Rediscovering Gold

Gold is all the rage right now, reinforcing what’s old is new again, as the value of the metal hits all-time highs. $GLD ( ▼ 0.51% ) and its digital cousin $BTC.X ( ▼ 2.71% ) , are rising, signaling the forthcoming loosening of global fiscal conditions.

This seems about right. A decline in shipment volumes and therefore the coming supply shock are still a few weeks away, small blips of tariff related cost increases are begin to pop up. The administration assumes that all major retailers pre-ordered, which is perfectly normal, right? I guess there’s nothing to worry about.

All roads lead to congestion.

I found some gold last week in the form of a family car trip through California. With no real plans on the books for Spring Break, and prior commitments stacked up in Sacramento, we decided to head north.

The kids hated every moment of it.

But deep down, I believe they had a great time and this will be a memorable trip - when they’re older they can laugh about how bored they were.

California Railroad Museum. Boring.

Tour of the State Capitol. Boring.

Old Town Sacramento. Boring.

Boredom births creativity, and the kids found ways to bond in their common despise of the road trip.

We stopped in Coloma, home of the actual Gold Rush, which I found as fascinating as it was beautiful. The kids, not so much.

We stood at the exact spot where James Marshall discovered gold in January, 1848.

Quick US history refresher: Marshall was hired by John Sutter to construct a saw mill so they could cut logs and build his vision of Coloma, a soon to be bustling city in El Dorado County. While inspecting the mill he’d just completed, Marshall - in the most male metaphor ever - gets distracted by a shiny object. Glistening in the stream, he discovered gold.

No one in town could keep a secret and The Gold Rush was on. You know the rest (and if you don’t, this PBS documentary is fantastic).

Unfortunately for Sutter and Marshall, their venture ended in disaster, their goods stolen and the town was overrun. Hard to believe they couldn’t pivot, and begin stockpiling gold. They were first in! Sometimes leaders can’t see the bumps in the road. Whether bad data, or stubborn gut instinct, these men couldn’t anticipate how the discovery of gold would change their outcome, for the worse.

Sutter did get one thing right, his vision of a bustling Coloma came true, at least for a while.

The Gold Rush and the Railroad Boom coincided around the same time. In a lot of the same ways Web 2.0 and Social Media are making room for A.I. today. If boredom births creativity, then innovation breeds more innovation.

The similarities do not end there.

Building the railroad was a global undertaking. Workers came from Asia. Supplies from the UK. It’s easy to forget we’ve always operated in a global economy, the 1860’s aren’t too dissimilar from the 2020’s.

I wonder what the tariffs were on these types of products?

Speaking of which, at the time of this writing, tariffs are changing again. This time it’s probably net-good-news for companies like $F ( ▲ 0.83% ) and $GM ( ▲ 1.09% ) , but changes after changes, starting and stopping, makes the future challenging to plan for. Piecemeal deals will take time. No surprise the Auto sector went first, since it was hit first. At almost 5% of GDP, if manufacturing in the US is going to boom, it needs to start with our largest manufacturing industry.

As was written this week, “it’s difficult for companies to be clear about a situation that’s unclear”.

I previously wrote about visiting Napa - just left out the part about bored kids.

We don’t have many week-long car trips in our future as a family. As the kids grow up, they begin to make their own lives and plans: friends, sports, activities, school. We’re just has guilty as most parents, pushing them into more and more activities, helping them find their hidden talents, and hobbies they will love for life.

The calendar becomes hard to manage at times. Getaways difficult to schedule.

So it’s moments like this that are important, skipping rocks on the South Fork American River, hanging with the family, and making memories.

That’s the gold.