20 1 1 In September, the price of gold soared to 395.3 yuan/gram under the attack of American banknote printing campaign, European economic crisis and Japanese nuclear crisis. There is a famous saying: buy gold in troubled times. Once the world is in chaos, it is the gospel of gold skyrocketing.
Aside from the value given to gold by human beings, it is actually a pile of metal. To this end, Warren Buffett issued a lament that "gold is useless":
"Gold was dug up by human beings from America, Africa or somewhere underground, then melted, and then a luxurious underground palace was dug to hide, and a bunch of people were sent to guard it, euphemistically called the vault. In fact, this thing is not practical, and aliens do not necessarily know what humans are doing. "
In other words, even if it is not gold, mankind will find another metal with small output and easy storage to replace it, and use it to fight inflation and prevent economic crisis. In fact, what mankind guards is not gold, but the desire for wealth. It's like a game of entertaining yourself. Desire lures human beings from expansion to collapse. The rules of the game remain unchanged, but the protagonists are different.
Second,
Who doesn't love gold? China people say, "The book has its own Yan Ruyu, and the book has its own golden house". However, a country is caught in inflation because of the flood of gold. Isn't it said that gold is a sharp weapon against inflation?
/kloc-in the 0/4th century, Spain conquered more than 20 million square kilometers of land in America with just over 600 people. From Columbus' discovery of the New World in 1492 to the decline of the empire in 1640, Spain seized 875 tons of gold and 45,000 taels of silver from America, accounting for 83% of the world's precious metal mining at that time, which was almost 2.5 billion taels of silver in China at that time, thus recreating a powerful Spanish empire.
With the Spanish colonists frantically digging for gold mines, more and more gold is circulating in the market. The biggest mistake they made was not to use this wealth to develop the economy, but to expand the size of the army. There is more and more gold, and the more Spain grabs it, the more it expands. In the past half century, the price of gold has more than quadrupled in Europe.
In order to maintain national hegemony, Spain is caught in an endless cycle: the desire to dominate Europe forces Spain to keep fighting. When fighting, it has to spend money on armaments. When purchasing materials, it must make the enemy make money. If the enemy is rich and dissatisfied with your rule, he will continue to fight you. As a result, Spain's opponents are getting stronger and stronger, while Spain is getting weaker and weaker.
Spain's success is also gold, and so is its failure. Greed makes gold flood and become worthless. Gold, originally a symbol of wealth, went further and further on the road of inflation, leading to the collapse of the Spanish Empire.
Third,
In the crazy pursuit of wealth and hegemony, inflation has opened a chaotic horizon and created one economic tragedy after another. It has taught mankind the most painful lesson by destroying wealth and desire.
When inflation strikes, a country that was once as rich as oil, a country with extremely rich resources, can fall into despair and hell. How terrible is inflation? Ironically, it can make wealth (currency) depreciate to less than toilet paper.
For example, when Spain was poor only in gold, the Netherlands was poor only in tulips.
Tulips were introduced to Holland in the17th century. As the favorite thing of dignitaries, the price of being fired has soared. Some speculators are eager to sell, hoarding a large number of Yujin for sale. 1634, the tulip speculation boom spread into a national movement in the Netherlands. At that time, a tulip flower root with a price of 1 1,000 yuan rose to 20,000 yuan in less than a month, and the price soared 20 times, exceeding the stock market and the property market.
How fanatical is tulip fever? No matter aristocrats, citizens, farmers, craftsmen, boatmen and even chimney sweepers, they all joined the tulip speculation, and their desires buried the fear of collapse crisis. People frantically turn property into cash just to buy a tulip. In order to facilitate trading, the Netherlands has also set up a fixed trading market.
Finally, how high was the tulip fried? For example, in 1637, a rare tulip cost as much as 6,700 guilders, enough to buy a mansion near canals of amsterdam. At that time, the average annual income of the Dutch was only 150 Dutch guilders.
There must be an inflation bubble under the inflated price. On February 4th, 1637, a sudden sell-off made the Netherlands panic and the price of tulips plummeted. A week later, the price has plummeted by 90%, and the price of ordinary varieties is not as good as that of an onion. Countless people went bankrupt and wailed.
Fourth,
I saw a video of a stampede. At the scene of the fire, investigators unexpectedly found that most of the victims did not die in the fire, but were trampled to death by the crowded crowd in desperate escape. The tragedy that could have been avoided was destroyed by disorderly escape. This scene is similar to the great escape after the US stock market crash.
For example, only tulips are poor in the Netherlands, and only stocks are poor in the United States.
Back in the early 20th century, the United States had just won the First World War, and wealth and opportunities poured in. From 65438 to 0927, the United States set off the first wave of stock market frenzy.
For a time, the stock market became a national movement. You can make a lot of money just by flipping through a few stocks. This is just a printing machine. From new york and San Francisco to rural towns, investors abound, and even shoeshine workers are trading stocks.
However, the enthusiastic stock market did not bring good luck to the United States. The stock market here is singing all the way, the American economy there has plummeted, and the unemployment rate has reached a new high after World War I. Without the support of economic forces, how far can the stock market go?
The stock market soared like a runaway wild horse and inflation began. Some bankers began to worry, in the current market environment of weak trade and credit expansion in the United States, will there be such a high share price? Are people crazy? There are always wise men under chaos. The father of American President Kennedy got out of the stock market in time, and his high escape laid the wealth position of the Kennedy family.
In the summer of 1929, the myth of soaring stock prices continued to be staged, and countless millionaires were born in the United States. As long as the stock market is still rising, investors will throw money wildly. They boldly borrowed money and invested it in the stock market. Although the interest rate of this demand loan is as high as 8% to 9%, as long as it is profitable, greedy investors dare to take risks, unaware that the stock market crash is close at hand.
The upsurge of national stock trading has led to the continuous influx of funds into the stock market, which is full of bubbles, with inflated stock prices and inflated market value. 192910/October 29th, historically known as "Black Tuesday", the stock index dropped from the highest point of 386 points to 298 points, a decrease of 22%.
There was a stampede in the stock market, and investors sold their stocks regardless of the price, fearing that they would become waste paper the next moment. The more you sell, the more you panic. The trading volume reached astronomical160,000 shares, setting a record for the next 40 years. Many millionaires became penniless, and thousands of people had a nervous breakdown and committed suicide by jumping off a building.
In the three years after the stock market crash, 5,000 banks in the United States went bankrupt, at least/kloc-0.3 million enterprises went bankrupt, and the automobile output value dropped by 95%. According to statistics, the total industrial output and national income of the United States plummeted by nearly half, the economic level dropped 10 years, and the unemployment rate reached a record high. Every four people lost their jobs, and the United States and the world entered the Great Depression of 10.
Five,
The wheel of history rolls forward, and human beings always heal their scars and forget the pain. The stock market bubble has not gone far, and a bitcoin story has swept through.
From the initial $65438 +0, you can buy 1, 300 bitcoins. In eight years, the price of bitcoin has soared by more than 5 million times. At present, Bitcoin has risen to $4,000, 1, which has opened the way to skyrocketing. Decentralization, non-replicability, fast cross-border transfer time, low handling fee, support for cross-border micropayments, and real-time viewing of historical accounts make Bitcoin highly sought after. However, compared with legal tender, Bitcoin has no credit endorsement of sovereign countries, and its payment function has not been accepted by the public, which is full of unknown risks.
The fiery bitcoin is more like a speculative movement, and the speculative bubble has triggered the expansion of value. People invest in bitcoin in order to speculate on high prices and make a big profit by selling at high points. This model does not create wealth, but only transfers it. It's like a precursor to tulip bubble.
In addition, there have been many "bitcoin-like" virtual currencies in the world, which will challenge the price of bitcoin. If the bubble bursts, the soaring bitcoin will be doomed.
Six,
Looking back, the sound of the bursting of the property market bubble seems to ring in the distance.
Let's look at the example of Spain first. From 200 1 to 2007, the house price in Madrid once rose from 1800 to 4,000 (about RMB 29,000), with a six-year increase of 122%. The economic crisis and the European debt crisis led to the bursting of the Spanish real estate bubble. Since 2008, the property market has plummeted across the board, with an average decline of. After the bursting of the Spanish property market bubble, it was found that more than 20% of the houses were empty. Houses were always built and sold before they collapsed. On the surface, it seems that demand exceeds supply! In fact, there is no need, how many suites are bought for speculation! The population keeps pouring in, and the house is not enough to live in. That's all lies, just to cover up the truth of the bubble!
In addition, after a nationwide real estate speculation campaign, Japan's housing prices have plummeted by 49.56%; House prices in the United States have also been ruthlessly cut in the subprime mortgage crisis; The overall decline in house prices in China and Hong Kong was as high as 70%, and more than 654.38 million Hong Kong people became "negative assets"; In the economic crisis of 2008 in Wenzhou, the mainland city, the house price plummeted by 30%-40%, and the price of individual luxury houses was even 50% off. These are all bloody facts.
No matter how many times the real estate market has experienced stormy waves, the strong housing prices in first-tier cities make China people still believe in the myth that the real estate market is unbreakable. Some people here are desperate to invest in the real estate speculation boom, seeing that housing prices in first-tier cities have reached a new high, but in fact, housing prices in first-tier cities have declined slightly; On the other hand, some business tycoons have no attachment to the property market and gradually intend to quit the real estate industry.
As early as the 20170,000 Wanda annual meeting, Wang Jianlin announced that after 2020, Wanda's business will no longer focus on assets in principle, and all will be light assets. In addition to supporting housing, Wanda City no longer adds residential development and gradually withdraws from the real estate development industry. Then, Wanda continued to slim down, realize, shrink and quit. In July, Wanda transferred the entire equity of 77 city hotels and 9 1% equity of 13 cultural tourism project to R&F and Sunac respectively, with a total price of 63.75 billion yuan. Subsequently, Wanda intensively recovered at least 40 billion yuan of registered capital of wanda plaza Project Company.
Li Ka-shing, the richest man in Hong Kong, made a move long before Wang Jianlin sold his reinforced concrete body and left the soul of light assets. He sold Century Plaza in Pudong, Shanghai on 20 16, and then quickly sold the Central Center in Hong Kong. The Hong Kong billionaire who has experienced two oil crises, the Middle East War, the Asian financial turmoil and the world financial crisis has an investment principle of "not making the last copper coin". On the real estate market, shrewd businessmen said: If the real estate price is too high for ordinary people to afford, there will be risks. I won't risk making the last copper coin.
The value of the house should be for people to live in, but it has become an investment, making huge profits through trading speculation. In the long run, the price of the property market is getting higher and higher, and the bubble is expanding. It's like the stock market. Some people saw that the earliest real estate speculators made money, so the people behind them kept buying and selling high, and people invested huge sums of money crazily. In the end, the bubble in the property market could not hold up (there are precedents abroad), and the naked swimmer did not quit in time, but became the last catcher. This is very dangerous.
Seven,
Anyone who has played competitive games such as DOTA knows that an irreversible phenomenon caused by the competition between two or more parties and the disparity of heads in a game is called collapse.
When an industry has injected too much capital, the price is getting higher and higher, and when no one takes over, it collapses, and the value of goods becomes a pile of waste paper. Behind every collapse is the endless desire of human beings. When desire breaks through the boundary of reason, the outcome can't be controlled.
What we can do is to restore the economic essence with the remaining rationality when the whole people are involved in a desire transaction, and try to avoid the bad luck of being abandoned by the world after the crash.
Starting today, we should learn to work hard, stay away from asset bubbles and face up to speculative risks. There is never an eternal myth of getting rich overnight in the world, and there is no eternal gain for nothing. Every achievement you make through speculation may be rewarded one day in the future. The nightmare of collapse lurks around us and may be detonated at any time.
After every crash, everyone's fate will be redefined. Some people have successfully escaped the crisis, some people are desperate, and some people are reborn after the robbery. I just hope we don't make the same mistakes in the face of desire.