Gold collapsing. Bitcoin UP.

[Dr Bloggood]

No, under 40 here.

I'm a bit surprised - you don't believe in the manipulation being stopped soon, Comex empty, etc? Just curious - why not?

You did not ask me, but I want to answer. I would assume you are 25ish and very new to investing in Gold. Saw some gold bug forums and some youtube videos.

Gold has been like this for a long time. Gold in its history has almost always been heavily manipulated and sometimes even banned. This manipulation could go on for another 100 years but with almost no effort 5 to 10 years. Only the collapse of the west would really change anything and even then, who knows how things will go. You might be right and this happens in the next few months but I would say your guess was lucky. Odds are just as good that it will be $800 in a year or sooner. People saying it will soon go to 0 however are crazy...

I think everyone should hold some physical gold and silver but having too much of it at a time like this is risky. Also if you do not invest anything into crypto and go all in gold I think you very well might miss the train.

Diversification is very good, and holding physical gold is not bad, but with crypto, you have a change to get in on Gold 2.0 early. I think you should take this opportunity.

I have been very loosely occupied with gold for a couple of years, and have studied it closer for the last 10 months, and really hardcore (often several hours per day) since June 2013 or so. I bought about 50% of my PM holdings on the lowest day of the correction so far (end of June 2013), and the rest in the following months.

There is no way gold is going to $800, it's just not going to happen. Maybe at the very most it could go down 20% more, although I have the feeling that won't happen, especially after what the manipulators tried over the last couple of months and pretty much completely failing.

I have crypto, thanks, I'm a big fan of BTC! The difference between us is: You say PMs are risky and BTC is safe (right?), and I say BTC is risky and PMs are, at current levels, extremely low risk (long term anyways).

I really don't have the feeling that without effort this could go on for another five years: Look at Comex inventories, German gold repatriation, Chinese imports, etc, etc... It's very hard for me to figure how the manipulation could even continue beyond 2014 - but who knows which last minute tricks they will get out of their bags...

My question to you: Why doesn't holding mostly cryptos seem risky to you? I think most people would tell you it is.

At least we can agree on gold being manipulated, that's something! I wish you success with your investments (especially with BTC, which would make all of us a ton of money)!

[billyjoeallen]

What the hell are you doing trekking in Burma? Lambos prolly have a hard time on mountain trails even if there wasn't a murderous military junta running around killing people willy nilly.

Lol, No Lambo's in Myanmar. The "highways" are crazy the way they are. One time coming back from trekking I had a private car but the driver showed up at 9am drunk. He drank all night. In the first 5 mins he clipped a motorcyclist and made him let me drive. I had to drive 8 hours back to the capital while trying to get this drunk driver to give me directions. Obstacles included but where not limited to, cows, horses, goats, dogs, people eating lunhc, people sleeping, giant rocks, other cars in my lane going the wrong way, army check points (that i just ignored).

As far as the murderous junta, not the case as much any more, but yes still an issue. I was loosely connected to a "minority independence group" but that ended when they signed a deal with the govt after 65 years of war.

Anyway Myanmar is one of the most interesting places to truly do nature trekking in the same way people were able to do it 300 years ago. Just bring gold, not BTC 

Kinda my point. Gold is so 18th century. There's a lot of 18th century technology that's still useful, but only for special applications.  Most people want to survive and thrive in the modern world, not be living anachronisms. To do that, we need 21st century efficiency. A spear is a handy thing to have on a hike. I satellite phone is too ;-)

[T.Stuart]

Anyway Myanmar is one of the most interesting places to truly do nature trekking in the same way people were able to do it 300 years ago.

To take this a little bit further off-topic  ...

To say you have an affinity with Asia would be putting it mildly. Could I ask how this came about? Is this an interest that goes a long way back, did your parents travel there, work etc.?

Have you also visited Nepal? Maybe Bhutan?

When I was 21 I did a 40 day trek/van tour across Mongolia. That sort of started it I guess. My parents do not travel and I have never needed to do so for work.

Have been to Nepal/Bhutan. Also met the current King of Bhutan but that was while he was on tour in Thailand.

Parts of Asia are just awesome and it shocks me how different the regions are. I have been to Europe it is too developed for me to really enjoy. I have been meaning to get down to South America but who has the time :/

Hey! I also met the King of Bhutan, a few years ago when he was the Crown Prince . He studied at Oxford University and came to visit the Lama at the local Tibetan Buddhist Centre at which I worked for several years. Lama cooked the most fantastic meal (as well as being an extremely high-level practitioner of meditation he is also an amazing cook!) and for want of space we set up a table in the shrine room for lunch.

Did you have any problems getting into Bhutan, as I believe it is not one of the easiest to get a visa for? Or is that where the gold comes into the picture and back into this thread 

I haven't yet made it out to Nepal but I will do so in a few years. I think I would like to wait until my son is old enough to really appreciate it, and take him with me. But despite not visiting the country, I met and knew so many Nepalese and Tibetans while in Oxford that I feel lucky to have been able really to experience the culture, somewhat displaced as it is over there.

[Dr Bloggood]

However holding no crypto is just silly in my mind. The risk reward is just too great to not be in the game.

I absolutely agree - that's why I got me some!

I strong disagree that the odds of this are 0% esp  

Well, I guess not even the odds we are going to get hit by a meteor tomorrow and die are zero.

esp when Gold was $250ish 12 years ago and they have the ability to more or less set the price to whatever they want.

You really should read up a bit on gold - things like price of production, relation gold to monetary base, relation paper gold to physical, etc.. Also, they can't set the price to where they want - and believe me, they tried, especially in 2013...

To me in turn, 85% cryptos seems crazy.

[NewLiberty]

However holding no crypto is just silly in my mind. The risk reward is just too great to not be in the game.

I absolutely agree - that's why I got me some!

I strong disagree that the odds of this are 0% esp  

Well, I guess not even the odds we are going to get hit by a meteor tomorrow and die are zero.

esp when Gold was $250ish 12 years ago and they have the ability to more or less set the price to whatever they want.

You really should read up a bit on gold - things like price of production, relation gold to monetary base, relation paper gold to physical, etc.. Also, they can't set the price to where they want - and believe me, they tried, especially in 2013...

To me in turn, 85% cryptos seems crazy.

Give it a little while, if you're lax in your "rebalencing", you too many end up with 85% cryptos! 

[Dr Bloggood]

Give it a little while, if you're lax in your "rebalencing", you too many end up with 85% cryptos! 

I hope so!

BTC has to go x10 before I sell a little of it.

[NewLiberty]

Give it a little while, if you're lax in your "rebalencing", you too many end up with 85% cryptos!  

I hope so!

BTC has to go x10 before I sell a little of it.

Great, your Hodling.  Give it a year or two, you will be as crazy as the rest of us at 85%.

[Dr Bloggood]

Ha, you need to lurk more    I have been investing in gold since 1992.

Wow, that's a long-ass time - it might explain your frustrations with gold. Understandable.

Nevertheless, what you first suspected with me might be the case with you - you sound pretty uninformed on gold!

Anyways, let's let that discussion be now. Hopefully both assets will go through the roof...

[Dr Bloggood]

Ha, you need to lurk more    I have been investing in gold since 1992.

Wow, that's a long-ass time - it might explain your frustrations with gold. Understandable.

Nevertheless, what you first suspected with me might be the case with you - you sound pretty uninformed on gold!

Anyways, let's let that discussion be now. Hopefully both assets will go through the roof...

Now you are being mildly insulting. I invested significantly in 2002 to 2004. I then sold out near the highs in 2010/2011 to get into BTC.

I am not at all frustrated with gold and one of the few here on this form who would even tell you it is worth holding at all.

You realize gold is manipulated, you just do not understand how much. You assume incorrectly that the manipulators will fail at their game soon. You fail to understand this game has been going on for 500 years. They know what they are doing and the fact that you think you know better than them is just laughable. You might get lucky a couple of times on calls but with arrogance like this in the market you will get destroyed in the end.

I didn't mean to be insulting.

Peace and good luck!

[Chalkbot]

So, what's the consensus in this thread on diversification?

I've always subscribed to the idea that diversification is for people who don't know what they are doing (to put it politely). I've got myself so deep in BTC that I'm not even paying attention to the rest of the world, because I can't even imagine anything else with as much promise.

Maybe I'm doing it right (seems to be working pretty fucking awesome so far), but would like to at least look at some other things...

[chriswilmer]

Ha, you need to lurk more    I have been investing in gold since 1992.

Wow, that's a long-ass time - it might explain your frustrations with gold. Understandable.

Nevertheless, what you first suspected with me might be the case with you - you sound pretty uninformed on gold!

Anyways, let's let that discussion be now. Hopefully both assets will go through the roof...

Now you are being mildly insulting. I invested significantly in 2002 to 2004. I then sold out near the highs in 2010/2011 to get into BTC.

I am not at all frustrated with gold and one of the few here on this form who would even tell you it is worth holding at all.

You realize gold is manipulated, you just do not understand how much. You assume incorrectly that the manipulators will fail at their game soon. You fail to understand this game has been going on for 500 years. They know what they are doing and the fact that you think you know better than them is just laughable. You might get lucky a couple of times on calls but with arrogance like this in the market you will get destroyed in the end.

Hey Goat,

I have a kind of newbie gold-manipulation question... I've never really understood what it even means to manipulate the price of gold. Is there an ELI5 version of how the price of gold is manipulated? Or is the only answer long and complicated and I have read books about it to know...

Thanks in advance!

[adamstgBit]

Ha, you need to lurk more    I have been investing in gold since 1992.

Wow, that's a long-ass time - it might explain your frustrations with gold. Understandable.

Nevertheless, what you first suspected with me might be the case with you - you sound pretty uninformed on gold!

Anyways, let's let that discussion be now. Hopefully both assets will go through the roof...

Now you are being mildly insulting. I invested significantly in 2002 to 2004. I then sold out near the highs in 2010/2011 to get into BTC.

I am not at all frustrated with gold and one of the few here on this form who would even tell you it is worth holding at all.

You realize gold is manipulated, you just do not understand how much. You assume incorrectly that the manipulators will fail at their game soon. You fail to understand this game has been going on for 500 years. They know what they are doing and the fact that you think you know better than them is just laughable. You might get lucky a couple of times on calls but with arrogance like this in the market you will get destroyed in the end.

Hey Goat,

I have a kind of newbie gold-manipulation question... I've never really understood what it even means to manipulate the price of gold. Is there an ELI5 version of how the price of gold is manipulated? Or is the only answer long and complicated and I have read books about it to know...

Thanks in advance!

The very simple answer is about 5 banks get to just make up the price of gold and that is what it is. This is not a transparent process.

thing is, people can "naked short" the PM market

this means they have no gold to sell, they don't barrow gold to sell, they use Dollars to short the market.

gold bugs hate this, and say that the reason gold is going down is because the FED and banks are naked shorting the PM market to oblivion in order to keep the appearance that the market isn't going totally crazy because everyone sees the end of the dollar in sight.

which is believable, if gold was allowed to run up to 15,000$ an ounce, poeple might start to talk about it, and then they would be exposed to the whole USD is worthless fiat thing. and they would lose confidence in USD  and run to gold, then the USD would be toast....

Bitcoin is not so easily manipulated, no one can naked short bitcoins...

in conclusion, bitcoin is what will kill the dollar, not gold, but gold maybe a good buy right now, because its been heavily manipulated down, once the system collapses the manipulation will stop, and it should be more valuable, but keep in mind that gold has value because it is seen as a safe haven should the system crash. clearly bitcoin is the safe haven should the system crash, so whats an oz of gold good for now. Gold sucks balls, silver is equally manipulated and carries less speculative value.

final conclusion, buy silver because bitcoin is what will kill the dollar.

 

[Peter R]

Give it a little while, if you're lax in your "rebalencing", you too many end up with 85% cryptos!  

+1

It doesn't start out at 85%, it just seems to end up that way all of a sudden. 

[molecular]

No, under 40 here.

I'm a bit surprised - you don't believe in the manipulation being stopped soon, Comex empty, etc? Just curious - why not?

You did not ask me, but I want to answer. I would assume you are 25ish and very new to investing in Gold. Saw some gold bug forums and some youtube videos.

Gold has been like this for a long time. Gold in its history has almost always been heavily manipulated and sometimes even banned. This manipulation could go on for another 100 years but with almost no effort 5 to 10 years.

One has to admit that the gold-bug propaganda ("the west is running out of physical, when that happens, the game is over and gold multiplies in value") is getting more convincing as of late, though. I considered it a general confirmation of that theory
when germany was basically told to fuck off when they asked for some of their gold back. If that doesn't prove the lack of gold in the US, what does? Add to that the recent leaving of the London gold fix by Deutsche Bank and the affirmation by Bafin (german banking/finance oversight authority) that gold price manipulation is a reality and is "worse than the libor manipulation". The exposing of the gold manipulation also seems to go more mainstream these days.

I think it's indeed possible the "jig is up" soon and I wouldn't be surprised.

On the other hand I agree with Goat: gold-bugs have been saying that this system will fail "very soon" for quite a long time now and it's certainly conceivable "the operators" might drag this thing down the road for quite a bit longer. These dudes are smart and have means at their disposal.

I agree ignoring crypto is likely very stupid. It's still probably a one in a lifetime chance for most people.

[molecular]

Give it a little while, if you're lax in your "rebalencing", you too many end up with 85% cryptos! 

Haha, this made my day. Probably true, too.

[ErisDiscordia]

I really don't have the feeling that without effort this could go on for another five years: Look at Comex inventories, German gold repatriation, Chinese imports, etc, etc... It's very hard for me to figure how the manipulation could even continue beyond 2014 - but who knows which last minute tricks they will get out of their bags...

Don't underestimate the power of bullshit, my friend!

Or as Doug Casey puts it: just because something is inevitable, doesn't mean it is imminent.

Your sentiment reminds me of my own in 2007/2008 - I guess I was in a similar frame of mind; I spent countless hours educating myself on the economic situation, gold, the manipulation, the fiat-system etc. and once the markets started crashing I was utterly convinced that this was it and things were going to move quickly, with hyperinflation setting in and the dollar collapsing withing a year or two. Turns out I underestimated the power of bullshit and the ability of the guardians of the current system to patch it up with loose money & propaganda and kick the can down the road for many years to come. According to my timetable for financial collapse from back then we should long have been well into the hyperinflation stage with all the trouble that brings...alas here we are with the gold price (probably) suppressed down and mainstream media happily chirping about "recovery" and business as usual. This could go on for years, but not forever.

TL;DR: I agree with Goat. There seems to be overwhelming evidence of gold price manipulation since a loooong time. This doesn't mean that the scheme will collapse within a year or two (it might, though), but one day it will. It will be a lot of fun!

[molecular]

So, what's the consensus in this thread on diversification?

I think almost everyone here would agree that diversification is good. Noone says crypto is risk-free.

What people disagree on is the ratios.

I've always subscribed to the idea that diversification is for people who don't know what they are doing (to put it politely). I've got myself so deep in BTC that I'm not even paying attention to the rest of the world, because I can't even imagine anything else with as much promise.

Much promise? Yes, certainly. Much security? Doubtful.

Thinking one knows the future seems arrogant.

If you're young and don't have much wealth and nothing to lose, it can make sense to go 100% bitcoin, but for everyone else it's probably too risky still.

Maybe I'm doing it right (seems to be working pretty fucking awesome so far), but would like to at least look at some other things...

Yes, maybe you're doing it right. People that have a lot of wealth have an easy time suggesting diversification. In my mind, if you are low on wealth, having the balls to hold on to the crypto you have for as long as it takes for it to appreciate enough to make diversification reasonable is the way to go. Certainly would've worked for me and I regret (well, not really, it was the correct decision at the time) putting much more into gold/silver than into crypto back in '11.

But in the end: who knows how things will develop... we'll have to suffer the consequences of our actions, that much is certain.

[billyjoeallen]

Yer dreaming. I watch these shows on cable TV of these schmucks working their asses off mining gold in AK, the Yukon and even offshore to mine gold at $1200/oz.  if the price doubles, every swinging dick with a shovel and a gleam in his eye will be out there with them. Gold WAS money. real money. free market money. It's easily recognizable, fungible, divisible portable and scarce. Bitcoin is MORE fungible, recognizable, divisible, portable and scarce. There's enough gold on the planet to cover the surface eight feet thick. You wanna dig it out of one hole, put it in another and pay someone to guard it. Good luck with that. It was awesome 18th century technology, but this is the 21st century.

We are never going back to a gold standard. I hate to agree with the asshole Kenesians, but they're right on this. You might use it like Goat does to trade in some mountain village in Burma, but in the real world you live in, it's good for speaker plugs and trinkets. Five thousand years was a good run. It's over. over. We used horses for five thousand years too. 

[solex]

Yer dreaming. I watch these shows on cable TV of these schmucks working their asses off mining gold in AK, the Yukon and even offshore to mine gold at $1200/oz.  if the price doubles, every swinging dick with a shovel and a gleam in his eye will be out there with them. Gold WAS money. real money. free market money. It's easily recognizable, fungible, divisible portable and scarce. Bitcoin is MORE fungible, recognizable, divisible, portable and scarce. There's enough gold on the planet to cover the surface eight feet thick. You wanna dig it out of one hole, put it in another and pay someone to guard it. Good luck with that. It was awesome 18th century technology, but this is the 21st century.

We are never going back to a gold standard. I hate to agree with the asshole Kenesians, but they're right on this. You might use it like Goat does to trade in some mountain village in Burma, but in the real world you live in, it's good for speaker plugs and trinkets. Five thousand years was a good run. It's over. over. We used horses for five thousand years too.  

Yep. Took me a long time to see that too. The reason why gold cannot be a principal currency in daily use ever again is because it is so unwieldy for face-to-face transactions and can't be used for remote transactions, which are most, by value in a modern economy. A gold-backed debit card is very nice, but who can trust someone else with their gold? Even the German government can't get its gold back.

So fiat is needed, was needed until recently when crypto was invented.

[marcus_of_augustus]

Yer dreaming. I watch these shows on cable TV of these schmucks working their asses off mining gold in AK, the Yukon and even offshore to mine gold at $1200/oz.  if the price doubles, every swinging dick with a shovel and a gleam in his eye will be out there with them. Gold WAS money. real money. free market money. It's easily recognizable, fungible, divisible portable and scarce. Bitcoin is MORE fungible, recognizable, divisible, portable and scarce. There's enough gold on the planet to cover the surface eight feet thick. You wanna dig it out of one hole, put it in another and pay someone to guard it. Good luck with that. It was awesome 18th century technology, but this is the 21st century.

We are never going back to a gold standard. I hate to agree with the asshole Kenesians, but they're right on this. You might use it like Goat does to trade in some mountain village in Burma, but in the real world you live in, it's good for speaker plugs and trinkets. Five thousand years was a good run. It's over. over. We used horses for five thousand years too.  

Yep. Took me a long time to see that too. The reason why gold cannot be a principal currency in daily use ever again is because it is so unwieldy for face-to-face transactions and can't be used for remote transactions, which are most, by value in a modern economy. A gold-backed debit card is very nice, but who can trust someone else with their gold? Even the German government can't get its gold back.

So fiat is needed, was needed until recently when crypto was invented.

All in then?