GOLD: THE LONG VIEW

The Long View is always the best view when considering any type of investment.  We live in a world of day traders.  Most of the major corporations and banks are day traders in the sense that they're most concerned with the next quarter or perhaps, at most, the next year or two.

The Federal Reserve Bank is also most concerned with the here and now.  The present set of circumstances.  They want to iron out and "normalize" any shock.

This is short term thinking.  Short term thinking can work for years.  But we now live in  world where short term solutions have led to such extreme capital mis-allocation that the short term effects of short term thinking are becoming exposed.

The Fed's balance sheet is now north of 10 trillion dollars.  The Federal yearly deficit is north of 2 trillion dollars.  The balance sheets of the general public are such that 70 percent of the population can't afford to miss a single paycheck without going into crushing debt.

Add in a pandemic, a clueless and malignantly corrupt administration, and an atmosphere of global civil unrest and you have a situation where short term thinking won't serve very well anymore.

The trouble is coming up with a long term view that is serviceable.

If you're trying to solve societal and global economic dislocations, that's pretty tough, as societies and global economic structures are not organized in ways that are all that similar to the past 3000 years of history.

If you're trying to protect your own finances the past 3000 years of history can be instructive, because the concerns of household finances (Oikos-nomos or economy) are not that different from generations past.

You have your house itself.  You have your dependents.  You have your fixed costs.  You have your income.  You have your store of wealth. 

The store of wealth is the big issue for long term security.  A store of wealth has characteristics as true now as they were 3000 years ago in classical Greece.  Your store of wealth most have INTRINSIC VALUE = VALUE that has passed the test of time.  Things that have been valuable for hundreds ot thousands of years. 

For example: Time Tested Master Artworks.  Important Historical Documents and Artifacts.  Gold.  Gems.

Your store of value also should be durable, portable and divisible in order to be most useful. 

Some Artworks that are tiny.  Gold,  Some Gems.

As the situation becomes increasingly difficult, wise investors always move back towards that which have always worked. 

The problem is, if you don't get out ahead of the situation, these stores of value become increasingly difficult, and more expensive to acquire.