Dear Editor:
“Gold Bugs” (February 2005, page 10) is a very interesting article. If you were writing about “silver bugs,” would the same issues arise? The commodities markets seem to paint them with the same brush, despite the fact that their supply/demand relationships are vastly different. Both gold and silver qualify as hard assets that endure the centuries. But—and this is a big but—the industrial demand and the continued condition of a much greater open interest on the [New York Mercantile Exchange] than available and foreseeable supply, would seem to support the thesis that gold and silver are very different and should be treated as vastly different speculations.

E. M. Wright, CPA, RIA
Mission, Kan.

Dear Editor:
I read with interest your comments in “Gold Bugs.” I suppose all investments are bets on supply and demand conditions. It is clear that the supply of gold cannot be expanded at will. Demand in this case, however, can wildly escalate when driven by a loss of confidence in financial assets. Historically, gold represents a safe haven when there is financial turmoil. It has intrinsic value, not as a typical commodity where it is a consumable, but as lasting purchasing power during both inflationary and deflationary periods. It makes sense to have a position in a well-diversified portfolio.

David T. Ting
Boston, Mass.

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