What backs gold?Originally Posted by slamhead
How do you measure "value" to know that it is "lasting"?
What backs gold?
How do you measure "value" to know that it is "lasting"?
Last edited by Black Flag; 03-28-2012 at 09:04 AM.
This is true as well. Paper currency would not be a horrible type of currency if only they'd print a set amount of it and stop. But, the temptation is always there to just hit the 'print' button—which governments and central bankers have done throughout history.
If Ben Bernanke wanted to restore faith in the dollar, all he'd have to do is go on T.V. right now and tell the world, "no more U.S. dollars (federal reserve notes, rather)will ever be printed again, and that the printing machines will be placed in car-crushers and turned into scrap metal."
Everyone would be racing out to get dollars knowing that there would be a demand for them, instead of trying to figure out how to dump them off on folks who don't know any better.
Last edited by nobody's_hero; 03-28-2012 at 09:08 AM.
If something bad happens, we will be blamed. If something good happens, we will get no credit. If nothing happens, we will be forgotten.
If he did, what would happen to the US economy?
What would happen to government spending?
What would happen to all the T-bills China/Japan hold?
Nothing has to back Gold, or Silver for that matter. The Market has chosen them as MONEY for thousands and thousands of years. Is that lasting enough for you?
No, because neither of those commodities are money now.
The market has chosen FRBN (Federal Reserve Bank Notes) which have exactly the same "backing" as gold or silver... ie: nothing but faith that it is marketable.
Well, *not quite*
But around $200,000 FRBN will....
NANO-TECH APPLICATIONS
Highly recommend you read the CATO paper I referenced earlier. This really isn't an issue.
I compiled a "brief" history of events since October 2008 that are defining the global currency war and the role that gold is playing:
Tin Foil Hats, Economic Reality and the Total Perspective Vortex
Also, have you contacted your Congressional Rep and asked them co-sponsor Ron Paul's HR 1098: Free Competition in Currencies Act?
The finite quality of gold is the precise reason why it's a good idea.
Electronics? So what? The atom-thickness on processor connections needs to stop getting used?
Solder the damned thing on. It works in phones, and nobody swaps processors in their PCs anyway. Big whoop.
Jewelry all the sudden becomes something only the wealthy can afford?
You mean, like it has been through something like 6000 years of recorded history?
What's your point?
We're living in a situation where the money supply can be expanded at will.
It is precisely the reason that gold cannot be expanded at will that makes it attractive.
You also act like gold gets consumed when it's used in a transaction. Where does it go? A commercial wormhole?
Of course there are potentially unlimited goods and services. The fact that gold is limited is the benchmark for how to value those potentially unlimited goods.
When one gold ounce gets you one apple, it's because there's only one apple.
When one gold ounce gets you four thousand apples, it's because there's four thousand apples.
How can we be expected to value anything if the thing we're valuing it with is in constant flux as well?
Um.... seriously?
So the market sent black-clad soldiers into Robert Kahre's office, completely tossed the place while the employees were sitting out in the sun in Las Vegas, and threw him in a rape cage for attempting a market alternative to FRNs? That was the market?
So the market seized $7 million of Bernard Von Nothaus' assets, and threw him in a rape cage, for attempting a market alternative to FRNs? That was the market?
So the market shut down eGold and eBullion and is throwing the owners in a rape cage, for attempting a market alternative to FRNs? That was the market?
The market had exactly two things to do with making FRNs the defacto currency: Jack and Shit.
There are no crimes against people.
There are only crimes against the state.
And the state will never, ever choose to hold accountable its agents, because a thing can not commit a crime against itself.
All good, right up until this.
Everything humans value is always in constant flux
You value "air" right now at "zero"-but underwater, its value to you goes ... quite high....so high, that in some circumstances you would trade everything you had for a breath.
So do not argue for a gold money based on "constancy" - no such thing exists.
Argue on economic law: supply and demand.
If you increase the supply of a good, its price goes down = you need more of it to trade for other goods.
If you decrease the supply of a good, its price goes up = you need less of it to trade for other goods.
When this good is "money" - if you need more of it, means the price of other things, in terms of money, goes up (inflation)
and if you need less of it, means the price of other things, in terms of money, goes down (deflation).
The economic law of supply and demand applies to apples, cars, gold and Federal Reserve Bank Notes.
...and it has nothing to do with "value".
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