Gold and Silver's Quiet Christmas Rally
Metals Under the Mistletoe
Today feels like the perfect day to start writing Sound Money Rounds.
Christmas has always been my favorite time of year. And no — not just so I can get lots of presents. It’s about spending time with family and friends, long gorgeous meals, laughing, and just being together. Those are the moments that matter.
That said, there’s probably no other time of year when we feel the strain on our finances quite as clearly.
There are the gifts, of course. But also the rising cost of food to prepare the feasts, the travel expenses, and the quiet pressure to spend a little more than we planned. Most of us feel it, even if we don’t talk openly about it. I know I certainly do.
Now Christmas has come and gone for another year. But while much of the world is still in holiday mode — taking a breather, enjoying time off, and playing with their new toys — something else continues quietly in the background.
Gold and silver, the monetary metals that have served societies for thousands of years, are rising again – reminding us all what real money is.
A few people will be celebrating this as good news. And if you were nice enough for the Fatman and found a little of that shiny metal under the tree, you’ll probably be feeling especially cheerful as well.
But that misses the deeper point.
It’s not simply that gold and silver are “going up.” It’s that the value of our currency — the credit represented by the cash in our wallets and our bank accounts — is going down. What’s really changing isn’t the metal, but the measuring stick we’ve been using to value them.
The purchasing power of our currency is quietly diminishing. And this isn’t unique to one country — it’s a feature of all modern fiat currencies. As Voltaire once observed, paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value of zero. This influential thinker noted that when governments print excess money to cover debts, trust erodes and the paper becomes worth less and less.
I often try to explain this to one of my older brothers. He’s hard work — God bless him — but I still love him. It’s not that life is suddenly more luxurious or that we’re consuming more than we used to. It’s that we need more paper, more plastic, and more digits on a screen just to buy the same things year after year.
Most of us remember it clearly. When a few coins could buy you an ice cream at the corner store. When the cost of a full shopping trolley felt manageable. When grabbing takeaway didn’t make your jaw drop. When saving felt possible.
And if Christmas felt expensive this year, it’s almost certain it will feel even more expensive next year.
Once you start looking at money this way, that gold and silver function as real money and preserve purchasing power over time — and begin to understand how our currency really works — it’s hard to unsee it. You realise it’s about far more than prices simply “going up.”
This is the quiet story of money, and why it matters — especially at Christmas.