Buy Gold ... ??

In these difficult financial times, many people are turning to a very traditional option to secure their savings: Buy gold. It’s an attractive option. Gold seldom, if ever, loses its monetary value. Six years ago gold sold for about $400 an ounce. In recent months the price has surpassed $1,800/ounce and is accelerating. Moreover gold is extremely mobile. You can even wear it as you travel around from one jurisdiction to another! In turbulent times such as are occurring throughout the Middle East and Africa, gold can be the surest way of having your wealth at hand when you need it. The value of gold is not limited to individual fortunes but also to entire nations. Many countries in Africa and Asia particularly are loading up on gold reserves as a more stable back-up for future needs.

      So then, why not buy gold, if you can? The answers are many. First of all, you have to buy gold that is produced somewhere. Since the price of gold began to rise, a global gold rush has mushroomed into one of the most profitable businesses in the world. Gold companies, especially Canadian-based gold companies have fanned out across the world to dig for tiny quantities of that precious metal spread out over large areas. Entire mountains are displaced in order to sift out the microscopic grains buried there. Whole valleys are torn up, vast tailing ponds created, entire communities displaced. All this so that you can buy that precious gold ring that marks your love and declares your wealth. There is a certain parallel between the profiles of gold mining companies and that of the drug industry in terms of profitability and social impact. The difference, of course, is that one of them is considered quite legal. Another comparison might be with the tobacco industry and its history of causing large scale death and destruction.  However you look at it, to buy gold ties one into a major, global, predatory industry.

     And then there is the argument proposed by Chief Seattle: Gold may be very beautiful and serve as a handy tool for conserving one’s wealth,  however, it satisfies no basic human need. It is not a source of energy; it is useless as construction material and you certainly cannot eat or drink it. Yet vast territories that produce just those elements are ripped up, torn out, destroyed forever by gold mines. Now there are even several projects to mine gold under the ocean!

     It is strange how our capitalist economy works. It destroys whatever is really valuable to meet basic human needs in order to provide a tiny minority with luxury items that ultimately serve no useful purpose. As Joseph Stiglitz says, it is government “of the 1%, by the 1%, for the 1%.” Why is it that we give those few people the power to run things the way they do?