2009 recession and banking crisis has set off a rush to invest in gold and other precious metals at unprecedented levels

DAVID PARKINSON

From Friday’s Globe and Mail

March 20, 2009 at 1:00 AM EDT

In 1897, at the height of a major U.S. recession and banking crisis, a gold discovery on the Klondike River in Yukon Territory triggered one of the biggest gold rushes ever seen. Now, more than a century later, history is – sort of – repeating itself.

No, the world’s downtrodden aren’t beating a frenzied path to a harsh, remote swath of the Canadian north this time around. But the 2009 recession and banking crisis has set off a rush to invest in gold and other precious metals at unprecedented levels – a move that has tightened the global supply/demand picture and helped push prices to record highs. And increasingly, they are opting for the tangible comfort of physical gold – actual gold bars and coins that they can cling to in troubled times.

“When the banking crisis hit [last fall], we saw an avalanche of demand,” said James DiGeorgia, a Florida-based coin and precious metals dealer and editor of the Gold & Energy Advisor newsletter. “People are scared to death that all this debt [being taken on by governments] is going to debase the [U.S.] dollar and other currencies around the world.”

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