Is gold still a safe buy ?

"How cheap can I buy it?" and "Is gold safe?" are two of the most frequent questions gold brokers get. As a former gold broker, I know.

I also know first hand how safe some of the "safest" stocks have been over the last year...who would have thought AIG, Citi, Bank of America, GE and most of Wall Street would be where they are today. I also understand how safe the equity in my home is as prices continue to decline and my equity along with it.

Even cash is shrinking. The dollar buys less than ten cents of the goods and services it did not too long ago. The paper - or money, only has value when others are willing to accept them for goods and services you need. The federal government continues to purposefully deflate the dollar as a strategy to help offset its tremendous debt (and they believe to help stave off total economic crisis - this is probably true in the short term.) They have printed more money over the last two years than they have in the history of our country COMBINED. So they become worth less for everyone who owns them...and guess what, almost everyone owns them.

You own them, I own them, China owns them...lots of them; Japan owns them - as the world's reserve currency, almost everyone owns them in one fashion or another...and those dollars buy less and less every day.

So is gold safe? Compared to what? If you have been following its prices over the last year, as the economic crisis deepened, gold's price went up. Foreign Countries and their Central Banks used to be net sellers of gold. Not any more. They have all turned into buyers. Basically, they are hoarding it. Why? Why would China, who produces more gold than any other country keep all it produces and still be aggressively looking to buy more?

My answer - is gold safe? It is safer when other "safe bets" turn risky. Personally, I don't care what the price of gold is right now. As long as things around the world are as tough as they are now, I see little else that has the upside potential protection when there is all this downside happening around the world every day.

Maybe it will drop lower and never come back. Again, I don't care. Looking for a way to generate short term profit is not why I tell me friends to buy some. I want a hedge...some chance that I own something everyone recognizes and will assign value to if the economy imploded like it almost did in October 2008.

The real danger, or risk, for buying gold is that most buyers do not really know the reasons they should or should not buy gold. They get bounced around from headline to headline...gold broker to gold broker. As a former gold broker, I saw this in action every day. Take it from me, if you do not know why you should buy gold, knowing what gold to buy and for what price is like a roll of the dice. To avoid this...you need to trust someone and learn enough to know what the right gold for the right reasons at the right price is for you and your situation... Owning gold is not for everyone...if you can't answer these questions, you will never know.

In the end, I stand by one prediction: the more money our government prints and releases into the economy; the farther away everyone is from knowing what will happen next... End of story.

To learn more about buying gold right; go to www.goldsafetysecrets.com