Place of gold in a perilous world – by Lawrence Williams (Mineweb.com – June 19, 2014)

http://www.mineweb.com/

With numerous conflict flashpoints around the world and the possibility of market collapses there has never been a better time to hold some gold as insurance.

LONDON (MINEWEB) – The world is a dangerous place. One only has to look at the rise in extremism, rogue regimes, overthrown governments attempting to regain power, ethnic and religious factions fanatically opposed to one another, and other violent conflicts to see this. Indeed one could say that the populace of Western democracies are perhaps more in peril now than at the peak of the Cold War when the threat of mutually assured nuclear destruction kept most serious conflicts from ever starting.

Back then there would have been a state to target should conflict arise. Nowadays the threat tends to come from small disparate fanatical groups which have no easily identifiable physical power base and with leadership by individuals who may be located almost anywhere. But the weapons available to these groups and rogue states are often the most sophisticated money can buy, and the illegal arms trade can supply, and their awareness of the high tech means by which their leaders might be located makes them increasingly difficult to track down and sanction.

Even if the leadership is destroyed in say a drone strike, it tends to be like the Hydra’s head – cut them off and more grow in its place and often these are more extreme than the originals. Should some of these more extreme groups gain access to nuclear and biological weapons we could be closer to at least partial Armageddon than at any time in global history.

The past week has seen worrying activity almost globally – with ISIS making huge unexpected incursions into the heart of Iraq, more terrorist activity claiming lives and hostages in Africa and the Ukraine insurgency continuing to escalate – and, as a result, the gold price has been picking up again as safe haven investment starts to return. But whether this is enough on its own to kickstart a really significant gold price rise remains to be seen.

In particular the American populace as a whole will likely remain unconcerned about activities on the other side of the world, but it should be aware that Al Qaeda and the even more extreme ISIS could perhaps pose even more of a major threat to people on the American continent than Russia has in the past or could in the future. And in Europe, which is closer geographically to most of the really serious global flashpoints, people are beginning to feel more vulnerable.

Consider the successful ISIS move on Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city with a population of around 1.8 million. There some 500,000 are reported to have fled the city – mostly to Kurdish territory to the east, while many more have been killed by the insurgents.

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