Blogging is self-defeating, here's why:
If you are a blogger, one who has a propensity to excel with your writing and appeal to readers, then eventually you will attract attention. What is frightening is being put in categories: Retired or Retiring, Conservative, Baby Boomer, Eat up with a dumbass, Money Grubber, ... now, apparently with a Gold Fetish Jones. Here is the letter of late burning my brain -- Now I am not a stand out, but an Insider... YIKES!!
"Patrick, We Miss You
You've probably heard the buzz about investing in gold. Learn why it's gaining in popularity—and why skeptics compare it to burying money in your backyard!"
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You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the AARP Webletter. If you would like to cancel your subscription, please click here. We welcome your feedback about the newsletter, but please use our contact AARP link if you have questions about AARP or your membership."What’s Behind the Recent Gold Rush?
Shaky financial institutions and fears of inflation make a risky investment hot again
By: Michael Zielenziger | Source: AARP Bulletin Today | March 31, 2010
"What is it about gold that fascinates people?
You can’t eat it. It doesn’t pay interest. It costs money to store, and it’s heavy to carry around.
Yet its price has risen like a rocket over the past 18 months. The cost of a troy ounce jumped more than 70 percent between October 2008 and December 2009, when it topped out at $1,214.80, and this year it has hovered near $1,100. ... On March 30 it traded for $1,103.60.
“You couldn’t give it away at $700 an ounce, but at $1,200, everybody wants some gold,” said Michael J. Wright II, whose family has operated Fort Knox dealership of Alameda, a suburb of Oakland, Calif. for more than 30 years.
“When the horse is winning, people just want to climb on that horse,” adds his wife, Linda, after weighing a small nugget of dental gold and paying a customer $34 in cash. “It’s psychology and the media,” she adds. “When people get nervous about the economy, or about the future of the banks, they buy gold. They want to have something tangible they can hold on to.”
A popular investment in conservative circles
In the 24-hour universe of cable television and radio, the pitch seems almost ubiquitous. Tune in to conservative talk-show hosts Michael Savage and Laura Ingraham, or to Fox News commentators Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck, and you are likely to be bombarded with pitches about the safety of owning gold, usually in the form of bullion coins.
Ads pushing gold point to the shrinking value of the U.S. dollar against foreign currencies, rising budget deficits and massive government spending as sure signs that gold remains the best investment money can buy.
“When the system eventually collapses, and the government comes with guns and confiscates, you know, everything in your home and all your possessions, and then you fight off the raving mad cannibalistic crowds that Ted Turner talked about, don’t come crying to me,” Beck has said. “I told you: Get gold.”Critics note that Beck and other gold bugs also appear as paid spokesmen in gold dealers’ ads.
A shield against inflation?“People seem very, very fearful of inflation, even though there are no signs of it yet,” Potts said. “Our customers are saying that when you do $3 trillion a year of government spending, inflation has got to be lurking just around the corner. And what’s unusual this time is that people seem less worried about a return on their investment. They just seem to be looking for financial insurance—protection.”... December 2008, ... the metal was selling for $749 an ounce,... Even though prices have declined from their peak, they’re still around $1,100 per ounce.
To skeptics, buying gold seems the equivalent of burying money in your backyard. It doesn’t provide dividends or help create new jobs like investing in a company’s common stock.
Michael Zielenziger writes about business and the economy. He lives in the San Francisco Bay area (Gold and precious metals are measured by the “troy ounce,” which is slightly more than an ounce at the grocery store.)
3 comments:
We used to soak our Pall Mall Reds in paregoric back when we had to go down to Dowling St. to score our gange..Keith all you got is 'Mo' Money'. I've got the faster horses, older whiskey and younger women.
Somebody's back ....
I've been called 'Grasshopper'.
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