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. Its 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 historys oldest and most stable currency. Central bankers and politicians dont 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 dont want spending limited to the amounts they can tax or borrow. This is precisely why central banks now manage all of the worlds 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.
Gold represents protection from the devaluation of fiat currencies, including our U.S. Dollar. Ron Paul is dead right.
It means quite a few more locals will be running dredges out 70 mile nx summer. For most, just a hobby or addiction; how you see it. When gold prices increase, it becomes another seasonal activity here in rural Alaska.
Naah, not gonna post it.
Been done to death this month.
< |:)~
Actually this entire thing by him, is junk.
Silly goldbugs, talking up the value of gold so that they can dump their shares higher.
This is kinda interesting. People look for gold as a hobby?
No he isn't and he has less than no idea what he's talking about. His "facts" are spurious; oh bloody hell, they're garbage!
Exactly so!
Gotta love Ron Paul; he was almost my congress-critter once, but they changed the districts around, and I'm not in his district now.
IMHO, goldbugs have got it all wrong.
It's not the dollar, or "fiat currencies" - goldbugspeak for money.
There's nothing wrong. The sky isn't falling. The dollar isn't collapsing - in fact it's rising. What's happening is global economic growth.
What's driving gold is DEMAND. One billion Chinese, with money to spend. One billion Indians, with money to spend. Both cultures, have historically valued precious metals. Now they're showing up at the buying counter - with money in their pocket, ready to spend some of it.
Gold. Silver. Platinum.
Prices are rising - because of competition. Simple as that.
Lil Jon wants gold too.
Hehe I am surprised the mods have not pulled this advertisement for gold.
Wonder how long till someone catches on ;)
That gold seems to grab onto to some people and its all they think about; yet they still only make 10-20 gran at it. One of the more successful local gold junkies here, spent his time pickin morels last summer.
Alaska is one of the few states I haven't visited, but always wanted to since reading Going to Extremes. One day.
Thanks for the answer. Maybe these guys have been unduly influenced by Robert Service....
Were you ever out in the Great Alone, when the moon was awful clear,
And the icy mountains hemmed you in with a silence you most could hear;
With only the howl of a timber wolf, and you camped there in the cold,
A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, clean mad for the muck called gold;
While high overhead, green, yellow and red, the North Lights swept in bars? --
Then you've a hunch what the music meant. . . hunger and night and the stars.
History is filled with examples of fiat currency collapses. Ron Paul has a better grasp on financial issues than most, and is far more "conservative" in the true sense of the word than anyone in the Congress.
Just for kicks, read "The Coming Collapse of the Dollar and How to Profit from It" by James Turk and John Rubino. It provides a nice history lesson regarding the dangers of fiat currencies throughout world history and the reasons why governments prefer fiat currencies to gold and silver backed currencies (which relate primarily to their ability to print and spend more).
I'm putting all my money in coltran. It's the future!
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