Gold bug
{{Short description|Investors who buy gold and speculate on a price increase}}
{{other uses}}
"Gold bug" (sometimes spelled "goldbug") is a term frequently employed in the financial sector and among economists in reference to persons who are extremely bullish on the commodity gold as an investment or a standard for measuring wealth.{{cite web | url=http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Gold+Bug | title=Financial Dictionary | access-date=26 July 2015}} Depending on the circumstances the term can have one or a combination of closely related and often overlapping themes that extend beyond the support for gold as an investment, including in some cases the use of the term as a pejorative.
Various themes on the term
- An investor or speculator who is very bullish in buying the commodity gold, or similarly themed financial products such as junior mining companies, gold certificates, bullion ETFs, and other derivative instruments related to precious metals.
- A person who opposes or criticizes the use of "fiat currency" and supports a return to the use of the gold standardGevinson, Alan. [http://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/25222 Silverites, Populists, and the Movement for Free Silver]. [http://www.teachinghistory.org Teachinghistory.org], accessed 18 December 2011. or some other currency system based on the value of gold and other "hard" assets.
- Someone who considers one commodity, usually gold, "the appropriate measure of wealth, regardless of the quantity of other goods and services that it can buy".{{cite web |url=http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/kristol-kalecki-and-a-19th-century-economist-defending-patriarchy-all-on-political-macroeconomics/ |title=Kristol, Kalecki, and a 19th Century Economist Defending Patriarchy all on Political Macroeconomics. |last=Konczal |first=Mike|date=21 January 2011 |work=Rortybomb}}{{cite web |url=http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/1996/11/the_gold_bug_variations.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19981202233021/http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/goldbug.html |archive-date=2 December 1998 |title=The Gold Bug Variations |last=Krugman |first=Paul |author-link=Paul Krugman |date=22 November 1996 |work=Slate}}
- A person, often with views summarized above, that subscribes to "conspiracy theories" relating to gold & silver, frequently including but not limited to, alleged manipulation of the price of precious metals and the supposed disappearance of gold held by the United States Government at Fort Knox.{{cite news | url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/as-price-of-gold-falls-conspiracy-theories-rise/article11245980/ | title=As price of gold falls, conspiracy theories rise | newspaper=The Globe and Mail | date=15 April 2013 | access-date=26 July 2014| last1=Milner | first1=Brian }}{{cite web | url=http://www.marketwatch.com/story/radical-gold-bugs-vs-wall-street-2010-04-05 | title=Paranoids have enemies, radical gold bugs have Wall Street | date=5 April 2010 | publisher=Market Watch | access-date=26 July 2014}} The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) is a small but prominent promoter of such conspiracy theories within the gold bug community.{{cite web | url=http://www.gata.org/about | title=About GATA | publisher=GATA | access-date=26 July 2014}} However, such persons are widely dismissed as cranks and their beliefs as fringe by reputable economists, business leaders and government officials.{{cite web | url=http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/gata-and-gold-the-truth-is/457331 | title=GATA and Gold: The Truth is Revealed | publisher=The Motley Fool | access-date=26 July 2014}}{{cite news | url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/25/gold-is-doomed/ | title=Gold is Doomed | newspaper=Washington Post | date=July 25, 2015 | access-date=26 July 2015 | author=O'Brien Matt}}
=History=
The concept, in the second sense, was popularized in the 1896 U.S. presidential election, when William McKinley supporters took to wearing gold lapel pins, gold neckties, and gold headbands in a demonstration of support for gold against the "silver menace".Mieczkowski, Yanek and Carnes, The Routledge Historical Atlas of Presidential Elections (2001), p.176. {{ISBN|0-415-92133-3}}