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Strategies & Market Trends : Heinz Blasnik- Views You Can Use -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Robin Plunder who wrote (3978)	12/29/2003 8:11:13 AM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4905

Does anybody know what Argentina did during their bankruptcy? Didn't they 'nationalize' some savings accounts? they didn't nationalize accounts, but they froze them. (i think they did this to save the banks, but i'm not sure.) at a time when the Argentine peso was falling, those with peso accounts could not withdraw their money. so in relative terms (relative to the dollar), people lost a lot of money. but this would have happened anyway because even if everybody had been able to get their pesos out, the currency was already tanking in a panic so they wouldn't have been able to convert anywhere near par to the dollar. all that money in free circulation would have just accelerated the peso's fall and hyperinflation of all goods and services until the peso reached equilibrium, which it did anyway. there's a big difference between the peso and the USD, though: if the dollar tanked like that, the entire world would go into a depression. personally, i doubt the US govt would outlaw gold again in the "forseeable future" for individuals. it's just not relevant as competition to the USD for transactions. i can't think of the last thing i bought with my credit card where somebody would have taken the spot rate in gold in lieu of dollar payment. back in the 1930s, there may have been greater concern that gold would indeed be used in transactions. now, i think the only angles are speculation and purported "store of value". so i don't think the US govt has any business restricting ownership of a vehicle for these purposes (or taxing it as a collectible--since when is a commodity a collectible?) but there's no law against buying foreign currency-denominated securities.