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


To: Zardoz who wrote (69214)5/15/2001 4:42:08 PM
From: E. Charters  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 117113
 
H->118 known elements, like you many are short lived {haha}. Gold is by no means applicable as a money system or even as a basic currency. It simple is dwarfed by the monetary basis of nations. To try to divide 1/1,000,000 of an ounce into a few atoms to buy a candy bar is laughable.

E-># heck you need a pair of my atomic micro tweezers. But of course if gold backs so many dollars that makes gold worth so much. If the money or labour/population inflates so does gold.

E->#So why is this gold not tradeable for stuff? 9 billion dollars in US cash ran European trade for years. You also don't need 100% convertibility. Even 12 to one is alright. Currency in circulation needed at most is perhaps one 100th of GDP. (Everything else is cheques, drafts and deposit entries.) That is 180 billion. Backed by 12 to one gold that is 15 billion. What is hard about that? Of course 18 trillion in GDP could not be equaled to gold in existence which at 300 bucks/oz is worth 2 trillion dollars.

E-># Let's rationalize those figures. In 1967 the GDP would have been 1.8 trillion. Gold at standard inflation was worth ten times its 1934 rate, so that is 350 dollars. Even if we needed 180 billion in 1967 cash we could do it with normalized gold. And there was enough there to do it with then, in 1934 and now. Nothing has changed. True growth from 1967 to now has been 2.65 times, not ten times so even that would be doable as we are producing at least that much more gold.

E->#Even if currency was backed 100% by gold it would not entail too much expenditure to back it. What it really means is that gold is worth far more than the dollar says. Remember every scarce commodity hoarded or traded over time is a touchstone of the worth of man's efforts to acquire it to trade. It's value is intrinsic to the effort to get it to pay or barter. So it sets its own value. It does not degrade as labour and man progresses. It gains value.

E-># It is true is that billions of people labouring can outvalue gold in its entirety, as the only true arbiter of worth is the man hour. (If we don't run out of food. That is people inflation) What has not been factored ironically to this last premise is the worth of gold over the population. As more people are born we can absorb (produce) more gold without debasing its value. So the increased production of gold in recent years should not debase its price.

E-># I will bet the US gov't can divide gold into one millionth of an ounce makes one jail candy bar. And you know where they will want to stick that Mars Bar and where they can stick it too.

H->To have a currency back by suck an amount of gold is also not applicable, since the Swiss have tried that for years.

E-># yep. And rough, rough time the Swiss are having with it too. I don't know how they manage. Who wants those cheap Swiss francs? Too much phony gold behind them.

H->Gold is best served as jewelry.

E-> #So what do you wear around your neck? A lei (sp) of bearer notes?

E->#If we don't use gold we have to use something else. If we are to say there is nothing else rare enough and plentiful enough to do the task we are hung on the crux of the lie. To index money sheerly by gov't fiat is doomed. It will always be corrupted. If we don't use gold we MAY use all other commodities and things. But gold will be one of them and finally it will be the most trusted and checkable one.

E->#The index itself does not have to equal all trade anymore than cash has to equal the money supply. No barter instrument or index of value can represent all wealth one to one. It would make that industry of production equal to all others! And that is a paradox that or unachievable practicality. But money has to equal something. To say it equals so much gold is eminently doable. The man hour is harder to do. It brings us full circle to what we mean by worth in the first place. What you may feel about Mendeleyevium or Gold has to be factored by 6,000,000,000 of other free opinions.

E#-> Gold is old. It is analog. It is easy. But it does not crash, unlike what suits are putting their trust in these days.

EC<:-}