khan
03-21-2003, 10:54 PM
OCCASIONAL POSTINGS
FROM THE FILES OF
GOLDEN SEXTANT ADVISORS LLC
The Once and Future Money
by Bob Landis
[Note: Presentation to the 2003 Spring Conference, “Beyond the Storm,” hosted by Sage Capital Management, Inc., Houston, Texas, March 12, 2003. The views expressed are mine alone, and not those of Sage Capital.]
Good afternoon. I’m delighted to be here today. It’s an honor to speak to a gathering of smart and successful people. And it’s a privilege to share a podium with some of the best living minds in economics. I’d like to thank my friend Tony Deden for inviting me to take part.
Tony has asked me to share some of my views on gold. He tells me his accounts have gold in their portfolios. Now, unless you’ve somehow managed to shut the financial media out of your life, you may wonder what it’s doing there. How does a volatile commodity square with a sober emphasis on capital preservation?
The Three Propositions
Allow me to present what might be called the three articles of the gold bug creed:
First, gold is money. It always has been. It’s the clear choice of free markets throughout recorded history.
Second, what we call money today is not money at all. It’s just a rash experiment in credit expansion that has spun totally out of control. Like all such experiments before it, this one will end in tears.
Third, following the failure of the current monetary system, gold will once again play its historic role as the anchor of a successor system. The market will demand it, and the authorities will have no choice but to let the market have its way.
The presence of gold in your portfolios signifies that you will emerge from the collapse of this experiment with your capital intact. Indeed, you may clean up in a radically altered landscape. Kind of the ultimate good news/ bad news scenario.
Now with your indulgence, I’ll take you on a little historical excursion as I provide some support for these wild assertions.
In Search of Money
Why is gold money? Several years ago, at a dinner party in New York, I was discussing this very topic with a smart and senior portfolio manager at Salomon Brothers. At one point, he grabbed an empty beer bottle, held it up and asked me why gold was money, any more than that bottle. This pretty well captured the mainstream skepticism toward gold. So it seems like a pretty good starting point.
http://www.goldensextant.com/LLCPostings4.html#anchor134408
FROM THE FILES OF
GOLDEN SEXTANT ADVISORS LLC
The Once and Future Money
by Bob Landis
[Note: Presentation to the 2003 Spring Conference, “Beyond the Storm,” hosted by Sage Capital Management, Inc., Houston, Texas, March 12, 2003. The views expressed are mine alone, and not those of Sage Capital.]
Good afternoon. I’m delighted to be here today. It’s an honor to speak to a gathering of smart and successful people. And it’s a privilege to share a podium with some of the best living minds in economics. I’d like to thank my friend Tony Deden for inviting me to take part.
Tony has asked me to share some of my views on gold. He tells me his accounts have gold in their portfolios. Now, unless you’ve somehow managed to shut the financial media out of your life, you may wonder what it’s doing there. How does a volatile commodity square with a sober emphasis on capital preservation?
The Three Propositions
Allow me to present what might be called the three articles of the gold bug creed:
First, gold is money. It always has been. It’s the clear choice of free markets throughout recorded history.
Second, what we call money today is not money at all. It’s just a rash experiment in credit expansion that has spun totally out of control. Like all such experiments before it, this one will end in tears.
Third, following the failure of the current monetary system, gold will once again play its historic role as the anchor of a successor system. The market will demand it, and the authorities will have no choice but to let the market have its way.
The presence of gold in your portfolios signifies that you will emerge from the collapse of this experiment with your capital intact. Indeed, you may clean up in a radically altered landscape. Kind of the ultimate good news/ bad news scenario.
Now with your indulgence, I’ll take you on a little historical excursion as I provide some support for these wild assertions.
In Search of Money
Why is gold money? Several years ago, at a dinner party in New York, I was discussing this very topic with a smart and senior portfolio manager at Salomon Brothers. At one point, he grabbed an empty beer bottle, held it up and asked me why gold was money, any more than that bottle. This pretty well captured the mainstream skepticism toward gold. So it seems like a pretty good starting point.
http://www.goldensextant.com/LLCPostings4.html#anchor134408