World Gold Council
The World Gold Council, formed in 1987, is an industry association of the world's leading gold mining companies. It aims to stimulate demand for gold from industry, consumers, and investors.
The Council's Chief Executive Officer is James E Burton, former CEO of the California Public Employees' Retirement System. Its Chairman is Pierre Lassonde, the President of Newmont Mining Corporation.
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Gold synthesis
Silver
Silver is produced as result of nuclear fission in small amounts (approximately 0.1 %). Because of this, small lots an extraction of silver from high radioactive fission products would be very uneconomical, but when recovered with palladium, rhodium and ruthenium (price of silver in 2005: about 200 €/kg, rhodium and ruthenium: about 300,000 €/kg) the economics change substantially. Silver becomes a byproduct of fission platinoid separation from waste.
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Gold as an investment
Buying gold for the gold price
Some people buy gold not in their physical possession, but stored for them by a bank, through a gold exchange-traded fund, or in the form of a gold certificate; their motivations also apply to those who hold gold physically.
Some asset allocation strategies use exposure to gold as a form of diversification, though the inclusion of gold in model portfolios created by major financial advisory companies is no longer common. Gold may be included in portfolios as an insurance against unforeseen calamities which may affect the price of other investments negatively.
From the perspective of a currency trader, one can view gold as simply another form of currency and that buying gold is a process analogous to currency speculation. For example, when it is expected that the dollar will soon decline against other currencies, for an investor who receives his salary in dollars, buying gold or other currency before the decline and selling it afterwards could realize a profit. Additionally speculators attempt to make a profit by predicting the gold price, and detecting market trends they believe will show them the future price direction.
For centuries gold has been used as a store of value. When viewed from the historical perspective of a multicentury time frame, no other investment has the wealth preserving power of gold. Other assets are dependant upon a certain government or political climate to retain value, appreciate, and not be excessively taxed, but gold is largely independent of political climate (with the exception of laws specifically confiscating gold as Franklin Roosevelt did). Gold investors believe that political and economic turmoil may have a negative influence on the value of their other investments, but the opposite effect on the value of gold.
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Bank for International Settlements
Debt load
Many nations have a public debt load that they cannot possibly repay, and this too depresses the value of their labour and human capital by moving funds that could pay for local development to the creditor abroad. Reserve policy and capital adequacy requirements are two mechanisms that could be used to reward debt relief without directly requiring transfers of funds from debt-relieving governments to debt-holding banks. While there are some problems in guaranteeing that such methods are not abused for political purposes, the problems of debt-laden economies failing to feed, educate or fully employ their citizens tend to be substantially worse, and present risks to all investors.
The United Nations ICLEI triple bottom line reporting mechanism, though restricted to local government, has been proposed from time to time as a means of identifying regions that are systematically unable to cope with ecological and social problems due to debt repayment obligations. Concentrations of such communities would indicate a problem that was likely to spread to the whole national economy and possibly destabilize regions, suggesting some interventions including debt relief may be required. Using reserve requirements for this tends to be easier politically on the intervening nations than "printing money" to do so, and since relief is a global risk, an institution like the BIS could reasonably be expected to coordinate the action.
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