Let's do an exercise no bank manager will ever suggest during your "investor profile assessment" meeting.
Take one million dollars. Crisp bills, smells like power. Now hop in the time machine with me.
The time machine Wall Street doesn't want you to use
In 1900, US$ 1 million bought you roughly 48,300 troy ounces of gold. That's about 1.5 metric tons of the metal. You'd need a vault the size of a Manhattan apartment to store it.
In 1933, when good old Roosevelt decided Americans couldn't own gold anymore (Executive Order 6102 — look that shit up, it's real), the price was fixed at $35 an ounce. Your million bought 28,571 ounces. Already less. But the government forced you to sell anyway. Skin in the game? The government never had any.
1971. Nixon slams the gold window shut. No more backing. The dollar became fiat currency — which is the polite way of saying "trust me, bro." Gold still officially at $35 an ounce, but the free market was already telling the truth. Your million still bought ~28,571 ounces on paper. In reality? The circus was already on fire.
1980. American inflation hitting double digits. Real panic. Gold explodes to $850 an ounce. Your million now bought only 1,176 ounces. From 48,000 down to barely a thousand in eighty years. The dollar didn't lose value — it was murdered.
2000. Gold at $270. Nobody wanted it. The ugly duckling. Everybody was buying Nasdaq, dot-coms, virtual pet startups. Your million bought 3,703 ounces. Anyone buying gold back then was called crazy. You know who else was called crazy? Batman, before he saved Gotham.
2011. Post-2008 crisis. Gold hits $1,900. Your million? 526 ounces. The same "analysts" who laughed at gold in 2000 were now saying "time to buy." Always late. Always buying the top.
2024-2025. Gold blowing past $3,400 an ounce. Your measly million dollars buys less than 300 ounces. About 18.7 pounds. Fits in a backpack.
Read that again: from 1.5 metric tons to 18.7 pounds.
What this actually means
It's not that gold got expensive. It's that the dollar got cheap.
And if the dollar got cheap, imagine the Brazilian real. Imagine the Argentine peso. Imagine any fiat currency managed by politicians who need votes to survive.
Gold doesn't pay dividends. Doesn't pay coupons. Doesn't have a CEO doing conference calls stuffed with buzzwords. And that's exactly why it works as an anchor. It's the anti-narrative. While everybody else is selling dreams — "stocks for the long run," "crypto will replace everything," "real estate never drops" — gold just sits there. Quiet. Dense. Indifferent.
Nassim Taleb would say gold is the antifragile asset par excellence in monetary terms. It feeds on chaos. The more central banks print, the more governments spend money they don't have, the more insane the circus gets — the more gold shines. Literally.
The lesson they never teach you in econ school
Warren Buffett always clowned on gold. Said it's a metal that just sits in a vault doing nothing. Fair enough. But Buffett also has $300 billion in cash sitting at Berkshire, waiting for the world to catch fire so he can scoop up assets at half price. Everyone protects their wealth however they know how.
The question isn't "gold versus stocks" or "gold versus Bitcoin." The question is: do you understand that the money in your pocket has been melting in slow motion ever since governments decided they could print as much as they want?
If you do, gold makes sense as insurance. Not as a bet, not as the trade of the week. As insurance against institutional stupidity.
If you don't, keep thinking your savings account earning 7% a year against 6% real inflation is a "conservative investment."
Those 18.7 pounds left from your million today? By 2050, it might not even buy you 11.
The question you're left with is simple: are you storing wealth, or are you storing decorated paper?
