Good as gold
Spandau Ballet’s 1983 anthem Gold could be the national anthem for the world’s inflationistas.
Always believe in your soul
You’ve got the power to know
You’re indestructible
Always believe in, because you are
Gold! GOLD Read more
Are the goldbugs finally right about inflation?
The most profitable way to be wrong over the past five years was to bet that frantic printing of money by central banks would create inflation – so buy gold. Since the start of 2007 gold has risen at an annualised 19 per cent, a tasty return, particularly when compared to equities.
Yet, there’s been no sign of consumer price inflation, even as the US Federal Reserve explicitly targets asset price inflation (Fed jargon calls this the “portfolio channel” for monetary transmission of quantitative easing; in English that translates as rigging the market). Read more
Gold or wheelbarrows full of euros?
The argument for gold is very simple: it is hard money at a time when every other major currency is being watered down by central bank money printing.
On that basis, Europeans should have been panic-buying gold this summer as the European Central Bank prepared its plan to hoover up peripheral country bonds (although it will try to “sterilise” the plan, taking in deposits in some form to keep net money issuance stable, even as its balance sheet expands). Read more
Drawbacks of gold-backed bonds
My colleague Gillian Tett wrote a nice column today on talk of using the gold reserves of struggling European countries to help lower their financing costs.
She highlights a suggestion from the Gold Council, the miners’ marketing group, that European countries could issue bonds backed by their holdings of gold. Read more
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James Mackintosh is the Financial Times' Investment Editor, writing and presenting the daily Short View column and video. In 16 years at the FT his posts have included comment editor, motor industry editor and hedge funds correspondent, as well as spells in the Parliamentary lobby and Paris. He was the first reporter hired for FT.com, joining two weeks before it launched.
John Authers is the Financial Times' Senior Investment Columnist, writing the Saturday Long View and a regular Monday column. In a 22-year career at the FT, his previous posts have included global head of the Lex column, investment editor, US markets editor, Mexico City bureau chief and US banking correspondent. His latest book is The Fearful Rise of Markets. 
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