Although the story never mentions his name, The New York Times reports today that Glenn Beck's favorite investment has lost a lot of its value -- and the rise and fall track Beck's rise and fall rather closely:
Below the streets of Lower Manhattan, in the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the world's largest trove of gold -- half a million bars -- has lost about $75 billion of its value. In Fort Knox, Ky., at the United States Bullion Depository, the damage totals $50 billion.The Times story mentions a lot of non-Beck related reasons why gold has lost value -- the economy finally seems to be bouncing back, fears of inflation seem to be unfounded -- but it's hard to overlook the fact that the gold boom coincided with Glenn Beck's Fox News tenure (with the Beck-endorsed Goldline as a key sponsor).
And in Pocatello, Idaho, the tiny golden treasure of Jon Norstog has dwindled, too. A $29,000 investment that Mr. Norstog made in 2011 is now worth about $17,000, a loss of 42 percent.
"I thought if worst came to worst and the government brought down the world economy, I would still have something that was worth something," Mr. Norstog, 67, says of his foray into gold.
Gold, pride of Croesus and store of wealth since time immemorial, has turned out to be a very bad investment of late. A mere two years after its price raced to a nominal high, gold is sinking -- fast. Its price has fallen 17 percent since late 2011....
The Times notes that "$5 billion ... flowed into gold-focused mutual funds in 2009 and 2010." Beck's Fox show went on the air in January 2009 and was a ratings smash in '09 and '10. Gold mutual funds, the Times says, peaked in April 2011 -- the month Fox announced the end of Beck's show. The show ended on June 30, 2011. Gold prices peaked the next month.
Sorry, suckers -- you fell for this. You thought gold was going to help you through the Apocalypse that Beck promised you was imminent, several times a week. You got played.
Or perhaps...
Two prominent hedge fund managers who had taken big positions in gold [exchange-raded funds], George Soros and Louis M. Bacon, sold in the last quarter of 2012, according to recent regulatory filings.IT'S ALL GEORGE SOROS'S FAULT!!!!!!1!!1!!!!!!!
"Gold was destroyed as a safe haven, proved to be unsafe," Mr. Soros said in an interview last week with The South China Morning Post of Hong Kong. "Because of the disappointment, most people are reducing their holdings of gold."
10 comments:
It wouldn't be the first time a right-wing wacko went broke trying to make money from a precious metal:
Nelson Bunker Hunt and William Herbert Hunt, the sons of Texas oil billionaire Haroldson Lafayette Hunt, Jr., had for some time been attempting to corner the market in silver. In 1979, the price for silver jumped from $6 per troy ounce ($0.193/g) to a record high of $48.70 per troy ounce ($1.566/g), which represents an increase of 712%. The brothers were estimated to hold one third of the entire world supply of silver (other than that held by governments). The situation for other prospective purchasers of silver was so dire that the jeweller Tiffany's took out a full page ad in the New York Times, condemning the Hunt Brothers and stating "We think it is unconscionable for anyone to hoard several billion, yes billion, dollars worth of silver and thus drive the price up so high that others must pay artificially high prices for articles made of silver".[1]
It effected silver prices for years afterwards.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday
And, ya know, if you were to speculate in a commodity, instead of gold, you'd be better off with what are called 'rare earth elements'--metals that make magnets and much of the electronic gadgets we use today for work and fun possible.
Iridium, osmium, palladium are platinum-group metals, and they're useful as well. That's what I'd invest in long-term, stocks of the stuff or stocks in the companies that mine them.
Interestingly, though, the "buy gold" commercial movement has also been common on the left-wing radio shows: Thom Hartmann, Randi Rhodes, Mike Malloy and I think Ed Schultz all did gold-as-investment ads (whether they believed in them or not, but they did do them.) It all just seems the result of moneyed research showing that, in uncertain economic times, a buck can be made off people's general good feeling about gold -- its use, its "beauty," its legacy (Fort Knox, Goldfinger and all that.)
Pfft, gold is so 2010. Bitcoin is the new glibertarian hotness. Perfect for people who want to use an online currency free of corruption by central bankers, but don't want to be able to spend it anywhere online, and don't mind if you can't withdraw it for 12 hours or more while the market "cools down."
TBogg tweeted divinely today on the bitcoin topic: "Bitcoins are Beanie Babies for libertarians. Wait till they try to use them to buy survival seeds come the zombie apocalypse."
Really good post Steve. They keep Fox on daily in the lunch room now. (I think the owner wants to help us make better voting decisions in the future) But honestly liberals really should keep an eye on it, because it is the borg's mainsource. And man is it full of fear.
That's become my main talking point against Fox too. I figure a bit of ridicule pointing out the major fear factor might get thru where policy ideas just get shot down.
Anyway. Just wanted to comment on this post because I think you're right and the NYT missed the scoop.
Greg beat me to it, with the leftie talkers also pushing gold. But I'm sure they didn't push anywhere near as much as the apocalyptic rightes.
JoyousMN,
If FOX is on somewhere I go, I ask if they wouldn't mind changing the channel to something else.
Ditto, CNBC.
And, as much as I hate Wolf Blitzer, I'll even take him as an alternative.
And if they don't, then I take my business elsewhere.
If I can.
And since this sounds like your job, it may not be possible. But, maybe another non-news alternative could be found.
When I was a bartender back in the 90's, working daytimes at a pub that usually featured sports on the TV's, and ESPN was showing some stupid sport no one gave a crap about, some people used to clamor for me to put on Jerry Springer.
I told them if they wanted to watch cartoonish characters, I have just the shows for them - on the Cartoon Network.
And that became a staple, and people used to come in just for the Bugs, and Daffy, and Foghorn, etc.
And if I had something else on, people were actually disappointed.
What I get a lot of when I ask a place to switch from FOX, is a lot more people thanking me, than giving me glares. A lot more people don't want fear and rage in their lives all of the time - they're just to scared of the angry people to ask to change the channel.
And, if I use the power of my dollars to change something for the better, I try.
Sometimes, though, like at my auto mechanics, I just pick-up the paper, or bring a book - the guy may be a right-wing loon, but he's trustworthy and good.
He may be crazy, but I ain't stupid.
On the other hand, any prepper who is worrying about the price of gold pre-apocalypse is something of an idiot. Who cares what the price is during the calm before the storm, if you truly believe that it's going to be the only stable store of value once disaster strikes?
(On the other hand, believing that is also really stupid, because the belief in the value of gold is essentially a belief in the existence of peaceful rich people somewhere else, which is the exact opposite of a global catastrophe. But what the heck.)
Y'awl let me know when you figure out how tp eat gold, ot bitcoins.
Victor, you're so much politer than I am. I change the channel or tell the employee with the channel changer to do it. At one doctor's office, I had the channel changed to C-SPAN---and that's where it was when I came back months later! I'm not sure what that means.
So, wait. Glenn Beck was helping George Soros get richer?
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
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