In my 48 years in precious metals, I’ve noticed that people adapt to higher rates of inflation and the expectations thereof. The thing to remember is to buy the dips in the metals. You may not always buy at the bottom, but you will have exchanged a currency that can be printed in unlimited quantities for gold and silver that have been valued in all civilizations through out history. With the Biden administration promising to print still money dollars, now appears to be an excellent time to add precious metals to your holdings.

I agree. As an economy becomes more efficient, money should buy more. However, it does not because the rise in efficiency is exceeded by the increase in money creation. Hence, money buys less.

Been long time coming as the currency gets massively debased currently for well over 100 years. Currency should buy more as the economy produces more and becomes more efficient. We are so far removed from that, that finally the effects are seen in a hollowed out economy and a banking system that is essentially the walking dead.

Bill, I think you are completely right about the long term, especially on the 1000s of years time scale, and even on a 100-year time scale. But looking back over the last 40 years or so, it seems that there is just no way to know if gold will even maintain (let alone, appreciate) in its purchasing power over, for example, any particular 10-year time period. I find it absolutely remarkable that the government’s monetary policies (spending, taxing, printing, etc.) do not seem to provide any actually-useful clues to would-be investors in regard to predicting how the gold price will ultimately behave over 10 year terms. Are there any reproducible correlations (in terms of govt. policies vs. gold prices) that you can observe and point out, that occur repeatedly/reliably, if considered over 10-year time scales? Anything that undeniably works better than flipping a coin in regard to when to buy or when to sell?

Less than 100 years ago, gold was valued at $20 an ounce. Today it’s at the $1,700 level. Stockman did not mention timing in his article. He said gold is the ultimate safe haven. As for Stockman not mentioning anything new, you are right. But why should he come up with new things? The cause of inflation has long been known, massive money creation, be it by digital money creation or as the Weimar Republic printed massive quantities of marks.

Whenever governments enter into loose monetary policies, precious metals bull markets follow thereafter. However, metals prices increases can be up to 1-1/2 to 2 years following the announcement/implementation of loose monetary policies. It has now been a little less than a year since the Trump administration announced its massive fiscal stimulus program.

As for Stockman’s comment about gold being the ultimate store of value, gold has have been valued in all civilizations for 6,000 years. I think we can expect the same this time as governments start their massive money printing programs.