‘You can print money as much as you like but you can’t print gold’ – by Lawrence Williams (Mineweb.com – October 15, 2012)

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A quote from a Swiss gold refiner/trader puts the case for gold as sound money very succinctly and coupled with the suggestion that it is a Giffen good, bodes well for further price rises.

LONDON (MINEWEB) – The title of this article is very much a truism which says much about the position gold has held as an international standard for many centuries and why, ultimately, it will hold its position as the monetary yardstick against which all global currencies in this fiat money world will ultimately be measured, and fail to pass muster. Indeed if some far cleverer analysts and economists than I are to be listened to, these currencies will collapse into a morass of hyperinflation unless the money printing can somehow be brought under control.

With QE to infinity policies currently in place in most of the world’s key financial blocs, the likelihood of such controls coming into place before at least one major currency does collapse is becoming more and more remote. And if one does collapse the dominoes could rapidly start to fall plunging the world into financial Armageddon where the middle classes in particular will have their wealth totally destroyed. One sincerely hopes that somehow this doomsday scenario can be avoided, but it’s as well to be prepared just in case.

I am indebted to an article on Swiss dominance in global gold refining on website www.swissinfo.ch for the quote used in the title – (from Frédéric Panizzutti, spokesman for MKS (Switzerland) SA, a Swiss company, which specialises in gold trading and which owns the Pamp gold refinery). Interestingly, Switzerland is a nation which is not amongst the principal money printing areas of the world, although by recently tying its currency to the Euro it is increasingly losing control over its financial destiny, potentially eroding many years of Swiss financial propriety.

It has been finding that the strength of the Swiss Franc from these years has been a limiting factor on its exports, but many feel that its attempts to keep its currency parity stable (or debasing it as some would say) to aid its competitiveness in its biggest export market will prove impossible to maintain long term.

So, while it is possible to continue churning out additional paper money, seemingly ad infinitum, the global gold stock can only grow by a few small percentage points a year which, in the days when currencies were tied to gold, gave them a huge degree of stability. Nowadays, continual expansion of the money supply, with no backing, has ultimately to be inflationary – and the more the money supply is expanded, by whatever means, the more likely is it that this inflation will turn into hyperinflation.

For the rest of this article, please go to the mineweb.com website: http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page33?oid=160204&sn=Detail&pid=102055