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To: TobagoJack who wrote (18084)	4/11/2002 11:15:25 AM
From: smolejv@gmx.net	Respond to of 74559

Oil? ... man, you're asking for attention, are you not. What about something like beach sand - gazzillions and gazzilions of tons of pure white SiO2 ... The only thing landing would be waves of kid-rich families with beach balls and sun umbrellas... Throw in Harry Belafonte. Skip Marlon Brando. dj

To: TobagoJack who wrote (18084)	4/11/2002 4:57:56 PM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

"the US had in its possession a gold mine free of charge" Breton Woods system established a dollar equivalent at USD35/ounce. An universal currency to be used as a store of value and a means of payment. As long as other countries were willing to accept this equivalence -which indeed happened for over two decades- the US had in its possession a gold mine free of charge. To assure of its privileged position, the US had to use its printing press parsimoniously. The system worked well as long as money was distributed to other countries, in a quantity not superior of what they needed as reserves and to pay their debts. As the US accelerated the printing of dollars, it created the basis for the system's demise. Why the US prompted the US to increase the rate of dollars flowing out the US in excess of the monetary and commercial needs of other countries? As the main producers of industrial and agricultural goods, the US shown .from the 19th century until the 70s a positive balance of payments. As such, international trade was a source of inflow rather than out flow of dollars. Similarly, the OECD countries provided services to the less developed countries (shipping, insurance and such) that carried money from those less developed countries into the OECD countries. Besides that, foreign investment provided much more income than costs, even though accountancy is made to disguise that fact. As the US started spending in foreign countries, keeping military presence with military bases, abroad, reconstruction of other countries infrastructure, that means buying good behavior from allies during the Cold War -remember Assuam Dam- financing localized wars, Angola, Central America, and economic subsidies to client states the outflow of dollars increased. And most of all to support the second most costly war the US have ever fought. Not only the out flow of dollars increased this way. But after reconstruction, the Japanese and the European industries started competing with the US industry. Soon speculators had huge amount of dollars and started manipulating the system to their own advantage. Large amount of dollars were converted into Yen, DM and Swiss Francs, etc. First Breton Woods principle to fall , de facto, in 1968 was the gold/dollar convertibility, and de jure, in August 1971.