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Comment by roenxi | Hacker News Reader

They could hold gold. Similar risk profile, much more likely to hold value long term and be better to hand on to the kids if there is some left over.

I'm not saying cash is so terrible that a nervous, confused and delicate grandma can't just eat the losses for security. I mean, sure. If you think you're probably going to lose money anyway then <10% a year is better than >10%!

But a 25% allocation by default is just giving money to wealthy men wearing suits. They already own suits, they don't need it. Keep the wealth. Donate it towards lobbying for Georgism instead of new wars, maybe, if you feel like burning a few % on a cause.

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If you look at the chart for the GLD it doesn’t resemble and inflation proof investment imo. Maybe in the extremely long term it is but on a 1 decade time scale for example it certainly is not.

I cheerfully point out that cash also doesn't resemble an inflation proof investment. The difference is gold's value ambles around a level, and cash trends down.

Physical cash trends down but t-bills have kept up with inflation over the past century.

Fully agree that cash is not inflation proof (by design). However, when looking for something that is inflation proof it isn’t clear that gold is it.

Note that this OP probably has some agenda against dollar, being that in another comment before https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37046128#37047171 they said

"Yeah, for example China's position of overwhelming strength vs. weak little USoA meant that China's wages have risen by an order of magnitude and their technology catapulted into the present century, building them in to the world's largest economy."

Just a subtle subterfuge against dollar if I had to guess

1. That post had nothing to do with the US dollar, and you're quoting it without context which is a mistake. It is a heavily sarcastic reply to someone saying that "Every trading relationship will favour the stronger side" - which is obviously a silly thing to focus on. The US-China relationship has been a series of massive wins for China. It is a better view to say "well executed free trade with a stronger partner has huge, society reshaping upsides for the weaker one. Trade should be encouraged".

In fact, I live in Australia. So when that poster said "Australia in particular has been subject to unprecedented economic coercion and manipulation by China. It's not pretty." they were completely wrong. Australia suffers far more from our own policies than from anything China could do to us short of military action.

2. I just made a top-level comment saying "don't buy the dollar". You don't need to analyse my comment history to figure out where I stand on the dollar. Or you could just ask - I think it is a a dog of an asset and managed by incompetent bureaucrats who do a lot of harm to their own society.

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