this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2024
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Gold is very near its all-time high. It just set a new all-time high about a week ago
But for russia to sell to someone else that requires trade with a heavily sanctioned country. That's a quick way to get on the "naughty list" and have sanctions applied to yourself too.
Gold is nothing if not something that can be easily and efficiently smuggled. The gold can be simply re-cast into generic gold bars or minted into back-dated Russian bullion coins. Just one passenger car can smuggle millions of dollars of gold across the border while attracting little scrutiny. From then, it can simply be easily sold to bullion dealers. Then the cash can be ferried back across the border or deposited in accounts at Kremlin-friendly banks.
If you have a network of agents doing this, you could probably offload thousands of ounces worth millions of dollars a month.
There's also the simple option of sending it all to a shady Chinese commodities exchange.
I mean, that depends.
In nominal, dollar terms, yes.
https://www.macrotrends.net/1333/historical-gold-prices-100-year-chart
But I'm not sure how meaningful that is. Like, is there real-world significance to having a high unit price in dollars?
Gold hit $2,741.03/oz in January 1980.
And it's at $2,503.38/oz in August 2024.
Those numbers are close in nominal terms.
But to equal that 1980 peak, which was in 1980 dollars, in real terms in 2024 dollars, gold would need to be at...
https://www.usinflationcalculator.com/
About $10,463.15/oz in 2024. And it's a pretty long way from that today.
In January 1934, it hit $834.02/oz.
To match that in real terms in 2024, it'd need to be at about $17,258.73/oz.
I don't want to embarrass you, but uncheck the "inflation-adjusted" box in your first graph and recalculate.
Ooops!