Between 2000 and 2014 the gold price has risen from US$300 per troy ounce to over US$1,300. However, this run-up in prices has been driven mostly by demand from retail investors, especially from China and India. So far, institutional investors — especially pension funds — haven’t been very eager to jump on the bandwagon. Pension funds invest less than 1% of their assets in gold o... »
When Will Pension Funds Buy Gold?
February 28 2014
Olav Dirkmaat
How the German Court Grants Gold a Free Pass to $2.000 and Beyond
February 21 2014
The past two years have been a slam-dunk for Eurocrats. Yields have come down to pre-recession levels and headlines in mainstream media point at an economic recovery in the euro zone. While nobody paid attention, however, something major happened in Europe. A very important piece of information has been swept under the rug by conventional media outlets: Germany’s Constitutional Court ju... »
Olav Dirkmaat
Gold or Bitcoins? A Real, Non Black-and-White Comparison
February 14 2014
Many gold pundits have dismissed Bitcoin as simply inferior to physical gold. “Gold is everything that Bitcoin is, and even more,” they tell us, “so why use Bitcoin?” Their analysis seems superficial, focusing on things such as (the lack of) physical-backing and the sheer limits of the... »
Olav Dirkmaat
How My Mother-in-Law Suffers and How Gold Would Have Protected Her
February 7 2014
Venezuela is like a surreal field experiment of failing economic policies. But sometimes the macroeconomic figures we read about deceive us; they show the harsh reality intellectually, but the human suffering behind those numbers is never revealed to us on an emotional level. Even Joseph Stalin apprehended this asymmetry when he said: “The death of one man is a tragedy; the death of millions... »
Olav Dirkmaat
