Touching base
Jan. 28th, 2026 06:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickOn January 19th, I posted about silver and gold prices. That was, just to be clear, NINE DAYS AGO.
January 19th gold price was 4695.80. At that point, I wrote Analysts are predicting $5000 an ounce this year...
Welp, the analysts were correct.
January 28th gold price is 5535.70
January 19th silver price was 95.33
January 28th silver price is 118.63
That's why we are talking about this again. Gold is up 18% in nine days and silver's up 24% over the same time frame. That seems like a lot, doesn't it?
(How to math a percentage increase: New Price - Old Price = Price Difference. Then do Price Difference / Old Price = Percentage Increase.)
Happy days are here again, then, at least for the people who have gold and sliver? Economy's going great?
Yeah, no.
No. This is not happy days are here again.
Look. A dollar has "worth" because people are willing to exchange actual things "with value" for paper dollars. When actual things "with value" start to cost more and more dollars, that can be for one of two reasons and it's really important to know which of the two reasons is behind the price increase.
Reason the first: There is more demand for the actual things "with value". More people want potatoes. More people want natural gas for heating because it's super cold out. More people want beef, that's why it's so fucking pricey at the grocery. This "more demand" reason for stuff costing more is considered "normal" and not an issue.
Reason the second: The dollar is "worth less" because of bad monetary policy, bad vibes on the geopolitical front (flight from Bretton Woods II, demise of the petrodollar, squandering goodwill from WWII onward), increasing national debt beyond the nation's ability to service it, etc. This reason is not great and will have far-reaching implications beyond just... expensive jewelry.
A dollar don't buy much these days and I'm worried that the rocketing increases in the price of precious metals is indicative of significant weakness in the dollar. *sigh*
However, the dollar-to-euro, dollar-to-yen, dollar-to-GBP exchange rates look normal-ish and everybody else's gold price charts look similarly insane like ours do. So maybe it's honestly Reason the first: More people want to own precious metals right now for #reasons.
January 19th gold price was 4695.80. At that point, I wrote Analysts are predicting $5000 an ounce this year...
Welp, the analysts were correct.
January 28th gold price is 5535.70
January 19th silver price was 95.33
January 28th silver price is 118.63
That's why we are talking about this again. Gold is up 18% in nine days and silver's up 24% over the same time frame. That seems like a lot, doesn't it?
(How to math a percentage increase: New Price - Old Price = Price Difference. Then do Price Difference / Old Price = Percentage Increase.)
Happy days are here again, then, at least for the people who have gold and sliver? Economy's going great?
Yeah, no.
No. This is not happy days are here again.
Look. A dollar has "worth" because people are willing to exchange actual things "with value" for paper dollars. When actual things "with value" start to cost more and more dollars, that can be for one of two reasons and it's really important to know which of the two reasons is behind the price increase.
Reason the first: There is more demand for the actual things "with value". More people want potatoes. More people want natural gas for heating because it's super cold out. More people want beef, that's why it's so fucking pricey at the grocery. This "more demand" reason for stuff costing more is considered "normal" and not an issue.
Reason the second: The dollar is "worth less" because of bad monetary policy, bad vibes on the geopolitical front (flight from Bretton Woods II, demise of the petrodollar, squandering goodwill from WWII onward), increasing national debt beyond the nation's ability to service it, etc. This reason is not great and will have far-reaching implications beyond just... expensive jewelry.
A dollar don't buy much these days and I'm worried that the rocketing increases in the price of precious metals is indicative of significant weakness in the dollar. *sigh*
However, the dollar-to-euro, dollar-to-yen, dollar-to-GBP exchange rates look normal-ish and everybody else's gold price charts look similarly insane like ours do. So maybe it's honestly Reason the first: More people want to own precious metals right now for #reasons.
