Agree. To the gold-is-money fans, calculate total return after bid-ask spread and commission, and holding costs, assuming you are holding a "meaningful" amount of gold. Not trinket-level or novelty-level amounts. How about 5 years of living expenses in physical gold?Well, none of this stuff makes much sense to me anyway.
One popular narrative among gold advocates, is that gold, only gold, and nothing but gold "is money," is the Real Thing, is the true measure of value (completely independent of how much stuff you can buy with it).
In the United States, bimetalism ended in 1900 (according to the first web search I made, anyway).
Surely, then, silver is just another commodity?
Speaking of which, hey, what about graphite? I didn't realize until I heard a Planet Money episode that graphite is a super critical material in producing lithium batteries, that deposits with characteristics suitable for processing into the form needed are rare, exist mostly in China, and the US is engaged in strategic planning to boost our own production and impose tariffs on Chinese graphite, etc. Of course you always learn about this stuff too late, when everyone knows about it.
Then take some of the gold and try to buy a dozen eggs. You can't. Then convert gold to cash, pay bid-ask and commission, then buy some eggs. You might need to go back home and pull out some more gold.
Owning physical gold is a fantasy.
Statistics: Posted by chassis — Sun Jul 28, 2024 12:48 pm — Replies 19 — Views 2875