What Is Key for the Price Formation of Gold
mrearlygold
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What Is Key for the Price Formation of Gold
Robert Blumen interviewed by Lars Schall of Gold Switzerland
In this exclusive interview for Matterhorn Asset Management, Robert Blumen discusses some important but widely misunderstood elements acting on the gold price. He explains that frequently cited gold demand statistics have no relationship to the gold price. In addition, he explains that the annual gold mine production is of very little influence, as gold is hoarded, not consumed like other commodities.
Robert Blumen was born in 1964 and grew up in Boulder, Colorado, United States. He is a graduate of Stanford University in physics and the University of California Berkeley in engineering. He lives in San Francisco, United States where he works in the technology sector as a software engineer, specializing in server applications and the architecture of scalable systems. He has maintained a lifelong interest in the Austrian School of Economic Thought and is an avid reader in economics and finance. His writings on gold and a variety of economic topics have been published by Financial Sense, the Ludwig von Mises Institute, LewRockwell.com, The Dollar Vigilante, and Marc Faber’s Gloom Boom and Doom letter as well as other gold and financial sites.
Lars Schall: Mr. Blumen, how did you become interested in the subject of gold in general?
Robert Blumen: There were two main influences when I was growing up in the 1970s and 80s. We went through a period of very high inflation in the United States. President Nixon imposed wage and price controls in a misguided, or perhaps very cynical, attempt to fight inflation. And Nixon’s successor, President Ford, handed out these silly little lapel buttons that said “Whip Inflation Now”. I remember seeing a young man on the TV news who had reported a chain store for the economic crime of raising the price of one of their products. He was being given some kind of award for this.
The second historical event was the gold bull market of the late 70s. Then Reagan came in along with Paul Volker who he inherited from the former president, Carter. I wasn’t paying much attention at the time but it stuck with me that gold had made this huge move.
Those two things came together and had a life-long influence on me. From that time I took away a curiosity about inflation. And that led me eventually to be curious about the whole field of economics. I was lucky that I came upon the Austrian School of Economics. I started reading Austrian economics in high school. The Austrian School emphasized gold as the basis of the monetary system and how well that has worked out over the course of human history.
L.S.: The growing interest in gold was underlined recently in a report that was published by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), which has the title “Gold, the renminbi and the multi-currency reserve system“. (1) I think that this report is quite remarkable for various reasons. Do you agree?
R.B.: The report suggests that the international monetary system will accept gold in a more recognized way as a reserve asset. I think that this is already true, informally. There are many signs of this. Central banks have gone from selling to buying in recent years.
On the intellectual plane, I think there the consensus
Gold Price-Continued
Robert Blumen interviewed by Lars Schall of Gold Switzerland
In this exclusive interview for Matterhorn Asset Management, Robert Blumen discusses some important but widely misunderstood elements acting on the gold price. He explains that frequently cited gold demand statistics have no relationship to the gold price. In addition, he explains that the annual gold mine production is of very little influence, as gold is hoarded, not consumed like other commodities.
Robert Blumen was born in 1964 and grew up in Boulder, Colorado, United States. He is a graduate of Stanford University in physics and the University of California Berkeley in engineering. He lives in San Francisco, United States where he works in the technology sector as a software engineer, specializing in server applications and the architecture of scalable systems. He has maintained a lifelong interest in the Austrian School of Economic Thought and is an avid reader in economics and finance. His writings on gold and a variety of economic topics have been published by Financial Sense, the Ludwig von Mises Institute, LewRockwell.com, The Dollar Vigilante, and Marc Faber’s Gloom Boom and Doom letter as well as other gold and financial sites.
Lars Schall: Mr. Blumen, how did you become interested in the subject of gold in general?
Robert Blumen: There were two main influences when I was growing up in the 1970s and 80s. We went through a period of very high inflation in the United States. President Nixon imposed wage and price controls in a misguided, or perhaps very cynical, attempt to fight inflation. And Nixon’s successor, President Ford, handed out these silly little lapel buttons that said “Whip Inflation Now”. I remember seeing a young man on the TV news who had reported a chain store for the economic crime of raising the price of one of their products. He was being given some kind of award for this.
The second historical event was the gold bull market of the late 70s. Then Reagan came in along with Paul Volker who he inherited from the former president, Carter. I wasn’t paying much attention at the time but it stuck with me that gold had made this huge move.
Those two things came together and had a life-long influence on me. From that time I took away a curiosity about inflation. And that led me eventually to be curious about the whole field of economics. I was lucky that I came upon the Austrian School of Economics. I started reading Austrian economics in high school. The Austrian School emphasized gold as the basis of the monetary system and how well that has worked out over the course of human history.
L.S.: The growing interest in gold was underlined recently in a report that was published by the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), which has the title “Gold, the renminbi and the multi-currency reserve system“. (1) I think that this report is quite remarkable for various reasons. Do you agree?
R.B.: The report suggests that the international monetary system will accept gold in a more recognized way as a reserve asset. I think that this is already true, informally. There are many signs of this. Central banks have gone from selling to buying in recent years.
On the intellectual plane, I think there the consensus
Gold Price-Continued
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