As for its merit as an investment, Buffett observes the following:
"That cube of gold will not pay you interest or dividends, and it won't grow earnings."
If you had $10 trillion sitting around(in what, US treasuries?), Buffett further observes, instead of buying the cube of gold, you could buy all the cropland in America ($400 billion-worth) and 16 Exxon-Mobils. And you would still have $1 trillion of "walking-around money".
Ok Wawwen, lets see how that works out for you...
Here is the fatal flaw in his thinking. In a world where there is no wealth consolidator(now), interest and dividends and earnings growth are nominal gains which are progressively self diminishing. The more nominal gains you make, the more medium of exchange you pile up which has to be reinvested again for even more nominal gains. Not only is your new nominal gains competing with other savers nominal gains but your very own present nominal gains will be competing with your future nominal gains. This can only lead to ever higher asset prices and ever lower yields on everything until it reaches its mathematical limit and explodes.
FOFOA explains..
"Most people are savers, not investors or traders. Yet today we are all forced to be investors chasing nominal gains because there is no such thing as a perfect inflation hedge. If there were such a thing, a large portion of the "investing public" would not be anywhere near stocks and bonds. Even the most "risk free" bonds, US Treasuries, have the greatest risk of all, currency risk. "
"Furthermore, a saver must look deeper than the CPI, or even its shadow-equivalent, for the real inflation that must be protected against. And that is the inflating VOLUME of savings with which one must compete. A perfect inflation hedge would not only keep up with the shadow-CPI but it would also rise in VALUE (as opposed to volume) relative to changes in aggregate monetary savings (nominal gains). "
Lets use a simplified version of Warrens own example.
All the farmland in the US is a cool 400 billion. Lets just count that as another Exxon mobile. Plus we will count his 1 trillion in "walk around money" as 2 more Exxons. That leaves us with 19 Exxon Mobiles with around a 390 billion in market cap each. Remember Warren Buffets claim to fame is to buy stocks with hefty dividends to make money and or store value.
2.74% of 390 billion is $10,660,134,000. (Ten billion) We have 19 Exxons so we can multiply this number by 19 and that gets us $202,542,546 (Two hundred billion) in nominal gains annually.
2.74% is not Buffets thing though, he would rather have a 6% divvy. So lets go with 6%.
Exxons dividend is 6%
6% of 390 billion is $23,400,000,000 (Twenty three billion) Multiply this by 19 and we get $444,600,000,000 (Four hundered+ Billion) in nominal gains annually.
Now what the hell do you do with the 444 billion you just made in 12 months ? Buy another Exxon ? So you have an even bigger problem next year ? What will that do to the price and the yield ? What about the other savers who want another Exxon that year too ? Prices to infinity, yield to zero.
Can you see the fatal flaw in Warren Buffets claim to fame that chasing nominal gains as a means to store wealth or investing is completely self defeating ? And his fatal flaw in declaring gold useless ? This is why nothing is cheap anymore relative to yield. Price out condos in Bangkok or farm land in Canada or industrial real estate in Australia or stocks or bonds in any stable part of the world and you will notice that nothing is cheap relative to the nominal gains it can produce. Simply because of the inflating VOLUME of savings with which one must compete.
A perfect store of value would not only keep up with the shadow-CPI but it would also rise in VALUE (as opposed to volume) relative to changes in aggregate monetary savings. Putting that 444 billion nominal gain into physical gold WILL NOT diminish gold's ability to be a store of value. Putting it back into Exxon mobile WILL diminish Exxons ability to be a store of value or even a nominal gain generator.
FOFOA
So while most cannot understand the significance of this slow motion trend today, the explosive "rock meets hard place" encounter that is overdue at this point will be sure to wake even the sleepiest sheep. And at that point gold's best and highest function—being a physical-only wealth reserve asset—will be known by all. And the meeting of such a wide (awake) demand with a newly physical and stable supply in the absence of external (paper) influences will reveal a gold price that is multiples of any that has ever left Peter Schiff's lips.
Today gold is traded like a volatile commodity by gamblers who like to call themselves traders. Or else it is held as a small percentage of one's wealth for the expressed purpose of "insurance." Gold is actually a pretty poor inflation hedge as long as it is under external influences such as the inflatable supply of paper gold BB liabilities. So the only way it can even hope to perform as prescribed is as insurance in physical form only. Yet so many investors still hold "paper gold" as the insurance portion of their portfolio. This alone really highlights the confusion in Western "professional" investment Thought.
Got gold ?
