IS THE PRICE OF GOLD BASED ON FEAR?

Whatever gold chart you look at that is longer than a year shows you that the value of gold has gone up very fast. Almost too fast to feel comfortable with. The 5 year chart shows it rising from the $600's to a high of around $1,900 before settling in the $1,700 range the current price of gold is now.














What has made it go so high so fast? I think it is mostly fear.

An interesting article by Warren Buffet in Forbes details his view that he would rather invest in profitable businesses, real estate, or farms than gold. His thinking is that at the end of the day, gold is not used for much and demand for it comes from the belief that it will always be in more demand. Fear, in other words.

Gold really does have very few practical uses and other than being made into jewelry, what good is it? It is of little use other than to make things pretty and if the world is truly in chaos, will people really care about the jewelry they are wearing?

So, other than people's perception that gold will always be desired, what is propping it up and making it's value go up so much? It has to be fear that is driving the price up. Fear that paper money will become worthless or severely devalued, fear that real estate will continue it's loss of value, and fear that the stock market is too high and will see another big drop.

Fear and gold go hand in hand and Warren Buffet has made his case that he would rather invest in assets that actually produce something. I don't know whether he is right but I kind of feel the same way. I want to put my money in something that will hopefully grow and produce things which will create more value. But I don't want to miss out on the next upswing of gold prices (if there is one) either.

How do you feel? Is gold actually worth investing in at these levels and does the cost of gold depend on people's fear?

TAKING GOLD COINS THROUGH AIRPORT SECURITY

I am in the process of moving from one state to another and as it is too far to drive, everything is going with professional movers. This is the one time I am REALLY glad I don't have any gold bars because how would I ever get them from one place to the other?

All my valuable papers (passport, will, car title, etc) will go with me on the airplane. I don't want to take the chance that the movers would lose them because it would be a huge hassle to get them replaced. What I realized that all my gold coins that I store in my bank box were going to have to go with me on the plane as well and that made me a bit nervous.

I have about 15 gold coins that I inherited from my Uncle and a few I have bought on my own. With the cost of gold being so high now, that means I had to go through airport security with about $30,000 in coins. I was of course a little uneasy about carrying that much on me but I couldn't see any other alternative.

I put the gold coins in my computer bag and put it on the conveyer belt that runs through the x-ray machine. The person looking at my bag did spend longer checking it out than normal and then they told me they wanted to run it through a second time. After looking at it again they gave me the bag and told me everything was okay.

I was relieved they didn't ask to do a manual search through my bag because I didn't really want anyone to see the gold coins or know that I was carrying that much. I can't imagine what someone would do if they had to move gold bars from one location to another!