Guest Post by Nick Barisheff
Many investors and their financial advisors consider gold to be a commodity, which makes gold no different than copper, timber, pork bellies or orange juice. They do not understand, or simply are unaware, that gold has been successfully used as money for over 3,000 years. Although some people think it is an archaic relic, the facts don’t support this view. So, what is money?
Gold is traded on the currency desks of all major banks and brokerages, along with dollars, euros, yen and pounds, and not the commodity desks along with other commodities – the FX traders know gold is money.
On the balance sheets of all central banks, gold is classified as a monetary asset, along with their foreign currency reserves. The central bankers know gold is money. Central banks do not hold any other commodity as part of their reserves. Alan Greenspan knows gold is money, as he laid out in his famous article “Gold and Economic Freedom”, written in 1966, before he became chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Continue reading “Gold and Pork Bellies”
