For the first time ever, the price of an ounce of gold passed the $1,500 mark this week, as people continue to be terrified of the American economy and the tanking dollar. In fact, the dollar’s value dipped while gold was sold for $1,505.40, which is not a good thing, according to experts. This can actually be a very scary thing, unless you have a ton of gold, in which case you can openly laugh at people. India and China continue to be the world’s top gold consumers, while your neighbor Fun Steve placed dead last with his 11K gold filling. The price of silver also rose to an all-time high, which is great news for people who get drunk and purchase commemorative coins at 3 a.m. (*points to self*).
But it’s not just the American economy that is scaring buyers. Europe isn’t looking so hot either, which explains why gold is actually being favored as a currency for the first time in a century. Even officials at the University of Texas recently purchased a large amount of gold for financial security. Because of this practice, analysts see no reason that gold won’t continue to rise, eventually surpassing the $1,600 per ounce mark before the year’s end. They still don’t believe that this is a cause for panic, but that’s mainly because they want to buy all of the gold for themselves.
With that in mind, you’d think that Americans would be trying to invest whatever small amounts they could in gold and silver just in case the worst case scenario becomes a reality. But you’d be wrong, because we’re capitalist swine and we want straight cash now. People are flocking to pawn shops and gold brokers to sell their jewelry and loose gold items to take advantage of the record price. Heck, I even sold my nipple rings.
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- Gold price hits all-time high, which means Thunderdome is near. (WTKR Virginia)
- Will the value of gold hit $1,600? I’m holding out for pewter. (Benzinga)
- People are selling gold like crazy because they don’t understand money. (KMBC Kansas City)
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- President Barack Obama caught some heat for calling the federal government’s IT purchases “horrible”. But while that might have angered the White House’s Geek Squad, Obama was right. At least according to federal CIO Vivek Kundra, who added that federal IT is “broken”. (Gov Tech)
- A member of the Westboro Baptist Church was assaulted and beaten by a man at a Mississippi gas station because he was there to protest at a soldier’s death. Shockingly, not one person on the scene could tell the police what happened. (The Hayride)
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- While gold can be bought in bullion coins as small as 1/25 of an ounce and as large as 32-troy ounces, the most common form of bullion is the 1-troy ounce, which accounts for 75% of all gold traded around the world. (Only Gold)
- In 1848, as the California gold rush was beginning, the average worker in eastern America was making roughly 88 cents per day. In California, miners were making as much as $20 per day. I’ll bet the conditions were safer, too. (Shmoop)
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