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Strategies & Market Trends : Booms, Busts, and Recoveries -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pogbull who wrote (26830)	1/4/2003 8:32:50 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 74559

<Jim, as you know, I agree with you on this and believe that the chinese/islamic nations will eventually use gold to put the US to its knees. > Giggle! A bunch of Aztecs running around proudly waving their gold totems and calling mystical incantations to cause the USA to collapse to its knees. It really does seem funny to me and akin to the chimpoids in the opening scene of 2001 A Space Odyssey waving a bone at Hal. Gold is simply too pathetically tiny in quantity to act as a currency for the world. It's just another commodity for people to hold if they are scared of collapse in trust in Uncle Al and Uncle Sam. One that can act as money if things get really bad, so it tends to get a turbo boost in panicky times. But its long run value is the long run cost of production of another ingot. Which is around $220 an ounce or thereabouts as far as I know [which isn't far]. Abstract money is perfectly good if people retain confidence in the people who promise to keep it at a more or less constant value compared with the average hourly pay rate of the median human. Abstract money is much better than 3D stuff like gold, which has to be dug up, carted around, stored in another hole, protected, insured, tested for purity and generally is a major hassle to handle. The spread on buy and sell is an indication of the hassle. The spread on buying and selling abstract money is much lower. If the USA collapses to its knees, it'll be because of self-destruction and loss of political clues on what makes a successful society. It won't be because some Aztec mumbo jumbo incantationalists wave a bone at them. More likely, some smart-aleck USA financial gerrymandering computer-based trading nerds will clean out the bone wavers who will end up with no money, no gold and not even a bone to poke through their nose. The USA will end up not on its knees, uncollapsed, with all of the dollars, gold and bones. Mqurice