California authorities are investigating Goldline's sales practices and ABC reported on that.
As I have pointed out before, it appears that Goldline does attempt to push buyers toward numismatic coins (which have higher profit margins) versus "bullion coins". And although bullion coins are the type of coins any sophisticated investor wanting to participate in upside gold action would buy, Goldline is really educating new investors about gold. Education costs money. Bottom line: The coins Goldline is selling are not the best deals in the world, but there are a lot worse investments. Long term, the people who buy these coins will be fine. If they try to sell them in the short term, the result is apt to be not so good.
All that said, part of what Beck said in response to the ABC story is interesting:
They are going to nudge the gold industry out of business.They are going to regulate it and regulate it and regulate it, until you won't be able to buy gold anymore. This is what I'm telling you -- they can't have people buying gold. They need to own all the gold. They're going to nudge us. Mark my words.There might be some truth to that. They put the gold 1099 rule in the healthcare bill which will require gold dealers to fill out a 1099 form for every gold coin purchase or sale, so who knows what is next? What is known is the Obama Administration loves the nudge and the 1099 move feels like a nudge.
Not a huge fan of Beck, for obvious reasons, but I think he has accurately described the situation. The government would like to deal with the rising price of gold once and for all by simply making too expensive to buy or sell it.
ReplyDeleteI hate Beck with all my being, but I believe him to be correct in this case.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I object to calling any policy a "nudge." I think a "club" is a better description, as in, "If you don't do this, they'll club you."
Wouldn't a huge black market in gold develop?
ReplyDeleteI fully expect if things start to get really bad that there will be some curtailment of Gold ownership that could go as far as doing what FDR did. If nothing else governments hates gold becuase its value correlates to perceived government policy failure.
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