Fool's Gold

A peculiar and early memory I have of clinical training is of sitting around in a hospital doctor's lounge and hearing one of the surgeons talk about the wisdom of buying gold. He encouraged me to do the same. For all I know gold was probably trading at $90 an ounce back then. Not that the price mattered to me. I was a third year medical student.  It could have been $5, $500 or $5000; I was in no position to buy anything other than gas for my car.

Unfortunately I haven't heeded his advice at any point since then either.  And so it is that I find myself, almost 30 years later, sitting in the hospital doctor's lounge listening to a surgeon talk about the wisdom of buying gold.  Now I've never been much of a planner beyond where to go next.  But I do have investments to fund my children's education. Or, rather, had.  I'm afraid to look after the last few days.  And I have the obligatory 401K and an ancient SEPIRA or some such thing.  But I never bought that gold.

Today a group of us were sitting and waiting for our cases to get started all the while the TV was on in that lounge and all eyes seemed to be trained on the fall of the market and the rise of gold. Maybe it's just sour grapes and, in all likelihood, things will probably never change, but suddenly I had to ask, "Who cares about gold?"

If you think about it, gold is valued for two reasons: as a decoration, an ornament, and as an historically valued commodity. That right there should be enough to set the whole financial world on its ear.  In a word, gold is worthless. Of all the things we need as humans gold doesn't even make the list. You can't eat it or drink it, you can't use it as a fuel, it has limited usefulness as an industrial metal. I think gold has probably about 1/100th the utility of soybeans. Even less of fresh water. Corn, rice, wheat, and even land all have far more value than number 79 on the periodic table of the elements.

So, as sheepish as I may feel about never heeding that old docs advice in 1982, when the bomb drops I'll have the last laugh sitting here with my bag of soybeans and bottle of fresh water.  And if the wine in the cellar survives...don't even think about it. Your gold will have no value amidst the rubble.