Kucinich And Stephen Zarlenga Anti-Gold Drive

[Roy L]

How would it make sense? As gold moves higher, the buyer(manipulator if you want to call him that) will have to give up more and more assets to keep finding new sellers.

He doesn't have to give up any assets. He borrows against the rising price of his gold.

If you are the only major buyer, you can't prop up the price, certainly not long enough to unload your position.

LOL! I have worked with market makers and stock promoters. You are simply wrong.

Besides, you could attempt this with any asset, not just gold. It really has nothing to do with gold.

It's true that people do it with other assets, typically stocks and debt instruments. But if gold is money, the manipulation affects everything else throughout the economy.

Wrong.

Every economist agrees with me.

Let's say Steve Jobs had become so rich that he owned 50% of the money in the United States. Then right before he passed away he said he was burning all his cash. You really believe this would not increase the purchasing power, thus be good, for EVERYONE else who held dollars?

It would certainly be good in the short run for everyone else who held or was owed more dollars than he owed or wanted to spend, but it would be bad for debtors, and bad for the economy.

[smokemonsc]

Any amount of gold (or anything else for that matter) is enough to represent any size economy. To say otherwise is an absurdity. If I have to divide a kilometer of gold in enough pieces so that all people on the planet have a piece, and all of their pieces were given 1-1 ratio for their dollars, how small would you like me to go until I've proven you wrong?

Meters?
Centimeter?
Millimeter?
Micrometer?
Nanometer?
Picometer?
Femtometer? one quadrillionth (millionth of a billionth) of a meter, or 0.000000000000001m.

Surely that's enough to cover all currency units of the world combined. Again - any size of anything is large enough to represent any size economy. To say otherwise is an absurdity and ignores the above example. Anyone who claims that gold is not plentiful enough to represent any sized economy is proposing a childish argument and shows a complete lack of understanding of what money is.

[smokemonsc]

We experienced deflation in the US for 150 years of our history until 1913. During that time we went from being a third world country to the leading manufacturing power in the world. By World War I we had surpassed the UK as the leading industrial power in the world. All while on a gold standard and without a central bank.

Deflation is the reward for a healthy economy. Deflation is the result of improved productivity and leads to an improvement of living conditions for the average man.

[cubical]

He doesn't have to give up any assets. He borrows against the rising price of his gold.

LOL! I have worked with market makers and stock promoters. You are simply wrong.

It's true that people do it with other assets, typically stocks and debt instruments. But if gold is money, the manipulation affects everything else throughout the economy.

Every economist agrees with me.

It would certainly be good in the short run for everyone else who held or was owed more dollars than he owed or wanted to spend, but it would be bad for debtors, and bad for the economy.

You don't see the whole picture. Whoever is giving him money would be giving up assets. If a bank is giving him money to be buy my gold at 50k an ounce, fine, I will take the banks money and go pay off my house or buy a car or start a company. Regardless of who is paying, they would have to be paying a lot.

No you don't because this doesn't happen on the scale you are purposing. Think Hunt Brothers. You are speaking of every day market manipulation.

If the fact that it is currency was important, then people could just manipulate the dollar there is no difference. And before you speak on size, remember price is relative. This is a pretty weak argument.

Don't show your ignorance so strongly.

It would be good in the long run. Some creditors would have to refinance, but everyone's purchasing power and standard of living would rise. You add to the economy why you collect money and you take from it when you spend(consume). Imagine rather than dollars, he had goods. He dies and gives them to everyone. Its the same idea.

[cubical]

We experienced deflation in the US for 150 years of our history until 1913. During that time we went from being a third world country to the leading manufacturing power in the world. By World War I we had surpassed the UK as the leading industrial power in the world. All while on a gold standard and without a central bank.

Deflation is the reward for a healthy economy. Deflation is the result of improved productivity and leads to an improvement of living conditions for the average man.

Yes, deflation is the big scary monster Keynesians will want you to fear. My costs of living steadily going down? Bring it on.

[Black Flag]

If you read Zarlenga's book (the first 3/4 is highly recommended, the last 1/4 not so much), he makes a strong case that the total supply of gold is too small relative to the total economy, making it too easy for a small number of very wealthy people to gain control of enough gold to manipulate prices, interest rates, the directions of markets, etc. for their own profit, and to the detriment not only of other market players but the broader economy.

Utter nonsense.

The particular unit of currency per good is infinitely flexible.

You have heard of "1c" piece right?

[Black Flag]

Every economist agrees with me.

Ahhh...no.

[Black Flag]

The ability to manipulate gold long term and systemically does not exist.

The gold market trade is the largest trade on earth ... its size eventually and shortly overwhelms anyone too stupid or too slow.

[Black Flag]

The current system is a debt money system

Nonsense.

Roy believes if a dog barks, there must be two dogs.

not a fiat money system. A fiat money system is under the control of the money issuer, basically the government.

Fiat system is what we have. It is under the control of the money issuer.

Because you hold some crack pot theory of "Debt" money - you are so twisted around, you think banks make money out of thin air - yet! when any one tries to collect this thin air money ... it evaporates!

You live in leprechaun land... as long as no one finds the gold at the end of the rainbow, it must be there!

[Roy L]

The particular unit of currency per good is infinitely flexible.

Not when the currency IS a good. When its value gets too far from its production cost, the system becomes unstable.