The Flying Frisby - money, markets and more

You can find vehicles by which you can play this portfolio here.

But, after a lot of hype, here it is: the do-very-little portfolio.

Lots of us have busy lives. We don’t have time to constantly monitor companies, markets, technological developments, politics and all the rest of it. We have other things going on that we prefer to or have to devote our attention to.

Yet we want to invest our money well - safely, sensibly, profitably. We want our money to be invested in areas that will thrive in that not-too-distant future. We might also want to have a bit of fun with an investment every now and then. 

Soliciting comments from paid subscribers earlier this year, the above describes many of you. 

With all this in mind, I have come up with the do-very-little portfolio. I was originally going to call it the Do F All portfolio, but, as it involves a bit of action taken every now and then, I’ve gone with do-very-little. A portfolio that does not require constant monitoring, only the occasional re-balance, but that should do well given the broader macroeconomic conditions in which we find ourselves.

Here I am writing this missive at breakfast on a beautiful terrace in southern Italy, overlooking the sea, in one of those villages where nobody seems to do much and yet they lead long, full and contented lives, and the phrase “dolce far niente” comes to mind. What better name for this portfolio?

The portfolio I am going to propose has something of the cockroach to it. It’s not as immune as Harry Browne’s portfolio which I covered the other day. It is probably overweight equities and underweight bonds. But it also contains plenty of possibilities to grow. Cockroach with a bit of spice. 

It’s similar, but not the same as my own portfolio (which is not for everyone).

When it comes to investment returns, asset allocation has been repeatedly proven to be more important than individual stock picking. The market you choose matters more than the securities you select within that market. It’s more important to be in crypto or energy or biotech or banking when that sector is rising than it is to pick the best coin or company. Similarly, it’s more important to be out of that sector when it’s tanking. 

In other words, it doesn’t matter so much which horse you bet on, as which race you are in. 

We have a large allocation to energy, for example, especially oil, gas and uranium. I think conditions are all good for these. But that will not always be the case. In the 1970s and the 2000s you wanted to own energy. In the 1980s and 90s you probably needn’t have bothered. 

So here we go. The Dolce Far Niente portfolio. What does it look like?

The Dolce Far Niente Portfolio

A quick heads up before we come to today’s piece: I am taking my “lecture with funny bits” about gold to the West End for one night only. October 19th is the date. (That’s the show I did at the Edinburgh Fringe).

If you like gold, you will like this show. I promise. It’s super interesting. You can get tickets here. Hopefully, see you there.

So, continuing the recent theme of portfolio allocation, today we talk cockroaches …

I narrated a documentary once about cockroaches. Never mind the repulsion we may feel towards them, they really are the most amazing creatures. In fact, that repulsion may work in their favour because nobody wants anything to do with them, thereby bettering their chances of survival.  

Cockroaches have been around since before the dinosaurs. According to Wikipedia, they are some 320 million years old, having originated during the Carboniferous period. They are hardy as hell. They can survive and thrive in tropical heat or in freezing, sub-Arctic temperatures below minus one hundred degrees (Fahrenheit or Celsius). They can survive the dryness of the desert where there is no access to water, but they can also survive in and under water. Many cockroaches even survived the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 - they are known to be resistant to radiation. You can even cut off a cockroach’s head and it will live on, at least for a bit.

How nice to have a portfolio that is as hardy. We should all have something of the cockroach to our portfolios.

In the wake of the Global Financial Crisis back in 2009 I remember seeing a presentation by Marc Faber in which he described a portfolio for all economic weathers. It broke down as follows:

* 25% gold and cash. 

* 25% equities. 

* 25% bonds. 

* 25% real estate.  

Dylan Grice, who at the time was an analyst with SocGen, advocated something similar. He called it the Cockroach Portfolio, after that most hardy of creatures.

But the idea of a permanent, cockroach portfolio for all weathers was probably first popularised by an American investment advisor, Harry Browne, who died in 2006. Browne was also an author and politician. His books, mostly centred around investment, sold more than 2 million copies, and in 1996 and 2000 he was the Libertarian Party’s presidential nominee. 

But, as an investment advisor, in 1982 he developed what is known as “the permanent portfolio” investment strategy, which he then wrote about in his 1999 personal finance book, Fail-Safe Investing: Lifelong Financial Security in 30 Minutes. This portfolio would assure "you are financially safe, no matter what the future brings."

Browne’s idea was that there are four macroeconomic environments - four seasons if you like: inflation, deflation, growth and recession. One of those macroeconomic environments would always apply.

So his portfolio was allocated in such a way that some of it would perform well in each of those seasons.

* 25% in US stocks. That would do well in times of growth. 

* 25% in long-term U.S. Treasury bonds. These would also do well during times of growth - and in deflation too. 

* 25% in cash. That’s for recession. 

* 25% in gold, meanwhile, would see you through the inflation.

All in all, therefore, Browne’s portfolio for all economic seasons looked something like this. (You would re-balance once a year to maintain that allocation)

Browne’s differs from Grice and Faber’s because it contained no allocation to real estate.

But there you have it: a portfolio allocation that might even make it through a financial nuclear financial fall-out like a cockroach.

I have two criticisms. 

First, if you go back to 1982, when Browne first conceived this portfolio, the S&P500 has outperformed by some margin. Sure, the cockroach portfolio is much less volatile, but what’s the point of it, when you can just get an S&P tracker? You could argue that this has been an extraordinary period for US equities, but even so …

Indeed, if you want total cockroach, why not own gold and gold alone? Gold, being indestructible, is even more hardy. It’s been around a lot longer, and it lasts a lot a lot longer. When you, me, humanity and the cockroach itself are all long gone, gold will still be there shining away.

(If you are interested in buying gold, by the way, Pure Gold Company is the place).

The reason not to just own gold is that you want diversification

A word on diversification

Look at some of the richest people you know and I’ll bet you close to none of them made their fortune by having a diversified portfolio. They might have made their money from their profession or by building a successful business, in property, bitcoin or trading. Out of an inheritance or a divorce, maybe. Perhaps they wrote a book, a film, a play or a song that turned out to be a smash hit. Perhaps they are a celebrity or sports star. Whatever. 

Most of the time they were anything but diversified. Rather they were concentrated.

But if the majority of the super rich made their money being concentrated, they kept it by being diversified

The purpose of a diversified portfolio is not so much to make your fortune, but to keep and grow what you have. 

I understand that even Warren Buffett, who is the big example that counters my argument, had a few big wins early on and then grew his fortune building a successful investment business and levering what Einstein called the eighth wonder of the world - compounding - in his favour. 

I was chatting with a mining investor I know the other day. He made $40 million in 2005-2006. But he was moaning about the fact that he stayed concentrated and so handed a vast lump of it back. Had he instead diversified and then grew his wealth at say 5% a year, he would now be sitting on a pot more than double that size. At 10% a year, he would now be sitting on over $200m. 

Concentration is how you make your fortune. Diversification is how you keep and grow it. 

Unfortunately, concentration is also how you can lose a fortune. Let’s say you went all in on bitcoin in 2013. Or tech or whatever. You’d be minted. But if you went all in on mining in 2013. You’d be borassic. I think you get the point.

My do very-little-portfolio is coming soon. Keep your eyes peeled.

Interested in buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times? My recommended bullion dealer is The Pure Gold Company, whether you are taking delivery or storing online. Premiums are low, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, US, Canada and Europe, or you can store your gold with them. More here.

Lots of exciting things coming up on this Substack in the next couple of weeks.

If you missed them last week, be sure to check out:

* Dr John’s special report on North American oil and gas plays. A real opportunity setting up here.

* Another opportunity also seems to be setting up in uranium: read about the coming supply squeeze and how to play this (almost)…

I wrote this article for Moneyweek the day before the EU referendum, on June 22, 2016. I thought with everything that has happened since, as your Sunday morning thought piece, this was well worth re-reading and thinking about.

It’s amazing how many of these things remain issues, especially immigration, and how few have been properly acted upon.

It’s also amazing just how our leaders have failed us. Brexit was such an opportunity to “reset”, to start again, to re-design our country at a time when so many are craving change. In that regard, you would probably have to say that Boris was the biggest missed opportunity of the lot, especially given the mandate he had in 2019.

I love Europe, but I want to leave the EU

It’s obvious. But based on some of the things I’m reading on social media and elsewhere, it needs saying again. Voting to leave the European Union (EU) is not voting for Boris or Nigel or anyone else. The elected Conservative government will remain in power until there is another election, at which point we can vote for a different party if we so wish. This is simply a vote on whether we should remain part of the administrative body that is the EU. 

It does not mean you will no longer be able to travel to France. It does not mean your continental friends will not be able to come to the UK. And it doesn’t mean we will no longer be able to trade with our European brothers.

I should say, my grandparents were Italian. I speak five European languages, three fluently. I have lived several years of my life on the continent, and I do business with people in Europe all the time. I’m a europhile.

And I want out of the EU. Here are ten reasons why.

1. Centralised power is the wrong way to go

People thrive most in societies in which power is distributed as thinly and widely as possible. In such environments they are happier, healthier, wealthier, freer, and they achieve more.

The EU, by design, centralises power in Brussels. We are moving into an age of decentralisation and localisation. The EU is the wrong model for the times.

2. Fringe nations perform better 

Since the inception of the EU in 1993, the economies of Norway, Switzerland and Iceland (even with its financial crisis) – the fringe nations – have on a per capita basis dramatically outperformed their neighbouring EU economies.

We would be a fringe nation and that would suit us.

3. Regulation should be local

Around 65% of regulation is now set in Brussels. It is of a one-size-fits-all variety, and so often inappropriate to local circumstances. Rather than facilitate progress, regulation hinders it. 

Yet, once in place, regulation is hard to change. Rather than get cut, it is added to. We already have too much in our lives. What we need would be much better set locally, according to local needs and circumstances.

4. The economic disaster that is southern Europe

We now have 39% youth unemployment in Italy, 45% in Spain and 49% in Greece. These countries are unable to do the things they need to do to kickstart their economies because decisions are being taken on their behalf; not locally, but in Brussels. 

I cannot support with my vote an organisation that has inflicted such misery on its people. Reform of a bureaucratic organisation like that from within is an impossible undertaking.

5. Immigration policy is becoming ever more important

There are more and more people in the world and – whether it’s those displaced by wars, by lack of water, by poverty, hunger or lack of opportunity – more and more of them are on the move. We are in a migration of people of historic proportions.

The UK, in the way it currently operates, will struggle with immigration levels over 300,000 a year (and growing every year) for a sustained period. We don’t have the infrastructure. 

I wonder how we get those numbers down. I’m not sure we can, either in or out of the EU. It is a tide in the affairs of men. But we are in a better position to do it with total control of our own borders and border policy.

6. Trade deals are a red herring

As a percentage share, British trade with the EU, despite the single market, has fallen by almost 20% since 1999. British trade with the US, on the other hand, has grown. We have no official trade deal with the US.

Here’s a chart of exports for your delectation.

There is no point having a common market if the economies of the countries you’re in that market with are dying. 

7. Further integration with the EU = economic decline

When Britain joined the Common Market in 1973, the EU (as it is now) produced 38% of the world’s goods and services – 38% of global GDP. 

In 1993, when the EU formally began, it produced just under 25%. Today the EU produces just 17%.

The obvious explanation for this is the rise of the Asian economies, which have taken on a bigger share of global GDP. But why then has the US’s share not fallen by as much? 

The US’s share of global GDP stood at 30% in 1973, 27% in 1993, and stands at 22% today. That’s a 55% drop for the EU versus a 27% drop for the US.

Run away.

8. Democratic accountability matters

The EU is not a democratically accountable body. I didn’t vote for the administrators and nor did you. I don’t know who most of them are. If we want to vote them out, what do we do? We can’t do anything. 

And if you want some idea as to the esteem in which they hold democratic process, how about this from the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Junker: “prime ministers must stop listening so much to their voters and instead act as ‘full time Europeans’.” Or how about another one of his remarks: “when it gets serious, you have to lie”. 

Just what you want in a president. Do you remember voting for him? I certainly don’t.

9. Land ownership and the Common Agricultural Policy

There is no greater manifestation of the wealth divide in the UK than who owns land and who doesn’t: 70% of land in the UK is owned by fewer than 6,000 people. Yet these people are not paying tax on the land they own, they are receiving subsidies for it. Landowners are being paid by the EU to own land. 

Of the EU budget, 40% goes on agricultural policy. This has created vast amounts of waste. It has propped up inefficient businesses that have failed to modernise. It has re-enforced monopolies which should be broken up. Worst of all, it has meant that African farmers have been unable to compete, depriving millions of a livelihood (not to mention cheaper food for the rest of us). 

I cannot endorse with my vote an organisation that does this and shows zero inclination to change its ways.

10. The Common Fishing Policy

60% of EU water is British or Irish. We have not been given any continental land (why should we be?), yet we have had to cede control of our waters to gain EU membership. What was once a huge industry and the largest fishing fleet in Europe has all but disappeared.

The French, Italians, Spanish and Greeks had fished out the Mediterranean. They were given access to our waters and our quota was reduced to 13% of the common resource. 

The quotas system brought about the dreadful practice of discards (putting dead fish back in the sea), and reformed EU regulation now means that rather than being put back in the water, it is brought back for landfill instead. 

Let’s have our waters back.

I don’t think it takes a genius to work out which way I’m voting tomorrow. Good luck with whatever you choose to do in what will be a historic occasion. I’m looking forward to it. 

I believe, in the event we vote to leave, once we actually do leave, we will experience an economic boom that will take everybody’s breath away, to the extent that we will look back and wonder why we were even discussing it. Fingers crossed. 

If you think this article might persuade any of the many wavering, undecided voters, please share it with them.

From next week, I’ll be back with the usual investment thoughts and ideas.

So … What do you think? How right was I? How wrong was I? Post your thoughts in the comments. Obviously, seven years on a lot has changed. With the benefit of hindsight, things now look very different. So many bad decisions have been made. But it’s very interesting to look back and see where we were, where we could have been and where we are now.

News broke late yesterday of what could prove a landmark court ruling for bitcoin.

Even the Financial Times, which has been talking bitcoin down for over ten years now, called it “a big win”.

The reason this is potentially such a big ruling is that it opens the door for a bitcoin ETF. (See footnote if you want to know what an ETF is).

NB If you are interested in buying bitcoin, here is my guide. The exchange I use is Coin Corner. And here is an even simpler method, if you want to go via your broker.

Some background:

The Greyscale Investment Trust (OTC:GBTC), which listed in 2013, buys and holds bitcoin. So in buying the trust - which you buy or sell as you would any other security (unless you are British, thanks to FCA rulings) - you are, in effect, buying bitcoin, or at least getting exposure to the bitcoin price. GBTC now has something like $17 billion under management.  

However, being a trust, you cannot sell your GBTC shares and redeem them for bitcoin. You can only sell your shares in the trust to someone else. This means in effect that the trust cannot sell its bitcoin: the amount of bitcoin in the trust can only increase (as it issues more shares).

At first, the trust traded at a considerable premium to the bitcoin price - as it was the only way investors could own bitcoin via a broker. At times GBTC traded at double the value of its bitcoin holdings. However, in recent years, this reversed, so that by December last year the trust was trading at a 50% discount to the bitcoin price. What was the point of owning the trust then, if it doesn’t track the bitcoin price?

Greyscale had a problem. The solution was to convert the trust into an ETF and for years Greyscale has been trying to get permission. Thus would it be able to buy and sell bitcoin according to market demand. But the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected its application.  

The SEC has repeatedly ruled against other bitcoin ETF applications too. There have been so many. The Winkelvoss brothers tried to get one listed. So did Cathie Wood. They were all rejected. There are currently at least half a dozen other proposals under consideration from the likes of BlackRock, WisdomTree and Fidelity, but the short of it is that the SEC, like the FCA here in the UK, does not like crypto. Indeed, SEC Chair, Gary Gensler, has issued a plethora of regulatory actions against the likes of Coinbase and Binance, the latter being the largest crypto exchange in the world.

(To be balanced, the SEC has greenlit ETFs based on bitcoin futures, but it has argued, and not so unreasonably given its remit, that bitcoin trades on unregulated exchanges and can be prone to market manipulation).

Yesterday, however, a federal appeal’s court in Washington ruled that the SEC was wrong to reject the Greyscale’s bitcoin ETF application brought last year. “The denial of Grayscale’s proposal was arbitrary and capricious because the Commission failed to explain its different treatment of similar products,” said one of the three judges.

The Grayscale appeal focused on one simple question: whether it could offer a spot bitcoin ETF that would expose retail investors to the real-time price of bitcoin. 

The fact is there is a lot of demand for a bitcoin spot ETF, not just in the US but worldwide. We shall see if the SEC now appeals, but the short of it is that a spot bitcoin ETF now looks a lot more likely.

What are the implications for the bitcoin price?

An ETF will open up entirely new markets for bitcoin both at the retail and the institutional level. It will bring a lot more money into bitcoin. With bitcoin’s limited supply that has to be very bullish.

It also opens up the door for ETFs in the likes of ethereum, litecoin and bitcoin cash. And all three rallied strongly on the news.

By way of example, you just need to see what happened to bitcoin cash when it listed on EDX Markets in June, opening up the door for a lot more money to come into the sector. The price went up 200%. I think a lot of buyers might have thought they were buying bitcoin, but the price still rallied.

A word of warning, however. And I’ll bet you this is what happens when we eventually get a bitcoin ETF.

This is the last of these pieces about gold in ancient history. I’m back from the Edinburgh Fringe now, and more regular market commentary will resume.

Lots of exciting things happening on this Substack. If you missed them this week, check out Wednesday’s piece on uranium, the coming supply squeeze and how to play this (almost) inevitable bull market. On Monday I covered bitcoin - in particular, how UK investors can get exposure via a traditional broker (and thus have it in their SIPP or ISA). And Friday I told the story of one of the maddest gigs I have ever done.

Coming up this week: Dr John will be sharing his picks of the North American oil and gas plays. Plus together, with Dr John and Charlie Morris of Bytetree, I have been working on the the Do F All portfolio: a do-very-little portfolio for the hands-off investor, who wants to invest his or her money safely and well, without constantly having to monitor it. There’ll be a podcast and a piece about that very soon.

So look out for all of those. For now, your Sunday morning thought piece, a historical piece with many parallels to today: the Romans and the debasement of money.

The Roman Empire is probably more famous for debasing its currency, than for its money itself. But for that debasement to have been so prolonged (it went on for hundreds of years) and, some might say, effective, it needed an established, widely recognised and credible money as a starting point. Here look at the rise and full of sound money in Ancient Rome. There are many parallels to today.

The geology of central Italy is not particularly abundant in gold and silver, and it was only really after Rome began expanding beyond central Italy in the third century BC that it started using gold and silver. Commodity money tends to be determined by the resources available.  Bronze (copper and tin) is abundant in the area, and bronze, in the form of weights - aes rude, often as heavy as 11oz (300g) - was the early currency of choice. 

As the Republic expanded, so did access to gold and silver, either from loot, tribute or mine supply, and so did these precious metals make their way into Roman money. The first silver denarius was minted in 211BC. Within 50 or 60 years Roman coinage was widespread across Italy. Much of the silver to mint the coins came from mines in Macedonia, which Rome now controlled. 

For the next 500 years this silver coin, containing about just over 1/8th of an ounce (4g) of silver - a little bit more than the weight of a 1p coin - would be the backbone currency of Rome. One denarius was exchangeable for ten asses (the aes rude evolved to become the as) - hence its name “of ten”, or tenner. It was 95-98% pure silver. To give you some kind of benchmark, sterling silver is only 92.5% pure. 

The purchasing power of a denarius would be more than the underlying metal value - ranging between 1.5 and 3 times the value. That’s seigniorage for you.

The denarius lives on today, especially in many Latin  languages. The Italian word for money is “denaro”, “dinero” is Spanish, “dinheiro” is Portugese, “denar” is Slovenian. In many Arab nations, the currency is the dinar. The symbol for the English penny used to be ‘d’ - as in 1d.

Heads of emperors appeared on coins, and so, as a result, did their use as imperial propaganda. The more coins circulating around the ever-growing empire, spreading the message of Roman imperial might, the better.

As a side note, consider this Trajan denarius from AD 101. On the reverse we see Providentia, Roman goddess of foresight, overlooking a globe (the world, the empire).

Similarly, this Roman aureus of Hadrian from 117AD, when he became emperor, and when the Roman empire was at its most extensive, shows, on the reverse, Trajan, the previous emperor (on the right) passing a globe - the empire - to Hadrian who accepts it.

This Hadrian sestertius (there were four of these brass coins to a denarius) tells the same story.

This surely kills the notion that people thought the earth was flat. Several centuries earlier Aristotle had argued that the world was round saying. "the Earth is spherical". While in 240 BC, Greek astronomer Eratosthenes actually calculated the circumference of the earth, and accurately,  by measuring the angles of shadows.

Coin clipping and the debasement of money

The infamous debasement only began shortly after the Republic became Empire, and control of money passed from the Senate to the Emperor. It lasted several hundred years. 

By the first century AD, taxation and tribute only covered around 80% of the imperial budget. The shortfall was met by mining and the loot of newly conquered nations. But the empire was no longer expanding at the same rate, so this was becoming an increasingly risky strategy. Shortfalls, especially under extravagant emperors, became increasingly common. The solution to excess spending, as today, was not to rein it in, but to debase the currency. In AD64 Nero reduced both the amount of silver in a denarius (to 3.5grams) as well as the purity of the metal itself (to 93.5%).  

A few decades later, under Trajan, the Roman Empire reached its greatest extent. From then on, it receded. That meant the supply of loot from newly conquered territories also receded. 

By lowering the amount of silver in its coins, Rome could produce more coins and "stretch" its budget. Successive emperors followed Nero’s strategy. As with boiling frogs and the debasement of currency today, the process was gradual. 100 years after Nero, around 150AD, the purity of silver had been reduced to 83%. By 250AD the silver purity was 50%. 

But then the debasement accelerated. By 275AD it was just 5%. As time progressed, the sleight of hand was exposed. By the time of Diocletian, who was emperor from 284 to 305AD, there was so little precious metal in the money, the emperor had to resort to price controls. It was under Diocletian that the last denarii were minted.

The most important gold coin of Ancient Rome was the aureus, similar in size to the denarius, but containing roughly twice the weight of precious metal (gold is denser than silver). It would be a bit heavier than a 2p today. An aureus was 25 denarii, so the gold-silver ratio would have been about 1:12, the historical norm. 

Nero reduced the gold content to 7.3g (coincidentally perhaps the same weight as the sovereign of the British Empire). By 210AD the gold content had fallen to 6.3g. However, unlike the silver denarius, the aureus kept its near-100%, 24-karat purity.

By the fourth century, the idea of obtaining an aureus for 25 denarii was long gone. In 301, one gold aureus was worth 833 denarii; barely a decade later, the same aureus was worth 4,350 denarii. 

In 337, Constantine, who had re-located the heart of the Empire to Constantinople, replaced the aureus with the solidus - about 4.5 grams of 24 karat gold. Initially, one solidus was worth 275,000 denarii, but by 356, one solidus was worth 4,600,000 denarii. Talk about inflation. 

(That last stat is from Wikipedia and it sounds dubious).

However, in a breathtaking show of hypocrisy that even leaders today would struggle to pull off, the Roman authorities, despite the declining quality of the metal content of their denarius, refused to accept anything other than gold and silver in payment of taxes. Take in the good money, send out the bad.

Of course, one key reason for the relentless debasement was a bloated Roman state that was incapable of living within its means. But another reason must be lack of raw material. As central Italy had little supply, the metal had to be obtained elsewhere and most of it came in the form of war booty and the subsequent tributes and taxes levied. No wonder Rome was constantly at war. That was its business model. But the expense of continual wars, without the corresponding payback of loot from the newly conquered, made the model unsustainable. The expansion ceased, but the spending didn’t.

Interested in buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times? My recommended bullion dealer is The Pure Gold Company, whether you are taking delivery or storing online. Premiums are low, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, US, Canada and Europe, or you can store your gold with them. More here.

I once presented a documentary for Italian TV which declared that Jakob Fugger - Fugger the Rich - was the richest man in history. He was a German who made his fortune in the 16th century through gold and copper mines, lending money to kings and popes and, above all, by selling absolution. By the time he died his net worth was equivalent to nearly 2.5% of European GDP, tantamount to half a trillion dollars in today’s money.

But, according to the internet (and we all know the internet is never wrong) there was someone even richer - a Malian gentleman, Mansa Musa the Ninth, or King Musa IX.

The BBC deems his wealth “indescribable”, placing him above the likes of Augustus Caesar, Andrew Carnegie, John D Rockefeller, William The Conqueror and Colonel Gaddafi in its Wealth Hall of Fame. Fugger doesn’t even get a look in.

So who was this Mansa Musa the Ninth?

Musa was born in 1280 in Mali in West Africa. At some point in his early 20s he became Mansa. The eighth Mansa, his brother Abu Bakr, had wanted to go and explore the edge of the Atlantic Ocean and Musa stood in for him while he was gone. Bakr never came back and so did Musa become Mansa. 

Many of those out there with a dark view of human nature argue that Musa actually saw to it that Bakr never came back. The whole “exploring the edge of the Atlantic Ocean” thing was just a ruse. Who knows? Perhaps Bakr did make it to the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, also known as Brasil, found it to his liking, as many visitors there do, and decided to settle there.

At the time the Mali empire extended through 2,000 miles of West Africa - from what today is Niger in the east, through parts of Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Senegal, Mauritania, Sierra Leone and Gambia. With land ownership came ownership of the natural resources that lay within - and that’s how Musa came to be so rich. Salt, gold and slaves. He sold hundreds of thousands of slaves to the Middle East, pioneering a pan African slave trade that still exists to this day. Those slaves he didn’t sell he put to work in his mines.  

West Africa has always had lots of gold. Even today Ghana is Africa’s second largest producer, beaten only by South Africa, whose premium deposit, the Witswatersrand Basin, was only discovered in 1886 by an Australian mining prospector called George Harrison. 

Harrison, by the way, in what must be considered among the worst business deals in history, worse even than record label Decca passing on Harrison’s namesake’s band, the Beatles, seventy years later, sold his stake for £10. Harrison was never heard of again, but his discovery would provide the world with over 20% of all the gold ever mined. 

But, until the Wits Basin, West Africa was top dog. Indeed, according to the British Museum, something like half of the Old World’s gold came from the Mali Empire. Musa sure did enjoy the trappings. He had tens of thousands of slaves to his name and in 1324 set off with 12,000 of them and a retinue of 38,000 others, including soldiers and entertainers - all of them dressed in gold, brocade and silk, apparently - on a pilgrimage to Mecca. 

Like today’s mega billionaires, Musa liked attention. He didn’t have rocket ships, Twitter or appearances on Saturday Night Live to get it, so Musa’s means was this hajj - a pilgrimage to Mecca, the spiritual home of Islam. The 2,800 mile round trip took him some two years. 

Each slave carried some four pounds of gold, while camels behind towed as many as 300 pounds of gold dust, so that the entire transit had some 18 tons of gold in tow. There were heralds who bore gold staves, and, en route, every Friday, this devout servant of Islam had a mosque built, so the story goes.

When he arrived in Cairo, he went shopping. He did the same in Medina and Mecca. The sudden, dramatic rise in the supply of gold in those cities caused an inflationary collapse that took some 12 years to recover from.

Ever the businessman, the devaluation of the gold price because of the sudden new supply was apparent to Musa, so on his way back from Cair,o Musa then borrowed from money-lenders all the gold he and his retinue could carry. Cynics out there argue that his strategy - causing inflation then collapse - was a deliberate ploy to undermine the Cairo economy and relocate Africa’s commercial centre out to Mali in the West - to Gao or Timbuktu.

Over the course of his reign Musa conquered some 24 cities (and their surrounding districts) - among them Timbuktu, which he took on his way back from Mecca. Once back in Mali, Musa started throwing about his gold there too. For 440 pounds of gold, he hired the services of poet and architect, Abu Isaq Silla, to give Timbuktu a makeover. Universities and mosques were built and Timbuktu became something of a cultural centre - the “Paris of the Medieval World”, according to some. One of Musa’s buildings, the Sankore Madrassah, where maths, science, languages and the Koran were taught, is still operating today in the same capacity.

Musa died in 1337, at the ripe old age of 57, and the Mali empire began to fall apart soon after. 

The inescapable laws of unsustainable spending applied as much then as they do today. 

If buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, my recommended bullion dealer is The Pure Gold Company, whether you are taking delivery or storing online. Premiums are low, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, US, Canada and Europe, or you can store your gold with them. More here.

My show on gold at the Edinburgh Fringe this August will take place at Panmure House, in the room in which  Adam Smith wrote Wealth of Nations. You can get tickets here. Last show is Aug 20.

The story of Midas, and how everything he touched turned to gold, is perhaps the most famous golden myth of all. His touch led to one of the most successful, long-lasting and under-rated technologies in history: coinage.

Midas was King of Phrygia (now part of Turkey) and Dionysus - more commonly known as Bacchus - the god of wine, parties and pleasure - was passing through with his entourage, revelling as they went. 

Waking up one morning after a heavy night, Dionysus discovered that his tutor, Silenus, was missing. Silenus was a satyr, half man half goat. He had been drinking and he’d wandered off and fallen asleep in a rose garden, a garden that belonged to King Midas. Midas enjoyed spending time there with his daughter, who he loved more than anyone else in the world.

Midas found Silenus lying on the ground and took him in, no doubt nursing a hangover. Silenus stayed with Midas for over a week, delighting him with songs and stories, enjoying his wine, food and hospitality. On the eleventh day, Midas took Silenus back to Dionysus, who was so delighted to see his old mentor safe and well, he offered Midas whatever reward he wished for. Midas thought hard and then asked that everything he touched should turn to gold. Dionysus urged the king to reconsider, but Midas was sure and so Dionysus granted his wish.

Initially, Midas was delighted. He turned a twig, then a stone to gold. When he got home, he touched every rose in his garden, and they all turned to gold. Delighted, he ordered his servants to make him a feast, but, when his food and drink turned to gold, it dawned on him that perhaps his gift was a bane.

His daughter came to him, crying that their roses had lost their smell. Midas hugged her and she too turned to gold. What had been his beloved daughter was now a statue, albeit a golden one. Despairing, he prayed to Dionysus to deliver him from his curse. “Go and wash your hands in the River Pactolus,” Dionysus told him.

Midas did so. Dionysus’s cure worked. Midas’ power flowed into the water and the sands of the river turned to gold. Whatever he put in the water, his daughter included, was turned back into what it had been before Midas touched it. 

So does that part of Midas’ story end.

The obvious moral to the tale is of the tendency of lust for wealth to overpower good sense, to make us lose sight of what we love. 

But there is another tale that Midas left there in the sands of the River Pactolus.  

The Western World’s First Coins

At its height, the Lydian empire stretched across all western Asia Minor, and the Pactolus flowed right through the middle. The Lydians were, around 700BC, says the Greek historian Herodotus, “the first of all those we know to introduce the use of gold and silver coins and the first to deal in retail trade."

The Chinese might have something to say about that. Their bronze spade money and knife money dates back to the 16th century BC and the late Shang Dynasty. The money gets its name from its shape, which resembles a spade or hoe, with a pointed end, a flat or round base, and a central hole for stringing them together. But it wasn’t round, so technically I suppose it isn’t coinage as we know it.

Given that we still use coins today, coinage has proved a remarkably successful technology. Indeed the Chinese ‘yuan’ and Japanese ‘yen’ both mean ‘round shape’ – referring, of course, to the shapes of coins. 

“History became legend, legend became myth,” wrote Peter Jackson in his screenplay for The Fellowship Of The Ring and here is a case in point. Midas did actually exist. Most Greek mythological figures did before they became legend. Something similar happens now. The sports stars of today will become the gods, heroes and legends of tomorrow, just as those of our childhood now enjoy such status. One of Midas’ descendents was the Lydian King Alyattes I, the first western king to mint coins. He minted his coins from the alluvial electrum (a gold-silver alloy) found in the beds of the Pactolus, the gold left there by Midas. These coins, the western world’s first coins, formed the base of the Lydian empire.

Alyattes’ innovative son, Croesus, had the electrum coins of his father melted down to separate the gold from the silver, and then re-minted. On one side of his new coins was the image of a lion and a bull, on the other were punch marks to show their value. (Faces did not appear on coins till later). Effectively, Croesus launched not only the first imperial currency in the history of the world, but the bi-metallic standard.

His coins were not only accepted, but demanded throughout Asia Minor, Greece and beyond. This universal acceptance played a key role in developing Lydia’s prosperity. With his coins circulating so widely and effectively, Croesus' reputation as an extremely rich man was secured for all time. Not only was he as rich as Croesus, he had, it seems, the Midas Touch. 

That touch lasted. His basic denomination was subdivided into smaller denominations of thirds, sixths and twelfths and these reforms evolved into the 24 carats and ounces we use today. Coin values reflected the actual value of the metal content. 

Within 100 years coinage had spread to Persia in the east, across Asia Minor and Greece and at least as far as Sicily in the west. Roman and Celtic coins would later follow the same principles.

Coins provided both geographical and social mobility. People could move around and carry value with them. Trade spread with a newfound ease, and the development of civilization could and did accelerate. 

My show on gold at the Edinburgh Fringe this August will take place at Panmure House, in the room in which  Adam Smith wrote Wealth of Nations. You can get tickets here.

And if you are interested in buying gold, my recommended bullion dealer is The Pure Gold Company, whether you are taking delivery or storing online. Premiums are low, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, US, Canada and Europe, or you can store your gold with them. More here.

We continue with my series about gold in pre-history today with one of the earliest and most enduring of the golden myths: Jason and the Golden Fleece. This story, which took place about a generation before the Trojan War, starts out as a hero’s quest, but develops into a story of betrayal and vengeance with, like many a Greek myth, a tragic ending.

In Iolcos, Pelias usurped his brother Aeson, the rightful king, to take the throne. He then had all Aeson’s descendents killed. People were ruthless in those days.

Aeson’s son Jason, however, survived the massacre, saved by a wheeze: when he was born, his mother had all her servants cry to fool Pelias into thinking he was still-born. She then smuggled Jason away to be reared by Chiron, “the wisest and justest of all the centaurs.” Chiron was the son of Cronos and would count among his high-achieving students Achilles, Odysseus, Hercules, Theseus and Perseus.

Meanwhile, an oracle warned Aeson “to fear the man with one sandal”. No doubt feeling guilty about his ill-gotten kingship, he lived in dread of that prophecy.

When Jason was fully grown, he set off to Iolcos to claim his throne. On his way, he chanced upon an old lady trying to cross a river and helped her across. In doing so he lost his sandal. Little did he know, that old lady was Hera, wife of Zeus, Queen of the Gods. She would become his ally.

In Iolcos, Jason was announced as a man in one sandal. He came before King Pelias, revealed who he was and claimed the kingdom. Pelias agreed to cede the kingdom, but only on one condition: that Jason brought him the fleece of the golden ram. He had set Jason an impossible task, a task that would take him beyond the known world (which at this point was about as far as the Black Sea), to the barbarian kingdom of Colchis. But Jason agreed.

The fleece, so the story went, was of a magical ram that had once belonged to Zeus. It hung from a tree in a sacred grove, guarded by bulls with hooves of brass and breath of fire, and a dragon that never slept, whose teeth became soldiers when planted in the ground. The fleece belonged to Aietes, King of Colchis, son of the sun god, Helios, no less. Another oracle had foretold that Aietes would lose his kingdom, if he lost his fleece.

I love how legends and myths are born out of truths and here is a case in point. East of the Black Sea in what today is Georgia - in Colchis in other words - sheepskins were used to pan gold from rivers. The fleeces were stretched over a wooden frame and then submerged in rivers, where the tight curls of the sheep’s coat would catch nuggets and specks of gold carried down in the rushing water from placer deposits upstream. The fleeces were then hung in trees to dry, after which the gold was combed out. If you have a wet fleece full of alluvial gold hanging to dry in a tree, you are going to make sure it is well guarded - by bulls and dragons, if necessary. It’s quite easy to see how this practice had evolved into the myth of a golden fleece as the story spread east from the other side of the Black Sea. 

Three Impossible Tasks

Jason had a ship, the Argo, built. He assembled a crew - the Argonauts - a band of heroes which included such luminaries as Hercules, the twins Castor and Pollux, Peleus (father of Achilles), Orpheus (the musician) and Atlanta (the virgin huntress who would never marry). 

They set off on what is seen by some as the first long-distance voyage ever undertaken, perhaps the first time a Greek had successfully navigated the hostile currents of the Bosphorus. En route, the Argonauts stopped on the Isle of Lemnos, inhabited by a band of women who had killed their husbands. There they fathered a new people with them, the Minyae. Sounds like a good holiday. They fought giants with six arms, they killed harpies, they navigated the clashing rocks of the Bosphorus and eventually arrived in Colchis.

There King Aietes set Jason an impossible task - actually three - if he wanted to claim the fleece as his own. He had to harness the fire-breathing oxen and plough a field with them. He had to sow a field with dragon’s teeth and fight the army of phantom soldiers that resulted. And, finally, he had to overcome the dragon.

Needless to say, Jason was discouraged, but Hera, Jason’s ally, leant on Aphrodite, goddess of love, to lend a hand. She sent her son, Eros, to shoot one of his arrows and it struck Aietes’ daughter, Medea, who fell in love with Jason. Medea gave Jason an ointment to protect him from the oxen’s fire. She showed him how to defeat the phantom soldiers with a rock that would confuse them into fighting each other. She gave him a potion to send the dragon to sleep, so that he could take the fleece.  

With the fleece in hand, Jason and his Argonauts attempted their escape. To help them, Medea murdered her brother and threw pieces of his body into the sea. Grief-stricken, Aietes stopped to collect the pieces of body, allowing Jason, Medea and the Argonauts to get away.

There were as many adventures on the way home. They passed the infamous Sirens, whose songs enticed sailors, only for their ships to wreck on the rocks. But Orpheus played his lyre and drowned their songs with music that was more beautiful. They could not pass Crete, for the rocks that the bronze man Talos threw at them, but again they were saved by Medea, who cast a spell on Talos and then killed him.

Back at Iolcos, Jason’s father, Aeson, was too old to participate in the celebrations, but Medea used her witchcraft to rejuvenate him.  Pelias’ daughters asked her to do the same for the ageing Pelias. Medea advised them to chop him up and put him in a cauldron to boil, which they duly did. It was a trick, of course, and Pelias was no more. But Jason and Medea were exiled for the murder and they fled to city of Corinth. There Jason betrayed Medea by marrying the king’s daughter. 

Medea confronted Jason, heartbroken, but Jason blamed Aphrodite for having made Medea fall in love with him. Medea would have her revenge, a revenge which has become the subject of many a drama since, not least at the National Rheatre.

She gave Jason’s newly betrothed a dress that stuck to her body and burned her to death. The king died with his daughter as he tried to save her. Then Medea killed her own two sons, born by Jason, and fled to Athens in a chariot of dragons sent by her grandfather, the sun-god Helios.

Jason returned to Iolcus to claim his kingdom, but as a result of breaking his vow to love Medea forever, he lost the favour of Hera. He died lonely and unhappy, asleep on the rotting Argo.

It’s a buccaneering adventure story, full of the human psychological flaws that the Ancient Greeks seemed so cognizant of, with a typically Greek tragic end. The formula of hero, dark power and female helper has become the backbone of numerous plots since, not least in Hollywood, while the premise - a young man setting off in search of his fortune, made of gold - is the premise of every youngster setting off on his or her life’s adventure.

My show on gold at the Edinburgh Fringe this August will take place at Panmure House, the room in which  Adam Smith wrote Wealth of Nations. You can get tickets here.

Interested in buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times? My recommended bullion dealer is The Pure Gold Company, whether you are taking delivery or storing online. Premiums are low, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, US, Canada and Europe, or you can store your gold with them. More here.

In my late teens and early 20s I was obsessed with beaches. I had always liked them, we all do, but I think it was a trip to Thailand in 1989 that triggered the obsession. Being on Koh Phangan back then when there was barely any power on the island - you had to go to back to Koh Samui for the full moon parties - smoking joints, lounging about in hammocks, philosophising with my mates, talking about our futures, watching the world go by, swimming, snorkelling, playing endless games of frisbee and volleyball on the white sands as sunny days drifted into beautiful sunsets, is a time I will always cherish. 

After that trip, I used to endlessly contemplate beaches - didn’t matter if they were tropical or Cornish, Mediterranean or in Bournemouth - they all have something to appreciate and enjoy. As a young writer trying to get stuff published, I wrote and wrote about them. Then, in 1996, The Beach was published. Alex Garland’s debut novel caught a zeitgeist and took the world by storm, eventually becoming a film with Leonardo di Caprio. Anything beach related would now be copycat. Garland  owned the subject and I had to move on.

I always wanted to end up on a tropical beach somewhere. I’ve left it a bit late, but the dream still lingers, though, like many a dream of my youth, it’s somewhat faded.

Today, generally speaking, the thought of a really crowded beach, packed with sardine holidaymakers, fills me with a certain amount of horror. It probably does you. I’d pick the Maldives over St Tropez pretty much any day of the week (even though I’ve never actually been to the Maldives). As for Bournemouth beach in a heatwave, I’ll almost certainly pass.

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A Free Market Success Story

This week my two sons and I have come to Ksamil in the south of Albania for a boys’ holiday. I put a post on Twitter - should we go to Bulgaria and the Black Sea or Kotor in Montenegro? Something Tom Winnifrith said persuaded me to come to Albania instead. I liked the idea of flying to Corfu and then getting the ferry across. And I heard the beaches were nice. 

We arrived after a journey that was a lot more drawn out than I would have liked, went for an early evening stroll and oh, how my heart sank. The beaches were probably the most crowded I have ever seen. Crap music blared out. You seem to have to hire sunbeds, which cost €25 - there are three of us, have I got to pay €75 a day just to get on the beach? Negativity prevailed.

The following morning I spoke to Ilir, the extremely helpful proprietor of the 6 Milje hotel, where we are staying. 

“What do people normally do with their phones when they go swimming?” I asked him.

“You have to understand, the beaches here are not like the beaches in Italy or Spain, public beaches, and maybe your stuff isn’t safe,” he said. “Here in Albania nothing gets stolen”. 

I raised a doubtful eyebrow.

“The beaches are privately owned,” he explained.

He had said the magic words and my ears pricked up. 

“It means you have to pay, ha ha ha,” he laughed. “They want the money. But everything is taken care of.”

I couldn’t help myself. 

“Are you familiar with the Tragedy of the Commons?” I asked. “When everybody uses the resource but nobody looks after it, because nobody owns it. You see it in the oceans, in the common parts of social housing -”

“Yes, yes,” he said dismissively.

I don’t know how these Albania beaches were procured in the first place. The way assets were seized after the fall of communism in Russia was not exactly salubrious. I expect something similar happened in Albania as communism went down here. Ilir agreed.

“Probably,” he said. “But somebody has to pay,” he went on. “They made a big investment. Before Ksamil was just rocky. They brought in all the sand.”

Beach replenishment is very expensive, my two sons then  told me with great authority. They had both studied it in geography. They went on to discuss whether it is beach replenishment or beach nourishment. 

I now approached my first day on an Albanian beach looking at things through a more optimistic (and biased) lens.

Each stretch of beach does seem to be owned by a different business, often linked to a restaurant or bar nearby. The businesses are competing every day to fill their sun loungers, so each is trying to make its bit of beach as attractive as possible. The result is clean, well kept beaches with an enormous range of sun loungers - from premium sun loungers a yard from the sea with curtains around them for privacy and champagne service to bargain basement folding metal things at the back (not that bargain basement).  Whichever stretch of beach you go to, you are politely greeted by that section’s “head of loungers”. He sorts out your umbrella, he asks you if there is anything else you need, he will keep an eye on your stuff. It turns out €20 for a pair of loungers plus an umbrella is about the going rate for the mid-range stuff. I’ll pay that just to know my cash and phone are safe. (This remains, by the way, very much a cash economy - all hail Albania - both lek and euros are accepted).

There are a gazillion bars, restaurants, stalls, as well as the occasional travelling fruit or recently-barbecued-corn-on-the-cob vendor. Some of the bars/restaurants/stalls are for the loaded (of which there are quite a few - I think this place might be Albania’s answer to St Tropez: there are a lot of glamorous, beautiful people) others are for the skint or the stingy. Some play loud music, others are quite mellow and quiet. 

The stretch of water in front of each beach is filled with enticing things to do. There are diving boards, paddle boards, luxurious floating rafts with sun loungers, one stretch of beach has lanes laid out like an Olympic swimming pool so people can train, there are masks and snorkels for hire, pedalos, pedalo taxis that will take you out to the nearby islands and rafts if you don’t want to get wet. The swimming areas are clearly marked by buoys, so that boats and jet skis pose no risk to swimmers. There is even an entire floating, inflatable water slide assault course thing. Sounds horrendous, but I defy you, if you are an eleven-year-old boy, not to absolutely love it. Couples are catered for. The old are catered for. Young families are catered for. The water is lovely.

This might not be the remote Maldives eco experience. I don’t think I have ever in my life seen such crowded beaches, except perhaps at midnight on New Year’s Eve in Rio de Janeiro on the Copacabana. The circumstances there were slightly different. Environmentalists will probably hate it. It is highly developed. It is not the wild and desolate beach many might hope for. But it is providing a lot of pleasure to a lot of people, using a minimum amount of space, while providing opportunities to a lot of other people, making them prosperous and lifting living standards. The locals here work extremely hard - they are very ambitious. In my hotel, the staff are still working when I go to bed at 11 and when I am up the next morning at 7 the same staff are already laying out breakfast. 

There are tourists here from Albania itself. There are lots of Italians, very few from Greece, quite a few from the UK, France, Scandinavia and Germany.  I’ve heard a lot of Eastern European accents that I cannot place. It’s a real hotspot and it is booming.

In short, it’s an example of a free market at work, private property rights, the benefits of competition, and all those things that libertarians such as myself advocate for.

It’s cheaper than the UK, but not as cheap as you might expect Albania to be. This holiday is going to cost me a lot more than I anticipated. When I complained about the cost of aftersun, the woman in the shop snapped back at me quite articulately telling me that the people here only have two months a year to make money. I have all that other time. My sons, meanwhile, whose finger is on the pulse in a way that mine is not, told me that my ideas of prices are way out of date. I guess that’s inflation for you.

“How corrupt is it?” I asked Ilir. 

“Sometimes people come to the hotel asking for protection money, but we always make sure they don’t come on the property. In your country maybe you have a straight line between what you can and cannot do. In Albania the line is very squiggly.”

I am sure there are villainous types, who don’t deserve it, who are making fortunes out of this incredibly vibrant economy. Villainous they may or may not be, but they were also entrepreneurial. I am sure there are many things that people who know more about the history of Southern Albania than me could find fault with. It is not perfect. Nothing is. But it is also testament to what free markets can do and how quickly, if left alone.

My show on gold at the Edinburgh Fringe this August will take place at Panmure House, the room in which  Adam Smith wrote Wealth of Nations. You can get tickets here.

Interested in buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times? My recommended bullion dealer is The Pure Gold Company, whether you are taking delivery or storing online. Premiums are low, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, US, Canada and Europe, or you can store your gold with them. More here.