“An acute shortage of readily marketable physical gold is developing that we believe will deepen in years to come. This possibility seems to be unrecognized by those who are short the gold market through paper contracts.
The relentless dumping of synthetic or paper gold contracts since 2011 by speculators in Western financial markets has caused the shortage. The steady selling has driven down the price of physical gold, hobbled the gold-mining industry, and drained the stores of gold held in the vaults of Western financial centers.
We believe that the shortage will worsen because (1) the precursors of production (exploration, discovery, reserve life) are very negative, (2) the mining industry has little financial credibility and seems unlikely to attract capital even with a big rise in gold prices, and (3) refining capacity limitations tend to create supply bottlenecks when physical demand spikes.”
John Hathaway, Utopia For the Paper Gold Alchemists
One day gold bugs will be totally vindicated. The only question is when.
That quote makes it sound as if physical gold (one of the few hedges against the paper dollar for the common man) is eroding.
“You don’t own real money (gold) with the idea of using it for trading profits. You own gold because you are familiar with the history of fiat money. The history of fiat money is ‘bankruptcy’. The history of fiat money is that ultimately it becomes worthless”
James Grant