Are We Living in Bizarro World?

“If you went to Wall Street and left a gold coin on one side of the sidewalk and a regular coin on the other side, I’m sure you’d find that even gold-averse stock brokers would decide to pick up the gold coin first.”

by Paul Airasian

Superman fought many villains to protect “truth, justice, and the American way.” One of the most memorable was Bizarro, a crude copy of Superman who came from a cube-shaped planet that was a backwards version of Earth. In the Bizarro World, it was a crime to do anything well or make anything perfect, ugliness was considered beautiful, alarm clocks dictated when to go to bed…

Wake up; we’re living in Bizarro World.

Today, many of our society’s most basic notions of good and bad seem backwards.

– Debt is good.

– Consumer savings is a threat.

– Entrepreneurs are suspect.

– The Federal Reserve is the savior of our economy.

– Selling off our national workforce is good.

– Politicians take credit for “creating jobs” in the private sector.

– Business owners sell their businesses to investment groups that have no experience in owning or operating the business. They in turn load it with debt, dilute the leadership, package it as a success, and sell it at grossly inflated values.

– The CEOs of companies that lose billions of dollars in a quarter are compensated tens of millions of dollars for their “leadership.”

Maybe this is summed up in a song lyric, “Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right…”

In any case, welcome to Bizarro World.

This is a world where “change” is hailed as progress, even when it throws our values into reverse and we go backwards. So, even if a future monetary crisis seems like a wake-up call to you, don’t expect the “mess media” to report that we allowed the backward reasoning of supposedly forward-thinking politicians to implement policies that weakened our economy and our nation’s independence.

In such a topsy-turvy world, though, it is encouraging to know that gold is still reliable, enduring, “real” money.

But how can you explain the reality of gold to a gold-agnostic in this age of the bizarro? I’d suggest the 4 A’s of gold:

Asset – Gold is, in and of itself, a precious asset. It is rare, enduring, and not dependent on the performance of people, policies and politics. One analyst called it, “the North Star of asset values that all other assets revolve around.”

Abstraction – Gold is appealing in an abstract sense. For example, it signifies the best in jewelry. Like fine art, it has an intrinsic value that goes beyond most material things. “Good as gold” is not just a metaphor; it is a universal belief.

Allure – If you went to Wall Street and left a gold coin on one side of the sidewalk and a regular coin on the other side, I’m sure you’d find that even gold-averse stock brokers would decide to pick up the gold coin first. It has an historical allure that is instinctive.

Anxiety – Throughout history, people have invested more heavily in gold when there was serious uncertainty about the financial, political, and cultural underpinnings of society. Anxiety is widespread now, so it’s no wonder that we have been in a gold bull market the past few years. It gives me no joy to predict the obvious: the anxiety we feel about the threats to our economy and way of life will only increase for the foreseeable future.

There is no Superman to save us from ourselves. If we are to return to “truth, justice, and the American way,” we have to accept that “the real world” must be based on real things.

Gold is an important part of that real world and gold will be an important key to securing a brighter future.

Frankly, it is bizarre to think otherwise.

Editor’s Note: Paul M. Airasian is founder and editor of www.GoldInstitute.net. He has researched and evaluated gold exploration and mining companies as an investor and investment advisor for over twenty-five years. He is an independent consultant on precious metals investments.