Germany Eyes Gold Standard

[Guest]

the marketplace decides its value just like everything else. economics 101. if you dictate an unrealistic value for something, then things go haywire.

iron corrodes as much as fiat money. try accumulating iron for your retirement, where would you be in 99 years? same as if you had accumulated fiat currency.

iron is abundant, the iron supply would grow as much as much as fiat currency after 100 years. so a choice between iron or gold? no contest.

how do you peg a currency to the value of work? what does that even mean? you peg it to the average salary? so you peg money to money? confused.

food rots, the value of food can be manipulated simply by monopolizing farmland and restricting or expanding production, just like fiat currency. you want something whose quantity cannot expand or contract at the will of some greedy b*******. you would have the same problems as fiat currency and the money addicts and their political enablers would see you starve before their profits are affected. gold or food? no contest.

fiat dollars are not value. value is what the market sentiment decides is value. you don't print value out of thin air and you can't buck the market even if you own all the guns. speculation does not increase the money supply, increase in money supply feeds the speculation, a currency backed by something tangible and a seperation of investment banking from commercial banking would prevent hysterical speculation.

Gold is arbitrary just as Iron, work and food - there is nothing magical about Gold as a standard - its just a rather impractical and restrictive one to choose.

Money is a fiction which we all agree to abide by - but it is us who consensually decide what that money represents and how it is managed. We can choose any fixed standard.

Pegging your hopes to one arbitrary yardstick over another - simply because we have traditionally used Gold as a standard - isn't actually a well thought out solution. Gold was dropped as a standards for many reasons, some good some bad. The main reason was its intrinsic inflexibility.

If any of you had an ability to understand that most thing in human society are consensual fictions - you would realize that choosing one fiction over another is simply a matter of choice and those choices should be based on sound reasoning - not nostalgia and sentiment.

Br Cornelius

[Yamato]

Gold is arbitrary just as Iron, work and food - there is nothing magical about Gold as a standard - its just a rather impractical and restrictive one to choose.

Money is a fiction which we all agree to abide by - but it is us who consensually decide what that money represents and how it is managed. We can choose any fixed standard.

Pegging your hopes to one arbitrary yardstick over another - simply because we have traditionally used Gold as a standard - isn't actually a well thought out solution. Gold was dropped as a standards for many reasons, some good some bad. The main reason was its intrinsic inflexibility.

If any of you had an ability to understand that most thing in human society are consensual fictions - you would realize that choosing one fiction over another is simply a matter of choice and those choices should be based on sound reasoning - not nostalgia and sentiment.

Br Cornelius

I just think you are fundamentally wrong in assuming that Gold is the magic solution to our current problems. It is as arbitrary as anything you decide to peg your money to. It would be equally valid to peg it to Iron - its just that one is shinner than the other.

No you cannot choose any fixed standard that is bologna. Iron and paper deteriorate in oxygen. Wood deteriorates, burns better than just about anything, and it turns into ashes and floats away when it does. Food goes rotten. None of these ideas are any good or even possible to consider seriously.

Gold is the most resistant element to oxidation on earth. You probably weren't aware of this and I doubt you'll even acknowledge it in your response. It has historical value nothing else can compare to, and a long proven history of being money. It is easy to handle, it is lightweight, it can be stored easily in any climate and will last for thousands of years untouched by time. It is the perfect money for these reasons. This is sound reasoning. Ignoring history and making baseless statements is not.

Monetary policy is economic policy and you're never going to read that money is fiction in any economics textbook you will ever find so you're not even on topic in saying that. If you want to make some kind of bizarre mental argument about what's fiction and what isn't, that doesn't belong here in a discussion about monetary policy.

I say peg it to something of real value such as the vale of work or food - things that have real meaning rather than fixating on a piece of metal with no intrinsic value beyond its role in electronics and jewelry.

Food goes rotten. It has no long term shelf life. It gets spoiled in air, in heat, in humidity, by bugs, by bacteria. When you destroy any ability to actually save money you don't create the perfect form of money you eliminate it from society and then it will be fiction.

It undermines capitalism since capitalism as it currently functions is based upon creating value out of sentiment and thin air which can only be done with a currency with no fixed value. It is capitalist speculation which has been partly responsible for expansion of the money supply.

No, you need to use the encyclopedia to learn what capitalism is. And whatever you're talking about here ain't it.

Edited September 26, 2012 by Yamato

[Guest]

Just try exchanging your pile of Gold for a bottle of water when your a hundred miles into a desert - you'll soon find out how real it really is

The simple fact is that money is only ever as valuable as both traders agree it is. that requires a shared frame of reference which is a fabrication off two minds. Fiction it certainly is - as are all social contracts and morals.

You really should learn about the nature of the reality you actually live in.

Br Cornelius

Edited September 26, 2012 by Guest

[questionmark]

Just try exchanging your pile of Gold for a bottle of water when your a hundred miles into a dessert - you'll soon find out how real it really is

Br Cornelius

Oh well, for three Kruger's he could drink out of my car's radiator...

[Yamato]

Just try exchanging your pile of Gold for a bottle of water when your a hundred miles into a dessert - you'll soon find out how real it really is

Br Cornelius

When your paper dollars are completely worthless, I will exchange my silver for a .40 caliber pistol and when I'm in one desert and you're in the other, we'll see who drinks and who doesn't when someone tries to take our water.

Edit: You're really having it both ways here. In one reply you can understand conceptually what the problem is, and then you betray what you seem to understand with replies like this one.

Edited September 26, 2012 by Yamato

[Guest]

When your paper dollars are completely worthless, I will exchange my silver for a .40 caliber pistol and when I'm in one desert and you're in the other, we'll see who drinks and who doesn't when someone tries to take our water.

How has your Gold been a useful means of exchange in that example ? Have you used it to buy the water or are you trying to sneak in an extra element into the situation ?? Yes you have.

Br Cornelius

[questionmark]

How has your Gold been a useful means of exchange in that example ? Have you used it to buy the water or are you trying to sneak in an extra element into the situation ?? Yes you have.

Br Cornelius

It is just the same thought fallacy that makes him want to own gold, in the situation where money is worthless he better have the gun before, else he is not going to buy one but will have one rammed up his ar$e until he coughs out all the gold he has.

But hey, to everybody his illusions, right?

Edited September 26, 2012 by questionmark

[ninjadude]

The inflation that politicians hide by not including the costs of food and fuel in these numbers you show. Probably the two most important expenses of any household. And when the massive amounts of "liquidity" that have been put into the system finally have an effect we will either break EVERY ECONOMIC LAW that has existed to this point or we will experience a hyperinflation that will devastate the globe financially.

More fear. You should attend a support group. Wait that's the Republicans.

[+and-then]

More fear. You should attend a support group. Wait that's the Republicans.

Knowing that smug people like yourself are going down just like everyone else makes a second term for Oby boy almost bearable. Fools.

[acidhead]

I have said that fiat currency is the problem - so your arguments are misdirected.

All money is a consensual fiction - even gold. We simply agree to believe that it has some arbitrary value.

I just think you are fundamentally wrong in assuming that Gold is the magic solution to our current problems. It is as arbitrary as anything you decide to peg your money to. It would be equally valid to peg it to Iron - its just that one is shinner than the other.

I say peg it to something of real value such as the vale of work or food - things that have real meaning rather than fixating on a piece of metal with no intrinsic value beyond its role in electronics and jewelry.

It undermines capitalism since capitalism as it currently functions is based upon creating value out of sentiment and thin air which can only be done with a currency with no fixed value. It is capitalist speculation which has been partly responsible for expansion of the money supply.

Br Cornelius

Gold does have enormous value. This is where you're being misdirected. It holds more value than diamonds. And for good reason.

We're not experiencing Capitalism. The banks control the GOV. We're beyond the free market. Stop blaming Capitalism. You sound like a dummy.... but I actually really like you BR..... we just disagree on this subject.

Edited September 27, 2012 by acidhead

[Guest]

Gold does have enormous value. This is where you're being misdirected. It holds more value than diamonds. And for good reason.

We're not experiencing Capitalism. The banks control the GOV. We're beyond the free market. Stop blaming Capitalism. You sound like a dummy.... but I actually really like you BR..... we just disagree on this subject.

I said this to Yamoto. You should try a little harder to understand the real nature of reality and specifically the nature of human society. Every social convention, including money, is a consensual bargain between the parties and the nature of the rules of that social contract are completely arbitrary and subject to agreement between the parties.Gold is no different - and more importantly MONEY is no different. It is your mistake to believe that the value we place in Gold is anything but a figment of your imagination which you just so happen to share with a lot of other people.

The point of all this is, when you have demystified this magic substances money and Gold, you are free to think about the real function of money and devise a system which doesn't share the flaws of either fiat currency or Gold. People have been doing that for hundreds of years and there are plenty of good ides to choose from. We don't change because the current system is extremely profitable for those who control it, and Gold offers the illusion of predictability and again the ability of a small cartel to control the bulk of the world Gold supply.

Personally I don't choose to make a bad choice between one flawed system and another - I would rather investigate the possibility of using a system which actually for-fills the needs we have in money.

Br Cornelius

[Little Fish]

It is just the same thought fallacy that makes him want to own gold, in the situation where money is worthless he better have the gun before, else he is not going to buy one but will have one rammed up his ar$e until he coughs out all the gold he has.

But hey, to everybody his illusions, right?

a rapdily hyperinflatiionary currency is a worthless currency because you can't save it for the future. you have to trade your currency the day you earn it for something that is going to be worth the same the next day. whether it is hyperinflating or inflating at 5-10% it is the same principle, inflationary currencies prevent you storing wealth, it is a direct transfer of wealth from the poor and middle classes to the super wealthy class. that is why gold is good because it is a store of value, a store of your work for a rainy day and it holds its value better than any other asset. if you hold on to your fiat currency its purchasing power will be reduced, it rots away, most people here misunderstand a gold standard, it's not about having gold coins in your pocket to buy hamburgers, its about fixing money's value to prevent it being printed to death by people who get rich by doing so, thus preventing that wealth transfer from you to the super wealthy.

[questionmark]

a rapdily hyperinflatiionary currency is a worthless currency because you can't save it for the future. you have to trade your currency the day you earn it for something that is going to be worth the same the next day. whether it is hyperinflating or inflating at 5-10% it is the same principle, inflationary currencies prevent you storing wealth, it is a direct transfer of wealth from the poor and middle classes to the super wealthy class. that is why gold is good because it is a store of value, a store of your work for a rainy day and it holds its value better than any other asset. if you hold on to your fiat currency its purchasing power will be reduced, it rots away, most people here misunderstand a gold standard, it's not about having gold coins in your pocket to buy hamburgers, its about fixing money's value to prevent it being printed to death by people who get rich by doing so, thus preventing that wealth transfer from you to the super wealthy.

You can do that with something real, like real estate other than a condo in town, like a patch of land where you can grow your food but hardly with a commodity whose value gains or shrinks with the will of the super wealthy to buy or sell it.

[Little Fish]

You can do that with something real, like real estate other than a condo in town, like a patch of land where you can grow your food but hardly with a commodity whose value gains or shrinks with the will of the super wealthy to buy or sell it.

you are implying that gold is not real.

land is not portable, I'm sure you have heard the phrase "physical possession is 90% of the law", in times of crises it gets close to 100%. how could you transfer that land to china when it wants physical possession of its wealth?

land or gold? no contest.

[Yamato]

How has your Gold been a useful means of exchange in that example ? Have you used it to buy the water or are you trying to sneak in an extra element into the situation ?? Yes you have.

Br Cornelius

How is work? You're asking for indentured servitude. How am I supposed to buy my new iPhone with work as a currency? Apple Inc. isn't interested in the work I do because I don't work for Apple. What do I do, ask my boss if he's going to let me choose the phone I want after I do work for him? How's he going to get my phone? There's no currency so he's going to do work for Apple? They don't want his work either. You have to have something that's universally demanded. Demand for work is specific to every job; it's not universally exchangeable. People who have work available that I can do aren't storehouses of everything I need and want. Your idea can't work and you have no solutions or alternatives. All you have are poor questions ignoring everything you started to understand a few posts ago. You're being stubborn and the clue isn't sticking. Gold is universally exchangeable into any currency in the world, that's how it's a useful means of exchange. I don't use gold as currency. I use it as protection against the destruction of my currency and you are not doing yourself any favors in the next 10 years by not doing so yourself.

[questionmark]

you are implying that gold is not real.

land is not portable, I'm sure you have heard the phrase "physical possession is 90% of the law", in times of crises it gets close to 100%. how could you transfer that land to china when it wants physical possession of its wealth?

land or gold? no contest.

Naturally gold is not real as a value. There are still places in this world where you get more for a caori mussel shell than for a Kruger. Gold, as all commodities, ceases to have a value once they want to give you nothing for it.

The only things that do have a real value are those that you create for your own subsistence.

[Yamato]

Naturally gold is not real as a value. There are still places in this world where you get more for a caori mussel shell than for a Kruger. Gold, as all commodities, ceases to have a value once they want to give you nothing for it.

The only things that do have a real value are those that you create for your own subsistence.

You need money to create anything for your subsistence. And government is destroying the value of money. Government is destroying real value

Purchasing power is real value in economics, not the number of twinkies in your bank account.

You're living in an infantile country sucking on the tit of Europe dragging down the rest of Europe thanks to a lot of stupid people in your country who deserve bankruptcy now.

So what if you can get a mussel shell for an ounce of gold. That means that you can get a mussel shell for over 1700 dollars and what does that say about dollars? Wake up already, Greece. Your economy is going to hell.

[TheMacGuffin]

There really hasn't been a gold standard since the 1930s, when just about every country abandoned metallic standards after the Great Depression in order to try to stimulate and inflate their economies with fiat money.

After World War II, the dollar was like an international gold standard and set to a fixed amount of gold--$35 an ounce as I recall--but that ended in 1971. Since then the value of currencies has been allowed to float relative to each other, which of course has been a bonanza for currency traders and speculators. Even those countries that have fixed exchange rates will come under attack by speculators if they think their currency values are incorrect or out of balance.

Of course, even in the gold standard days they also used to speculate in gold and dollars, except when countries had very strict controls over these things, as they did during and after World War II. I noticed over the years how countries that maintained such controls, like Malaysia, were relatively safe from speculators and therefore more stable.

[Guest]

How is work? You're asking for indentured servitude. How am I supposed to buy my new iPhone with work as a currency? Apple Inc. isn't interested in the work I do because I don't work for Apple. What do I do, ask my boss if he's going to let me choose the phone I want after I do work for him? How's he going to get my phone? There's no currency so he's going to do work for Apple? They don't want his work either. You have to have something that's universally demanded. Demand for work is specific to every job; it's not universally exchangeable. People who have work available that I can do aren't storehouses of everything I need and want. Your idea can't work and you have no solutions or alternatives. All you have are poor questions ignoring everything you started to understand a few posts ago. You're being stubborn and the clue isn't sticking. Gold is universally exchangeable into any currency in the world, that's how it's a useful means of exchange. I don't use gold as currency. I use it as protection against the destruction of my currency and you are not doing yourself any favors in the next 10 years by not doing so yourself.

You misunderstand - money is still money whatever you peg it to. Better to peg it to something which represents value rather than an arbitrary mineral. I advocate pegging it to a basked of commodities with real value - such as grain, energy work etc. You have a bizarre fixation to a shiny bit of metal - I hardly call that a great quality in you.

Gold is not flexible enough to be used as a currency and that is why all countries came off the Gold standard - because it helped cause the great depression and held those who used it in a depressed state for longer than those who ditched it early.

I am absolutely certain that if I spent more time looking into it that there are multiple alternative currency models which better the Fiat system and the Gold Standard. I am neither sentimental for the past or foolish enough to believe that what we currently have is working.

Do not assume that simply because I do not agree with your simplistic one size fits all solution that I do not understand the issues at work here.

Br Cornelius

Edited September 27, 2012 by Guest

[Guest]

You need money to create anything for your subsistence. And government is destroying the value of money. Government is destroying real value

Purchasing power is real value in economics, not the number of twinkies in your bank account.

You're living in an infantile country sucking on the tit of Europe dragging down the rest of Europe thanks to a lot of stupid people in your country who deserve bankruptcy now.

So what if you can get a mussel shell for an ounce of gold. That means that you can get a mussel shell for over 1700 dollars and what does that say about dollars? Wake up already, Greece. Your economy is going to hell.

None of which is an argument which leads us to Gold as a logical solution.

Br Cornelius

[questionmark]

You need money to create anything for your subsistence. And government is destroying the value of money. Government is destroying real value

Purchasing power is real value in economics, not the number of twinkies in your bank account.

You're living in an infantile country sucking on the tit of Europe dragging down the rest of Europe thanks to a lot of stupid people in your country who deserve bankruptcy now.

So what if you can get a mussel shell for an ounce of gold. That means that you can get a mussel shell for over 1700 dollars and what does that say about dollars? Wake up already, Greece. Your economy is going to hell.

Ehm yes, and you need money to buy gold, which in turn creates nothing. So your point is...?

[Mr Right Wing]

The latest report from the Deutsche Bank, the country’s leading private bank

It says: “We believe there are nearly zero real options available to global policy-makers. The world needs growth and is willing to go to extraordinary lengths to get it.” It forecasts bluntly that the value of the dollar will plummet in the first half of 2013 to less than a 2,000th of an ounce of gold. It reckons “the growth in supply of fiat currencies such as the USD will remain an important driver.”

That’s just for openers. The report then goes on to assert that gold is misunderstood and doesn’t really belong in the basket of “commodities” used by so many economists. Gold is money, according to the Deutsche Bank. Says it: “We would go further however, and argue that gold could be characterised as ‘good’ money as opposed to ‘bad’ money which would be represented by many of today’s fiat currencies.”

Read more

Thats their admission that the US is about to hyperinflate.

[Guest]

Thats their admission that the US is about to hyperinflate.

Hyperinflation is inevitable with Fiat currency so it isn't hard to predict.

Br Cornelius

[questionmark]

Hyperinflation is inevitable with Fiat currency so it isn't hard to predict.

Br Cornelius

Where Idoubt that it is about to happen. The dollar still has its biggest trump: It is the world's reserve currency so the whole world has an interest in avoiding inflation in the US.

[Mr Right Wing]

Where Idoubt that it is about to happen. The dollar still has its biggest trump: It is the world's reserve currency so the whole world has an interest in avoiding inflation in the US.

When they hyperinflate that will end.

Euros or whatever it is the Chinese use for currency.