Michael Hiltzik: All that glisters...

...may or may not be gold, as Shakespeare wrote* in The Merchant of Venice, but with the spot price of the metal approaching $1,200 an ounce, it will do until something better comes along.

The topic of my Thanksgiving Day column is the return of the gold bug. Every day we hear about another big plunger into the gold market -- hedge fund superstars Bruce Einhorn or John Paulson, the Russians, Indians, Sri Lankans -- and every day we hear another rationale for why this time the price spike is permanent. They said the same thing last year about oil, in 1999 about dot-coms, and in 2006 about your house, but who knows? Someday "they" might be right.

In the meantime, people are digging through their bureaus and breakfronts, unearthing those hideous earrings handed down from Grandma or the tarnished silver candlesticks that surely won't be the subject of sibling spats when Mom and Dad are gone. Why not convert them into cash now, while the time is ripe?

Happy Thanksgiving.

* Yes, "glisters" is right.

The column starts below.

When American families sit down to dinner later today, I?d wager that at many tables the traditional expressions of gratitude ? for family, security, friendship, health ? will be joined by this one:

Thank you, Wall Street, for the price of gold.

Is anybody unaware that gold is currently trading at a record price, having closed at $1,186.90 an ounce on Wednesday?

?The consciousness of the general public about this is amazing right now,? Stan Walter told me this week. He should know. Walter?s Wabash, Ind., company, Precious Gems & Metals, just completed a five-day event, buying unwanted gold jewelry and other items from Southern Californians at three Orange County locations.

Nor is he alone. Precious metals buyers are bidding for household gold on television or in full-page newspaper ads, like those Walter has taken out.

And people are lining up to sell. Scarcely a week passes without a Tupperware-style gathering being staged somewhere in my neighborhood by a gold wholesaler.

Read the whole column.

-- Michael Hiltzik