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Gold Sold From Vending Machines In Germany
There are fewer hassles for an adventurer or business traveler bigger than lugging around bags of silver and copper pieces. Luckily TG-Gold-Super-Markt has installed gold vending machines in 500 locations including train stations and airports all across Germany. The machines charge about 30% more than the current trading price for gold, and are updated every few minutes. All are closely monitored by cameras, and like 3rd and 4th edition, electrum pieces are not accepted.
Actually, if you try to buy physical gold in small pieces (such as the 1 gram wafer mentioned in TFA) you'll find the markup is easily 20% or more over "spot price."
The spot price you see quoted in the daily business reports is really only relevant if you're buying "paper gold" such as certificates in a common pool ... or if you're an institutional investor buying hundreds of ounces at a time.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
When Inflation hits hard and money turns to useless paper, gold or anything similar is how you preserve your assets.
Germany after WW1 actually saw this (bread costing million one day and 10 million the other day, but exactly same amount of barter currency. It made helluva lot sense to spend 1000 on gold because withing year those 1000 were only good as tinder and would buy one something like one grain of wheat while gold kept value much, much better.)
Remember that money nowadays that is unbacked is just piece of paper without government enforcing it as legal tender as it is.
Gold at 30% extra is swell deal if you are faced with possibility that your cash would be worth 50% less tomorrow.
-- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
Or those who had it forcibly confiscated by the US Government in 1933, under the liberal's hero, FDR.
GLD is the main gold ETF, and it holds physical gold in a vault. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/surging-gold-etf-holds-more-metal-than-some-governments?siteid=yhoof
If this isn't a "sell" signal, I don't know what is.
If you happen to be a investor on the stock market, you can buy ProShares UltraShort Gold (ETF) on ticker GLL which is a leveraged short fund on gold. I've been thinking on putting something in it but Gold has been dropping due to the unexpected dollar strength so its a bit high right now.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
From kitco.com:
Gold Bar 400 oz $378,440.00 = $946/oz
Gold Maple 1 oz $1,015.85 = $1015/oz
Gold Maple 1/2 oz $514.98 = $1030/oz
Gold Maple 1/4 oz $266.90 = $1068/oz
Gold Maple 1/10 oz $126.50 = $1265/oz
Gold Maple 1/20 oz $75.25 = $1505/oz
Now all you need is a smelter, minting facility, and a distribution model and you're ready to start making some easy money.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
When it comes to awesome bad plans involving elements, Theodore Grey is usually a good one to talk to...
If this were true, I could buy "hundreds of ounces" then divide them up and sell them at 20% markup. That sounds like easy money. Why am I sitting here in this cubicle?
Most likely, because you lack the initial capitial to buy the "hundreds of ounces" (and honestly you'll probably need an order of magnitude or more to really make this business plan work) to begin with. Sorry dude, but the way out of techo-serfdom isn't that easy.
No it isn't, because one of your other options is gold without the 30% premium
Only if you're buying in large quantity.
For example, spot price of gold is currently $936/ounce. More readily purchasable gold bullion coin (using the 1oz Canadian gold maple leaf as an example) is currently priced at $1078/ounce, which is a 15% markup. and now consider these are selling in 1/30th that quantity and the markup is higher. Compare a 1 kilo (32.15oz) bar of gold, which currently costs $31,396, or $976/oz, which is only a 4% markup.
As usual, buying in bulk is cheaper, provided you have the money to do that.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
It's a Dungeons and Dragons reference. Before 3rd and 4th editions, electrum pieces were a form of in-game currency, worth five silver pieces or half a gold piece if I recall correctly.
Long? What do you mean the signature at the bottom of every comment I post on Slashdot is too lo
...Get off my /., this is news for nerds. Every nerd should understand a basic D&D reference :\
For thousands of years gold has been recognized as money. It is only because our paper money has lasted a surprisingly long time that people don't readily recognize it as money. No paper money system has lasted longer than 100 years, and ours is about 80.
1 ounce of Gold has always bought about 400 loaves of bread. You would think with all the advances in modern machinery this would make gold dirt cheap. It hasn't because it is so scarce (thinks tens of grams per tonne of dirt), and the process to extract it is very environmentally dangerous because it requires sodium cyanide.
Because of its rarity, gold is one of the most efficiently stored and universally recognized forms of wealth you can have.
I don't know about the lead, but leave some fish out and that should lure away the seals.
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
Just for clarification: ETFs are "exchange-traded funds", which is effectively a bucket filled with X, where X is absolutely whatever, and each share is a proportionate ownership of the bucket. The shares are traded.*
Now, for commodity ETFs, some actually have filled the bucket with physical gold, while others just have filled the bucket with a note saying "JP Morgan promises that this note has the value of lots of gold". Nothing can happen if the stock exchange or the administrator or the accounting or the custodian goes bust - however, in the latter case, if JP Morgan goes bust you own essentially zilch, while in the former case, you own a bucket full of gold.
Needless to say, checking whether your ETF holds physical stock or a derivative based on the stock might be an idea. There should be little if any difference in fees.
* The theory, which admittedly is crazily clever, is that the shares should always be valued according to what's in the bucket every second of the day, because you are able to get a bunch of shares and _trade them in_ for a proportionate amount of the bucket-content.
One gram of this gold is actually worth less than the market price for one gram. When you take your gold bars out of a professional gold vault, they cease to be "Good Delivery", which means they lose value to other traders since their purity is not guaranteed to the same standard.
Real gold traders always keep their gold in a vault, or move it between vaults. This is extremely expensive - but gold bars are expensive - $400k each! So it's not just a 30% markup - it's even worse than that. Confidence trick.
The tao of democracy: the government you can vote for is not the real government.
I'll stick to selling grass to a small circle of people.
8 oz = $162.50/oz
1 oz = $200/oz
0.5oz = $225/oz
0.25oz = $240/oz
0.125oz = $320/oz
1 gram = $420/oz
Markup is much better and the initial cost is much more reasonable.
Plus, repeat customers and no need to go "make sales". I'm not some punk on the street asking you if you want any weed.
It may not be NYC pricing (goddamn you guys get raped down there), but up here in Toronto but it's plenty for me. Almost Zero risk and I get to smoke for free.
The best part? Even if I get caught with a half pound while I'm driving it home - the chances of me actually seeing the inside of a jail cell are slim-to-none. Now, if I had that half pound weighed up in 1/4oz bags, then that's pretty much guaranteed trafficking. (guess what? chances are still good that I probably won't see any jailtime at all)
"We stand on guard for thee", indeed. How can I not love it up here?
Actually, he did answer the question, if you're sharp enough to catch it.
The current administration--along with the Congressional leadership--has shown itself to be hostile to the idea of us mere citizens owning firearms. Demand is through the roof as some of us--the ones who believe that the government is answerable to its people--are stocking up in case of future interruptions in supply. Modern marketing methods include the "just-in-time" supply chain; with the incredible spike in demand, not only are the ammo manufacturers unable to keep up, but their suppliers are unable to keep up with their demand. Metals suppliers--lead, copper, zinc--chemical suppliers--powder and priming compounds--etc. The entire supply chain is thin right now.
Now, the ammo manufacturers are doing the best they can. By raising prices, they're able to pay higher prices to their suppliers, increasing the quantity of raw materials supplied. By doing so, they have been able to increase production somewhat, but that has limits. The factories are running at full capacity. The only way to increase production past that point, assuming the availability of input materials, is to expand the production line. That would require the manufacturers to take out loans. Unfortunately, due to the aforementioned "leaders" running the show, it's by no means certain that the manufacturers would be able to sell enough ammunition to pay back those loans; said "leaders" are working on any number of laws to restrict ammunition sales (see, for example, microstamping, limitations on purchase quantities, and so forth). Considering the political risk, banks are (quite wisely) reticent to loan large sums of money to engage in such ventures. Throw in the fact that everybody knows it's a bubble, and will inevitably burst, and even if the manufacturers could get the money, they know that the increased demand probably wouldn't last through the payback period on the expansion. In fact, this is already starting to happen, proving the wisdom of riding the storm out without expanding facilities.
Does that answer your question more clearly?
Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!