Posted on 07/24/2002 8:29:42 AM PDT by Fitzcarraldo
Source: www.kitco.com
It would weigh a few ounces. A quarter ounce gold coin and a few small coins of silver would be a hundred dollars.
Paper money works great without a government. Paper dollars, like all currency throughout history, are backed by belief of the people, not by force of the government.
Tell me which country uses paper money that isn't issued by a government.
You should spend a little time south of the border, the number one currency in Latin America is Yanqui Dollars even when the government specifically outlaws them (which Panama did under Noriega). Everybody likes them, and they don't tend to like the local currency.
They're depending on the U.S. government.
How much are you going to spent every day? LOL A half-ounce gold coin is 150 dollars.
One of the big problems Rome had was moving gold all over the empire, the stuff is just too heavy.
Um, Rome had a hard time moving anything around the empire, there were no trucks or cars then.
And, of course, you're living in complete ignorance of the current economic situation. Check, credit cards and electronic transfers account for the vast majority of monetary exchanges now, people don't even carry nice light foldable paper money and you want us to go back to annoying heavy pocket tearing gold coins.
Where did I say let's go back to gold? I've said nothing of the sort. I'm just pointing out your errors on gold.
Talk about living in the past.
I pay for things with cash, checks, and credit cards. They're fine as long as the governments backing them are stable. Intelligent people should have enough gold to live on for a few months stashed somewhere, though.
Retreating from what?
It's also a fact that every gold based currency in the world has eventually collapsed.
Physical gold has always been worth a lot somewhere.
That's what happens, societies rise, societies fall, and with them go their economies, and the form of their currency has no significant impact on that cycle.
Tell that to the Germans of 1923. Show me where in history gold hyperinflated.
131x131x20 then. Feel better?
You claimed that a shipload of gold couldn't pay a sailor's salery. As yet, I've seen no proof of this claim.
And if you read the link you'll see that part of the gold rush included a significant increase in the population as well as run-a-way inflation.
There were only 15000 people in San Fransisco. If this is the only example you can come up with, you're claim fails.
I believe that free gold made them lazy.
The first exploratory Spanish forays into South America were not always unfriendly ones - indeed they brought gifts of agricultural tools of iron, and also 'many beads, many combs, knives and scissors, coloured hats, caps, and shirts finely worked at the neck' to trade with the natives. But immediately they found gold and, fuelled by the story of 'El Dorado' (the Gilded One), started their quest for its pillage which was to last centuries. Expeditions crisscrossed the land and the gold was shipped back to Spain to be melted down for coin - coin that was to cause inflation for the whole of Europe and which was to lead to Spain's relegation to a minor power. The chronicles of those expeditions described the gold producing areas of the time.
Yes there will be inflation and deflation, but show me where there's been hyperinflation for a significant population.
Title: Gold-smithing in South America at the time of the Spanish Conquest. a link: http://www.lamp.ac.uk/tairona/a6goldsmith.html Inflation = There was too much gold chasing not enough goods.
Too much stealing, not enough work.
You keep making this claim, but you offer no proof. Prove to me there was hyperinflation of the gold price in the 1500s for a significant population.
Gold (like all money, and lots of stuff that's never been money) is a commodity, the more there is the less valuable it would is. That's why the usual accusation around here when the price of gold takes a plunge is "dumping", people suspect that there is now a higher quantity of gold on the market being sold which thus drags down the value.
Yes, there will be inflation and deflation. Show me where in history there's been hyperinflation of the gold price for a significant population.
What research? There's always been inflation and deflation. I've seen no proof of hyperinflation of the price of gold.
Then why did you offer it as proof that a shipload of gold couldn't pay a sailor's salary.
(where the ship statement came from) except as FURTHER proof that a massive influx of gold, just like a massive influx of any other currency, will screw up an economy.
Inflation will screw with an economy, yes. We saw that with our fiat currency in 1979. So you think there some magical gold mine somewhere that we have just happened to overlook the last 500 years?
15000 people was big back then.
But it's not a nation. Our nation had 30 million people then.
And if you'd actually read some of these links you'd see that these economic problems hit the entirity of Californi, and spanish Colonial importing of gold totally screwed up Spain and adversly affected all of Europe.
Free money screws people up, no doubt about it. But gold has always been valuable somewhere.
Face it, you've lost. Massive influx of any currency, including gold, is bad.
Yep, we've seen that with our fiat currency too lately, haven't we? 200-1 PEs. LOL
You guys need to make up your mind. First you say it's a commodity, then you say it's just an emotional object. There will always be someone somewhere willing to pay good money for it, so it does have intrinsic value. Not true with paper. History has shown over and over that paper money almost always goes worthless.
-- The worth of monies is based on the economies that it is derived from. If the economy suffers so does the the value of it's currency.
But the good thing about gold is that it has value all over the world, it isn't dependent on one government or one economy.
-- Anything can be used for money from tiddlywinks to marbles.
Then why aren't they?
-- People have this nostalgic attachment to gold thinking it is a panacea in case of rough times. Gold has seen its heyday. The gold backed currency is obsolete for today’s evolving modern economies.
$310 for a tiny coin. I'd say the heyday hasn't ended yet.
I asked for a link that a shipload of gold couldn't pay a sailor's salary and you said look at the California gold rush.
You asked for links on that assertion, I gave them to you. Two seperate things related only by the material being influxed and the negative reaction of the local economy.
A small town.
It took until 1848 for the gold in California to be found. Siberia is supposed to have massive levels of almost every precious metal and mineral that nobody's quite sure how to get to thanks to the permafrost. So can there be a gold mine we've overlooked for 5000 years? You bet.
If it's so easy, then why aren't they getting it?
OK finally you admit that a massive influx of gold can be bad.
To the population stealing it, yes. Stealing is bad.
Then you act like you knew it all the time. Well if you knew it all the time then why have we been arguing for 2 dozen posts?!
I've never denied inflation and deflation, I've been asking for proof that the gold price hyperinflated to the point that a shipload wouldn't pay a sailor's salary, as you claimed.
And 200-1 PEs has nothing to do with an influx of cash, it has to do with an influx of wealth and stock being traded as a commodity instead of as a percentage of ownership.
It takes a lot of cash and derivitives to drive up to 200-1PEs.
This caused the value of stock to be whatever somebody would pay for it rather than the more traditional how much can you earn from it.
Yep, it's the same as with the Spanish, we exchanged free money (printed paper), for goods from foraign countries causing distubances in our stock prices, just like the Spanish exchanged stolen money for goods causing distubances in their economy.
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