Why do I own Gold

You have to choose between trusting to the natural stability of gold and the natural stability of the honesty and intelligence of the members of the government. And, with due respect to these gentlemen, I advise you, as long as the capitalist system lasts, to vote for gold. George Bernard Shaw

While I usually agree with Austrian School of Economics, one bone of contention between that view and my own lies in the anti-government fetish. The same guys who wax apoplectic over governmental corporation transgressions will justify as righteous any commercial corporation transgression. To me, any corporation which insulates its officers, where the buck is supposed to stop, from the normal rules of human interaction and thus the effects of competition assumed by the Austrian School to purify commercial corporations' actions, creates conditions for abuse. The corporation of state, in my view, has no monopoly on evil.

Here's a local story:

Regulators in three states are investigating whether companies in London and Miami sold a fraudulent insurance policy to the owner of a tour boat that capsized on a New York lake and killed 20 elderly tourists, a Detroit newspaper reported.

The 40-foot Ethan Allen capsized Oct. 2 on Lake George with 48 people on board. Nineteen of the 20 victims were from Michigan.

The investigations in Texas, New York and Florida are trying to determine if the owner of the Ethan Allen was duped, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Texas regulators say associates of the companies that sold Quirk the policy are suspected of peddling millions of dollars in nonexistent insurance, the newspaper said.

Here's a Hedge Fund that would make even Carlo Ponzi blush:

Only about $150,000 of the allegedly $150 million in assets of an Atlanta-based hedge fund has been found by investigators probing allegations of fraud there, according to a published report.

I don't know who decided financial companies deserved to be treated like "endangered species" but this trend, much of which occurred during Greenspan's tenure as Fed Chair, of insulating them from the normal rules of human interaction has had the expected effect. Fraud, fraud and more fraud.

Why do I own gold, because I don't trust anyone who hides behind a corporation and the world is, by and large, run from behind a corporate veil.