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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: elmatador who wrote (1435)10/22/2005 3:56:36 PM
From: Maurice Winn  Respond to of 218175
 
ElM, the Quid is the way. I am in the process of inventing it. All other currencies will fizzle to a frazzle. Give me a bit of time and a byte of the cherry.

Gold is just a lump of metal, more valuable than iron, less common than lead, more stable than magnesium, not as useful as platinum, but full of fantasy.

Mqurice



To: elmatador who wrote (1435)10/22/2005 9:33:17 PM
From: Maurice Winn  Respond to of 218175
 
ElM, the main problem with regular state-created fiat money is that the holders of the money are different people from the producers and managers of it. They have an inherent conflict of interest.

Trust of somebody else, who looks like a wolf, is essential in regular state-backed fiat currency. Most of us take a fairly jaundiced view of such trust.

Gold also involves some trust, namely that it won't go out of fashion and that not too many people will dig up more of it to dilute existing holdings. Already there is a gold culture where people spend their lives digging the stuff up and messing around with it, building vaults and storing it etc. What a waste of effort.

The Quid on the other had would be owned and controlled by the people holding it. Can one trust oneself to not destroy one's property? Some suicidal individuals would indeed destroy their own property. But the Quid would be owned by millions of people and the average of those people would have a positive value on life. They would want to maintain their property's value and even enhance it.

A citizen is not necessarily interested in maintaining the value of their currency. Those holding it are interested in keeping it valuable, but those borrowing it are not and bludgers are not and the government is keen to print a few more for a bit of extra spending, trying not to get greedy. Electorates would usually like to keep their currency robust, but that is not universal by any means.

Mqurice



To: elmatador who wrote (1435)10/23/2005 1:58:29 AM
From: freechina  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 218175
 
engadget.com

Swiss trust SMS to VOTE on gubbment.

Yes ELMAT - we need store of value - I know you dont want to work all day and not have that effort stored some way shape or form that you can TRUST in - for mr. waterworld - costner - Value was DIRT - common sand - he trusted that - but today it seems many trade on US green paper and value that and trust it - backed by the full faith and credit of worlds largest economy and her gubbment and military. But maybe faith and credit of that entity not worth so much going forward - so while I will not rule out that green paper may hold less value to kevin costner in the future waterworld - I do not see why it will be replaced by GOLD and not DIRT perhaps or other things. Gold will be going backwards - other things will take us forward.

Many people trust credit cards, they trust banks, they trust online SI personalities - you yourself say you trust jay and energyplay - perhaps they are 12 year old little girls pretending to be someone they are not - TRUST is the key El Mat - I dont trust in GOLD for the future - too immobile for making many micro or huge macro purchases - I trust in the hearts and minds of men of character - and if those men make financial systems and wifi credit card money - it seems many of us trust that. Do you have a bank account? Do you have a stock account? Do you use checks or credit cards? I bet so - you already give much trust to magic wi fi electronic bits floating in the sky and the systems, entities, companies, and people backing them - not shiny metal.

What was it morpheus said to NEO - what is REAL?

The General continues to astonish me that we are going to wake up one day soon - and all those banks, stock accounts, checking accounts, systems, entities, and people and the TRUST we have in them will be replaced with bartering in shiny metal that has no big industrial USE save to collect dust in vaults from what I see. When I make my 2 cent micropayment for a song in the future - will I have to get a minute particle of gold dust - mail it to musician - him open mail and then sneeze and gold dust particle fly off - that so silly that it is even seriously debated by people like elroy and the general seems totally ludicrous. I go buy my asian PHOENIX building with all my tenant in common investors - millions of transactions a year go one like this - am I to believe we are going to delay the speed of these transactions with how fast shiny metal can move amongst the various users and holders of the shiny metal? OH MY GOD - talk about velocity of money! The future El Mat is FASTER FASTER - that is why we cannot go back to gold - too SLOW - FREE YOUR MIND NEO.

This article bodes badly for full faith and credit of USA green paper - but it does not mean we go back to gold. Coconut will not be carrying around gold coins to buy things in the future.

news.ft.com

Pensions insurer ‘nearing crisis'
By Norma Cohen in London
Published: October 20 2005 19:12 | Last updated: October 20 2005 19:12

The US is heading towards another bailout of a government-backed insurer, similar to that of the savings and loan crisis in the 1980s but this time involving the insurance scheme for occupational pensions, a prominent economist warned on Thursday.


Zvi Bodie, of Boston University who is known for pioneering work on the risks of investment in equities, made his remarks in an address to the St Louis Federal Reserve Bank, noting that the US's pension crisis was predictable.

He said that too many companies had tried to ride the equity bull market of the 1980s and 1990s, when instead regulators should have required them to peg their investments to long-term interest rates that mimicked the liabilities that they were building up in their schemes.

Noting that the US faced a crisis with its Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), Mr Bodie said: “The current crisis did not follow from some perfect storm of unforeseeable factors. It was largely caused by the same factor that led to the S&L crisis and the demise of the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation: a mis-match between assets and liabilities.”

The sharp drop in interest rates and the fall in equities markets have left the PBGC with a deficit as of September 30, 2004 of $24bn (€20bn, £13.3bn). However, in recent months four of the largest bankruptcies in US history have strained finances further. The bankruptcies of Delta, Northwest and United Airways, along with that of auto parts supplier Delphi, make it likely that the PBGC will report a substantially larger deficit when it files its year-end report in mid-November.

A recent report from the Congressional Budget Office estimated that it would cost $142bn to pay a commercial insurer to provide the benefits that the PBGC has promised, but does not have money to pay for, over the next 20 years.