However, with the discovery of the S.S. Central America and the recovery of its cargo, their value has dropped some.
Still worth hanging on to.
Posted on 03/03/2006 7:59:26 AM PST by Killborn
Edited on 03/03/2006 8:11:35 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Hi Guys,
I hope everyone loaded up on gold (now up 50%)and silver (up 85%) and is happy, because the flip side is very gloomy. The dollar continues to lose value and the resulting decline in American wealth looks like it will cause class warfare. Whether it is only economic warfare making everyone poor or whether it develops into physical violence is still not clear.
Greater than 93% drop in the greenback -
Since the US government decided to use central planning to control interest rates instead of the free market and the gold peg, the dollar has lost more than 93% of its value. For centuries the dollar value of gold hardly moved. Then politicians created the FED early last century.
Do you remember $35 an ounce? I do, and now it's $570. When Alan Greenspan went before congress last year, he was asked how was the US Government going to be able to finance its obligations regarding Social Security (i.e. pay retirement checks).
Greenspan's answer was that it was no problem, they would just issue Government checks. When the senator looked confused, Greenspan added, 'the problem is whether these checks would buy anything of value'.
The economically challenged senators still didn't get it. What good is a monthly check for $10,000 if a loaf of bread costs $10,000.
At his State of the Union speech, Bush lamented he couldn't get Social Security reform through congress. The Democrats, led by Hillary Clinton cheered.
I hope that tape is replayed when retirees riot over their worthless SS checks. But, at least this gives us someone to blame.
Americans aren't saving for their retirement, instead they are going ever deeper into debt, confident the Government will give them a nice retirement check.
Both Republicans and Democrats are spending like drunken sailors. No worries mate, we'll just borrow some more.
Now that Americans aren't saving enough to finance this debt, we have to borrow from foreigners at the rate of $2 billion a day.
The amount of wealth we will have to transfer to these foreigners to repay this $8 trillion debt will bankrupt a whole generation. Unless, of course, we just issue worthless Government checks and inflate away the value of the dollar.
But who are our central planners going to blame. There must be someone. How about Wal-Mart. Maryland central planners are going to force health care costs for employees, their spouses, children, parents, relatives, pets, etc. onto Wal-Mart. Maybe we can have a windfall profits tax to pay for our debt.
The central planners in Russia and China never let windfall profits happen. Maybe we just won't let foreigners spend the dollars they so foolishly accepted. We can call it National Security and not let them buy Unocal and not let them operate our ports. When they stop accepting our dollars, we can be happy with all our paper money, happy and poor.
I still think the best protection from our central planners are hard assets like gold, silver, oil sands, gas, etc. Then you don't have to worry when they let the printing presses roll.
Tom
However, with the discovery of the S.S. Central America and the recovery of its cargo, their value has dropped some.
Still worth hanging on to.
I got my awakening around that age. There is hope. :)
That's what I figured.
Howdid the value drop with the discovery of the ship?
My situation is considerably better. I gather you have no answer for my question re inflation.
That question stems from a misunderstanding. When you commented on the 8k and the fact that you were earning much more than that, I was curious as to whther this marked increase is an improvement or stems from inflation.
Yep. Gold did zip for over 20 years. Now it has had several boom years, it probably is the worst time to jump in. Well unless you love investing when something hits the top. Last year Warren Buffet lost over $300 million betting against the dollar. The dollar hasn't exactly been weak lately.
That is precisely my point when I refer to the comments of the price of gold increasing from $35 per oz to $500+ over the same period. Since I asked the question twice and you have no answer, I'll assume you don't know, which is OK.
Which confirms my point that things are valuable because people think they are, rather than some inherent value in a quantity of metal.
This whole issue of Gold is rather like a religion. People get all wound up over it, one way or another.
The bottom line, if I were preparing for some future Y2K doomsday, I think I'd rather have a granary full of rice and MREs than a bunch of gold. You can't eat gold.
Econ is not my strong suit. could inflation affect the price of gold and other valuable minerals?
Could, and does.
Based on the last 3 years, gold has been one of the best investments around. Based on the last 25 years, it has sucked. Gold had been flat for nearly 20 years. Now may not be the best time to jump on the gold bandwagon. If you want to cherry pick data, why not look at Gold in Jan. 1980? Gold was $840 25 years ago. Today it is around $570. It is easy to pick dates to make gold look better than it is.
If that's your motivation, then I'd think that property would be a better purchase.
I too remember when gold was significantly higher than it is today, because there was a rush on gold that began after the Shah of Iran was deposed on Nov 4, 1979. But I don't remember when property values plunged that much. Maybe 5 or 10% for overbuilt houses in Houston in the early 80's, but I never remember land prices declining at all.
Can gold be dug from the ground today for less than it's current market value? If so, then I'd say it's overpriced already, and merely being artificially speculated up and is guaranteed to fall.
Until they figure out a way to print gold they are different. The main reason gold is going up is the 8-10% increases in the money supply and anticipation of future increases.
Interesting. Is that why gold costs so much now?
I guess he is looking more at stability than returns.
Many mines have presold their output, plus even with all known reserves there's only some 2 trillion worth of gold and lots of paper money to chase it. As for your general thesis that it will peak and crash? Yes absolutely it will do that again, but you might be surpirsed at the height of the peak.
I agree. Did you read my post about preparedness above? I just collect the quarters because it's fun, not as an investment. The only gold I own is in the form of jewelry. My other investments are real estate (bought my first house in my early 20's) and land and a balanced IRA retirement fund. (DH & I are self-employed, but took full advantage of 401Ks while we were wage slaves, then rolled them over.)
But the silver has been very good to us. Dad and I have speculated in the commodities market for years; coffee, cocoa, grains, etc. It's not for the faint of heart, that's for sure, and we never play with money we can't afford to lose. DH won't "play" with us either, LOL!
Some people like casinos, we like speculating. :)
Really? I know they plate some chip leads with it and make jewelry. But jewelry can go out of style, and does, and very few people "need" gold.
While paper has plenty of utility. You can print books with it. It can store information in print at low cost for centuries with no power required and no "format" obsolescence.
Japanese make walls with paper. Kids wad it up and make paper mache. And lots of freepers use the NYTimes paper for bird cage liner and fish wrap.
I'm sure I can come up with a great many more examples. Paper is very utilitarian. Much more than gold. It's just that paper is easier to produce, and that's all. End of story. Big deal.
Bottom line is that things are valuable because we think they are. There are very few things in these times that we *must* have and are difficult to get, which makes them inherently "valuable".
That makes sense. But what about its stability?
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