Goldline International, Glenn Beck, and Bank Crises: Common Threads
California officials have opened an investigation into Goldline, the stalwart Glenn Beck Show advertiser, favorite of Mick Huckabee and other apocalyptic types. ABC's Nightline picked right up on it and did a report tonight (video above).
This idea of buying gold in tough financial times isn't new. What is new is the high-profile pimping of it on cable news. Not only in ads, but as part of the message like Glenn Beck's "God, Gold and Guns". Using typical scare tactics, Beck recommends buying gold as a hedge against the government's ultimate financial armageddon.
Goldline's business is simple: They buy and sell precious metals, specializing in numismatic gold coins. Investigators are looking specifically at whether Goldline International misrepresents pricing policies on its collectible coins, inflating them when they're purchased and deflating them when they're sold.
Goldline's management team should know about financial armageddon. They were right in the center of one in 1986, when some of them worked for Valley State Bank's Collateral Loan Division.
Valley State Bank
Two of Goldline's executive team -- Mark Albarian and Joel Gabrelow -- were officers of Valley State Bank's Collateral Loan Division from 1984-1986. Gabrelow was also Vice President of Numismatic Lending at West Coast Bank.
