Goldfinger
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Notable Quotable
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
“I have a theory that computers started to suck when dumb people started to use them. The same is also true of precious metals, which turned into a speculative football in 2011. Those geeks are gone, and only the die-hards are left — the shiny rocks passed from weak hands to strong hands.”
Jared Dillian
NewsMax Finance
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Looking for more than an e-commerce platform?
DISCOVER THE USAGOLD DIFFERENCE
"Contemporary precious metals services.
Traditional appeal.
1-800-869-5115
Extension #100
8:00 am to 7:00 pm MT weekdays
Prefer e-mail to get started?
orderdesk@usagold.com
ORDER DESK
Great prices. Quick delivery. All the time.
Modern gold and silver bullion coins
Historic fractional gold coins (bullion-related)
Historic U.S. gold coins
________
CURRENT PRICES
10:06 am Wed. June 7, 2023
Live Prices • Order Anytime
|
American Eagle
Please call or e-mail the Order Desk if you have questions. |
|
Want to learn more about investing in gold and silver? This solid, in-depth introduction offers the basic who, what, when, where, why and how of precious metals ownership you've been looking for.
And when it comes time to make your first or next precious metals purchase, we invite you to discover why thousands of discerning investors have chosen USAGOLD as their precious metals firm. |
Top Gold News & Opinion Join us for our live daily newsletter LATEST POSTS
_________________________
|
A contemporary web-based client letter with a distinctively old-school feel. |
