１０月８日日曜日
百貨店へゆくのが旅行だつたころ屋上にいた一頭の象(藪内眞由美)
本当は今日は細君と銀座に出掛け金塊を買う予定であったが、金の相場が下降気味なので今日のところは見合わせて近所のモールでショッピングといたした。
入店を禁じられたる犬と待つショッピングモールの煉瓦の階段(夏目たかし)
サイトで金の価格グラフを見たり相場師のコメントを見たりしているが、外国の相場師たちは中期的には下降局面だと書いている。
金塊のごとくバタあり冷蔵庫(吉屋信子)
さて、出掛けた先は亀有のアリオである。連休の仲日で結構な人出である。昔デパート今モールと云ったところだろう。フードコートと名を変えてはいるが、デパートの大衆食堂と同じようなものである。規模は小さいが、アトラクションもあり、１０月１４日の鉄道記念日に因んで“電車でGO”の体験運転やジオラマを走る模型や昔の常磐線の写真展が催されていた。
青春はみづきの下をかよふ風あるいは遠い線路のかがやき(高野公彦)
やっていることはデパートと大して変わらないのに何故デパートは消えて行くのだろう？松戸の伊勢丹も消えると云う。
早めの軽い昼食を上島珈琲でいただいた。細君はミックスサンドに紅茶、我輩はベーコンクラブハウスサンドに珈琲である。上島珈琲は高齢者を客層としているから、フードコートに比べれば量は少ないし、割高感があろう。その代わり、モールという喧騒の中にあって幾分かは落ち着きがある。高齢者デートの定席と聞いたこともある。確か、無くなってしまった柏そごうデパートにあった“ウィーンの森”と云う高齢者の多かった軽食喫茶もUCC系だったと記憶している。年寄りはスタバではなくUCCである！
あこがれの人も老いたり夏料理(小林紀彦)
上島珈琲を出て、細君が本屋を見たいと云うので同じ階の本屋に回った。亀有南口には本屋がない。この本屋も一時に比べれば売り場が狭くなったようだ。
ぶらぶらと、あまり期待もせずに文庫の書架を巡っていたら、
「別れの挨拶－丸谷才一(集英社文庫)」に出逢った！出逢いは買いである。
ばさばさと股間につかふ扇かな(丸谷才一)
（帰宅後捲ってみたが、ほとんど歯がたたない。それでも僅に残った読めそうなところをしっかりと読もう。）
亀有駅前までの旅であったから交通費はかかっていない。その分で百グラム４００円もする牛肉の小間切れを買って早々に帰宅した。
牛鍋や性懲りもなく人信じ(岡本眸)
Central banks and the bullion price, November 14th 2009 P80 (金信奉と価格上昇ー２００９年の記事)
Two hundred metric tonnes of gold would occupy a cube of a little more than two metres on a side：it would fit into a small bedroom. But India's purchase of that volume of gold from the IMF last month has had an outsized impact on the markets, helping push the price well above $1,100 a troy ounce.
For bullion bulls, the implication is clear：central banks no longer trust the creditworthiness of other governments. And if they have lost confidence, private investors should do the same. The next step in this chain of reasoning is to assume a stampede (or at least a quick trot) by other central banks into holding the yellow metal. Gluskin Sheff, a Canadian asset-management firm, suggests that if China followed India's lead, bullion could hit $1,400 an ounce.
However, it is a big leap to assume that Asian central banks are abandoning the dollar. Even after the purchase, gold will be just 6% of India's reserves. In any case a headlong retreat from the dollar would be counterproductive, since it would damage the value of Asian central banks' existing holdings of Treasury bonds and bills. And those countries, like China, which peg their currencies against the dollar, are forced to buy large amounts of Treasuries as part of that strategy.
It may be that, at the margin, central banks would like to increase the proportion of their reserves that are held in form of bullion. The nature of reserves is that they insure against emergencies. And in an emergency gold is more likely to hold its value than paper money.
That could have awkward consequences. The gold price is also seen by some economist as a leading indicator of inflation. David Ranson of Wainwright Economics says the six-year change is the best predictor - bullion has almost tripled over the past six years. But if the actions of central banks are themselves pushing up the gold price, can they use that same price as justification for tightening policy?
Some of the more pessimistic commentators see the recent credit excesses as the inevitable consequence of a system based on paper money and call for the return of the gold standard to prevent future crises. This column has argued that the current system is unsustainable. Debtor countries like America and Britain have huge fiscal deficits, but retain at the same time the ability to depreciate their currencies and offer near-zero interest rates on their short-term debt. This does not look like a good deal for creditors.
A gold standard clearly protects the interest of creditors since it ties the value of money to a scarce resource. A government cannot create new gold. But the law of volatility applies. If you fix one part of the economic system, trouble has to show up elsewhere. When countries on the gold standard suffered a shock they had to let the real economy, rather than their currencies,take the strain.
The Depression showed the problem with this approach. In theory businesses and workers should quickly adjust to a deflationary shock, by slashing their prices and wages. In practice they were slow to adjust and the results were bankruptcies and mass unemployment. Democratically elected governments proved reluctant to stand by and let this happen. By going off the gold standard and allowing their currencies to fluctuate, they protect the interests of the bulk of their populations at the expense of creditors.
Dropping gold did work. A recent paper by Barry Eichengreen of the University of California, Berkeley, and Douglas Irwin of Dartmouth College found that countries that abandoned gold not only had shorter recessions but were also less inclined to raise tariffs than those countries that retained the link.
Given the Depression it is hard to see governments ever wanting to tie their countries to a gold standard again. But the result is that foreign creditors have a right to be more suspicious of debtor countries. Even if they do not resort to outright default, they can always achieve partial default through currency depreciation.
Indeed, the law of volatility can be invoked again. Developed-country governments have attempted to control bond yields through quantitative easing and to support stockmarkets through ultra-low interest rates. But they cannot support their currencies as well without risking problems in the bond and equity markets. Gold's surge may indicate that investors fear the next stage of the crisis will occur in the foreign-exchange markets.
For bullion bulls, the implication is clear：central banks no longer trust the creditworthiness of other governments. And if they have lost confidence, private investors should do the same. The next step in this chain of reasoning is to assume a stampede (or at least a quick trot) by other central banks into holding the yellow metal. Gluskin Sheff, a Canadian asset-management firm, suggests that if China followed India's lead, bullion could hit $1,400 an ounce.
However, it is a big leap to assume that Asian central banks are abandoning the dollar. Even after the purchase, gold will be just 6% of India's reserves. In any case a headlong retreat from the dollar would be counterproductive, since it would damage the value of Asian central banks' existing holdings of Treasury bonds and bills. And those countries, like China, which peg their currencies against the dollar, are forced to buy large amounts of Treasuries as part of that strategy.
It may be that, at the margin, central banks would like to increase the proportion of their reserves that are held in form of bullion. The nature of reserves is that they insure against emergencies. And in an emergency gold is more likely to hold its value than paper money.
That could have awkward consequences. The gold price is also seen by some economist as a leading indicator of inflation. David Ranson of Wainwright Economics says the six-year change is the best predictor - bullion has almost tripled over the past six years. But if the actions of central banks are themselves pushing up the gold price, can they use that same price as justification for tightening policy?
Some of the more pessimistic commentators see the recent credit excesses as the inevitable consequence of a system based on paper money and call for the return of the gold standard to prevent future crises. This column has argued that the current system is unsustainable. Debtor countries like America and Britain have huge fiscal deficits, but retain at the same time the ability to depreciate their currencies and offer near-zero interest rates on their short-term debt. This does not look like a good deal for creditors.
A gold standard clearly protects the interest of creditors since it ties the value of money to a scarce resource. A government cannot create new gold. But the law of volatility applies. If you fix one part of the economic system, trouble has to show up elsewhere. When countries on the gold standard suffered a shock they had to let the real economy, rather than their currencies,take the strain.
The Depression showed the problem with this approach. In theory businesses and workers should quickly adjust to a deflationary shock, by slashing their prices and wages. In practice they were slow to adjust and the results were bankruptcies and mass unemployment. Democratically elected governments proved reluctant to stand by and let this happen. By going off the gold standard and allowing their currencies to fluctuate, they protect the interests of the bulk of their populations at the expense of creditors.
Dropping gold did work. A recent paper by Barry Eichengreen of the University of California, Berkeley, and Douglas Irwin of Dartmouth College found that countries that abandoned gold not only had shorter recessions but were also less inclined to raise tariffs than those countries that retained the link.
Given the Depression it is hard to see governments ever wanting to tie their countries to a gold standard again. But the result is that foreign creditors have a right to be more suspicious of debtor countries. Even if they do not resort to outright default, they can always achieve partial default through currency depreciation.
Indeed, the law of volatility can be invoked again. Developed-country governments have attempted to control bond yields through quantitative easing and to support stockmarkets through ultra-low interest rates. But they cannot support their currencies as well without risking problems in the bond and equity markets. Gold's surge may indicate that investors fear the next stage of the crisis will occur in the foreign-exchange markets.
