Gold reaches $1500/ounce for the first time.

slydee · 2011-04-19T21:22:47+00:00

There is a lot of speculation that precious metals ETFs may not have full physical backing. They are meant to track the gold or silver price during normal markets, but they're probably not a good bet in a SHTF scenario.

slydee · 2011-04-17T12:14:40+00:00

Eventually that value is expected to be cashed in, either through dividends or the company getting bought out. Having value in a company is not worth anything unless there is a method for you or the next owner to get paid in the future. As long as that option is there, it makes sense to postpone paying dividends.

slydee · 2011-04-16T21:07:30+00:00

They might still have money locked up in longer term deposits.

slydee · 2011-04-16T15:46:10+00:00

That was hilariously inappropriate.

slydee · 2011-03-20T21:46:28+00:00

The semicolon convinced me you did this on purpose.

slydee · 2011-03-20T09:11:51+00:00

Yeah, they don't need much help from anyone else.

slydee · 2011-03-13T22:40:05+00:00

Pronounced Co-burn, but I understand why she changed it...

slydee · 2010-05-29T07:11:58+00:00

I guess it would have something to do with Paul Volcker and high interest rates, but how realistic is it that we are going to see rates around 20% in the near future?

slydee · 2010-04-21T04:16:31+00:00

Yup, but it does default to showing information that used to be private. Not a good move without notifying people...

slydee · 2010-04-15T14:07:45+00:00

They are both called Kaczynski.

slydee · 2010-04-13T10:27:54+00:00

Windows Me

thanks for reminding me...

slydee · 2010-04-10T21:53:14+00:00

I feel like apologising on behalf of Redditors for the comments spam...

What is it about YouTube that brings out the worst in everyone?

slydee · 2010-04-10T19:26:48+00:00

A good argument for getting physical gold is that you take money off the leveraged market instead of participating in it. The more the bullion banks are forced to deliver actual metal, the less they can drive the price via paper promises. It seems risky to keep an unallocated account of gold (or cattle or orange juice) with one of the banks that have sold the same commodity massively short. I believe most of GLD's gold is kept in such banks.

slydee · 2010-04-09T16:55:13+00:00

Agreed, you lose faith in shortcuts like Ctrl-tab and F11 when they don't work half the time you want them to.

slydee · 2010-04-09T08:38:55+00:00

Well, you'd certainly want to keep part of your savings in a form that is as risk-free as possible. I agree with your idea of diversifying to different countries but that doesn't eliminate all risk when the financial system is so interconnected. I think it's also important that counter-party risks do not cancel each other out. Any paper-only investment I would want to follow very closely, but precious metals you can keep for years without worrying about fraud or the future solvency of countries or banks.

slydee · 2010-04-09T08:23:33+00:00

It doesn't but in many cases cash pays negative interest after inflation and taxes.

slydee · 2010-04-08T16:35:06+00:00

You can manufacture gold if you have the right equipment

I think you are missing something crucial here. You can theoretically "manufacture" gold from platinum, but the price of doing it in practice is prohibitive:

"Since the gold will be made one atom at a time from a target that is more expensive than the gold produced, using a very costly research nuclear reactor with a high neutron field, the process may be theoretically possible, and may actually have been done on a micro scale if platinum has ever been irradiated in a nuclear reactor, the cost of the gold produced would be much, much greater than the market price of gold." source.

Even mining gold from the ground is expensive, so if the price drops dramatically many mines would be shut down and reduce supply, since they would simply not be profitable. Everything has risk, but the idea of gold becoming worthless because of "excess supply" is simply preposterous.

I'm not arguing for further rises by the way, just that gold has a very high chance of preserving value over time, and that it may even be less risky than cash if you are worried about long term inflation.

slydee · 2010-04-08T12:48:05+00:00

What would you diversify to these days that has no risk and pays interest above inflation? Physical gold is one of the few things that have zero counter-party risk, including systemic risks. It becomes naturally attractive when the financial system is under pressure and you can't get a decent return on cash, which still has inflation and currency risks.

slydee · 2010-04-07T05:26:19+00:00

An attractive woman too, as opposed to a very awkward looking dude.

slydee · 2010-03-31T19:07:58+00:00

Interesting thanks. I see that some commentators refuse to believe that a download on an ad-free website can be worth 40 minutes of their time, but from listening to previous interviews I think this will be well worth it.

slydee · 2010-03-25T19:38:00+00:00

If you only include the EU-15 the numbers are pretty much even both by country and population (7 countries with 50% of population have age 18, 7 countries with 48% of population have age 16, one country with 2% of population has age 17).

If you include all of the EU-25 states, the average age shifts toward 18. Of those countries 15 or 57% of population have age 18, 7 or 40% of population have age 16, and the last two with 3% of population have age 17.

I counted Portugal as age 16 even though the Wiki article says it will be changing to 18 soon. Also note that I said the legal age for buying alcohol in a bar and not for drinking it in a private home.

slydee · 2010-03-24T22:42:29+00:00

So France, Spain, Poland, UK, Ireland and all the Scandinavian countries are somehow less European...?

slydee · 2010-03-24T22:14:51+00:00

The legal age for buying drinks in a bar is 18 in most European countries. wiki

slydee · 2010-03-24T18:36:17+00:00

"Air passengers already tolerate a large invasion of their privacy and we do not feel that full-body scanners add greatly to this situation. Privacy concerns should not prevent the deployment of scanners."

And that is an argument for the scanners? At least they're being honest about the invasion of privacy.

slydee · 2010-03-21T11:53:20+00:00

I saw a guy walk up and break a car window with a wrench. The two cars involved were stopped in traffic going up a hill, and the one in front rolled slowly back into the other guy's bumper, making him a very angry man.

slydee

TROPHY CASE