According to Gary North of LewRockwell.com, it is. That is, when you have to justify gold’s embarrassing performance from 1980-2001, from a closing high of $850 USD an ounce in January 1980, to a low of $255 an ounce in 2001.
He writes:
“The case for gold as an investment is different. First, it is an inflation hedge over long periods of time, though not necessarily in the medium term, e.g., 1980–2001. Second, it is a crisis hedge when the international capital markets are in turmoil. (So, for that matter, is the U.S. dollar.)“
Official inflation from 1980-2001 was 115%, according to the BLS, while gold declined by 70% over that period. Gary North has to rely on making the arbitrary claim that 21 years is the medium-term in order for his claim about gold being an inflation hedge over the long-term, to not be utterly embarrassing.
BusinessDictionary.com defines a long-term investment as one “that matures in more than 10 years,” and to me, 21 years falls well within the scope of a long-term investment, and outside that of a “medium-term investment”.
[...] “gold bug,” he admitted gold was a bad investment from 1980-2001, he made the outlandish claim that 21 years is a medium-term investment to justify gold’s embarrassing performance during that time, and claimed that gold coins [...]
[...] term,” which he arbitrarily defines as up to at least 21 years, in order to justify gold’s embarrassing performance from 1980-2001, which he himself admitted [...]
[...] July 19, I wrote about Gary North’s claim that 21 years is a “medium term” investment in order to [...]
http://archives2010.gcnlive.com/Archives2010/jul10/RadioDetective/0716102.mp3 8:16 I struck again on The Radio Detective. Once again trying to divert the conversation to the only thing that matters.
http://archives2010.gcnlive.com/Archives2010/jul10/RadioDetective/0719102.mp3 8:16 I hate trying to copy these stupid links.
That was great how you described to the guest, the criminal operation that is the Federal Reserve, for him to think you were talking about some local crooks and agree they were crooks, then revealing that you were talking about government-sanctioned crooks.
And then they proceeded to get off that subject right quick. If I explained to those guys how a non-parasitic monetary system worked, they would be thinking “this guy is a communist”. No, this is already communism and capitalism would be everyone keeping what they earn. Can you imagine?