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The Allure of Gold: Now and through the Ages
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While respected sociologist Dr. Paul Ray reveals the rise of higher consciousness in society today, we also note the rise of something else unparalleled in our modern epoch: the declining confidence in developed countries’ paper currencies. This is clearly evidenced by that eternal barometer of currency health—gold.
Having seen gold’s U.S. dollar price rise four-fold over the past decade and with substantial gains in all currencies (while outperforming every other major asset class), gold is resuming its historical monetary role.
Why is this happening? Mainly because of our gradual realization of what I call the Really Bad Three ‘Ds’ of the developed world:
- Debt (The Global Debt Bomb, Forbes);
- Derivatives (... the new 'ticking bomb,' Marketwatch); and,
- Demographics (The 81% Tax Increase, by Bruce Bartlett, and Global Ageing Population--Financial and Economic Crisis Brewing, by Niels Jensen).
Also supporting gold’s ascent and paralleling Dr. Ray’s thesis of a rising higher consciousness globally, is the increasing appreciation of gold’s age old and alluring spiritual, cultural, and healing qualities.
Gold through the ages
Gold has enthralled people from time immemorial. In ancient Egypt, Egyptians ingested gold for spiritual, mental, and bodily purification. In India’s Vedic tradition gold is associated with the sun, light, fire, purity, life, immortality, truth, splendour—and long revered as money and wealth. In China, traditionally gold is owned for good luck. The golden dragon, the symbol of Chinese culture, stands for happiness, procreation, and immortality.
In Europe, the Greeks, Romans, Venetians, Dutch, Spanish and British, all found gold to be the ideal currency. Gold has historically been chosen as currency due to it being "durable, divisible, consistent, convenient, and have value in and of itself."
In our modern era New Agers call gold “the Master Healer’... Gold symbolizes the purity of spirit and they attribute the power of cell regeneration, energy conductivity, communication transmission and energy purification to the metal... In the world of spiritual healing, gold has the emotional power to ease tension, feelings of inferiority, and anger as well as encouraging the realization of one’s potential and bringing comfort.�
Growing practical uses of gold today
Gold also has new and rapidly growing practical applications. It is used in electronics and computers as an extraordinary natural conductor of electricity which will not rust or degrade. In medicine, it is used to treat arthritis, and gold nanoparticles are central in much of biological research. In aerospace, NASA uses gold in a film to reflect infrared radiation and as a lubricant for mechanical devices operating in space.
Gold alloys are utilized in dentistry for fillings, crowns, bridges, and orthodontic appliances. Dentists find gold easy to work with, nonallergenic, and chemically inert. (See geology.com)
Perhaps the oldest and best known use of gold is for jewellery. Analysis of GFMS Ltd.’s third quarter, 2009 report, shows gold used in jewellery represented about 59% of usage and that gold for investment purposes accounted for 28% of demand; electronics 9%; other industrial demand for 2%; and dentistry 2%.
Inflation/hyperinflation/deflation fears increase gold’s attraction
However, it seems that for 2009 as a whole, something extraordinary happened: for the first time in decades investment demand for gold exceeded that of jewellery use. Gold is being purchased as a hedge against the anticipated currency chaos resulting from the Really Bad Three D time-bombs of uncontrollable Debt, explosive Derivatives, and aging population Demographics.
The fears are that the governments and central banks of the U.S., E.U., U.K., and Japan, may of necessity create high inflation to alleviate the burden of their unsustainable debts and obligations. Unfortunately, inflation can get out of control, increase rapidly, and result in hyperinflation causing huge loss of confidence in the affected currency.
Central banks can generate inflation by printing money. Put simply, they flood the economy with almost free, ‘excess’ money, which forces a decline in value of each monetary unit, thus producing inflation. Countries (or anyone in debt) can then pay off their debts with money that buys a lot less—thus cheating their lenders. This has been common practice of indebted governments throughout time and is what ignites the lust for gold as the safe haven from the ensuing monetary and economic maelstrom.
However, renowned economics’ professors Carmen M. Reinhart and Kenneth S. Rogoff, as well as Dr. Lacy H. Hunt, and others, believe that deflation will rule. In deflationary periods, as in the 1930s, the money supply contracts, prices fall, debt deleveraging occurs, major financial system defaults occur, the economy shrinks, and government deficits and debts explode upwards. Even in deflationary episodes, investors fearing losses or government failure buy gold for protection. (See The Long Wave Analyst.)
Therefore, central banks in the developing world possessing the world’s largest reserves of developed countries’ currencies and debt are fearful of losses arising from any of the above potential conditions. So, to protect the value of their assets they do what central banks have always done—they buy that ancient metal of kings—gold. The central banks of China, India, and Russia, are among the biggest buyers of gold today.
Furthermore, as these developing nations grow they are investing increasingly in their own locales where investment returns are higher than in developed countries. Thus, their reduced buying or outright selling of developed countries’ debt and currencies is further lowering the value of those currencies and debt.
Gold’s new role
These developments are creating mounting instabilities in the world’s financial system and are encouraging discussions of a new global currency that might compete with or replace the U.S. dollar. Already, Brazil, Russia, India and China (the so-called BRIC nations) as well as developed countries such as France, are demanding the establishment of a new world currency order.
To accommodate these demands the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Special Drawing Rights (SDRs—a ‘basket’ of currencies used as money between central banks) may well be re-formulated to include new currencies and commodities. Theoretically, the re-formulated SDRs could even become the world currency.
Top gold analysts like Jim Sinclair see the linking of gold to both the SDRs and to the U.S. dollar money supply. By anchoring the dollar to a rising gold price the U.S. could likely stem the dollars declining value.
The downside of gold production
If proper safety and environmental rules are not followed the mining and production of gold can mean ill health for miners and mining communities, and environmental degradation. Mining and processing of gold ore usually requires the use of the highly toxic chemicals such as arsenic and mercury.
The ore after processing is left in tailings ponds, and if the ponds are not carefully designed, built, and maintained, the water from these ponds can contaminate water sheds, rivers, and farm fields. If not properly managed, there are real downside risks in the mining of gold.
However, there are two reasons why I feel more optimistic about gold mining in the future. Firstly, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) around the world are bringing to light those gold mining activities that are doing harm. In some cases NGOs have caused abusive mining operations to shut-down or to make major changes in their operations. Secondly, governments are implementing ever tighter health and environmental controls concerning mining.
These factors are slowing the amount of gold mined, as well as making the mining itself more expensive. Hence, as gold demand increases and the above factors help to restrain its supply, gold prices are likely to receive even further support. Incidentally, since the 1990s, global gold demand has substantially exceeded what is mined, while the amount of new gold found is unable to replace that mined.
To summarize, gold is re-incarnated
In the next few years the probability of currency and economic turmoil due to the Really Bad Three Ds—Debt, Derivatives, and Demographics of the developed world—will be greater than at any time since the 1930s. Similar turmoil has occurred innumerable times over countless millennia, and can be seen from the ancient civilizations of Egypt, India, China—to modern Europe. As turmoil occurs, gold becomes the store of wealth and assumes its role as the currency of choice.
However, gold is not only rising due to currency and economic instabilities. It is also rising because of its many fast growing commercial applications and particularly because of the allure of its age-old spiritual, cultural, and healing characteristics. The future is indeed golden!
Ron Robins, MBA
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Note: Mr. Robins is not an investment advisor, nor is he licensed with any professional investment related body, and thus is not able to, nor does he make, any investment recommendations. Ron Robins, MBA, writes about "economics for an enlightened age" on his Enlightened Economics blog and is founder of the globally popular and respected ethical investing site, Investing for the Soul.
Phone: 705-635-3034Â Â Address: PO Box 6500, Huntsville, ON Canada P1H 2J8
Media who have reported on Mr. Robins activities include: MarketWatch; The Financial Post; BNN; The Globe & Mail; Rogers Television's Money Line; CBC Radio One's Metro Morning; 680 News Radio; ENN Radio, Healthy Directions Magazine; The Catholic Register; and Canadian Business Magazine.
Copyright © 2010 Ron Robins. All rights reserved. Note: provided full credit, which includes title, author’s name, and link to this post is given, anyone may print or re-produce this article in part, or in full, to any relevant web page.
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