Ideas and analysis on money, markets and the world around us.
Early in 2011, the London Bullion Market Association began to push for gold to be recognised by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision as the ultimate high-quality liquid asset. It has been a planned approach…
Read the articleI am an avid reader of monetary history. Of late I have been focusing on the monetary events of the 1920s and 1930s. By learning from the maelstrom that riled the global financial scene during those two tumultuous…
Read the articleThe assessment of economic growth based on Gross Domestic Product is a fallacy, because GDP is merely a measure of the amount of money in an economy. The one thing it does not measure, which is central to economic…
Read the articleThe constant talk about gold’s lack of yield, which in many analysts’ opinion disqualifies it as a desirable asset, ignores the very important and extremely valuable function that gold performs as an independent and…
Read the articleIt has been over a year since Mr Axel Weber made his surprise decision not to seek the top post at the European Central Bank, which led soon thereafter to his resignation as president of the Bundesbank. These events…
Read the articleThe rate at which the majority of the eurozone is descending into insolvency is accelerating. The rescue package for Spanish banks, which appears to have been provisionally set at a figure designed to impress the…
Read the articleThe silver price is depressed compared with its historical relationship to gold, one ounce being worth about 55 of silver, against the historical rate of 15 or 16. The reason, perhaps, has to do with silver’s…
Read the articleAs Spain is bailed out, with some mystery over who exactly is going to be footing the bill, we are forced to focus once again on the existential threat facing the euro: will the teenage currency make it through…
Read the articleWith eurozone troubles taking yet another turn for the worse, China’s economy struggling, and US jobs data showing the American economy is again heading in the wrong direction, gold has at last started to make some…
Read the articleBloomberg recently published an illustrative slideshow titled “The Real Cost of Owning Gold”. As usual when dealing with precious metals, in an attitude that is widespread among the mainstream financial press, the tone…
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