Has Gold Jumped the Shark? - Rodney Johnson / HSDent (11/16/11)

For those of us who grew up with the TV sitcom Happy Days, there was an episode of the show that marked the end of the series long before it went off the air.  The episode involved the gang heading to California and while there the Fonz ended up water skiing and jumping over a shark.  The episode was so outlandish and flat that it was immortalized in the world of television.  Whenever a series runs an episode that is an unwitting spoof of itself and shows all the creativity and energy of the show is gone, it is called “jumping the shark.”

I bring this up because a friend (H/T Thom Hall!) in the Salt Lake City area sent me a snapshot of a sign outside of Taco Bell.  Apparently the fast food chain is running a contest that is aimed at bringing in a few more customers.  While this part of the story is not interesting, the main prize of the contest is – the winner gets gold.  Real gold, as in the shiny stuff. As Thom points out, when a fast food chain is using the chance of winning physical gold as a gimmick to drum up business, it seems plausible that the change in the price of gold has moved from a sensible reaction to monetary concerns to an all out speculative bubble that is ensnaring the everyday consumer.  It is possible that the push to buy gold has just jumped the shark.