stefanis,It's all 'chicken & egg'!Gold and silver are measured...

stefanis,

It's all 'chicken & egg'!

Gold and silver are measured against currencies which in turn are debased by monetary inflation - which all governments do.

So the price of gold (and to an extent silver) are just a reflection of the declining purchasing power of paper money in real terms.

When costs of mining are expressed in US$ terms then clearly, at a time when the printing presses are going flat out, all those extra dollars are going to show up in material and labour costs.

Since the break with the gold standard in 1971 the US$ has lost c. 95% of it's purchasing power. So I know which 'money' I would rather have kept under the mattress since 1971 !!

As for the DJIA: don't forget the 30-share pack gets reshuffled continuously so it is hardly a true reflection of the actual components of the index. It is only reflecting the best 30 stocks at any instant in time. You would be hard pressed to find many stocks which have lasted 10 years let alone 100 years.
CPDLC