absolutezero

Makes the Churchill crown look attractive!

Congratulations. You got lucky. An estimate of the future where there are a massive number of variables that can ruin your projection within the next week alone is pointless and, dare I say, useless.

No. I'm not a GP.

Projections are useless if they're more than 6 months in advance (and even then they're only slightly less useless!) Nobody knows the future.

Senior?! Most people never get a promotion!

You don't. You take it from those who are not weak and old.

Gold's only worth something because people believe it is. It's all about confidence. The big thing that gold has in its favour is that it cannot be inflated away at the press of a button.

I am open to persuasion but don't make out it's some kind of enlightened club and anyone who doesn't believe isn't one of the illuminati. I prefer to think of money as labour rather than bits of paper.

This is the problem. No bugger knows what's going to happen. Which is why I talk about diversity.

It's all well and good saying that but if you buy gold at £700 it will buy you £700 worth of goods. If it falls to £350 then it'll buy me only half as many goods. Gold is a commodity like any other, except it's pretty to look at and does have a magical kind of allure. However it is subject to supply and demand. Putting most of your money into it is speculation and not wisdom.

Most people in the public sector (pretty much the only place to get a half decent pension unless CEO of a FTSE 100 company) don't earn anything like £50k.

Impossible for most people. Like most, you over-estimate public sector pay. But we'll go with it for these purposes. These are crazy assumptions you know. I do suspect some "creative accounting" has gone on here!

I believe silver will, in % terms, rise in price more than gold. No such thing since 2008. Now this raises a very interesting idea. Must admit to never having thought of myself as a bond. What if you see your lifetime salary as an inflation hedged bond, you have a public sector final salary pension, 10% of your liquid assets in precious metals and another 15% in FTSE100 shares and the rest in cash?

I'm not saying gold isn't a good investment. What I do say is: Is gold a good investment now? And: I don't think holding most of your wealth in gold is a good idea. 10%? 20%? Why not? But over 50% and I think you're barking.

This is the problem with statistics and graphs. Depending on what you want to prove you can present the data how you like. As far as I am concerned gold is in a classic bubble. As far as some other people on here are concerned, it's not in anything like a bubble.