Quote from: jseverson on January 25, 2019, 05:15:35 AM

Quote from: deisik on January 23, 2019, 09:40:42 AM

Gold is good for private investors (and not so much for nation states)

And only as a store of value, i.e. if you are looking to earn money with it, it is definitely not the best (or even second best) choice and option. People buy gold to store their wealth in it, but you should have already acquired that wealth in the first place and not be looking to multiply it. And physical gold is definitely a long-term investment, with investment horizons possibly exceeding decades. If you want to use gold as a short-term investment (for whatever reason), you'd better look into gold derivatives as you will save yourself a lot of overhead expenses that possessing physical gold invariably involves (buying it, storing it, and then selling it)

You may have misunderstood my point. I wasn't saying it's better as an investment short-term, just that it's one of the best options for them if they want to diversify i.e. keep their money's value. They're not turning away from the USD to make money after all

In fact, you said that gold is the superior option short-term

But that's a minor transgression, really. The much bigger one is that gold is not good even for long-term investment or holding (call it what you like) for nation states unless you control the world gold trade (read, can set prices as you see fit). And it is definitely not Russia which controls it. Buying gold is a poor man's choice, only at a national level. Russia is freezing their resources in gold which means losing time and opportunity

If anything, they should invest these resources in their economic development instead. But the latter seems to be beyond their "capacity", and all they can do now is buy gold and a basket of foreign currencies with the dollars they receive from selling mineral resources such as crude oil, metals, natural gas, etc