Dave Ramsey's started an anti-precious metals thread...

[Brian4Liberty]

Actually , I consider my old GM stock more speculation than a gold coin.One you actually have something that people will honor as value in your hand and the other , you do not .

My Webvan stock has retained it's value just like a Zimbabwe dollar...

 

[devil21]

Metals are a physical representation of your labor, your physical and mental energy expended to acquire it. Paper and numbers in a computer are not and are eroded over time. Metals are not eroded. This is why banks hold it. It's a really simple economic principle. He who owns the gold makes the rules.

 

[Cap]

That was kind of fun watching PRB trolling Zippy.

 

[PRB]

I do not really consider myself much of a speculator with the exception that I do put 3 % of my gross , pre tax into the markets and it is matched . Most of my other earnings are in a job ,land , timber , farmland , few homes..... there really is not much speculation in growing blackberries , blueberries , potatoes , tomatoes , corn , green beans , pumpkins , cucumbers , squash , onions , radishes , turnips , apples , persimmons, paw paw's etc, bacon , eggs , smoking deer , grilling doves , fileting Pumpkinseed , Crappie , Bluegill , Warmouth , security , lead , copper , silver , gold .

investing in crops is speculating and expecting that weather and climate will be stable enough to allow plant growth.

some speculations may be more risky than others, but I don't see how not all investments are speculation of some sort.

 

[ctiger2]

Nothing is guaranteed on either but stocks have had more up years than gold has. Since gold was free to float against the dollar (beginning in 1972) it has been higher in half of those years and lower in half of those years. Stocks have been up most of those years.

Yes, if you conveniently look at only a selected period of time to support your flawed viewpoint.

This well thought out video debunks that viewpoint:

 

[oyarde]

I bet Ramsey has some PM's .

 

[angelatc]

Umm- no. Currency is what people use for money. If they aren't using it for money, it isn't currency. Ours is mostly electronic- like most of the rest of the world.

I think that it is fair to call gold a currency. I have never tried it, but I think that I could travel anywhere in the world and buy anything I needed plus most things I wanted using nothing but gold.

And if you guys want to send me some gold, I will happily conduct that experiment, reporting back from a wide variety of locations.

 

[helmuth_hubener]

Here it is for your comments:

Will Dave Ever Change His Mind About Gold?

QUESTION: A Twitter listener asks Dave if the price of gold continues to rise, will Dave change his stance on buying gold as an investment? Dave says no.

ANSWER: No. I won’t because there are philosophical problems with investing in gold. There are two of them that will keep me from doing that in my lifetime. One of them is that I buy investments that are very conservative that have long track records. That doesn’t say that they never go down and they never go up. They do have some cycle to them, sometimes rather extreme cycles. But they have a long track record that is very positive and very predictable. On the short term, when it goes down, that means anything I’m buying is on sale. Gold, on the other hand, has a long track record of sucking—a very long track record of that. Gold has given us about a 1–3% rate of return in any 10, 20, or 50-year period except the last eight years. If you take out the last eight years of gold, it is unbelievably horrible. The only numbers that make gold even reasonable to look at are the last eight years, and of course the last eight years have been fabulous. The last three years have been bonkers. But I don’t buy stuff based on the short term. I don’t buy a single mutual fund that has a three-year track record or a four-year track record. A five-year track record is the minimum, and the concept of stocks in growth stocks in a mutual fund has an 80- and 100-year track record that is excellent, by the way. I don’t buy stuff that has, in the scope of its investing lifetime, had one little blip on the radar. I look at long histories on things. I don’t get caught up in the latest fad that way.

When you buy segment funds or funds of certain segments of the economy—sector funds—or you buy certain investments that have lousy track records on the long haul just because they’ve had a recent spike, you’re going to get burned. That’s an investment philosophy right there. Another investment philosophy that keeps me from buying gold is it doesn’t have any intrinsic value. Stock represents a share of ownership in a company, and that company owns things and makes a profit. So there are mathematics you can do to determine the actual value of a company, thus what one share of ownership in that company is worth. So yeah, stock does have value. Gold is a shiny rock. The only reason it has value is that some of you think it has value. Diamonds are a shiny rock. The only reason they have value is that some of you assigned them value.

Let me put it this way. All of your gains in gold are based on people’s perceptions. They’re not based on math. Your gains in gold are based on fear—people freaking out and thinking the world’s coming to an end, the government’s going to spend us into bankruptcy, we’re going to be at war, the lower class is going to arise, there are going to be riots in the streets, and all this other socialistic crap. Extreme right-wing, extreme left-wing breaks down the economics of life to the point that they don’t even make sense anymore.

I don’t buy any gold, because it has a lousy track record and with the fact that it doesn’t have intrinsic value, what that’s going to lend itself to is extreme volatility. It can move instantly for no reason. As soon as people start feeling secure again in the economy and in economic growth, gold is going to go in half. It’s going to happen so suddenly that some of you are going to lose all your money. I’m not going to change my tune because it’s not going to start having intrinsic value, and it’s not going to start having a long-term track record, at least while I’m alive.

 

[Danke]

Here is a guy who doesn't like any investment in this economy and thinks cash is king for now.

http://harrydent.com/

He was on AJ a few days ago:

http://archives2014.gcnlive.com/Archives2014/mar14/AlexJones/0318143.mp3

 

[Matt Collins]

aren't all investments speculation? when you put something (time, labor, cash) in with expectation of return, you're both investing and speculating.

No... an investment is something that will give you a return because it's productive, and the risk is not high and the return is calculable.

Speculation is very high risk where the outcome is unknown and not really able to be calculated.

 

[PRB]

No... an investment is something that will give you a return because it's productive

Productivity is measured by value, which is determined by the demand of a market. Burning a tree will turn it into ash, is ash more or less productive than a tree? Depends on what your goal is.

, and the risk is not high and the return is calculable.

So speculation is merely a high risk investment with low predictability.

Speculation is very high risk where the outcome is unknown and not really able to be calculated.

So investment is a speculation with low risk, right?

 

[KCIndy]

Gold isn't a currency today. What countries use gold for currency?

Well, there are the wizards in the Harry Potter books. Gold Galleons, Silver Sickles, and Bronze Knuts! Personally, I've always been a little envious of Harry, although I'll admit it probably can't be easy to be a wizard if you have to go through life carrying Bronze Knuts.

 

[devil21]

After reading some of one of Ramsey's more popular books, I put him in the category of tightly controlled bank mouthpiece. Any financial adviser that is as adamantly anti-bankruptcy as he is, is just pushing the bank mantra to pay all debts even if you have to go hungry. BK is for the elites, not for the proles. Pay your usury slave!

 

[LibForestPaul]

Gold isn't a currency today. What countries use gold for currency?

All. only little people use notes.

 

[PRB]

After reading some of one of Ramsey's more popular books, I put him in the category of tightly controlled bank mouthpiece. Any financial adviser that is as adamantly anti-bankruptcy as he is, is just pushing the bank mantra to pay all debts even if you have to go hungry. BK is for the elites, not for the proles. Pay your usury slave!

what's BK? and what's wrong with being anti-debt?

 

[devil21]

what's BK? and what's wrong with being anti-debt?

BK=bankruptcy=discharging debts

Not sure what you mean about being anti-debt though. Do you mean Ramsey is anti-debt? Or I am?

 

[PRB]

BK=bankruptcy=discharging debts

Not sure what you mean about being anti-debt though. Do you mean Ramsey is anti-debt? Or I am?

yes, dave ramsey is anti-debt, he's pro-investment, and anti-borrowing.

 

[Zippyjuan]

I think that it is fair to call gold a currency. I have never tried it, but I think that I could travel anywhere in the world and buy anything I needed plus most things I wanted using nothing but gold.

And if you guys want to send me some gold, I will happily conduct that experiment, reporting back from a wide variety of locations.

Take some to the grocery store. See what they will give you for it.

 

[Zippyjuan]

Yes, if you conveniently look at only a selected period of time to support your flawed viewpoint.

This well thought out video debunks that viewpoint:

Before 1972, the price of gold was defined as a certain amount of dollars so it was not a free market price. We can't fairly look at what the price of gold did then. Now if I REALLY wanted to be selective, I could say that from 1980 until 2003 (OVER 20 YEARS), the price of gold declined (a bit of wiggle up and down on the way). IF you toss out the 1980 bubble, it really didn't change much until 2004- a 30+ year period. The current rise is not a historically normal pattern.

This chart shows both nominal and inflation adjusted prices for gold since then (well, until 2010 anyways):

http://www.rapidtrends.com/2009/09/21/the-real-price-of-gold-inflation-adjusted/

 

[devil21]

yes, dave ramsey is anti-debt, he's pro-investment, and anti-borrowing.

So he's "pro-give-the-bank-your-money-in-some-form". He's also very much against bankruptcy and against credit repair. Like I said, he's a bank mouthpiece.