There’s Gold In Them Thar Poop

The members of the American Chemical Society must be very curious people.  For example, a presentation at the most recent national meeting of the ACS addressed the prospects for recovery of gold, silver, copper, vanadium, palladium, and other precious metals that are found in . . . human waste.

According to a BBC report, the ACS presentation concluded, through a study that must have been incredibly disgusting to conduct, that gold is found in waste from American sewage treatment plants at the same levels found in a minimal mineral deposit. A prior study had found that the waste from 1 million Americans includes about $13 million in rare metals, and scientists are evaluating whether an extraction process using certain leaches could be applied to the solid waste produced by waste water treatment plans to see whether the rare metals could be pulled out, presumably cleaned up, and then sold.

The concept of extracting metals from solid waste is similar to the notion of “mining” metals from landfills and waste dumps.  Some experts estimate that landfills contain billions of dollars in metals, if they could just figure out an economical way to separate the metals from the disposable diapers and other vile items that have American landfills filled to the brim.  Already some “landfill mining” operations are underway.

Metals, if improperly disposed of, can be environmentally damaging, so I’m all in favor of any process that results in more complete recycling — even if it means sifting through smelly tons of human waste.  The BBC story about the ACS presentation left unanswered my central question about this issue, however:  how in the world does gold and vanadium get into the human digestive system, and its end product, in the first place?

Bye-Bye, Bacon

At dinner tonight, a friend mentioned that  a world-wide bacon shortage is in the offing.  An unfortunate and tasteless jest, I thought — but it turns out to be true.

That’s right: the British National Pig Association is forecasting a world-wide shortage of pork and bacon next year.  They attribute the lack of porcine product and the declining numbers of swine to the increased cost of maize and soya and the other foodstuffs that allow cute little piglets to grow up to be huge, beautiful, bacon-larded hogs.

Horrors!  We’ve put up with a lot in this country:  high unemployment, a crappy economy, even Emmy Awards being presented to shows that no one has ever heard of.  But . . . a bacon shortage???  Isn’t that asking a lot of mainstream America?  How are we going to have state and country fairs without bacon to contribute to deep-fried bacon, chocolate-covered bacon, and bacon ice cream?  What are we supposed to eat for breakfast?  What other foodstuff tastes as succulent wrapped around a scallop, served with scrambled eggs, or covered with brown sugar?

Forget about investing in gold, silver, or other precious metals — it’s time for the savvy investor to go long, long, long in pork bellies.  America runs on bacon!

Ron Gone

Texas Congressman and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul has announced that he won’t be spending resources to contest Republican primaries in any states that haven’t yet voted.  It’s just another reason why Mitt Romney is now described as the “presumptive” Republican nominee.

Paul always seemed like somebody’s batty uncle.  Now that he’s called a kind of end to his campaign, he can go back to the House of Representatives, where he has served for years and accomplished virtually nothing.  (Of course, the people who support Paul probably think that is a good thing.  When you take a libertarian approach to the issues, you don’t want the federal government doing much of anything.)  Still, Paul was entertaining, and his views clearly resonated with a quirky core of voters.  Accordingly, he deserves a bit of farewell doggerel:

Bring all troops home, so Ron Paul said,

And while we’re at it, shut down the Fed

Time to get government off our backs

Which means we end the income tax

And there’s one other thing we hate

Yes, that would be the welfare state

We’ll also strongly protect our borders

While we all become gold hoarders

So anti-government Ron is done

Now he’ll head back to . . . Washington?

A Ringless Day

Yesterday I did something I just don’t do.  In the post-shower hustle and bustle of the morning, as I tied my tie and put on my belt and retrieved my wallet, keys, cell phone, and other paraphernalia, I somehow forgot to put on my wedding ring.

During the more than 29 years Kish and I have been married, slipping that gold band onto the ring finger of the left hand, and then having it there during the day, has been an unvarying part of my life.  Yesterday I noticed that I had forgotten it when I was on the freeway headed to the office, because my hand just felt . . . different.  And then, during the day, the ring’s absence became increasingly noticeable.  I realized that I often unconsciously swivel the ring around my fingers or slide it up and down as I am reading, and I missed doing that.  I missed its exquisite heaviness — to steal a phrase from Auric Goldfinger — and its warm, glittering color.

The ring also is a powerful, visible symbol and affirmation of the fact that I am a lucky man, and I often look at it and smile inwardly at my good fortune.  I missed wearing the ring for that reason most of all.

What Price Gold?

Gold has hit a new all-time high price, above $1,035 per ounce. The run-up in gold prices has been striking — five years ago, the trading price of gold was slight above $400 an ounce, and since last November gold has increased from less than $750 an ounce to its current record level.

Why has the price of gold increased so dramatically? Historically, gold has been viewed as the safest investment in times of uncertainty and potential inflation. If you thought your government was going to collapse, or our currency was going to be undercut by dramatic inflation, you didn’t want worthless paper or coins, you wanted gold because it would retain its value under any circumstances or regime. (Ask any citizen of the Confederate States of America or the Weimar Republic if you don’t believe me.) I think the increasing price of gold signals that many investors, worldwide, are not convinced that the current economic woes are behind us and they therefore are hedging their bets retreating to an investment that dates from the earliest days of capitalism and commerce — even though the unprecedented price of gold makes buying at this point a significant risk.

Surveys of consumer confidence are fine, but whether people are willing to pay more than $1000 for an ounce of gold says a lot more to me about confidence in the economy than any survey ever could.