If you want to own gold coins, you'll pay $870-$890 an ounce. Coins are scarce. People are looking for something solid to hold onto. Coins are solid. They are portable. They have no hidden liabilities.
And you won't pick up the paper and find that a crook like Bernard Madoff has stolen away the value of your gold coins. The latest Wall Street desperado took investors for some $50 billion. And now the FBI, SEC and all the gumshoes and hacks are making a big deal of it.
Of course, in purely financial terms it is a big deal. The press has labeled it a "ponzi scheme." But Charles Ponzi took in only $10 million. Peanuts compared Madoff's scheme.
Another important difference. Ponzi took money from ordinary investors, widows and orphans. But Madoff went for bigger game - hedge funds, banks, and professionals. Today's news tells us that the world's largest bank - HSBC - was a victim. Banks in Geneva said they were out $4 billion. The Fairfield Greenwich Group said it had invested $7.5 billion with Madoff.
Of course, we don't like to see widows and orphans lose get scammed. But hedge funds? Banks? Who can honestly say that they don't enjoy seeing these mighty moneymen tripping over their own greedy delusions? Here at The Daily Reckoning...the news of Wall Street's losses cheers us up...like reading the obituaries and finding no mention of our own name.
But when you own a gold coin you won't have to wonder if the balance sheet is made up...or if the trades were fictitious...or why the SEC was asleep at the switch. A gold coin is what it is...no more, no less.
When the ground gives way...gold coins stay right where they were - or go up in value.
Not that we're urging you to buy gold coins. We did that for the last eight years. Now, you're on your own.
Bill Bonner
for The Daily Reckoning Australia
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Related Articles:
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- Bernie Madoff is a Giant in His Field
- Coins… The Nearest Thing to a Permanent Thing
- The Baddest Bank in the West
About the Author
Best-selling investment author Bill Bonner is the founder and president of Agora Publishing, one of the world's most successful consumer newsletter companies. Owner of both Fleet Street Publications and MoneyWeek magazine in the UK, he is also author of the free daily e-mail The Daily Reckoning.
Comment by bill on 21 December 2008:
and i have been following your advice concerning gold coins for
eight years and have a more comfortable retirement as a result than my friends who have lost 50% or more of the value in their investments.
for example, the father of a close friend died the other day.
his broker had put him in AIG and Merril for $300,000.
he was 78 and a good part of the inheritance of his grandchildren ( whom he loved dearly ) went up in smoke.
i think it broke his heart.
bill
Comment by gold coins on 1 January 2010:
Gold coins have gone up since this articles been written . Gold is having a very good rally. I hope it can hit $1600 an ounce by mid 2010