Word: goldings
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...empowered members of the working class such as Padma Kondababu, a 40-year-old maid in Madras. The first woman in her family to work outside the home, Kondababu makes $85 a month, a good salary by Indian standards. Whatever she can save, she says, she uses to buy gold, sometimes even in $12 installments?enough for tiny stud earrings. "It's a matter of pride for people like me to buy gold," she says. "Gold used to be a few hundred rupees for a sovereign [a measure of eight grams] in the time of our parents, and yet they...
...many ways, gold lust is a relic of the bad old India?an India of weak investor rights and shaky financial systems, where people distrusted banks and the stock market and preferred to store their wealth in tangible assets, chiefly gold and property. The recent economic boom has given Indians a range of sophisticated and relatively secure financial instruments: mutual funds, stocks, bonds, even abstract art. Richer Indians are, indeed, diversifying their investments. "At the top end of society, yes, [gold] consumption is beginning to decrease," says K. Shivram, a vice president of the World Gold Council in Madras...
...coincidence that consumption is highest in the south of India, which has in recent years seen some of the fastest economic growth and the most thorough dispersion of wealth to villages and small cities. The southern state of Kerala, not far from Madras, is full of billboards advertising gold jewelry. At most local weddings, the bride is expected to turn up covered in gold necklaces, bangles, and earrings. Ambika Menon, a Kerala social worker, says that the gold obsession is a manifestation of change. New money is breaking down old hierarchies and caste distinctions. "Putting gold on your daughter...
...financial burden can be too much. "Sometimes families go into debt to buy this gold for the weddings," says Kondababu. "Sometimes families get broken up by gold." Economists argue that the gold bug has other pernicious effects. If the money used to buy gold was invested in banks or stocks, rather than being locked up in a non-productive asset, it would boost India's GDP significantly, they say. But old ways of thinking die hard. Gold is seen by many as a safe haven in an uncertain world. "So many banks fail and close their doors, and ordinary people...
...despite the current boom, the number of people who see gold as a sound investment may be dwindling. The recent surge in bullion prices is keeping some Indians away from the gold stores, even though the wedding season, traditionally a time of heavy buying, has started, says Padmanaban, the Madras jewelry-store owner. "People have just stopped coming for two, three weeks," he says. "But in the end, they will accept this price. They have no other choice. They must buy gold for weddings." Won't Indians stop buying once they begin to understand they can get better returns...