They’re Standing in Line to Buy Gold!

Here’s a  photo from China Daily that shows customers Bangkok, Thailand lined up to buy gold!

“People are beating down the doors” is an expression that means customers are eager to buy, but it usually doesn’t mean the door are literally being beaten down. But as the accompanying story describes, in the case of a gold dealer in Hong Kong, it is happening literally:

Sophia Chen, general manager of San Gold Coins, said that in the past few weeks, the door to their flagship store in Hong Kong had to be repaired twice as dozens of customers tried to come in to stock up on gold coins and bars.

While it is usual for the century-old retailer to post higher sales in the run-up to Chinese New Year, Chen said this time the strong demand was not just seasonal.

“There’s been a steady increase (in sales for the past few weeks), because people’s perception of gold has changed,” she said, noting that soaring gold prices in recent months have encouraged more people to treat gold not just as jewelry but as another asset class to diversify their portfolio.

Here’s a picture we ran years ago of people standing in line to buy gold in China in 2013.

We’ve seen it before here in the U.S. More than once. People standing in lines that snake around the block, that is, waiting for their turn to buy gold. Hoping that they’ll get their turn before it’s too late.

It happened here during the Carter presidency as inflation screamed along at double-digit rates and gold raced higher and higher every day. People began standing in line to exchange their dollars for gold. With every trip to the grocery store, people could see that their paper dollars were losing value. Maybe they didn’t know anything about money printing, central banking, or the Federal Reserve. But they knew they were going broke with dollars. And they wanted gold.

So they stood in line waiting. Hoping that there would still be gold for sale and that it wouldn’t be too much higher when it was their turn. It happened again only a few years ago as major banks began toppling.

And it will happen again during the next bank crisis. See us now. Don’t wait and end up left in line when the dollar regime signs off.