Lord William Rees-Mogg asks a perfectly valid question on his new blog: “Will gold go to $1,000 an ounce?” He notes that it has already risen to $624, and anticipates that it, “might well reach $1,000 an ounce by the end of the second term of President Bush in January 2009”. Well it might.
But while I understand that the price of gold has serious implications for the world’s economies – just like the prices of the Dollar, Yen and Pound – I find myself utterly incapable of worrying about how much a Krugerrand will set me back by 2009.
The day before yesterday was officially Africa Malaria Day, set aside by African governments “committed to rolling back malaria”. Malaria kills more than a million people every year, and the vast majority are children under five.
Meanwhile every day, diarrhoeal diseases cause an estimated 5,483 deaths, mostly among children under five. Perhaps now that I have a child of my own I worry more about these figures, I don’t know. I am sure that as I do, Lord Rees-Mogg cares a lot more about these figures than the price of an ounce of gold, too.
