BBC discussion on return of gold standard with Angela Knight, Detlev Schlichter, Philip Coggan, Lord Glasman

While waiting for the price of gold to fall I was listening on-and-off to Andrew Marr on Start the Week.

I missed the start so here's how the BBC described it: "Detlev Schlichter dismisses the practice of printing more money in times of recession, arguing that in the next decade our reliance on paper money will collapse, and he proposes a return to hard commodities, like gold. The historian Philip Coggan pits creditors against debtors, tax payers against public sector workers, and believes it's time for a new monetary system to emerge. The Labour peer, Lord Glasman thinks we need to change the relationship between parliament and the market. And Angela Knight sticks up for the bankers, insisting they hold the key to the crisis, so deserve both a bonus and a bit of respect."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b019f8b5

Hopefully no one will read this far - but also to help pass the time I've been reading Karl Marx's Capital. His description of how commodities work is sort of sinking in. A lot of it is about gold. I'm not sure it's a great help in terms of investment advice or how widely accepted his description of commodities exchange process would be any more, but its the most fundamental description of where value comes from I've seen. But then I haven't looked very hard.

BBC: Gold is a bigger threat than drugs in Colombia

BBC Radio 4's "From our own correspondent" on Saturday (19 November) included a report from Alastair Leithhead (final segment, about 24 minutes in) saying that the rising price of gold has led to frontier-style gold rush towns in the country's lowlands.

In it he describes how drug gangs and terrorists are on the edge of defeat but said: "We discover a new threat to the stability and peace the president is so desperate to sell to investors as he travels the world drumming up trade deals and collecting international allies."

He said: "There's a new source of illegal income: gold".

"The high price of gold has turned a traditional industry into a new cocaine where violent criminal gangs take their cut. And it's a real threat to the grand plan of president Santos."