Gold

If only the price of gold was rising, then news headlines should say “Gold price rising.” And we would want to know if there was a sudden change in the supply or demand. We’d want to know what industries or consumer groups switched to buying gold instead of something else or if a group of gold mines suddenly stopped mining.

When the price of everything is going up, then the dollar is losing value. Consider the rise in these commodities, as reported by Bloomberg News:

The Standard & Poor’s 500 stock index gained 17 percent this year, and the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index of 19 commodities gained 13 percent, including a 97 percent jump in copper, a 60 percent rally in crude oil and a doubling of sugar prices.

When the price of “everything” is rising, you can protect yourself by owning a “thing” meaning a product, not fiat paper money such as US dollars or Euros or even the Australian dollar, rising recently due to central bank interest rate changes, though still a paper currency.

The key quote from the Bloomberg article is this:

Gold has more than tripled in the past eight years as the dollar tumbled 67 percent versus the euro, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

If we were reporting the euro price like many news organizations report the dollar price, then the headline would be the “Price of euro rises 67 percent,” just like headlines read “Price of gold has risen 18 percent this year.” The underlying story for both prices rises is the massive devaluation of the dollar due to a massive increase in the monetary base.

If you had owned bullion this past year instead of dollars, you would have beaten the 13 percent increase in the Reuters/Jefferies CRB Commodities Index noted above. If you chose to own dollars, instead of bullion or a “thing,” the purchasing power of your money can buy 13 percent less commodities, meaning 13 percent less of mostly everything.