An interesting piece on gold:
They report remarkably little change over 2,000 years. The annual cost of one Roman legionary plus one Roman centurion was 40.9 ounces of gold. The annual cost of one United States Army private plus one Army captain has recently been 38.9 ounces of gold.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/28/business/budging-just-a-little-on-investing-in-gold.html?_r=0
Ping
Good article, thanks for the link.
It concludes:
“A small sliver (of gold), such as the 2 percent weight in the world market portfolio, now makes sense to me as part of a long-term investment strategy.”
Which raises the question: what would happen to the price of gold is most investors (including insurance companies and pension funds) adopted this strategy?