GOLD PLUMMETS - SPOT CHART

http://www.kitco.com/charts/livegold.html ^

[Fitzcarraldo]

Source: www.kitco.com

[#3Fan]

As the population grows the per capita amount of gold shrinks in proportion thus there can never be enough for a growing economy.

While true it wouldn't be as elastic and manipulatable as fiat currency, gold and silver coinage values would adjust to economic trends, each being worth less or more , but still there would be enough to buy whatever one needed.

Fiat currency or more accurately "faith" currency is not responsible for the growth of the welfare state or its maintenance though it is absolutely necessary to fund modern war machines and international trade. Imposition of the Gold Standard would collapse international trade and generate wars and revolutions across the globe just as it always did.

Yeah, you're right, there've been no wars since the gold standard ended in 1974. :^)

Germany's fiat currency has worked fine but for the time the government deliberately inflated to pay the WWI debts. So has the Swiss. Third world countries don't do anything right especially monetarily. There has been little boom there mostly busts.

Germany would not have been able to deliberately inflate gold to such an extent, if at all.

[discostu]

Just a few ounces of silver huh. Do yourself a favor, put $5 worth of quarters in your pocket and carry that around for a day. Then comeback and tell me how convenient that is compared to nice folding money. Sorry no matter how you slice it coins suck, there's a reason why the paper dollar keeps crushing metal dollars in the court of public opinions.

[#3Fan]

The gold standard never really existed and using the metal is just another form of barter.

Fiat money exchange is really barter too.

[discostu]

Sure Germany could have done it. All they had to do was print more money just like they did. No part of backing the currency with gold prevents the government from lieing and just printing whatever they want to. That's one thing I've never understood about gold bugs, rightly none of you trust the government, yet you all seem to think that if the government backed its currency with your favorite metal they wouldn't be able to lie and just print money anyway.

[#3Fan]

All right I'll find your link. But if you honestly think that there's never been too much gold in an economy you really need to study some history.

Link please.

Check out the California gold rush for another.

Link please.

I want to see the size of your shed, there's a hell of a lot of gold out of the ground.

70 feet, by 70 feet, by 70 feet. That's the sice of the cube of gold that's been mined. A good sized farmer's shed would hold it.

[demlosers]

Arrrgh another gold thread! hehe :)

[discostu]

Yep. All purchases are really just barter. What currency does is act as a translator and keep you from having to carry chickens around all the time. The actual value of money is your ability to exchange it for goods or services. What all money has always been backed by is belief. If people believe they can use it you've got real money. If they don't you're screwed. All the gold in the world is absolutely worthless if you're the last person to think gold is cool (not likely to happen anytime soon, but it's a theoretical possibility and useful thought experiment).

[demlosers]

Having fun stirring up the native gold bugers I see. :-0

[#3Fan]

Investments should be diverse but I see little value in holding gold. Those buying it in 1980 for investment would have seen 2/3s of their saving disappear.

You have to cherry-pick a year to make a point. The proves you're points are baseless.

[discostu]

OK a 70 foot cube AIN'T no shed. That's 343000 cubic feet. 23.3 yards per side, in other words each side of your cube is bigger than the "red zone" on a fotball field. Your shed is 7 stories tall. Each surface are is 4900 square feet. In other words "shed my a$$".

[discostu]

Careful how many "er"s you use there. Wouldn't want to accuse anyone of commiting an unnatural act with a precisious metal. ;)

[#3Fan]

Gold is not always the result of work. Some has been found just laying around.

You specifically said Russia and South Africa. In these places the miners do work. Please tell where it is just "laying around", I haven't taken my vacation yet this year. :^)

The problem with it as money is that it can easily be made less valuable by chance discoveries. And it is worn away at a rate of at least 1% a yr. if used as coins.

Like I told dicostu, please prove to me with a link that one of these chance discoveries led to hyperinflation. Our dollars wear at at least 4% per year through manipulative inflation.

Bankers have no incentive to make money less valuable and every incentive to do the opposite. But that is an entirely different subject.

Then why do we lose at least 4% a year? Factor in productivity increases and we probably lose 8% a year. That's a lot.

The National Bank created by Hamilton worked wonderfully and accomplished great things for our new nation. National Banks are theoretically private but subject to great restrictions by their governments.

But the owners don't really work.

Potential abuse is no reason not to have them just as bad drivers don't mean cars are bad.

Abuse is less likely in a gold mine.

[discostu]

California gold rush link
http://www.duke.edu/~agf2/history391/economy.html

[#3Fan]

Here's one: http://www.stabi.hs-bremerhaven.de/gbs2/whkmla/region/spain/bullion.html

Sure inflation and deflation will happen, but that link didn't mention that a shipload of gold couldn't pay a sailor's salary. Provide a link which shows the actual numbers.

[discostu]

that's a line I picked up from a History Channel thingy, unless find a website that the guy writing stole that line from that'll be tough (and there really isn't much on the collapse of Spanish colonialism out there). But as the link clearly shows as massive influx of gold was bad for the economy.

[#3Fan]

Now Poohbah, you remember what happened last time? You got all upset. Keep your cool this time if you're going ping me on one of these gold threads. LOL

Actually, it DID. Any decent history of European colonization and conflict in the New World will discuss this issue. Spain became an economic basket case because they imported too much gold from America. There was too much gold chasing not enough goods.

No, they became a basket case because they simply bought everything with the gold they stole and let their innovation suffer. Britain provided goods for Spain's gold, becoming more advanced and became a super Empire. As long as a people work for their wealth, they will be OK.

It would have to be a VERY big shed.

130w by 130d by 20h would hold it. Farmers around here have sheds that big.

[discostu]

Here's another goody on the CA gold rush
http://www.calliope.org/gold/gold2.html

Here's my favorite bit:
* Seventy-five prefabricated iron houses shipped from China - along with Chinese carpenters. Cheaper than using local materials and labor.
* Miners' soiled underwear departing by shiploads for the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), where it was cheaper to get it laundered.
* An instant 4,000% profit which Taylor himself made, selling the old newspapers he had used to cushion his belongings on the trip.
* Real estate lots bought up by speculators a year ago at sixteen dollars - now worth $15,000.

[Poohbah]

Now Poohbah, you remember what happened last time? You got all upset. Keep your cool this time if you're going ping me on one of these gold threads. LOL

It's really bad form to drag old flame wars back to the forefront. And your refusal to acknowledge basic history means that you're not worth any further effort on my part. G'Day.

[discostu]

You need to do some time out in the field with a tape measure. 130x130x20 is a two story building about the size of half a football field (43.3 yards on a side). Now I've seen some pretty big buildings in farm country I'll admit, but I ain't never seen half a football field in one building... not a farm building anyway and certainly not something sane people would call a shed.

[#3Fan]

Just a few ounces of silver huh. Do yourself a favor, put $5 worth of quarters in your pocket and carry that around for a day.

Silver is worth 5 times as much as a quarter (if a quarter is a quarter ounce, I don't know, I've never weighed one). $5 worth of silver would be a little more than an ounce.

Then comeback and tell me how convenient that is compared to nice folding money. Sorry no matter how you slice it coins suck, there's a reason why the paper dollar keeps crushing metal dollars in the court of public opinions.

Paper dollars are fine as long as there's a government to say they're worth something. I'm diusputing some of untruths you're saying about gold.