Well, a few nations like China and Venezuela have been hot to buy gold lately, so that supports the ‘uncivilized’ part. I wonder if what he meant to say was ‘civilized people dont invest in gold’. That might make more sense, since gold is for storing wealth rather than growing it, IMHO.
Notes From The Bunker
His comment is absolutely idiotic on a number of levels. First, lots of civilized people are buying gold (Marc Faber immediately comes to mind). Second, it ignores the reason these civilized people (and countries, and banks, and investment houses, etc.) are buying gold, which is this: paper or digital money is worth less the more of it there is; and there’s been a LOT of recent out-of-air creation of paper and digital money lately. To be fair, gold is also worth less the more of it there is, but we haven’t hit a new Klondike strike lately and aren’t likely to in the near future. Furthermore, the old steadfast producers of gold are showing ongoing decreases in annual gold production (e.g., South African mines produce less every year). Gold is also oftentimes a much more transferable (geographically speaking) store of wealth). A single government can limit the redeemability of its currency overseas (or at home), but there are lots of consumers of gold willing to accept it as a store of wealth. And finally, Munger discounts (I hope he’s correct in doing so) that we may all soon be Viennese Jews looking for an escape route out of our situation. However this all turns out, these are bad times, and bad times cause people to resort to the age-old time-tested safety mechanisms.
Just think of what kind of stuff the CEO of a major corporation could put away if he/she was a prepper?
I read someplace that land in northern Minnesota has been bought up by “Hedge Fund” types, so I bet that they have some gold/silver put aside for a “nuclear fallout” type of day.
Gold and silver, whiskey and ammo, food and water.
Arable farmland….thats supposed to be the big hedge these days.