52 | Toilet Paper and Gold

In March 2020, during the peak moments of uncertainty and fear surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, there were shortages of every imaginable consumer item.

Many things impacted small groups of people, but one shortage impacted every single human on the planet.

Toilet paper.

I can recall neighbors dropping individual rolls of toilet paper on other neighbors front steps to help share the available supply.

Sadly, there were some bad apples that saw the shortage as a business opportunity. Newsweek tells the story of one of them here.

It didn't take a genius or an expert economist to realize that hoarding toilet paper during a pandemic was pretty messed up.

There are some folks that had a medical reason to get more toilet paper than the average person at the time - I am not dogging on them.

I am dogging on the few folks who were hoarding a scarce resource in anticipation of everyone else having to beg or pay them for their abundance.

When toilet paper was the resource and a pandemic was the challenge, it was easy to see the lunacy and self-centered nature of the hoarding.

In spirit, the theoretical "holy grail" moment for gold isn't any different than hoarding toilet paper in March 2020, it's just become a little more socially acceptable through the generations.

Historically, I have found the economic arguments against owning gold compelling enough to pass on it.

Gold doesn't generate income like a business does year after year after year.

Gold has no practical role in improving our daily lives as a society.

If it doesn't do either of these things, then why own it?

But the part that really moves the needle for me is the fact that its value is primarily derived by society's aggregate fear of the future.

When you buy gold, you're hoping to profit off the fact that someone else will eventually be more scared than you are - it's the ultimate opportunity to round trip the fear-greed spectrum in a single decision.

That's not exactly a characteristic of a fulfilling life in my mind, so no, I don't own or plan to own gold and I don't plan to own stacks of toilet paper during the next pandemic either.