I have confessed before to a morbid fascination with right wing media – radio shows, website and Fox News. I can’t take it for long periods of time, but I listen on the car radio when I’m picking up my kids from school and scan Fox News perodically on TV.
From my experience, there appear to be three primary kinds of advertising on these shows, financial scams (and as an aside, I have to wonder why their audiences never get insulted by that), the host’s own swag and merchandise (buy my book, my Israel tour, my concert tickets, my paperweights), and gold. It’s like a hard sell, 24/7 with the gold. That’s what makes me curious. Why gold? Why do the purveyors of gold think that conservative talk radio rubes are such ripe marks? Does it have something to do with trying to capitalize on the the paranoia endgendered by the Glenn beck’s of the world that the economy is about to crash and owning a few gold coins is going to save them?
Is it working? Has there been a right wing run on gold like there has been on ammo?
Its totally bi-partisan, you get the same ads over on lefty radio. Ed Shultz does it, Stephanie Miller, they both do voice ads urging their listeners to buy some gold from their very good friends…
I don’t know if it’s a “right-wing” run on gold, but certainly gold is at record prices right now. That has more to do with the economy crashing than anything, because the price of gold always spikes in a recession. The reasons for this are twofold- first, it’s the end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it types that you pegged, and second, it’s people who see gold as an inflation-proof place to stash their money, which isn’t entirely nutty but is not as good as deal as these advertisers would have you think. So these pitches are coming from two types of people- people who think that gold prices will continue to rise, as they always do in a recession, and people who own gold right now but think that the recession has bottomed out and want to sell their gold off now at its potential peak.
ETA: I never understood the nuts who think that gold will save them if the world crashes back to the dark ages. In the short term, gold will be valueless- you can’t eat it, you can’t defend yourself with it, and it won’t keep you warm. Nor will it be a desirable trade good when the Big One hits, at least not compared to liquor, ammo, and antibiotics. In the long run, someone with a gun will take it away from you.
Gold holds value in certain circles because it’s viewed as concrete wealth that will still retain value even if U.S. currency goes to hell in a hand basket. If I had oodles of cash lying around the house I’d consider turning some of it into gold just in case. However, it’s pretty low on my list of emergency preparations as there are more tangible risks. For example, I have my handy office parachute in case I’m in a building that gets hit by a plane.
I’ve been seeing a lot of gold commercials on television during the day. Most of these are “we’ll buy your gold” type of commercials that are extremely cheap and tacky. As someone mentioned, gold is selling very high right not so that explains the we’ll buy your gold commercials.
The ads are disingenuous too. I heard Tom Hartman peddling gold by saying, “You know, there’s a few foreign countries that won’t accept American dollars anymore!” meaning OMG!! The collapse of the dollar is happening!!!
What he neglected to say was those foreign countries are mostly asian, and the reason for the refusal is that North Korea is pumping out so much counterfeit American money that there’s a good chance of getting stuck with fake bills. They aren’t afraid of the American dollar collapsing at all.
Wouldn’t that make it a bad time to buy gold? I’m no economist, but isn’t the best time to buy gold when the price is rock bottom?
Seems to me the people selling gold know that, and are wanting to cash in. Then they wait 5 or 10 years until gold plummets during good times, and buy it back; lather, rinse, repeat.
“…so when the facist reactionaries start to exterminate anyone with any connection to ACORN or the Unitarian Church, you will need gold to bribe your way to Vermont…”
“…when the census is complete, they will know where all the guns are hidden, and a box of .30-.30 ammo will be an ounce of gold per box…”
“…my friends, gold is incorruptible, it never changes, no matter what! And what else is incorruptible, my friends, what else never changes, no matter what? Now, some of these atheistic agnostic so called “christians” will tell you that the Lord is against gold, that the Lord calls gold the root of all evil, but thats not true! The Scriptures say that the love of gold is the root of all evil! So, its not gold itself that is evil, but excessive affection for it! So long as you remain the very best friends with gold, but no more, then you’re all right in the Lord’s book! And gold is your best friend…forever!”
Potentially, in order to rake in fees for the trade. In the previous thread, already linked to by Una, Measure for Measure cited this article from Politico. It’s sad, how vulnerable some of these people are, but isn’t that always the way of things? Anyway, the companies don’t need to worry about whether the market goes up or down if they’re skimming 30% off the top:
How could I be bitten by that poisonous snake? How could I be eaten by the crocodile?
Ha ha, you secretly like us. You think we’re coool. In your heart, you know we’re right!
Seriously, it’s not a new thing. When I was a Bircher, the JBS magazines’ ads often hawked gold coins while the articles decried the Federal Reserve’s demonetizing of gold & silver.
So how do these schemes work? Say you buy $5,000 worth of gold, do they actually send you $5,000 worth of gold coins, bars, etc. Or is it like purchasing other commodities in that you have title to $5,000 worth of said item, but don’t actually have physical possession of it?
If it’s the latter, I don’t see how that would do you much good if, say, the U.S. descended into civil war or some other apocalyptic scenario were to happen.
You have to understand the business. The sellers are brokers, that is all. They buy the gold from producers, hedge with futures, and try to sell the gold on the open market. They charge a 3-6% fee on the transaction. When you agree to buy, they unhedge at the spot price you agree to and make their vig.
The prevalence of the gold ads is because there is a reason to be concerned about the strength of the US dollar. The federal government is showing no ability to reduce deficit spending and, history has shown, fiat currencies are usually the first victim of an over-indebted sovereign government.
I think the prevalence of ads on TV are a result of this concern and the increased in demand for gold. Granted, they try to inflame this fear of ‘collapse’ to drive sales, but in the end they are just a broker making a % and catering to genuine demand.
