Maloney's gold guide: a 2008 prophecy or an outdated manual

Maloney's gold guide: a 2008 hit, a 2014 question mark

Is it worth paying 8.54 euros for a book about gold and silver published in August 2008, just before Lehman Brothers imploded? That question runs through the entire discussion of Michael Maloney's Guide to Investing in Gold and Silver, and the answer that prevails among those who have read it is an uncomfortable one: the book gets the diagnosis right but falls short as a how-to manual. Published under the Kiyosaki orbit, it reviews the history of money and currencies and only at the very end gets into investing itself.

What the book says and what it is criticized for

The content is not a recipe book. Those who have finished it describe it as a tour of the monetary system and of how that system has toppled empires, with gold and silver as the common thread. In the early pages the author places gold near 1,000 dollars an ounce and silver below 20, and from there he builds his bullish thesis. The problem, critics point out, is that the cover promises the secret to getting rich while the text delivers something else: monetary history and fundamentals, little buying technique.

A suspicion of conflict of interest hangs over the volume. Maloney runs a website where he sells gold and silver, and that alone is enough for some readers to tone down their enthusiasm. The accusation goes no further than suspicion: the author does not hide his business and the book does not hide its conclusion. Even so, some compare him with the snake oil salesmen of the west, numerous and theatrical, while others reply that the author's track record and way of reading a chart invite you to keep reading.

The timing that changed everything

August 2008. One month later, Lehman. That detail is the argument most often repeated in the book's favor: the thesis that gold and silver would keep rising was borne out in the years that trinc, and those who read it in time saw the price of the metals validate the narrative. The strongest defense lies not in the prose but in the printing date.

As the years go by, the defense becomes more nuanced. The book is from 2008, and by 2014 six years have passed, three of them with the financial crisis in full swing and with monetary policy doing things the text could not have anticipated. The question hovering over it all is whether a fundamentals manual needs updating or whether fundamentals, by definition, age well. Some argue the value lies in the basics and that new data merely confirm what was written; against that stands the argument that a book six years old, with a decade of monetary history ahead of it, no longer works as a practical guide.

Gold as an investment or as insurance

The discussion drifts toward a conceptual question. Part of the analysis holds that gold and silver are not an investment but an insurance policy, and that confusing the two leads to wrong expectations. The counterargument is blunt: practically all Forex platforms allow you to speculate on them with leverage, and no currency pair has been as volatile over the past decade as AG/USD or AU/USD. If that is not a speculative asset, the dictionary is wrong.

Then comes the detail that sparks the most debate: the gold-to-silver ratio. The idea is mentioned that silver, because of its industrial use, would tend toward a 1:10 ratio against gold, and there is talk of gold at 15,000 dollars an ounce in a scenario of dollar hyperinflation. These are the author's own projections, not accomplished facts, and readers should treat them as such.

The practical problem: finding it in Spain

The most down-to-earth part of the matter is logistics. The Spanish edition does not show up in Spanish bookstores, it is out of stock on Amazon Spain, and anyone who wants it must turn to sellers in the United Kingdom, eBay or Amazon USA, with shipping costs and delivery times of weeks. Some got it for around 16 euros with free shipping from England, others ordered it for 11.37 euros from an American seller, and one bought it in a duty-free zone for 8.99 euros. The physical edition has become a minor hunting trophy.

That logistical bottleneck explains part of the noise. A book that cannot be found in the domestic market six years after publication generates more conversation about how to get it than about its content. And when the price of the edition hovers around 8.54 euros, the question stops being about money and becomes one of time allocation: with the amount of material available, spending hours on a 2008 text requires a justification that, according to its critics, the book itself does not always provide.

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In the end, Maloney's guide works as what it was: a snapshot of the monetary system taken just before the explosion. As an investment manual, the passage of time has exposed it. As a document for understanding why gold returns every time fiat money trembles, it still makes sense. What there is no way to find is the update the book itself calls for.