Hi Dominic. Below is a quote from an article that you wrote for moneyweek on 15 may 2015 re a gold necklace that you had made. My thoughts after that article were that maybe the Western world has totally detached itself from the historical appreciation of gold. The West generally considers property, and especially their homes, to be the greatest store of value. Houses are used as pension funds, "safe" places to keep wealth and means of building wealth. Will they ever go back to looking at gold in any of those ways? Hard to believe they will.
"Anyway – so I showed it rather proudly it to friends and work colleagues. Nobody was interested.
I wouldn’t let it go. “Look at this, what do you think?” Nobody gave a monkey’s. They didn’t say it was beautiful or ugly. They had no opinion. They just could not care less.
And there in a nutshell is the Western attitude to gold.
Southeast Asians know real gold when they see it
My experience in Southeast Asia was rather different.
A month ago I set off on a trip to an island in Thailand to switch off for a bit. I flew from London via Kuala Lumpur to the Malaysian island of Langkawi, and from there I got a boat to my remote Thai hideaway.
As soon as I got to Langkawi, my little necklace started generating interest. The bloke selling me tickets for the boat asked me about it. He clocked it was gold straight away – but he wanted to know what it was. A snake maybe?
He called over his colleagues to take a look. The chap in the coffee shop where I was waiting also started asking.
Once on my Thai island - where it was more visible as I had my shirt off most off the time (apologies to the locals) – people were also asking about it. The local Thais were sea gypsies (‘Chao Le’). Many of them clocked it.
Some of the Thais who’d come over from the mainland for work clocked it. Thai, Malaysian and Chinese tourists clocked it. And the Burmese chap with whom I played a lot of Frisbee (it’s my name, after all, and I’m a bit of a hippy at the end of the day) clocked it.
The only Westerner who showed any interest was the Italian anthropologist (the world’s leading expert on the Chao Le) in whose guest house I staying – with the correct observation that Asians would appreciate its value far more than Westerners.
In fact, so many people admired it, asked me what it was, and if they could touch it, it’s a wonder I didn’t have it nicked.
The message in all of this
The obvious straw to clutch here is that ‘on the street’ (or on the beach) there is still plenty of Asian interest in physical gold.
And taking a step back, Indians remain the world’s biggest buyers of the physical metal. The Chinese government has encouraged its citizens to buy gold – and many have. And I have written before about my previous experiences in Malaysia about attitudes to gold.
There are even rumours (mostly unfounded, I suspect) that the Chinese government is planning some kind of partial return to a gold standard.
But will that change?
People in the East want (and in many cases already have) the luxuries that we in the West take for granted – fridges, cars, computers, and all the rest of it. As they become more ‘Westernised’, might they lose interest in gold?
Because over here, once upon a time, gold was money. Gold sovereigns were the old pound coins. Gold played an almost daily role in our lives. The gold standard was the monetary rock on which the Great British trading empire was build. The value of gold was known and appreciated.
But over the past 100 years, attitudes have changed. Now gold couldn’t be more irrelevant.
Perhaps as the East develops, gold will become as irrelevant to them as it has to us in the West. We’re already seeing signs of that. Jewellers report that young people in India prefer 18ct gold to the purer 24ct stuff their parents would choose. Perhaps as they get wealthier and more secure, they lose sight of gold’s utility as a portable store of value.
I get both sides of this argument. The Asian appreciation of gold is clear, but it’s also conceivable that gold will fall in significance there just as it has here. It’s an argument that we won’t know the answer to for another generation or so.
I actually filed that one away with the gold-house price ones which you also wrote back then as they contained good arguments to use in future discussions on this topic. I was a big follower of Peter Schiff and your arguments were often supportive of his, but occasionally could challenge his view of the monetary system. I've come to the view that his way of seeing an imminent dollar collapse that will make gold the only asset worth holding is too simplistic.
I like Peter and he argues from the Austrian perspective which is pretty much my own. However, real life tends to be much more muddy than pure economic theory, which is where he argues from. Also he has been so wrong about bitcoin!
Hi Dominic, There is an enormous amount of alternative health articles out there my partner and I have been in the space for many years. Maybe. linking health and wealth together would be appealing. Like your style sir. To your health. with a bit of wealth.
Walking - Horses - Cars - Golf Carts - Bicycles - Walking (in the prison yard, aka “15-minute city)
Dust to dust d/evolves & spins in/on the winds of “change." (You Say You Want A Revolution … well, some say you vil eat ze Beatles … Mark David Chapmans are eternally recurring, too.) Dust devils, we call ‘em.
Currency isn’t money. Cars were driven over the buffalo jump es/car/pment back in the early ’70’s. And correlation is sometimes just false compartmentalization that eggheads & fallen Humptys use to hide causation.
Goldodo?
Not even central banks soaking up all they can spong(iform encephalopathologize) will extinction-event The Yellow Bird of Happiness.
I have less confidence re the prospects of the Yellowbrick Road Ruby Red Slipper-throngs & the collateral those will (continue to) damage.
How the horse relates to cent bank fiat currency is how the Greek’s gift horse relates to them “breaching” the walls of Troy.
Like vampires, supposedly, bloodsucker banks only enter upon invitation.
Interesting and reflects Charlie Morris's latest discussion on youtube with Jan Nieuwenhuij and the latter's take on the silver/gold ratio. I see your spoiler but HODLERS might or would argue that indeed gold is going the way of the horse. I like Charlie's BOLD - as i see it, a bit of cake-ism and why not? And I think as you say, the risk is in not holding some Bitcoin.
Hi Dominic. Below is a quote from an article that you wrote for moneyweek on 15 may 2015 re a gold necklace that you had made. My thoughts after that article were that maybe the Western world has totally detached itself from the historical appreciation of gold. The West generally considers property, and especially their homes, to be the greatest store of value. Houses are used as pension funds, "safe" places to keep wealth and means of building wealth. Will they ever go back to looking at gold in any of those ways? Hard to believe they will.
"Anyway – so I showed it rather proudly it to friends and work colleagues. Nobody was interested.
I wouldn’t let it go. “Look at this, what do you think?” Nobody gave a monkey’s. They didn’t say it was beautiful or ugly. They had no opinion. They just could not care less.
And there in a nutshell is the Western attitude to gold.
Southeast Asians know real gold when they see it
My experience in Southeast Asia was rather different.
A month ago I set off on a trip to an island in Thailand to switch off for a bit. I flew from London via Kuala Lumpur to the Malaysian island of Langkawi, and from there I got a boat to my remote Thai hideaway.
As soon as I got to Langkawi, my little necklace started generating interest. The bloke selling me tickets for the boat asked me about it. He clocked it was gold straight away – but he wanted to know what it was. A snake maybe?
He called over his colleagues to take a look. The chap in the coffee shop where I was waiting also started asking.
Once on my Thai island - where it was more visible as I had my shirt off most off the time (apologies to the locals) – people were also asking about it. The local Thais were sea gypsies (‘Chao Le’). Many of them clocked it.
Some of the Thais who’d come over from the mainland for work clocked it. Thai, Malaysian and Chinese tourists clocked it. And the Burmese chap with whom I played a lot of Frisbee (it’s my name, after all, and I’m a bit of a hippy at the end of the day) clocked it.
The only Westerner who showed any interest was the Italian anthropologist (the world’s leading expert on the Chao Le) in whose guest house I staying – with the correct observation that Asians would appreciate its value far more than Westerners.
In fact, so many people admired it, asked me what it was, and if they could touch it, it’s a wonder I didn’t have it nicked.
The message in all of this
The obvious straw to clutch here is that ‘on the street’ (or on the beach) there is still plenty of Asian interest in physical gold.
And taking a step back, Indians remain the world’s biggest buyers of the physical metal. The Chinese government has encouraged its citizens to buy gold – and many have. And I have written before about my previous experiences in Malaysia about attitudes to gold.
There are even rumours (mostly unfounded, I suspect) that the Chinese government is planning some kind of partial return to a gold standard.
But will that change?
People in the East want (and in many cases already have) the luxuries that we in the West take for granted – fridges, cars, computers, and all the rest of it. As they become more ‘Westernised’, might they lose interest in gold?
Because over here, once upon a time, gold was money. Gold sovereigns were the old pound coins. Gold played an almost daily role in our lives. The gold standard was the monetary rock on which the Great British trading empire was build. The value of gold was known and appreciated.
But over the past 100 years, attitudes have changed. Now gold couldn’t be more irrelevant.
Perhaps as the East develops, gold will become as irrelevant to them as it has to us in the West. We’re already seeing signs of that. Jewellers report that young people in India prefer 18ct gold to the purer 24ct stuff their parents would choose. Perhaps as they get wealthier and more secure, they lose sight of gold’s utility as a portable store of value.
I get both sides of this argument. The Asian appreciation of gold is clear, but it’s also conceivable that gold will fall in significance there just as it has here. It’s an argument that we won’t know the answer to for another generation or so.
That's brilliant. Thank you so much. I forgot I had even written that!
The crush never forgets ;)
I actually filed that one away with the gold-house price ones which you also wrote back then as they contained good arguments to use in future discussions on this topic. I was a big follower of Peter Schiff and your arguments were often supportive of his, but occasionally could challenge his view of the monetary system. I've come to the view that his way of seeing an imminent dollar collapse that will make gold the only asset worth holding is too simplistic.
I like Peter and he argues from the Austrian perspective which is pretty much my own. However, real life tends to be much more muddy than pure economic theory, which is where he argues from. Also he has been so wrong about bitcoin!
Hi Dominic, There is an enormous amount of alternative health articles out there my partner and I have been in the space for many years. Maybe. linking health and wealth together would be appealing. Like your style sir. To your health. with a bit of wealth.
Yes there is no shortage of content - thank you!
Hey, Dom. "free post" via substack app download doesn't work, since the phone is a landline ... so i'll put this Mark Twain measure here:
That “mining cycle” makes a good metaphor-analogy-simile for the artistic approach to imitating life.
And I guess the picture shows how a writer, or a nascent one telegraphed, grips a shovel.
When you’re in a hole stop digging? Keep digging? Depends on the grip.
Uncle Tony talks cars & subs/car/ptions (heated seats, etc)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D661h_2XJr0
Walking - Horses - Cars - Golf Carts - Bicycles - Walking (in the prison yard, aka “15-minute city)
Dust to dust d/evolves & spins in/on the winds of “change." (You Say You Want A Revolution … well, some say you vil eat ze Beatles … Mark David Chapmans are eternally recurring, too.) Dust devils, we call ‘em.
Currency isn’t money. Cars were driven over the buffalo jump es/car/pment back in the early ’70’s. And correlation is sometimes just false compartmentalization that eggheads & fallen Humptys use to hide causation.
Goldodo?
Not even central banks soaking up all they can spong(iform encephalopathologize) will extinction-event The Yellow Bird of Happiness.
I have less confidence re the prospects of the Yellowbrick Road Ruby Red Slipper-throngs & the collateral those will (continue to) damage.
How the horse relates to cent bank fiat currency is how the Greek’s gift horse relates to them “breaching” the walls of Troy.
Like vampires, supposedly, bloodsucker banks only enter upon invitation.
And vitiation’s invitation is always open.
Interesting and reflects Charlie Morris's latest discussion on youtube with Jan Nieuwenhuij and the latter's take on the silver/gold ratio. I see your spoiler but HODLERS might or would argue that indeed gold is going the way of the horse. I like Charlie's BOLD - as i see it, a bit of cake-ism and why not? And I think as you say, the risk is in not holding some Bitcoin.
Thanks Christopher!