The Days of Gold

"When there's trouble in the economy I know I can put my trust in gold."

I think gold is great.  It is pretty, it never rusts, it's a great conductor, it's easy to meld, weld, and solder.  In fact, it's only drawback- its weight, I find appealing.  If you don't believe me, find a gold bar, or stack of gold coins to hold, and bounce it up and down in your hand to feel its weight.  The super heavy result still surprises me, even though I have handled gold on many occasions.  However, the geologist in me fully appreciates a wide range of what scientists call rare Earth metals, and their properties.  So it isn't "Gold", to me, it's just gold.

Recent market trends have the price of gold climbing, and as a result, there's a new gold rush on.  I can think of at least two television programs based on the process of sluicing.  There are literally thousands of groups of people sifting gold out of the Earth as often and for as long as weather will permit, right now.  They risk life, limb, friends, and family for the shiny sparkly sand.

What happens when mankind takes to space, where you can find a single asteroid, with one hundred times more gold than has been mined to date, and brings it back here?  People are paying over $1500 for something that there is more of every day, and it doesn't deteriorate.  If the law of supply and demand applies, the price of gold can not continue to rise indefinitely.

Personally, I like silver.  Because it oxidizes, you have to polish it, to keep its luster.  So, every day there's a little less of it, and some day in the far far future, it may become very rare or be all gone.  Its price also makes it easily attainable.  One ounce of gold. would purchase over two pounds of silver.  Silver coins also have a familiar ring, when handled together.

Silver or gold, it makes no matter, because these metals aren't really rare, at the moment, at all.  With gold, people are hard at work trying to flood the market with it.  Every day, there is more gold in the marketplace, yet its price continues to rise.  I think there's a market correction coming.