In retrospect I wish I had bought gold a couple years ago.

[iapyx]

I bought some in 2007, now the question is should I sell now or hold on a bit longer.

Keep it. What would you want to do with it? Buy flashlights? Do you have any depts, mortgage? If the financial situation gets really bad, you can pay off your depts. Only sell if you have to.

 

[batvette]

well that makes sense - i spose - all the heavy stuff sinks to the centre. i am told that the earths core is a big pool of molten iron. all that energy just down there out of reach.

I dunno 'bout that, lots of folks (three, maybe four even! LOL) seem to think the earth is hollow and people live inside the hollow earth. Supposedly you can fly into it from the north pole.

On a (just)slightly more credible note, I looked into the theory of abiogenic petroleum origins last year, something the Soviets long promoted and some Russians still do. Like the core of the earth IS the source of all our energy and there is plenty down there.

Funny enough those that disputed and squashed that theory decades ago were petroleum geologists in the capitalist west, almost all employed by oil companies.

You don't think they had any reason to argue the supply of petroleum was finite,
limited, and easy to calculate, do you? What's funnier is the argument to disprove it was the traces of organic matter that was contained in all the petroleum samples. Yet the petroleum would have to pass through layers of decaying organic matter to reach higher levels it was drilled at. The Soviets drilled the deepest hole ever by man, and they have found gas produced in holes deeper than any decomposing organic matter would be.

Off topic but maybe not, just shows we don't know everything about resources considered finite. I've lived in California all my life, including quite a few years 9 miles from the second biggest strike in the 1800's. (Columbia) Are we to believe there isn't a hell of a lot more down there technology can't now find? Or is the nature of the mineral (the way it follows water and other minerals) such that it was easily tapped long ago?

 

[Steve K]

....On a (just)slightly more credible note, I looked into the theory of abiogenic petroleum origins last year, something the Soviets long promoted and some Russians still do. Like the core of the earth IS the source of all our energy and there is plenty down there.

there's no question that the sun is a contributor to the energy balance on earth, is there?
yeah, there's a lot of heat energy in the earth's core. This is what keeps the core molten, and as I understand it, allows the currents to be generated that provide the earth's magnetic field. The magnetic field is what keeps a lot of the nastier particles that are flying through space from getting to us here on earth's surface. Seems like there is a downside to pulling a significant amount of energy out of the core.

Funny enough those that disputed and squashed that theory decades ago were petroleum geologists in the capitalist west, almost all employed by oil companies.

You don't think they had any reason to argue the supply of petroleum was finite,
limited, and easy to calculate, do you? What's funnier is the argument to disprove it was the traces of organic matter that was contained in all the petroleum samples. Yet the petroleum would have to pass through layers of decaying organic matter to reach higher levels it was drilled at. The Soviets drilled the deepest hole ever by man, and they have found gas produced in holes deeper than any decomposing organic matter would be.

Off topic but maybe not, just shows we don't know everything about resources considered finite. I've lived in California all my life, including quite a few years 9 miles from the second biggest strike in the 1800's. (Columbia) Are we to believe there isn't a hell of a lot more down there technology can't now find? Or is the nature of the mineral (the way it follows water and other minerals) such that it was easily tapped long ago?

So we are just waiting for the oil to ooze up from the earth's core and refill all of the oil fields in the US that have dried up? I know we are getting better at squeezing the last drops out of the ground and at drilling ever deeper into the remote remaining oil deposits around the US, but I haven't heard that any restoration of oil deposits is occuring. Looks like it's an academic concern at best, since we are moving on to things like tar sands and hydraulic fracturing (for natural gas) that used to be considered too expensive and inefficient.

in any case.... investing in commodities like gold or oil is a reasonable thing to do as part of an overall investment strategy. The trick is to know more about the market than the other guy, or else you'll be left holding the bag when the supply or demand changes. People who bought gold near the end of the last big gold fever (late 70's, after a decade of war spending and tough economic times) are still waiting to make money on their investment. The time to be buying gold is when nobody else is (i.e. the price is low), not when the demand is high. If you are betting that the price is still going to inch up a little bit before collapsing, you'd better plan to sell the stuff pretty quick. ... or.... if it's just part of your End Of The World bunker supplies, make sure you still have enough cash in case the world doesn't end and gold drops back below $1000.

Steve K.

 

[beerwax]

in any case.... investing in commodities like gold or oil is a reasonable thing to do as part of an overall investment strategy. The trick is to know more about the market than the other guy, or else you'll be left holding the bag when the supply or demand changes. People who bought gold near the end of the last big gold fever (late 70's, after a decade of war spending and tough economic times) are still waiting to make money on their investment. The time to be buying gold is when nobody else is (i.e. the price is low), not when the demand is high. If you are betting that the price is still going to inch up a little bit before collapsing, you'd better plan to sell the stuff pretty quick. ... or.... if it's just part of your End Of The World bunker supplies, make sure you still have enough cash in case the world doesn't end and gold drops back below $1000.

Steve K.

that would be an interesting data titbit. price of gold at top of last peak . and price of a cappacino at the time. wont mention holding costs.

you will never know more than the other guy.

'global core cooling' - the next big thing after 'global warming' and 'global climate change'.

 

[flashy bazook]

Well, gold would have been great to buy even 10 years ago! The overall market has done nada in 10 years (hasn't even kept up with inflation) while gold has risen in healthy double digits on average since then.

Still, if you had bought it in 1980, you would have regretted it for the whole 20 years after.

But Lex, you bought Apple! So you did very well even without gold.

Just over the past 2 years, other things did as well or even better than gold, including metals, agriculture, some types of funds...

Here's the thing: the best thing is supposed to be diversification, where gold has some place but not a large one. I'd say around 5% of your long term investable money could be in gold, a bit more in other "hard" goods, etc.

 

[batvette]

that would be an interesting data titbit. price of gold at top of last peak . and price of a cappacino at the time. wont mention holding costs.

you will never know more than the other guy.

'global core cooling' - the next big thing after 'global warming' and 'global climate change'.

And it will be just as much BS.

Here's where I have lived for 17 years, the red spot:

The sea level hasn't changed over those 17 years and in fact from looking at a similar aerial photo taken in 1927 I've seen, the ocean looked higher then. (most likely the difference is tides)

The capper is that the house to the east of mine was demolished 2 years ago and the owner built a 3 story luxury home. The one next to him got a permit for the same and my landlord just applied for a permit to build his too.

We're at about 3 feet above mean sea level, why would banks fund a new home development when according to Al Gore we should be submerged in 20 years- and if you listened to his ilk 20 years ago we should have the ocean at my patio door right now?

Whole 'nother thread but scams **** me off, especially this one that makes people feel guilty for living.

 

[jtr1962]

We're at about 3 feet above mean sea level, why would banks fund a new home development when according to Al Gore we should be submerged in 20 years- and if you listened to his ilk 20 years ago we should have the ocean at my patio door right now?

The bank's risk here is very short term. Basically, once the house gets built and sold, the bank gets its money back from the developer. The only one with long term risk is the homeowner. Here in NYC they built Arverne By The Sea a few years back. That exact same location was inundated by a hurricane in the 1930s. It will happen again. In fact, statistically we're overdue but people generally don't plan for events which haven't occurred in their lifetime. In this case, most of the people who experienced the last hurricane are long gone. Nevertheless, the development got funded and built because the short-term risk was low, and enough people wanted to live by the ocean. I try and talk anyone who wants to live within about a mile of the ocean out of it. Sooner or later a tropical storm or hurricane will wash everything out to sea. I'm about 8 miles inland, and 60 feet above sea level, and frankly really don't feel 100% safe from the worst that nature can throw at us. Bottom line, people are very poor at evaluating long term risks.

BTW, predicted sea level rise, assuming you believe the science, is worst case 2 meters by 2100. And that's if the rate accelerates greatly. I think over the last 20 years the mean sea level rise was only about 10 cm ( link ). No way could you see this in pictures, or notice it.

 

[Empath]

It didn't really take much to know the topic would become a means of promoting political opinion.
Take it to the Underground. Thread closed.