So, how much is gold worth in relation to the U.S. debt?

gecko109

With some 261 million ounces of gold supposedly held by the United States government.....if sold today at a near all-time high of $1360, would NOT even produce enough revenue to even just service the INTEREST only on our 14 trillion dollar current debt. Thats right folks.....if we sold EVERY single ounce of gold that this nation claims to own, we would have 353 billion dollars, and the interest alone on our debt is at 400 billion per year! Thats scary!

Now lets take it a bit further. If every single ounce of gold EVER mined in human history were somehow magically transferred into the U.S. coffers.....some 4,500,000,000 ounces.....and then sold, it would not even erase half our current debt. I want you to ponder that for a minute.......if every single spec of gold ever recovered by every human to ever live on this planet were gathered up, and sold, it would pay off LESS than half of just this nation's current financial obligations......to say nothing of the future obligations ($53 trillion worth of SS and Medicaid). Just to pay less than half of what we ALREADY owe!



So is gold a bargain at $1,360/oz? I'll let you decide!

guitarwes

4,500,000,000 oz........and people think gold is rare. Same for diamonds. But that's not the point of the OP.

'Tis a bit scary when you break it down and relate the Nat. Debt to something you're familiar with.

KUCH

We could fix this debt crisis in 1 month!!!!!

roadrunner

Gold is just one isolated item with perceived and accepted value. You then should add every conceivable tangible item on earth and then divide that by the total fiat and future liabilities to get a better figure on whether real things are undervalued or overvalued. It's a difficult assignment when figuring in the total value of all natural resources currently known. Gold happens to be the only one that is also kept in central bank vaults.

However I generally agree with the notion that total US debt (less future obigations) divided by gold ounces held should be a top-end value for the current gold price ($53,000+). Those future obligations will eventually be factored into the future gold price. The lower valuation could be estimated by dividing the total FRN's in circulation by the amount of US gold held ($3,100). Another method might be to calculate what portion of our $14 TRILL debt is owed to other sovereign nations whom we would not default upon.

roadrunner

gecko109

<< <i>Gold is just one isolated item with perceived and accepted value. You then should add every conceivable tangible item on earth and then divide that by the total fiat and future liabilities to get a better figure on whether real things are undervalued or overvalued. It's a difficult assignment when figuring in the total value of all natural resources currently known. Gold happens to be the only one that is also kept in central bank vaults.

However I generally agree with the notion that total US debt (less future obigations) divided by gold ounces held should be a fair value for the current gold price. Those future obligations will eventually be factored into the future gold price.

roadrunner >>






There are just 2 assets kept in central bank vaults.....currencies and gold. Im not concerned about the value of my corvette or the value of my television....they will never act as money. Gold WILL act as money however, so its of vital importance to examine how much of it there is in relation to debt levels and in relation to its current valuation based in monopoly money, I mean U.S. dollars.

Baley

My first thought was similar to Roadrunners: good thing there are more assets in the world than gold.

Do the math for food, is there enough gold in the world to buy the food we consume in a year?

how about fuel?

what about medicine?

this line of analysis is so flawed, it's hard to know where to start.