Buying while the price is charging upwards is always scary. Ten years from now we'll be able to point to the day and the price where it peaked. Buying the day before that day would haunt one for life.

I'm not big on this business of using gold to hoard wealth. Leads to greater and greater pressure to use resources of ACTUAL value, such as water, in pursuit of extracting gold. Yes, I know that gold has value in electronics, etc. but we're way past that.

Glen Beck thinks gold is a good idea. That's why I don't own any.

I have some gold teeth!

If I were liquid enough to play around I would think about an old Ferrari. They are doing pretty well at the moment.

At the moment I would have to say my old Ferrari was a better investment than all my real estate. But if real estate comes back I will be fine. Real estate is not liquid enough, but Ferraris aren't either, but you just need one buyer in either case.

And you cannot live in a car...at least not really comfortably.;)

And the BIL with the good gold investment might want to sell the gold and invest that in his kid's education. ($70K a year? where they going?)

Are you sure?

Yes, I was able to keep my streak of missing every upward trend alive.

I put all my money into tulip bulbs!

You might need to look this up. It was the first great bubble.

Gold is now running on the 'Greater Fool' theory. No matter what you paid for something, there is always a greater fool than you willing to pay more.

I do remember when the 'Classic Car' bubble popped about 30 years ago. People who loved to drive such cars could finally afford them after the speculators were wiped out when the supply of fools ran low.

Hart's Tulip Bulbs???;)

Thats certainly a GOOD clue!

Actually, he's my Brother.

Here's the list.
Rockhurst College, KC MO.
Saint Louis University, St. Louis, MO.
Spring Hill College, Mobile, AL.
All private Catholic Jesuit colleges. The list may grow to Carroll College in Cleveland, OH.

The gold fund instrument, (an Oppenheimer Fund) is all in one of his IRAs. The financial advisor has directed an IRA worth $40K into $400K-$500K. - According to my Brother. If I were him, I'd transfer much of it into other financial instruments - I did tell him that, in addition to telling him that his advisor guy wouldn't appreciate being "advised," if you will.

I'm agnostic on anyone else's investments - we're all on our own.

Nah, the market for quality bulbs went right into the crapper with the onslaught of cheap, Chinese-grown, packaged in Holland, "10 for $1" ones at all the big box stores. :(

Well not actually the FIRST bubble. The first one on record was a real estate venture.

Luxury condos with a scenic view. Did quite well for a few hundred years but the profits of the Pompeiian Timeshare L.L.C. went up in smoke. Quite a few people lost their ash on that one! (oh dear lord, is it time for a beer yet?)

Gold in 1980 was $800/oz. Silver was $20. They wouldn't have been very good investments then, as you were buying them with 1980 dollars.

Well, can't fault a guy for trying to plug a quality top-shelf organization like Hart's;)

Need more seed? :D

I would not invest in gold right now. 3 years ago I would have got it & held it for 18 months tops, if I wasn't saving for a house at the time. Right now, the stock market is recovering. The gold bubble will burst just like it has every time in the past when a recession has ended. It's not a question of if but when.