Jay, cutting to the chase, not only am I not going to bet on Aztec Au, but I'm going for a full on duel to the death, bare-chested on the battlefield, backing the future not the past. Au cdma2000 vs Au Aztec and may the best tribe win.
The light-side Au is off to a good start thefeature.com
The dark-side Au is being repriced upwards versus the stretchy world of Uncle Al's "In God We Trust" money as the ignorant, frightened hordes seek safety in the "In Gold We Trust" wishful thinking zone.
Aztec Au is a handy inflation-proofing for savings during the stretching process of $. But at best it's a matter of financial cryogenics and a speculative zero-sum game for dividing people into winners and losers.
It was tempting to hunt Aztecs, but with cdma2000 priced so cheaply, BIG GAME would be more fun. Owning gold is being a bystander in life. Owning It is a lot more fun.
There's a definite trend:
Hunting age
Wood age
Stone age
Iron age
Bronze age
Gold age
Steam age
Oil age
Electronics age
Cyberspace age
... or something along those lines, with agricultural and structural engineering ages thrown in. Regressing to the gold age is like going back to our semi-chimpoid antecedents.
The only time gold has really had a run was in 1979 subsequent to the huge oil dramas of the 1970s, the removal of the $35 an ounce linkage and the dramatic inflation of that era. I don't see any place on this graph other than the 1979 drama where gold did anything extraordinary in price: globalfindata.com I don't see why we should expect a financial reset other than the sort of rugged revaluations we've seen in Japan [1990 to now], New Zealand [1987 to now], USA [Y2K to now]. Uncle Al and the USA are too robust for the US$ to suffer the Argentinian-style failure.
I was due to do a gold rant a month or so ago, so this is it!
"In God We Trust" money is infinitely elastic with zero cost in the stretching process. It can be stretched at any speed. Gold is inelastic except that with a great deal of effort with a production cost of about US$200 an ounce, more can be produced. But as you suggested, the existing gold is about all there is. If it becomes suddenly popular, the price has to go up to satisfy all who want to buy it.
If the US$ measuring stick length is shrunken, then not only Aztec Au will get more numbers behind the $ sign but so will everything else, including cdma2000 Au. But Aztec Au just sits there, staring dumbly back, whereas cdma2000 Au photons fly around creating enormous consumer surplus and enabling the next layers of value to be built, producing profits at each level. Lexus will include gpsOne using cdma2000 and Au which will enable gpsOne-based customer services to be developed, which will enable other services to be developed.
If globalization continues apace, Uncle Al can go on printing flat out without inflation and that's okay too, because it will help enable cdma2000 to save the world.
On the other hand, Saddam might have arranged for some funds transfer to some naughty jihadist people in Pakistan, who might have misappropriated a Pakistani or even Russia, nuke or three, which might have been packed inside yet another delivery, or three, of Afghan-produced opium poppy powder, in a container for delivery to the USA which some underpaid customs officers might have been paid to allow through to the enormous USA markets.
Exports to the USA are up so there are no doubt lots of containers with spare space for the opium powder Trojan Horse deliveries. lists.isb.sdnpk.org
Once the customs officer has been fooled into allowing a nuke buried in some opium through, by the simple expedient of bribery in exchange for forgetting to check a container, Saddam's USA operatives can rent some warehouse space in some major USA cities where said containers can be stored until needed. The customs officer wouldn't let a nuke in, but I'm sure some of them will accept bribes for opium.
Saddam has had the USA on his case for a decade, so he's had a lot of time to do things.
Now, suppose the USA army is rolling up the turnpike to Baghdad just like a decade ago and they seem to be heading for Saddam's palaces. He might be inclined to explain to the USA that he has arranged for a nuke to be discreetly concealed in one of a large number of USA cities of over 1 million population and that if said USA soldiers come a metre closer, he is going to activate one of the bombs with a Globalstar phone which he keeps handy.
The CIA, being pretty quick-witted will immediately shut down Globalstar. But Saddam, enjoying such games, will actually not have a Globalstar phone other than to shout "BANG" to give a fright to the NSA listening team. He will really use a normal sort of call to a prepaid cdma2000 phone set up in the container to explode the trigger. He will also have a backup 'dead man's switch' trigger in case he is suddenly rendered inoperative.
If his bluff is called, he will demonstrate that it wasn't in fact a bluff by blowing up the said city. He will explain that he has got more where that came from and the next one will be activated if the USA soldiers approach another kilometre, or more USA Tomahawks make loud noises near his palaces.
Or, maybe Osama or the Pakistani Moslem jihadists have already done the job. Heck, even China would be inclined to ensure a few nukes are in strategic places just in case push comes to shove over Taiwan. GeorgeW's space defence system seems silly when containers are flooding in.
Meanwhile, Pakistan and India are wondering whether they should do pre-emptive strikes in the great tradition of dawn-raid military surprises to get the upper hand on an enemy.
So, a week from now, we could have had quite a lot of very large bangs across the Moslem world, in the USA and into India and maybe China and Taiwan. That wouldn't be ideal for cdma2000 sales in several countries. Nor would it be good for stockmarkets. Gold of the Aztec type could do okay though.
But if Iraq, 4 USA cities, Pakistan, chunks of India and China, Taipei and a few New Zealand farms are leveled, that's no big deal for the other 5 or 6 billion of us.
Mqurice |
