Why Do Gold Bashers Have a Stage?
Stefan Gleason | Jun 15, 2023 02:46PM ET
By Jon Forrest Littleexplained by Guy Christopher, the late Money Metals columnist.
Another notable gold basher is radio personality Dave Ramsey. This financial “guru” rears his head to bash gold from his TV and radio show platform a handful of times each year.
Ramsey's talking points against gold are based on false assumptions, and he tends to bully and ridicule his callers asking about gold.
The more false his claims happen to be, the more he proclaims them with fervor and bombast as if they are universally held laws of sound finance.
For example, he constantly falls back on similar themes he believes will play well with uneducated investors. (The same type of folks who recently sued Ramsey for $150 million after he steered them to a "timeshare exit" company that shut down after it was accused of fraud.)
Ramsey says that gold is:
- Too volatile. To the upside? Remember, gold was $35 per ounce when Nixon closed the gold window in 1971.
- Does not produce income. Putting aside that income on gold is possible, explosive capital gains beat earning interest in depreciating currency.
- Is not useful. Tell that to central banks that have recently been stocking up at record rates. Gold became recognized as money precisely because of its utility. It's fungible, divisible, a store of value, and a medium of exchange.
- Is not liquid. Ha! Gold is traded in huge volumes all day and night.
Another inglorious gold basher is Harry Dent. Like Ramsey, he makes many preposterous and unsubstantiated statements.
Dent's misinformation is regularly trotted out there under headlines like "Gold is going to $500 per ounce."
Barrick recently reported that its cost of production for gold has reached $1,700 per ounce. That puts something of a floor under the price of gold.
Where is gold today? Nearly $2,000 per ounce.
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Jon Forrest Little graduated from the University of New Mexico and attended Georgetown University's Institute for Comparative Political and Economic Systems. Jon began his career in mining industry and now publishes "The PickAxe" which covers topics surrounding precious metals, energy, history, and politics.
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