Glint’s Helpful Hint: Golden Turkeys

Next Thursday 24 November is Thanksgiving. In North America, the day for traditionalists wouldn’t be the same if they had to go without their turkey lunch. As if we haven’t already been through enough, this year has seen almost 50 million birds in the US either die from avian flu or culled after coming into contact with the virus.

Like almost everything else, the price of a Thanksgiving dinner, as tracked by the US Farm Bureau, has gone up over the years. In 1986 – the first year the Bureau started calculating the cost – a Thanksgiving dinner for 10 cost $28.74. The Bureau’s menu includes turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, rolls with butter, peas, cranberries, a veggie tray, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and coffee and milk, all in quantities sufficient to serve a family of 10 with plenty for leftovers.

In 1986, that dinner cost about two grams of gold in US Dollars. Last year the same dinner cost $53 – which could have been bought for less than one gram of gold, which on 16 November 2021 was priced at almost $60. In 2022 the dinner will cost about $64 on average (there is a regional difference of about $30, with the cheapest cost in the South, the most expensive in the West). The dinner has gone up in fiat currency terms by 21%! On 16 November 2022 the price of a gram of gold was almost $57, virtually unchanged from one year to another.

While inflation has consistently driven up the Dollar price of the dinner (and has simultaneously eroded the Dollar’s purchasing power), the gold price has shown remarkable stability.

Why not use some gold on your Glint account to feed the family and friends this Thanksgiving?

At Glint, we make every effort to demonstrate a balanced conversation between gold, crypto and fiat currencies when it comes to purchasing power and, while we strongly believe that gold is the fairest and most reliable currency on the planet, we need to point out that it isn’t 100% risk free. While we have seen a steady increase over time, the value of gold can fall, which means that its purchasing power can also decline.