"...GOLD AS MONEY:
Students of gold’s monetary role would have also been interested to note two statistics coming out of the Europen continent:
i) The growth in European investment demand of a staggering 135%, as Europe became the world’s largest gold investment market. As the European debt crisis has continued to grow from slight obscurity two years ago to a fully feldged international crisis, market participants have been increasingly drawn to gold’s uncorruptible reserve status free from counterparty risk. Anecdotal evidence from the recent Munich precious metals conference is suggestive of such demand, where commentators were amazed at the levels of physical up-take by conference attendees. Trust in government issued paper is collapsing, and gold, the antitheis of government debt, has been sought out.
ii) The more than doubling of demand for bars and coins in Switzerland. This demand jumped by 121% to 37.2 tonnes and was partially attributed to the surprising intervention of the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to essentially peg the Swiss Franc to the Euro. This phenomenon seems rather notable given that the Swiss used to enjoy one of the world’s most sound currencies. Although as Ned Naylor-Leyland urges, currencies like the Swiss Franc were always just ‘the best looking horses in the fiat glue factory’. With the SNB undermining the Swissie, the savings of millions of Swiss suddenly became less secure and they seem to have responded by trading in their paper for gold. Who can blame them..."
at http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article31680.html
Students of gold’s monetary role would have also been interested to note two statistics coming out of the Europen continent:
i) The growth in European investment demand of a staggering 135%, as Europe became the world’s largest gold investment market. As the European debt crisis has continued to grow from slight obscurity two years ago to a fully feldged international crisis, market participants have been increasingly drawn to gold’s uncorruptible reserve status free from counterparty risk. Anecdotal evidence from the recent Munich precious metals conference is suggestive of such demand, where commentators were amazed at the levels of physical up-take by conference attendees. Trust in government issued paper is collapsing, and gold, the antitheis of government debt, has been sought out.
ii) The more than doubling of demand for bars and coins in Switzerland. This demand jumped by 121% to 37.2 tonnes and was partially attributed to the surprising intervention of the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to essentially peg the Swiss Franc to the Euro. This phenomenon seems rather notable given that the Swiss used to enjoy one of the world’s most sound currencies. Although as Ned Naylor-Leyland urges, currencies like the Swiss Franc were always just ‘the best looking horses in the fiat glue factory’. With the SNB undermining the Swissie, the savings of millions of Swiss suddenly became less secure and they seem to have responded by trading in their paper for gold. Who can blame them..."
at http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article31680.html
