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To: TobagoJack who wrote (5489)	7/2/2001 7:50:36 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

Thanks for the link to the Mundell speech, Jay. I haven't read one of his speeches before - it was excellent. I wonder whether gold would be so attractive as a store of value in a stable world economy. I read Hernando de Soto's Mystery of Capitalism last week. I was interested in the information about how much capital is unused in Third World countries, but not surprised by his explanations as to why it is unused. The main reason is that these countries do not have enforceable property rights - they lack good laws, good lawyers, good courts, good ways to enforce judgments, good systems of recordation of property, good bureaucracies (yes, the world needs good bureaucracies!) - the only way to keep what's yours is to horde it, and if you try to put it into productive investments you will probably lose it because someone will steal it, or a corrupt government will confiscate it. Gold is a time honored way to horde wealth because a little goes a long way, and it won't corrupt over time. Laying up treasure is safer than investing it - but investing pays better. On that same topic (bear with me), my alma mater (Tulane) sends me a publication to keep me up to date on what it's doing - I see we are sending lawyers to Cuba to help set up a system of environmental laws. Tulane is one of the few places in the world that teaches both common and civil law, and it has a history of sending professors to Third World countries to help set up their legal systems. Environmental laws in Cuba! What does that have to do with gold? Protecting the environment means respect for the rule of law, respect for the rights of the individual to live in a clean environment, respect for the rights of those who are yet unborn. In that utopian world, what need for gold? But, you say, we don't live in utopia. True.