A recent newspaper report says higher crop prices have led to higher gold sales in rural India. Most Indians consider gold to be a good passive investment and an excellent and reliable store of value. It goes without saying that gold is an investment—anything that can be bought and then sold is an investment. It takes a lot of fresh inflows to sustain gold prices.At an individual or at the level of entire economies, gold is a dead investment that does not produce anything. There are massive gold imports, as well as the use of gold effectively as a second currency for cheating on taxes.

Source: Economic Times January 15, 2018 00:56 UTC