My regular Saturday comment followed by this week’s blog and financial site links.
I can’t decide whether I should feel frightened at no longer having any exposure to gold, or pleased I’m not taking part in a bubble.
Generally I subscribe to the Keynesian view that gold is a ‘barbarous relic’. I sold my holding in Blackrock’s Gold and General fund during the credit crisis to buy more cheap shares.
Like many modern investors I don’t like gold because it’s a near-useless lump of metal that’s only worth what someone will pay for it.
But equally, I can see that’s what gives it special status when diversifying a portfolio. Gold is uniquely useless, and that makes it a potentially pure bet on money supply, compared to say copper or silver which also have industrial uses.
This week saw the gold price fly past $1,100, and the usual justifications trotted out:
- There’s an inflation timebomb ticking away, so buy gold
- Quantitative easing and cheap money threatens the survival of paper currency
- Central banks in Asia are buying more gold
- Supply is diminishing while demand is increasing
- The future is more uncertain — only gold gives certainty
Most of these don’t stand up to scrutiny.
I have been enjoying my iPhone for a few months now, although as I told blogger Len Penzo for this article:
…buyer’s remorse kicked in over my iPhone almost as soon as I bought it.
For a start, I’m not using anything like enough of its functions. The camera isn’t as good as I expected, and 3G coverage is poor where I live. Adding to the misery, like any good money blogger, I worked out the total iPhone bill in advance for my 18 months minimum ownership, so I know I am paying over $1,500 in your U.S. pesos for the pleasure of this disappointment.
Finally, to buy it I had to track it down via multiple shops and phone calls — there was a run on 3GS iPhones in London at the time — which reminded me how time-consuming buying stuff is.
Since then, I’ve started appreciating my iPhone a little more.
Most times in life, it pays to think long term. There are a few exceptions:
- If you’re trying to decide whether to kiss her, kiss her
- If you’re wondering whether to go to the party, go to the party
- If he’s big and mean and about to hit you, duck out and live with the shame
- If given the chance to stop over, stop over (I’m thinking cities here, but do extend this rule to suit your own personal level of debauchery)
That’s about it for times when short term thinking should overwhelm long term goals. If you’re not about to kiss, party, be hit or hit New York, look to the far horizon.
Long-term thinking is especially important if you’re planning to escape the rat race. This famous scramble is aptly-named in honour of experiments in which the hapless rodents pull levers for sweets and run nowhere in wheels to avoid electric shocks.
I doubt the rats think for more than two seconds beyond their next tasty treat or miserable let down. What an apt metaphor for today’s wage slaves and Saturday morning consumer warriors.
My regular Saturday comment followed by this week’s blog and financial site links.
I missed doing the Weekend Review last Saturday due to being away for work, and then by Sunday I was coming down with flu. By Monday I was dying good and proper, as only a man with a cold can.
Health is the most precious thing in this life. A cliche I know — if you want to stitch it into one of those wall hangings old people used to hang above their beds, perhaps with a picture of a dozing dormouse, be my guest. It’s true.
I would give all my wealth for the guarantee of never being ill again (perhaps reluctantly compromising on some termination clause, such as a piano dropping on my head or a date with the proverbial bus).
A friend of mine sometimes speculates about the size of the ‘Monevator Hoard’, as he almost calls it.
Over the years he’s noted I like to save a lot, and also my interest in the stock market. Putting two and two together, he gets millions.
I avoid talking about money and my portfolio in everyday life. Partly it’s because I’m a very private person, blogging notwithstanding.
It’s also because I live in London, one of the most moneyed cities in the world, where there’s thousands of wealthy folk who make any normal person’s savings look like loose change. (£500,000 bonus, anyone?)
But my friend does the same sort of work as me, and is roughly the same age – he wouldn’t expect me to have £5 million and my own man at Coutts.
I’m certain from what he’s implied though that he’d think the cash value of my investments very large, were I to tell him. He’d likely see me (maybe he already does see me) as a wealthy miser who should spend his mundanely-gotten gains on wine, women, and song – or at least the next round.
That assessment of our relative wealth would differ markedly from mine.
