Gold: pros and cons

Every time gold sets new records gold related articles fill the media. In Seeking Alpha, gold related articles appear daily and in large numbers. Here are some picks that I found interesting recently:

Pro gold articles:

• AngloGold Ashanti Buys Back Hedges: Is That a Clue for Gold Investors?
• Gold Bubble? Think Again
• When Is the Gold Bubble Going to Burst?

Critical articles:

• Soros Explains His Comments on Gold as the Ultimate Bubble
• Determining the Intrinsic Value of Gold

Despite for repeated bubble calls, I remain pro-gold. It is the ultimate hedge against irresponsible government behavior. Currently such behavior (deficit spending & money printing) is rather common throughout the western world (so called "developed" countries ;-).

Closer look to most retirement schemes reveal that they are nothing more than giant ponzi schemes with a twist. The twist being that governments never get procecuted on the fraud. They just either lend some more money or print it. Or default under the debt load.

The most powerful signal towards continuing gold rally is the unwinding of hedge books by major miners (such as AngloGold as told in the first referenced article).

No matter how convinced I am to gold as speculative investment (or wealth preserver), I will not put a significant amount of my money into it. House, piece of land and farmland are also quite good inflation hedges if you are into them for a very long run. You see, land is no longer "manufactured" ;-)