Muda69 Posted August 6, 2020 Share Posted August 6, 2020 (edited) https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/ron-swanson-is-smiling/ Quote Ron Swanson is having a good year. The smug, antisocial, meat-and-potatoes, libertarian protagonist of the NBC series Parks and Recreation prides himself on being a do-nothing saboteur in his Pawnee (a fictional town in Indiana) municipal job and also, among other things, on having stashed away untold amounts of gold bullion, buried in various locations for doomsday or perhaps just for a rainy day. While his sophisticated counterparts in Indianapolis or (gasp) far away New York City fret over their carefully constructed portfolios of securities, mutual funds, hedge funds, and the rest, Swanson’s own investment shines, like him, in its straight, plain and idle simplicity. This year, it also shines from having outperformed most assets, with the price of gold logging a 29 percent rise since January compared with a humble 1 percent for the S&P 500 stock index and 20 percent for a Nasdaq that is driven by only a handful of names. After a long decline in the 1980s and 1990s, gold began its rehabilitation on the eve of the new millennium. Had Swanson caught the gold bug in July 1999, when gold made a historic bottom at $252.8, he would have gained 677 percent from his investment, a performance that towers over the major stock indices. Entire careers have been made in the stock market over that 21-year span, with billions of dollars flowing into the pockets of bankers and investment managers, and into their six-figure cars, seven-figure Hampton homes, and eight-figure private jets. Yet none of these financiers’ portfolios has measured up to gold. The dumb barbaric yellow relic has trounced all of them over nearly every interval since 1999, as can be seen in the table above. The one exception to this public thrashing is the ten-year period since 2010 in which gold has underperformed only because it spiked in 2010-11, much as it is currently. Tragedy but No Respect Admittedly, this comparison is skewed by gold’s recent run. The same calculations made, say, a year ago would portray gold less favorably against other asset classes. Nonetheless, the point here is not that gold is always a superior investment but that it has proven its worth as an investable contender, notwithstanding the disdain and denials of professionals who are paid to invest in and out of other types of assets. An often-heard criticism from the school of discounted-cash-flow valuation is that gold “has no intrinsic value” because it has no cash flows, meaning that you cannot derive an income from it. But you could say the same about a pile of dollars put away in a mattress. These stored dollars have no cash flows, but they could appreciate (or depreciate) in value for someone whose primary currency is, for example, euros or yens. This is not a productive way to make money, but that is not the point. Yes, an investment in gold is pathetically unproductive, and yes, it can generate a gain anyway. This sad paradox leads to the next axiom: The rise of gold to new heights is tragic, and it bears testimony to failure, disaster, or crisis. It validates the Ron Swansons who dislike change even if it means progress and who stand for decades on the sidelines of human industry waiting patiently for the next accident, the next war, the next depression or other cataclysm in order to profit and celebrate, if only by proclaiming how they told us so. A Question of Trust Unfortunately for the rest of us, they have many reasons to celebrate now: an uncontained global pandemic, struggling economies in developed and emerging nations, soaring budget deficits, mass protests in the United States, trade and geopolitical tensions between the U.S. and China, ongoing regional conflicts with no initiatives toward diplomatic settlement. Take your pick. ..... As I have said in other threads it is smart to buy gold. And seeds. Plant the seeds and keep the gold in a safe place where you can quickly retrieve it. Edited August 6, 2020 by Muda69 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted August 6, 2020 Share Posted August 6, 2020 21 minutes ago, Muda69 said: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/08/ron-swanson-is-smiling/ As I have said in other threads it is smart to buy gold. And seeds. Plant the seeds and keep the gold in a safe place where you can quickly retrieve it. 😉 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Impartial_Observer Posted August 6, 2020 Share Posted August 6, 2020 Sad....Imagine my dismay thinking this would be a Lagavulin thread! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muda69 Posted August 6, 2020 Author Share Posted August 6, 2020 1 hour ago, Impartial_Observer said: Sad....Imagine my dismay thinking this would be a Lagavulin thread! Once the economic collapse starts I suppose Lagavulin will become quite valuable. Better stockpile some. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Impartial_Observer Posted August 6, 2020 Share Posted August 6, 2020 1 hour ago, Muda69 said: Once the economic collapse starts I suppose Lagavulin will become quite valuable. Better stockpile some. I can barely afford to drink it once in a while, much less stockpile it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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