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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Claude Cormier who wrote (49064)	1/8/2006 10:52:10 AM
From: Tommaso	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110194

It's a lot easier to think about gold because no one uses it for money any more. No contracts are made, bills paid, houses bought, or even accounts between countries denominated or settled in gold any more. It performs almost none of the functions of money other than serving as a store of value, for which it is somewhat more convenient than diamonds, rare stamps, or valuable artwork. There are probably more barter arrangements made in oil than in gold now. Platinum is probably better than gold as a store of value because of its use as a catalyst. To say this not to say that gold cannot be money. It certainly could be money. But as a matter of fact, it is not. I own a certain amount of gold for reasons somewhat comparable to my owning a Browning automatic five-shell shotgun and a box of shells with #4 shot in them. I do not use the shotgun to conduct my routine affairs, nor do I use gold. Neither is convenient, given the conditions of contemporary society. Money, on the other hand, is very complex and hard to understand. The difference between gold and money might be compared to the difference between my shotgun and international politics. The shotgun is pretty easy to understand, too.