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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zardoz who wrote (69178)	5/15/2001 2:37:50 PM
From: E. Charters	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116788

E-->Answer one question. What is money? H-->Credit. E-># we heard that. E->Actually you get part marks for that answer. H->Actually I got 100% for that answer. H-># if you mark yourself, you may want to give yourself 100%. Be careful. H->Money is credit, nothing more.... Currency is a form of money, but is not truly money. Currency is back by fiscal and political policies. E-># So is money. H->Your comments are based on currencies and not money. E-># yes and no. E-> Well it is all. Money is an instrument of redemption of value. In it most redeemable form it is a thing of value in itself. In other words it has intrinsic va ue in its best form. It depends on what you trust. Some people trust letters from people. It is a form of neurotic dependence. Society must work with this trust however. But it is subject to adulteration." H->Currencies' intrinsic value comes from Society, Governments, and foreign powers. E-># True in part. But also from the people who spend it. And so does money/credit, which is also spent and created by banks and gov't. After all they do more than print and mint currency. E-># Intrinsic value comes from the value inherent in the currency, if it were defaced. Paper or representative currency, which represents money does not have inherent or intrinsic value. Perhaps a kind of inherent value as in any promissory note but not intrinsic or transformable value. This is the blessing and curse of undebased coinage. Hoard, clip, smelt or inflate. E-># Notes are promises to pay. (They are money and not money at the same time.) A currency that that is debased is also a promise to pay. Pay what? The phrase "legal tender" is a Roosevelt gov't brainwash-phrase to delude people into thinking the money/currency had value inherent. H->Money in itself has no intrinsic value, since it has no basis to form an intrinsic basis. E-># true. But money by itself should always represent true (agreed, buyer-seller) value where it is a true promise to pay. If we represent it in a non-buyer's promise i.e. a gov't promise then the promise gets diluted and the issue confused. We have to do a secondary valuation of the money then. A game we are ludicrously involved in now as economics in the modern age. We say paper represents value, but when we try to value it with gold or cows or cars we are told that that is false. It is against interest rates, M1's and exchange rates we must look. Of course they would say that. Isn't if funny that no matter who we elect they ends up running the gov't. Next time I will look more carefully at the chad to figure out which candidate is they. H->This is why GOLD is not a currency and thus can act as a proxy for money over a short period of time. E-># true 1 and false 2. It fluctuates in value and you would say it is only temporary. But so does everything else. And against everything else too. But we need an index (not money itself) and a changing "paper" money supply is not it. Currency coin is closer as it is a dual intrinsic/fiat instrument. But it has its problems too. Gold ends up buying currency and goods too. So in times of need it acts as money quite adequately. Relative to other things it changes very little in value. It is useful in this regard. h-> But GOLD is also not MONEY. E--># Ok. but it can act like money. So can cows though. H->To trade Gold for an item is to enter into a Barter System E-># true. But if controlled a fiat-true-credit-for-index system that was checkable would evolve. If gov'ts did not play a part! That is where paper currency came from in the first place. But it got derailed when the King stepped in to control money which is where we are at now. Keep the gov't OUT of money I say. H->You are trading a perceived {undefined} gold value with a know piece of work {Item}. Money systems require a state where inflation and monetary supplies has no effect on the Currency.... therefore true money does not exist. E-># true, unless you and I invent it in our lexicon. Or like Roosevelt temporarily fiat it. H->If in your world you perceive silver and gold to be both money, the the ratio between them would ALWAYS remain fixed. Thus neither gold or silver are money. Money is a system of equity... you get out what you put in.. nothing more; nothing less. E-># got Hutch to think! Whew! what a hassle. What kind of system and who controls it? E-># Well like Keynes and I we at least partly agree on the fundamentals. Now to invent a truer (but not perfect) money or money system. I think you will see that gold, and not cows is closer to where we want to go. Penguins may be important too. E--># Bear in mind I am not trying to iconize gold. I am saying that of 92 elements and billions of compounds, it is of practical use in the money world that wants a comparator that is neither too necessary nor too common to be used as an index. If we used dung for money it would be too common. Would not store. Everybody could make the same counterfeit. EC<:-}

To: Zardoz who wrote (69178)	6/29/2001 4:12:55 PM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 116788

<<Answer one question. What is money?>> Credit Even when it is not repaid or repaid only in part + late? Thursday June 28, 11:47 am Eastern Time Special Report-Credit card issuers' profits set to rise (UPDATE: The following is one of a series of outlook pieces for the financial industry) By F. Brinley Bruton NEW YORK, June 28 (Reuters) - Credit card companies are expected to post a double-digit rise in profits during the second quarter, as lending gets cheaper, but things will get tougher toward the end of the year amid rising bankruptcies and loan defaults. Leading credit card issuers like MBNA Corp. (NYSE:KRB - news), Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE:COF - news), and Providian Financial Corp. (NYSE:PVN - news) also are benefiting from tightened lending terms and stiff late payment fees they have slapped on customers in recent years. ``It should be a pretty good quarter for all these guys,'' said Jay McKelvey, a co-portfolio manager of the Hancock Real Estate Fund. Looking ahead, ``I think the revenues will be there, it is just a matter of making sure the credit quality holds up.'' The ongoing rise in charge-offs -- or loans that go bad -- and rising bankruptcy rates could hurt credit quality and curtail the sector's growth toward the end of 2001, analysts said. Unemployment, which has been creeping up in recent months, could spur more defaults, they fear. On the flip side, falling interest rates have boosted credit card companies' profits so far this year. The Federal Reserve on Wednesday reduced interest rates for a sixth time since January 3. Lower interest rates cut lending costs for credit card issuers and banks. NOT AS BAD AS IT LOOKS U.S. credit card portfolio losses hit a four-year high in April amid rising unemployment, higher fuel prices, and the slumping stock market, according to Standard & Poor's Corp. The monthly charge-off rate rose 0.6 percentage points to 6.7 percent in April from March. But the news is not as bad as it looks, as long as issuers manage the risk of bad loans and understand their customers, said David Berry, director of research at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, Inc. Take sub-prime lender Providian, which has a charge-off rate that's about twice as high MBNA's but also sports a return on assets that's double the high-end lender's, Berry said. ``Providian tends to hang out in rougher neighborhoods,'' he said. ``The main trick about rougher neighborhoods is that you can have a very different experience if you meant to go there or if you just showed up,'' Berry said. A rule of thumb for analysts covering credit card issuers has been to keep a close eye on the subprime market. Subprime lenders, such as Providian, Metris Cos. Inc. (NYSE:MXT - news), and CompuCredit Corp. (NasdaqNM:CCRT - news), serve less credit-worthy consumers, making their money on higher interest rates and higher fees. But recent evidence indicates that some of the worry may have been misplaced, said Moshe Orenbuch, an analyst at Credit Suisse First Boston. ``I actually think the risk is highest in people who have high credit lines, because those are the people who cost you a lot when they file for bankruptcy,'' he said. Bankruptcies, which spiked from mid-March to mid-April most likely in anticipation of pending bankruptcy legislation, are another concern for issuers. Bankruptcy reform makes it harder for individuals to wipe out their debts. But bankruptcies may be the boogeyman of the high-end issuer, analysts said. Indeed, bankruptcies make up 40 percent to 50 percent of losses in prime credit card portfolios, but only 15 percent in non-prime or sub-prime portfolios, according to Barklays Capital. Higher income folk also have racked up more debt compared with their lower-income counterparts. Saving rates fell from 8.5 percent in the early 1990s to minus 2.1 percent last year for the highest income group in the United States, Barklays said. Meanwhile, the middle and lowest income groups saw their savings rates go up during the same period, Barklays said.