Resist the Charms of Gold

摘要

IN SCARY TIMES LIKE THESE, INVESTORS SEEKING CERTAINTY GRAB UP MORE GOLD. BUT ONCE THE CRISIS WANES, WILL THE SHINE WEAR OFF? CAN YOU TELL when a boom has turned into a bubble? One clue: When pop culture starts paying attention. The housing bubble, for example, brought both the TV show Flip This House and a rival on another network, Flip That House. So if you own a lot of gold, you might regard a recent episode of Saturday Night Live as your first warning. In the opening skit, Bill Hader as China's President Hu Jintao declares that Glenn Beck was right and that "my government should have bought gold. Unfortunately, all our assets were tied up in U.S. Treasury bills."