Ben Bernanke says, “Gold is not money.” Yet for thousands of years cultures across the globe have used gold as a means of exchange and store of wealth. Not one government-backed currency has endured like gold.
Doug Casey often refers back to Aristotle’s criteria for sound money as to why gold maintains this status. In Doug’s words:
- It should be durable (which is why, say, wheat isn’t a good money – it rots)
- It should be divisible (which is why artwork isn’t a good money – you can’t cut up the Mona Lisa for change)
- It should be convenient (which is why lead isn’t a good money – it just takes too much to be of value)
- It should be consistent (which is one reason why land can’t be money – each piece is different)
- And it should have value in itself (which is why paper money leads to trouble)
You don’t buy gold to get rich. You buy it because
