'A decade of free money' is why the price of gold has continued to rise, says Mark Bristow

financialpost.com:

The recent rise of gold to a record US$2,135 per ounce has led to much discussion of the reasons behind the metal’s positive run during the past few years, from central banks investing more in bullion to expectations of rate cuts next year.

Mark Bristow, chief executive of Barrick Gold Corp., the world’s second-largest gold producer, expects the demand for gold to continue increasing, so he’s been looking to expand the company’s reserves. But, according to him, a “decade of free money” is a key reason why the price of gold has continued to rise over the past five years.

In an interview with the Financial Post, Bristow talks about the future of gold, his views on a potential soft landing and how miners will be affected by the price of gold.

FP: From maintaining a healthy range to reaching an all-time high this week, what’s your take on the way the price of gold has behaved in the recent past?

Mark Bristow: We saw a poor mandatory policy way back when inflation first reared its head, but soon after that, the feds sort of got a grip on things. But they chased the interest rate really high quickly, and that was on the back of more than a decade of quantitative easing and fiscally liberal policies to be polite — fiscally reckless policy in my mind, a decade of free money. What we are measuring now is the impact of that devaluation.

Gold also measures the global economic perception and the perception of risk: when last did we have risks like this? Maybe in the late ’80s and towards the end of the Cold War. We have more conflicts across the globe than we have seen since then and so that’s another driver.

You have the de-dollarization of central-bank balance sheets and that is quite an important component, because you have seen