Behind The New Gold Rush

Jacki Lyden in for Tom Ashbrook.

Gold rush fever. Frightened investors are buying up the yellow metal. Is this a good investment?

The golden hour lingers on and on… Gold is higher per ounce than at any time in history as the threat of a default looms.

Some traders have become obsessed with gold — central banks hold onto it and foreign governments, like China and India spend money just to store those 27-pound gold bars.

The Tea Party wants to back the dollar with gold ala 1971—and gold bugs and metal heads are in the news.

But before you go melting down grandma’s wedding ring, consider this: does gold really mean protection?

This hour On Point: our fascination with an age-old metal. Gold.
-Jacki Lyden
Guests:

Gregory Zuckermanm, reporter with the Wall Street Journal.

Sid Mitra, gold analyst at Passport Capital, a $4.8 billion hedge fund.

Steve Hansen, chief executive of GoldFellow.com.

Thomas Frank, columnist Harpers Magazine. He wrote recently about the new Gold rush.

From The Reading List:

• The National Post: "As the last rays of a basketball-sized sun bathe the main square of this gritty industrial town in yellow, local Tea Party members are busily preparing for a reading of the Declaration of Independence, setting up the microphones and passing out literature as the sound system blares We're Not Gonna Take It by Twisted Sister."

• The New York Times: "Central banks hold a major proportion of the world's gold — 29,000 tons of it. Most of it is a legacy of the time when currencies were pegged to gold."

• The New York Times: "RICH man carrying a heavy bag of gold coins set sail on a voyage, but his A ship ran into stormy weather. Before it capsized, he attached the bag of gold to his waist and jumped overboard. He sank with his fortune, never to be seen again. "