When a house costs more dollars than it did 50 years ago, that's not because the house got better. Jayson Lowe and Henry Wong use gold as a measuring stick: a Canadian home worth 537 ounces of gold in 1971 costs only 121 ounces today. The dollar itself has weakened, not the asset.
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Gold tells that currency hides.
The reason why I'm using gold is it hasn't changed its definition while everything else has.
You've got a triple threat today. You've got Richard, you got Henry, three guys who are just trying to make sense of why absolutely everything is suddenly more patriotic when it costs 30%, 40%, 50%, 100% more. Measure success in dollars, not value.
It's not price growth. I actually look at it from this vantage point. The currency has decayed.
It's like a truth serum for money.
How appreciate the dollar, depreciate.
So the, the next segment I kind of want to take us through is another exposure that is a. Is a bit controversial, maybe the way that I'm going to bring it up, but I think it is really for great conversational purpose because it is a true exposure that has different interpretations depending on how you want to interpret it. And so the first, this one, I'm going to use gold to tell the truth that currency particularly hides. And this is the one thing that it's the reason why I'm using gold is it hasn't changed its definition while everything else has. And I kind of want to also share from this vantage point that recently Ray Dalio, who someone I follow and listen to at times.
Just recently released an article. So today we're kind of recording on the 31st, it's the 30th, 2025. And here, you know, when Ray Dalio speaks, I'll just say I will listen when he has something to say. He's one of the top hedge fund managers. So I would pay attention to it. And so where I'm going with this is in 1971, the average Canadian home costs about $22,000. So if we were to convert that denomination in gold, that would be 537 ounces on the price of, of gold at that time. Now today, that same home, not, not probably not Vancouver or Toronto, but you know, that same home is $676,000, where now you only need 121 ounces. The house didn't really get better. But if you actually see it from this vantage point, you actually need fewer ounces to buy this same home. So this vantage point here is most people see the price of homes going up. However, to me, I look at it from a different lens. It's not price growth. I actually look at, look at it from this vantage point. The currency has decayed and it's more of an illusion. And if I were just to compare that difference there, that's a 77% drop in real terms if this home was denominated in gold.
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And when people think of price growth, again, that's why I think of it as currency decay. And the house didn't appreciate the dollar depreciated every. And if you kind of visually imagine every year your measuring stick starts shrinking, but nobody's telling you the rulers changing. Gold doesn't grow, it just stands still. What's actually really changing is the dollars shrinking.
I would add to that, Henry, because you said something that really piqued my interest at the top of the segment where something to the effect of you're going to share the truth that.
That gold tells that currency hides. And using your very same example, if you held that one ounce of gold in 1971, that's the year that as it was mentioned that the US dollar was detached from gold. It was worth what, 35 bucks back then, give or take, and dollars Canadian. But yeah, the, the, the ounce of gold didn't change. It didn't earn interest. It didn't need a quantitative stimulus package. Right. The only thing that really changed was the purchasing power of the currency. That's what's changed. And gold, the truth that gold is revealing is how much value has leaked out of the dollar over time. It's like a, it's like a truth serum for money.
And that can be uncomfortable for people because we're taught to measure everything in currency. We measure success in dollars, not value. We measure your savings account in balance, not its buying power. We measure our worth.
In what the number says, not what it actually means, which is what you were saying around kind of that the ruler analogy. And currency, it hides that erosion right through inflation. And that's that silent tax that kind of eats away at your purchasing power while everybody says those big bad corporations are responsible for it. Go ahead, check out the next video down below. And if you want to make sure you get a copy of don't spread the wealth so you can have family banking meetings that actually matter, go to don'tspread wealth.com don'tspreadwealth.com.
