Podcasts

Aboveground gold stock likely smaller than commonly thought

Episode 78: GoldMoney's Andy Duncan interviews James Turk, Chairman of GoldMoney and co-author of The Collapse of the Dollar, about his study of the aboveground global gold stock, gold’s role as money, and the coming fiat currency collapse. They discuss the discrepancies between official gold stock figures and the study's carefully calculated figures, going all the way back to Roman times and using the year 1492 as a pivotal calculation point – which was when the Spanish Empire began its imports of gold deposits discovered in the Americas. In contrast to the widely referenced number of 171,000 tonnes of aboveground gold, James’s study suggests that it is actually closer to 155,000 and therefore overstated by about 10%.

James explains that gold is not an investment, but money. He talks about the difference between money and currency, and emphasises the ability of gold to preserve purchasing power over long periods of time (as opposed to fiat currency). Given the lack of discipline exhibited by central banks and politicians, James’s outlook for paper currencies is gloomy. He predicts one or more fiat currency collapses to take place sometime between 2013 and 2015.

This podcast was recorded on 3 December 2012.