Posted on 06/28/2002 3:00:46 PM PDT by Lazamataz
Well, 'the new spoosman' and many like him have told me for months that the 'fiat' currency is worthless, and gold is the only valuable currency out there. Disregarding for a second the fact that these gold bugs are so ready to part with their gold for those 'worthless fiat notes', I would like to point out that since the height of their caterwalling, Jun 01 2002, gold is down from 326$ an ounce to 314$ an ounce today. That is a 4 percent drop in less than a month.
The 'fiat currency' people are out to lunch. I don't expect gold to do any better than index with inflation in the long run, and today managed to show a savage loss of $5 an ounce.
You take a gold coin down to the corner shop and they give whatever the price is now, $314, I guess. I don't know, I'm not interested in the daily fluctuations. Gold may be the only form of money left standing in a disaster and that's why everyone should have some. If you don't want any, fine, you can work for me when your fiat money hyperinflates. Go out there and cut firewood, tend the garden, I'll find something for you to do. :^)
I'm sure there are commodity traders who wheel and deal in these metals, but I don't think they feel any obligation to abide by any per/ounce bid containing a 3, a 1 or a 4 in it.
We live in a market economy. The market determines the price, from Mike Piazza's salary to an ounce of gold.
Gold's too esoteric for me. Chick Pea futures ... I'm there dude!
Good luck.
Isn't that what I just said?
Gold has neither. Gold has been outlawed in the past. FDR banned Americans from owning gold during the Great Depression. Everyone had to turn their gold in or get jailed (or shot).
Lots of people didn't turn their gold in and they didn't get shot. :^)
With the stroke of a pen governments can ban gold. It took until Nixon repealed FDR's gold ban in the 1970's before Americans could invest in gold again. That's a pretty unstable investment.
Don't invest in it. Keep it. Stash it. FDR won't be there for you in a catastrophy.
There is no army that is going to come defend gold. When it gets outlawed, then you're out of luck, and that very thing has happened here in America already.
They can outlaw it all they want, they can't find mine. And in a disaster they're going to be too busy to worry about what I'm using to trade for necessities.
On the other hand, the mightiest economy and the mightiest military backs the paper Dollar. Those are huge advantages that gold will never have.
A meteor strike over Washington eliminates any kind of government control for a few months. Good luck.
Gold is for suckers. It is ugly and people laugh at you when you try to pay for your meal at a restraunt with it.
I would laugh at someone too if they tried to buy a hamburger with it, that's not what it's for (at the moment).
The fools who are stuck with that ugly yellow metal are forever trying to dump it off on the rest of us in exchange for our paper fiat Dollars.
I don't want to sell my gold to you or anyone else. If I did, there's a gold shop on the corner that deals in it, and they would buy it.
The truth of the matter is that gold bugs want to exchange their gold for our Dollars because Dollars have real value. No one laughs at you when you pay with Dollars for your meal at a restraunt.
Both have value at the moment, the trouble is that fiat money has a terrible track record, 99% have failed through history.
Everyday new gold is being mined and added into circulation,...
Circulation? I though you said there is no circulation.
...but the old gold never disappears.
No it doesn't, unlike paper dollars, whose value drops by ~4% a year.
At least with investments such as land, you don't have to worry about the market suddenly becoming flooded with new property. They aren't making anymore new land, after all.
I'm not worried about the gold market getting flooded, after all, it isn't worth mining in the first place, right? LOL
So you're going rampaging through the countryside murdering people for food and gasoline? It won't take long before a posse either outshoots you or hangs you. It'd be a lot easier to work together and trade work or gold for necessities.
Could be very valuable.
The government is. It's really quite straightforward. The government owes 3 trillion in debt (or whatever it is). Every year, the government prints more money than it should, so that the real value of that debt is reduced by 4%.
Motto of the year.
The problem is that the Federal Reserve consists of private international banks, they print the money and trade it. Like I said, someone is making trillions off of ~4% yearly inflation.
This is true, the standard of living in the USA took off (much improved) after WWII - and we're still in that era. I'm not arguing your point, I wanted to take a stab the the taxation levels.
Workers in 1920 wouldn't be able to put your last post into a pipe and smoke it because they wouldn't be able to afford the pipe.
Obviously, back then they would have made a corncob pipe to smoke what they read on the Internet.
Well, it's surely not us!
The name of the game - no matter how one chooses to play it, whether in stocks, bonds, options, gold or physical goods - is, somehow beat the government's scam of robbing us "slowly" and hope they don't let it get out of control so we become robbed "quickly". Governments have a huge stake in slowly shearing the flock. Taking too much all at once can lead to guillotines and firing squads for the overly greedy and their cronies.
But, unfortunately, sometimes this money game gets out of control whether Germany in 1930 or Argentina in 2002 (you can now probably add Brazil to that ever-growing list).
Therefore, as in any potentially unstable market, the smart will first hedge against the unexpected loss and then invest to beat the manipulators. IMHO, the best hedging today is a mix of gold/silver, food, fuel, brass/lead, a safe place to live (a friendly area) or perhaps for those in a position to do so and the skills (like Travis) a boat or other extreme emergency fallback.
But, if one is happy with one's situation, stock up on couchs to trade (you can also sleep on them, you know) and put your full faith and credit in the government to keep the printed money sound (an oxymoron, I know). Then hope these manipulators and their banking buddies will ultimately bail you out if/when TSHTF.
BTW, I agree also with Bloody Sam Roberts. This is the calm before the storm. We have already set ourselves up for The Fall (thanks, Bubba!). Now there are hordes of fanatical and determined people just itching to do us in in any way possible. Attacking our financial system and related wealth is one of the ways they can do it. But it's hard to attack your personal wealth if some of it is stashed in something that can't be destroyed from afar. If they want it, they'll have to come to your place first and face the brass/lead.
A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.
The branch of a science or art consisting of its explanatory statements, accepted principles, and methods of analysis, as opposed to practice: a fine musician who had never studied theory.
A set of theorems that constitute a systematic view of a branch of mathematics.
Abstract reasoning; speculation: a decision based on experience rather than theory.
A belief or principle that guides action or assists comprehension or judgment: staked out the house on the theory that criminals usually return to the scene of the crime.
An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.
The three "G" plan that I bank on is Gold , Guns and Groceries. Albeit I'm a hard corp barrator who believes that in the future a single round of .22 long rifle ammunition will be of more value than a paper dollar I believe in investing in my country with one fifth of my wealth/income.
Sometimes that has resulted in drinking two fifths in a single session of angst but hey who said anyone knows what is the right way with regards to financial security and sucess.
Short of that genuis that is selling his "clean" urine to idiots who have to avoid the drug test results most everyone else like me has to work for our ideas on how to survive these days.
Gold ,IMHO "LAZ" is not something to get into for the short term......Ya want quick return on an investment :
A. Visit the plasma bank.
B. Get one of those cadaver tatoos on yer foot ( I'm two inches shorter from scraping those off all the time)
C. 4 or 5 deposits a day at the sperm bank (did'nt "you" tell me that one ?:o) and yes ladies he's taken ;o),
D. Eat in grocerie stores (and walk out after desert)
E. Harvest someone elses garden at night ( I said "harvest" not plow as your "married" now Laz)
F. Use an Oklahoma Credit Card (siphon hose) for your gasolene purchases......ect ect.
Gold is a long term "wait" investment...........Just my opinion of course !
Stay Safe Ya'll..........
You have a rich but delusional fantasy life. Please cite where I said any of the caca you made up above.
I merely say that there may come a time (brief or never I hope) when people will trade a Krugerand even up for an old .38 revolver or 30 rounds of 5.56.
You can't spend or trade your Maple Leaves if you can't defend them. At that time, lead brass and steel will have greater value than gold.
That's not so far fetched any more: a lot of rich ragheads are working hard at getting the means, and MAD means nothing to them.
Or, "container bombs" 20X OKC going off in ports and in trains crossing key bridges (easy with GPS) all over America one fine day.
Or twenty smallpox carriers getting off twenty airplanes and getting multicultural.
ETC.
I just wonder how the economic dislocation might play out. MAD worked with the Russians; in the end they loved their kids more than they hated capitalism.
Not so with our Insane Death Cult adversaries.
But what if the people running the mines are lying about the profits like the Xerox and Worldcom people did?
No one should think it's far-fethced after Sept 11 and knowing they tried to hit the Pentagon, Congress, and were trying to kill Bush. Where would we be if they had succeeded --and they came quite close.
It's a good time for people to quit wearing nice suits and change to jeans and t-shirts. They're more durable and comfortable anyhow and cost less than $30.
As an experiment, try making your purchases with gold for a week.
Not a single one of your hypothetical scenarios are "far fetched" anymore. There's probably another thousand scenarios right behind them, equally close fetched, and nobody should think the bad guys haven't thought of a lot of them...
a lot of rich ragheads are working hard at getting the means, and MAD means nothing to them.
Unfortunately, PC still means a lot to a huge bevy of influential people around here even after 9/11 should have wakened them from their own mad delusions, so real MAD hasn't occurred to them, either. Or, if it has, they've rejected it on their own sacred altar of tolerance.
After the next 9/11 (and there will be a next) we hopefully will see fit to shift gears to UAD (Unilaterally Assurred Destruction). But it won't happen until then. Like the Japs of two generations ago, these guys aren't giving up until they are buried deeply and permanently in their own bed of ashes. Reading their rights to them and getting them their own taxpayer-funded lawyers isn't going to solve the problem. Neither is confiscating knitting needles from grandmothers.
My fear is that we will suffer a series of low-level "intifada" type attacks killing "only" dozens on an ongoing basis, and the fedgov will NOT take effective action against our Trojan Horse Muslims, preferring more Mueller type hand licking.
If this happens, vigilantism will break out. Then, to prove "even handedness", the fedgov will crack down HARD not on the Trojan Horse Muslims, but on American "right wing gun nuts and neo-militia kooks".
This will be a terrible outcome for us, and the muslims will be laughing into their rags as we battle ourselves instead of them.
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