"Worried about the future? Don't know where to park your cash in these uncertain times? Then just type ''gold price history'' into your favourite internet search engine. You'll be astounded.
That the precious metal has been hitting record levels of late has generated a great deal of comment. But it is the speed with which it has risen, the breathtaking acceleration (or alarming, depending on your view of the world) that is the more fascinating feature.
My favourites are the 10- and 15-year graphs. They bear an uncanny resemblance to those incredible sales projections for Acme Instant Water (just add water) in the old Road Runner cartoons.
Advertisement: Story continues below
The 10-year graph runs from $US200 an ounce in the bottom left-hand corner almost in a straight line to the top right-hand corner at $US1700 an ounce. The 15-year graph is even more dramatic, with an incredible incline approaching almost vertical in the final stages.
Investors and traders have lost confidence in the ability of those running global finance and have reverted to one of history's oldest stores of wealth. Who can blame them?
The financial meltdown in 2008 was a catastrophic failure at all levels. From the late '90s on, successive American governments deregulated financial markets. Financiers threw caution and any sense of responsibility to the wind, figuring the more they lent the bigger their bonuses. And every time things looked like going haywire, central bankers slashed interest rates to spur even greater lending"................READ MORE
No comments:
Post a Comment