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To: Hawkmoon who wrote (26787)	1/22/1999 2:02:00 PM
From: Investor-ex!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116768

Ron, A nation's currency is far too important to be left in the hands of the private sector. Correct again, Ron! That's why the unconstitutional, illegal, privately-owned Federal Reserve Banking system and its fiat currency and fractional debt should be abolished - immediately! The creation and maintenance of money are among the few things that SHOULD be in the hands of the Federal Government, as so clearly stated in the Articles of the Constitution. Instead of wealth, our money, ALL of our "official" money, represents debt. This is what is wrong with the "system", worldwide. This is what will destroy the system. It is a mathematical certainty. It has nothing to do with gold. A gold standard is but a small step in the right direction.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (26787)	1/22/1999 2:13:00 PM
From: donald martin	Respond to of 116768

<<Then let's just start going out and burning our Fiat money now.... I mean it is so apparently worthless that we shouldn't even be able to buy gold with it.>> Burn fiat money? No way. I can still get gold for mine. <<I hope we nationalize every gold mine out there and declare it a strategic metal.>> Something similar happened in the past. FDR outlawed private gold ownership, said we all had to sell it back to the government for $32 or $35 an ounce. (I forget which.) That's a GOOD way to chase capital offshore. <<Make gold a strategic metal and then we can force the gov't to devote precious resources to digging this shiny little metal out of the ground. All in the name of "sound money".>> That would be JUST as foolish as printing too much paper. No one's suggesting that; I only want to see prudent monetary management, nothing more or less. There's a lot of us here who are fixated on gold, perhaps too fixated. The thing is, there are plenty of other substitutes. Platinum and diamonds immediately come to mind. Too many of the other candidates are either too unwieldy (how ya gonna stock pile a couple thousand barrels of oil? and $100k worth of silver is quite bulky.) or not as stable in supply. (You could stock pile firewood as a store of value, but it's easy to grow more trees.) The global supply of gold is fairly stable. It won't double any time soon. Your scenario for gold confiscation underscores the problem with trusting central banks. Threaten to take all of MY gold and you can count on me to: Skip town with my gold before you catch me. Fight you over it. Or switch to some other vessel that I think might hold it's value. One way or another, their attempts to impose financial values that I (or others) disagree with will be thwarted.

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (26787)	1/22/1999 2:30:00 PM
From: Bob Dobbs	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116768

Ron: Thanks for your response. I can tell you are well versed in most aspects of financial matters, particularly standard Monetary theory and to a degree, Keynesianism. Please try to understand - I had beliefs similar to your own until I found there was more to economics than what the vast majority learned in school, practiced in goverment and taught in universities. Let's start again: Gold has for the last 6 thousand years evolved into the best exchange medium, for reasons you'll hear about a thousand times on this thread. It wasn't a government edict that declared it so, it was the will of the market, after trying more barter systems than history can recount. Paper currency originated as gold warehouse receipts and evolved into a means for the powerful (kings and goldlenders, our modern day banks) to wage war, exert power and profit from the currency trade, a situation which persists today. Fiat is paper currency unbacked by assets. This type of "money" is usually printed by government and their powerbrokers, the bankers, to further their own means. The underlying assumption behind many of your arguments, is that the government has some natural right to dictate to the electorate 1) how their wealth should be redirected, and 2) how much of their wealth can be stolen from beneath their direct gaze. This is a fallacy. Government is, on the whole, unenlightened, abusive of power and too self interested in getting reelected. It is the free market, acting through entrepreneurs, that is the most efficient and powerful means to use capital to better mankind. It is in this spirit that a gold standard is a very reasonable means of achieving these goals. A gold standard doesn't lie, it doesn't allow a government to lie, and provides what Jim Dines once called "a body block" on irresponsibility. Why should the government be allowed to spend beyond its means like any other individual? Why should a government be allowed a monopoly on money creation when that will just satisfy a self fullfilling interest detrimental to the rest of society? My previous post about fiat currencies throughout the centuries eventually becoming worthless is FACT - and it's a fact because of the nature of governments that wield this power of fiat creation. <<Just as the gov't/Fed has the means to print or destroy money, if there is a gold standard, then the gov't should have control over that now strategic metal. >> Clearly, they should NOT have that power either! << A nation's currency is far too important to be left in the hands of the private sector. We found that out in the early 1800's when any bank could issue money and have it thought of as legal tender. I don't think any of us want that again. >> Banks were issuing paper currency unbacked by specie in the 1830's. When Jackson declared the "Specie Act" of 1837 a panic ensued. This is a potentially parallel situation to today if a gold standard were declared on a papered world. << I'm not familiar with 6th century China, but up until 1971, gold played an inherent role in backing money and calming people's confidence even though the true value of that money was the gov't ability to make good on its debts. As far as I know it did throughout the Western and Eastern worlds. >> It did not - that's why fiat currencies have collapsed to their cost of production - essentially zero, in ALL the centuries in which it has been abused by governments. Can you name a counterexample? Bob