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Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Zardoz who wrote (14804)	7/22/1998 3:11:00 PM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 116814

Sounds to me like he would like gold as the reserve currency vs the dollar the pound or the Euro. I'm with you, there is not enough gold for a purely gold backed currency, or is there at these prices. rh

To: Zardoz who wrote (14804)	7/22/1998 8:44:00 PM
From: PaulM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116814

Armstrong sees July 20th, 1998 as possible Major Cyclic Turning Point pei-intl.com Click "July 20 1998 Turning Point" icon And for those interested in elliott wave theory, Robert Prechter runs a site at elliottwave.com This is the guy whose been expecting a stock market crash of "Grand Supercycle Degree" (i.e. the worst in over two centuries) since 1995. He now sees the Great Bull (Super Cycle 5th wave) topping end of July or August, give or take.

To: Zardoz who wrote (14804)	7/23/1998 6:13:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 116814

Calls mount for action on swooning Canadian loonie 03:50 p.m Jul 23, 1998 Eastern By Randall Palmer OTTAWA, July 23 (Reuters) - The unrelenting slide of the Canadian dollar in recent months has fostered growing calls for authorities in Ottawa to prevent the decline from turning into an Asian-style exchange crisis. Many economists and politicians have increasingly become impatient with the perceived indifference of Prime Minister Jean Chretien to the fate of the dollar -- nicknamed the loonie after a bird, the loon, pictured on the C$1 coin -- and the reluctance of the Bank of Canada to come to its rescue. At the heart of the debate is whether it matters to a country whether its dollar becomes weaker or not. ''When you lower your currency, it's like taking a national wage cut,'' remarked Scotiabank chief economist Warren Jestin. ''And there's no way in my mind you can reason around the fact that we cannot get rich as an economy by progressively taking national wage cuts. It just doesn't make any sense.'' The last time Chretien publicly commented on the currency, on July 14, he said the decline was helping exporters and Canada's tourist industry. Noting inflation was low, he gave not the slightest hint that the government -- or the central bank -- might act to make the one-way bets of currency speculators less sure. The currency has slid further, to C$1.4950 to the U.S. dollar from C$1.48 when Chretien spoke, and from C$1.41 in January. Chretien is on holiday, and his office gave no indication of building concern. ''I don't think we've got a comment to make,'' his spokeswoman, Jennifer Lang, said on Thursday, adding his next public appearance would be next month. A cartoon in Canada's Financial Post newspaper shows a hypnotist swinging the sinking loonie in front of a slumbering Chretien and saying: ''When he awakes he won't remember anything...He wasn't aware of anything before he fell asleep.'' Opposition leader Preston Manning, of the Reform Party, slammed Chretien: ''Like countries in Asia that are hesitant to engage in reform, Chretien's do-nothing approach on our record-low dollar increases the scope of the problem.'' Criticism of the government and the bank is not unanimous. Some economists said the dollar slump was triggered by the Asian crisis and the ensuing fall in commodity prices. ''As long as the weakening is orderly and doesn't cause destabilisation of the other markets, the (central) bank should stay on the sidelines,'' Bank of Montreal deputy chief economist Paul Ferley commented. But Ferley recognises, along with most in the markets, the perils as the dollar approaches the magic level of C$1.50 to the U.S. dollar. Even though its significance is simply that it is a round number, the expectation is that hitting that point could trigger a new round of selling. And that would likely cut further into the confidence of international investors, already forced to accept lower interest rates in Canada than in the United States. At least two economists -- CIBC Wood Gundy's Jeff Rubin and Nesbitt Burns' Sherry Cooper -- have joined calls by the opposition Reform and Conservative parties for tax cuts, which could counter the economic drag of a dollar-bolstering hike in interest rates. Cooper has taken strenuous exception to the idea that just because annual inflation is only 1.0 percent that the weak dollar is not hurting and that inflation could not erupt again. Take computers. The booming market in the United States is for computers under $1,000. But in Canadian dollars, brand-name computers are not available anywhere near $1,000 because it costs a lot more Canadian dollars to import them. Tuition for graduate studies at Canada's leading journalism school, Carleton University, costs about C$4,000. Its U.S. counterpart, Columbia University, charges US$22,500 for a year and says students should budget for US$40,000. That's difficult enough to swallow in U.S. terms but at C$60,000 it is above most Canadian families' pre-tax incomes. Tourism abroad is becoming less and less attractive. The fall has been greatest against the U.S. dollar, but the currency has also dropped against European currencies. One in seven residents -- more than four million ''snowbirds'' -- flee Canada's cold for Florida and other southern states each winter. As the dollar becomes more expensive, Canadians' options become more limited. ''My kids are going to have to wait a long time before they go to Disney World again,'' Scotiabank's Jestin said. But among the broader economic concerns, he worried that foreigners could start snapping up Canadian companies at bargain-basement prices. ''We're making domestic assets increasingly cheap to foreign buyers, especially U.S. buyers,'' he said. Jestin said he expected the central bank to be forced to raise rates by half a percentage point, which he said would not give the currency a bounce but would stabilise it. ((Reuters Ottawa Bureau, 1-613-235-6745, fax 1-613-235-5890))