Posted on 12/06/2005 11:25:43 PM PST by Capitalism2003
December 5, 2005
The market price for an ounce of gold rose to over $500 last week, a significant milestone for economists watching precious metals and commodities markets. The last time gold topped $500 was December 1987, in the wake of the “Black Monday” stock market collapse earlier that fall.
Gold prices historically rise when faith in paper currencies erodes, as investors seek the intrinsic value of gold to protect themselves from inflation. It’s interesting to note that while the U.S. dollar has regained some of its value relative to other paper currencies like the Euro, it continues to lose value relative to gold and other hard assets. This shows the folly of using one fiat currency to value another.
Gold is history’s oldest and most stable currency. Central bankers and politicians don’t want a gold-backed currency system, because it denies them the power to create money out of thin air. Governments by their very nature want to expand, whether to finance military intervention abroad or a welfare state at home. Expansion costs money, and politicians don’t want spending limited to the amounts they can tax or borrow. This is precisely why central banks now manage all of the world’s major currencies.
Yet while politicians favor central bank control of money, history and the laws of economics are on the side of gold. Even though central banks try to mask their inflationary policies and suppress the price of gold by surreptitiously selling it, the gold markets always cut through the smokescreen eventually. Rising gold prices like we see today historically signify trouble for paper currencies, and the dollar is no exception.
President Nixon finally severed the last tenuous links between the dollar and gold in 1971. Since 1971, the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury have employed a pure fiat money system, meaning government can create money whenever it decrees simply by printing more dollars. The "value" of each newly minted dollar is determined by the faith of the public, the money supply, and the financial markets. In other words, fiat dollars have no intrinsic value.
What does this mean for you and your family? Since your dollars have no intrinsic value, they are subject to currency market fluctuations and ruinous government policies, especially Fed inflationary policies. Every time new dollars are printed and the money supply increases, your income and savings are worth less. Even as you save for retirement, the Fed is working against you. Inflation is nothing more than government counterfeiting by the Fed printing presses.
Western Civ has as one of its pillars a sense of inquiry. I certainly hope that the taxing and money creation authorities not take that away and reduce us to despotism. FTR I think the financial shenanigans of Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt deserve a thorough investigation and hopefully a (IMHO) delousing.
You're very naive. Or intentionally obtuse. There most certainly is apparatus in place to keep people interested in the stock market, 24/7. Financial television channels, owned by companies who have a tremendous interest in keeping people interested in the "right" stocks, grown specifically to promote and celebrate the stock bull over the past twenty-five years; advisors who to this day will shill a stock on StockTeeVee mere days before the news is announced before a big sell-off; employees given no option but to contribute to 401k, thus pouring endless money into the stock market. Not coincidentally, StockTeeVee typically addresses gold with the same sneer that you do.
Is your beef with everyone who invests in precious metals and their stocks, or it is with those who encourage others to take advantage of this slow-burn bull market in precious metals?
The media hype is a critical component of the machine, rather than a means to something less intentional. Maybe "machine" is too dark a word. But it's short and to the point. How about: there are monied interests who have much to gain from promoting general participation in the stock market. They have the means with which to publicly celebrate their point of view and to manage public opinion into a similar stance. "They" do not have to be all in cahoots, in a back-alley conspiratorial way, but there are enough brokers, financial adivsors, and enough media presence dependent on widescale stock market participation that it seems simplest to call it machine, rather than something longer and more descriptive.
"The four most expensive words in the English language are 'this time it's different. ' "
Sir John Templeton
Frankly, I really could care less, but in the case of silver, it affects the prices of certain electronic and electrical hardware, and that affects the economy.
As far as gold is concerned, there are many uses for it, but substitutes are common for most of those uses. It then boils down to a bunch of collectors who try to manipulate the market and drive it up by circulating stories and writings that intensify the fear.
As they have been doing for decades.
One day, all this will fall apart when the market is suddenly flooded with gold that nobody knew was in circulation because it was hoarded.....waiting for the price to be right. This has happened before in the 70s, and I figure it's about due.
All it will take is one major sale, or something to start the stampede.
Then it all starts over again.....:-)
Silly goldbugs, talking up the value of gold so that they can dump their shares higher.
I am neither "naive" nor "obtuse". OTOH, you are so tightly wrapped in tinfoil, that it's cut off the blood supply to your brain. There is no conspiracy, there is NO "Wall Street Machine", and saying so, only makes you sound like a KOOK. And unlike you, I am stating facts and not delusions based on your own hallucinations.
If your posts weren't so cryptic and you stayed on the thread's topic, you might be a welcome addition; but they aren't you haven't, and so you aren't.
What is your take on the following curiosity: for three (I think) of the past five years, gold stocks have been the leading sector out of all possible stock sectors. Those who are paying attention know that, StockTeeVee knows that - but there's little if any positive coverage of gold stocks, excepting the past couple of weeks when something clearly goosed the heck out of the metal. Why aren't mainstream and financial media discussing this insane rise in gold stocks the past few years? Can you imagine them ignoring a similar sector-wide launch in tech, pharm, home builders, etc? Of course not!
In your post #198, you wrote :"...Wall Street machine that encouraged people to keep throwing money into tech stocks all the way down." And I'll rep;eat what I said... THERE IS NO WALL STREET MACHINE! To claim that as so and the rest of what you state as factual, means that you are a KOOK and tinfoil wearer. Bucket shops push people into stocks, churners, who send out/print newsletter hope that people will fall for their lines,
No, pet, all you're doing is posting your own delusional opinions, NOT facts. And as to why the people on the shows you watch aren't pushing gold stock, HOW THE HELL SHOULD I KNOW? Why don't you write them? There have been, are, and shall be, stocks that out perform the rest, that never get touted on such shows; but, it isn't some kind of conspiracy...no matter what you want to believe!
Well, I guess you're right. And you called me "pet". This has been a very productive exchange.
You started this, by calling mer "dear"; dear. ;^)
They printed money and messed with the market value of gold.
;)
"And SALT is the oldest and longest lasting commodity"
Ever poor water on salt. Dissolves doesn't it. Your ignorance is astounding.
So what......
Do you REALLY supposed that nations who relied on salt for their wealth wouldn't store it carefully and away from water contact?
The ancient Romans not only paid their solders in salt, for a period of time, but the Senate manipulated the price of salt, in order to help fund the Punic Wars. The very word SOLDIER comes from the French word solde, which comes from the Latin word sal....SALT! Even the word salary comes from the word ............SALT. And then there's the term worth his salt. Can you guess where that comes from?
The Chinese, Indians, Germans, Medieval Italians, to mention but a few, all based some part or at times all of their economies on SALT. And since you have no idea how salt has been made, from ancient times, even IF a lump or a rock ( yes, ROCK!) of salt gets wet, when the sun shines on the puddle, it evaporates and do you know what is left, after evaporation? No? SALT ! :-)
The source for my ignorance is Will Durant (History of Civilization, 9 Volumes) What's your source chatterbrain?
Calling me names doesn't really do anything but make you look like the fool you are.
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