ALEC HOGG: Talking about risks, Warren Buffett decided to have a go at the gold industry again, this week he wrote in Fortune Magazine thatÂ’s a valueless asset and that thereÂ’s a self-inflating bubble and that gold investors are going to be left with egg on their faces. I know you donÂ’t agree with him but why? MARK CUTIFANI: Well, firstly WarrenÂ’s been wrong for 5000 years. HeÂ’s been an astute investor obviously in a whole range of other asset classes and it must be embarrassing to get it so badly wrong in the gold sector and I think thatÂ’s on the basis that he fundamentally doesnÂ’t understand the gold sector. ItÂ’s been there for 5000 years, gold is pleasant to the eye, gold is workable in many different shapes, which makes it ideal for the jewellery sector, for example, and itÂ’s indestructible in terms of not corroding. So the reason gold is so special and has been for 5000 years, itÂ’s so different. People whoÂ’ve been brought up in the industrial age tend to think of value only in terms of things you build things with but when youÂ’ve come from cultures that are thousands of years old, they value beauty, they value art and poetry, gold is like art and poetry to those that have been in those societies for thousands of years. ThatÂ’s where the value is. Now thatÂ’s like trying to tell you why Lord TennysonÂ’s poetry is something beautiful to behold, if you canÂ’t read you canÂ’t understand where the beauty is. I think thatÂ’s the sort of conversation I think Mr BuffettÂ’s in and heÂ’s great on things that are tangible, that are hard, that bounce up and down and support industrial consumption but when itÂ’s these other less tangible things, a lot harder to describe where beauty is.
