The word manipulation is thrown around these boards with reckless abandon. It us used as an excuse when something doesn't go ones way.
The London Gold Pool... What does that have to do with today? That was 50 years ago?
Show me where banks purposely ran gold higher to remove this alternative currency from the sheeple's hands. Then they drove the price lower to give thus gold to the Chinese so they won't dump US and European debt thus throwing the global economy into chaos.
Go ahead..prove that didn't happen. You can't. Therefore it must be true. LMFAO!!!
<< <i>The word manipulation is thrown around these boards with reckless abandon. It us used as an excuse when something doesn't go ones way.
The London Gold Pool... What does that have to do with today? That was 50 years ago?
Show me where banks purposely ran gold higher to remove this alternative currency from the sheeple's hands. Then they drove the price lower to give thus gold to the Chinese so they won't dump US and European debt thus throwing the global economy into chaos.
Go ahead..prove that didn't happen. You can't. Therefore it must be true. LMFAO!!! >>
Don't you work for the system? Hmmm... Yeah, you are probably one of the last guys I want advice from!
I have also enjoyed seeing poster Baseball being schooled by forum members who do understand the very important reason for gold, and why this paper society is on a ticking clock.
<< <i>The word manipulation is thrown around these boards with reckless abandon. It us used as an excuse when something doesn't go ones way.
The London Gold Pool... What does that have to do with today? That was 50 years ago?
Show me where banks purposely ran gold higher to remove this alternative currency from the sheeple's hands. Then they drove the price lower to give thus gold to the Chinese so they won't dump US and European debt thus throwing the global economy into chaos.
Go ahead..prove that didn't happen. You can't. Therefore it must be true. LMFAO!!! >>
Now you want to make exceptions that anything 50 yrs old doesn't count? They manipulated gold in the 1960's. Fact. Seems like you have conceded that point. The FEDs wish they had manipulated gold back down in the 1970's. Fact. Arthur Burns admitted that fact in correspondence. The gold carry trade in the 1990's and onward has manipulated the gold price. This was part of the Rubin - Summers "strong dollar" policy of the Clinton and Bush 2 era. And because they have manipulated gold in the past.....they won't dare manipulate it today? Too funny. Prove none of this happened. You can't therefore it must be true. The tricks Rubin learned playing for Goldman Sachs in the 1960's LGP were on display in the 1990's and 2000's in his tenures as Treasury Secretary and Citigroup chairman. Those same influences are still alive today passed along to Summers, Paulson, Geither, Lew, etc. Old dogs don't learn new tricks when the old ones still work.
And the example you provide above does appear what happened the past 3-4 years. The Chinese are getting the gold cheap so they can build towards the next reserve currency and not tank the current system by disposing of TBonds and dollars. I agree with you. This has happened. And a great case of manipulation that we can both agree on. Thanks for proving my point about gold manipulation.
There is nothing you have posted that has even partially refuted the notion that gold is useless. You can talk and write and research until the end of days and you won't be able to do any better because what I have written aren't opinions but facts. Don't kid yourself, I have no high opinion of my viewpoints and are perfectly willing to toss them aside if I think they are incorrect. Case in point, I though this massive bond buying was going to be a huge problem a few years back much sooner (like pretty much now) than it has turned out.
Your synonym link is FILLED with words that describe gold PERFECTLY. "Idle", "futile", "impractical", "nonfunctional", etc. TVs provide entertainment. Airplanes and autos provide transportation. Farmland provide food. Housing provides shelter. Computers provided communication, entertainment, and a litany of other productive activities. Gold just SITS there USELESS with the only attribute that people want to ascribe value to it.
You say that kingdoms fall apart because of gold but how does that even work in today's or even 1920s society? What you can't grasp is that the ONLY reason that kingdoms fell apart in yester centuries and yester melliniumns is because gold was money and countries were trying to stack riches. There isn't really enough gold to go to war for anymore in any one location nor do modern nations consider gold really worth having apart from once again perception and controlling the masses.
It's ONLY real use in society is the value that people ascribe to it as being worth something. That is it's ONLY real use in life. And that's not a real use but LITERALLY religion on the part of those that prey to it. That only exists because brainwashed people think that gold has some inherent value, which it doesn't. Once again, the irrefutable fact is that gold is a useless ROCK. You can try to make lame comments like human beings are useless and to the extent of the greater universe, that may be true. But in the human being centric world, which is what we're talking about, most human beings add productive roles to society, which are how economies work. And yes there are humans that are pretty much useless. But society has deemed that the value of any life is precious or whatever.
Once again, ask yourself this, if computers all vanished from earth tomorrow, it would be a near catastrophic situation. Mankind would eventually get by but it may very well be an apocalyptic event. If oil all vanished tomorrow, if all TVs vanished, if all cars vanished, etc. Do I really need to go on??? And if gold vanished in one felt swoop, who would really care when the dust settled apart from some fringe lunatics? >>
Now u contradict your position in this thesis? Lol... Are u describing gold or fiat currency...lol...
<< <i>My apologies to mariner67 as I made reference in this thread to StanTheManMusial as being the OP. >>
Don't give it a second thought baseball. Gee, I kinda recall the Congratulations to Silver thread being one big party of everyone slapping each other on the back and giving high fives. Sure is different now.
Successful trades/buys/sells with gdavis70, adriana, wondercoin, Weiss, nibanny, IrishMike, commoncents05, pf70collector, kyleknap, barefootjuan, coindeuce, WhiteTornado, Nefprollc, ajw, JamesM, PCcoins, slinc, coindudeonebay,beernuts, and many more
<< <i>You just further prove my point about the brainwashed human beings who prey to the alter of a useless rock. >>
Kindly clarify your point. My brain is addled by 8 hours of sleep. >>
Kindly clarify your's first. You have a tendency of trying to say too much with less words than I have fingers. >>
Then perhaps it is best to ask for a clarification before coming back with an incendiary comment.
Japan, the US and Europe (with some wise restraint from Germany), has tried to overcome decades of reckless spending on Socialist programs as well as enormous spending on defense in the US case, by wantonly creating money that is backed by absolutely nothing. This dilution of currency has substantially weakened the existing paper and though we are not yet seeing hyper inflation at the consumer level, it has certainly inflated the price of equities and government debt instruments.
We like to cheer the rise in stock prices and crap on the old timers that are starring like deer in headlights (using the Bidask analogy). Is this really healthy though? Of course not. It is a market rise of weakness and necessity, not confidence and real growth.
This rally is as phony as a 50 year old woman in a push up bra.
Gold or any precious metal or any real asset cannot be created at will as paper currency can. In times of economic stability and competent governance, the paper can be trusted to a moderate degree. Today though, we lack both.
As gold reached $1800 plus a year or so ago and is now at $1200 it is minimized as a hedge against such reckless monetary policy. Unfortunate logic as the metal is still at over 4 times the 15 year low and ten times what it brought in the early 70's.
All markets are subject to unabated speculation and the PM group is no exception.
<< <i>Gee, I kinda recall the Congratulations to Silver thread being one big party of everyone slapping each other on the back and giving high fives. >>
Never wise to celebrate panic buying (or selling).
Gee, I kinda recall the Congratulations to Silver thread being one big party of everyone slapping each other on the back and giving high fives.
Oh, I remember a few people here kind of saying, "hang on there guys, silver has come too far too fast, and this kind of thread is indicative of a potential top" or something to that effect.. Have to look at January 25, 2011, among other dates, to find them
Similarly, this particular thread might signal that we're near a top in the stock market.
And that's why some folks say things like "metals and stocks are neither the only thing, nor nothing, but they're both something, and perhaps a balanced approach, with rebalancing, by selling what's overbought, and buying what's oversold, might be best for most investors, in the long run"
<< <i>My apologies to mariner67 as I made reference in this thread to StanTheManMusial as being the OP. >>
Don't give it a second thought baseball. Gee, I kinda recall the Congratulations to Silver thread being one big party of everyone slapping each other on the back and giving high fives. Sure is different now. >>
Lol, as in baseball, u can high 5 all u want as the bases get loaded, but when u get 3 outs and no runs home, it's meaningless...
You don't have to look far to document market manipulation. For these large banks, the fines are 1/2% of their annual revenues - almost an immaterial cost of doing business. (I pay a 40X higher tax rate just on individual capital gains. Who's getting preferential treatment here?)
I think it's amusing when someone like baseball comes along to call people idiots, morons, fringe lunatics - just to try and plant the idea that his fiat system is somehow more legitimate than gold, and that gold is a fantasy asset for fools. He seems just a hair desperate to MAKE you feel stupid for not believing in his "system". And yet, it's well-documented that "the system" is corrupt and rigged from A to Z. Who's the fool here?
Everybody has to deal with "the system", whether we want to or not. Baseball thinks the system is the ONLY way to go despite any and all historical references to the 100% failure rate of fiat monetary systems in history. To me, this clearly shows how dependent baseball is on the system. He's totally into the system, and wants everyone else to buy into it totally as well. Frankly, his name calling and histrionics don't convince me. Dependency on a corrupt system isn't a reason to dig a deeper hole, it's a reason to start planning some contingencies and an exit.
The problem with dependency like this is that he'll never figure out how to think independently, and he won't see it coming when his "system" collapses, or when his money all gets sequestered and then picked over by the courts while he's trying to get it back. Ask the Madoff victims, and the Corzine victims, and the Peregrine Financial victims. Ask the Lincoln Savings & Loan victims and the Continental Illinois victims. It's not really that smart to think you'll never get Corzined, especially when the whole system is designed around future revenues in a Ponzi scheme that's leveraged to the hilt already.
If you don't think that Social Security and Medicare aren't massive Ponzi schemes that have no chance of surviving intact, then we have a completely different opinion, and I can accept that. The system may never crash in our lifetimes. But really, if you know how corrupt and weak the whole paradigm is - why would you put your trust and any significant chunk of my money into it? Easy answer. You wouldn't.
Q: Are You Printing Money? Bernanke: Not Literally
Similarly, this particular thread might signal that we're near a top in the stock market.
And that's why some folks say things like "metals and stocks are neither the only thing, nor nothing, but they're both something, and perhaps a balanced approach, with rebalancing, by selling what's overbought, and buying what's oversold, might be best for most investors, in the long run"
Yeah, Baley - thanks for being a voice of reason here. You know, I keep wondering just how long they can pump the market with ZIRP and QE - it seems like the financial system has more capacity for this kind of thing than I'd have thought.
Then, I have to remind myself that the system already crashed (in 2008) and unknown numbers had to be stuffed in the bottom drawer and revalued at full value even though they couldn't be put on the market without taking a potential 80% to 90% loss on them.
So, here we are. Apparently, the leverage is even greater now than it was then and now the restrictions on derivatives has been completely removed again by Congress. OMG. If you can figure out where this leaves us, you're a better man than I am Gunga Din.
My feeling is that "they" really do think that they can keep it going ad infinitum. I just don't trust 'em. What do ya think, Baley? I really want to know where your head's at.
Q: Are You Printing Money? Bernanke: Not Literally
Speaking of gold, I'm looking forward to the 1 troy ounce 2015 UHR from the United States Mint next year, which was just recently approved. I still have my 2009 issue, which was one of the most attractive issues from the Mint.
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
<< <i>I think it's amusing when someone like baseball comes along to call people idiots, morons, fringe lunatics - just to try and plant the idea that his fiat system is somehow more legitimate than gold, and that gold is a fantasy asset for fools. He seems just a hair desperate to MAKE you feel stupid for not believing in his "system". And yet, it's well-documented that "the system" is corrupt and rigged from A to Z. Who's the fool here? >>
The thoughts and actions of not understanding that which came first...It's a dangerous road that alot of people are caught on, like letting a blind man only touch the tail of an elephant and then have him described the totality of the animal... Lol, it is because of gold that the fiat exists and is the foundation, or that which was 1st or the fundamental law/principle whatever u want to call it... So because of gold the rampant run of fiat has occurred ...
<< <i>First off, initially I didn't call anybody an idiot. I said the notion that stocks are worthless is an "IDIOTIC" statement. If you don't agree with me on that, then you ARE an IDIOT. What you don't get is that it's YOU and your fellow fools that "depend" on the system. Guys like me spend time trying to make the best for ourselves based on what the "system" may be at the time, now and for the future. Don't blame me because all people like you have to cling to is merely hoping that the system crumbles so that all you're left with is the mere perverted satisfaction of being able to say, "I told you so." If the system goes down, you'll be screwed like most people and no one will care whether you said it was coming or not. And if and when the system goes down, I'll position plenty fine relative to folks like you. >>
I doubt that many here relish the thought of living in a bunker, drinking Tang and gleefully clinking our gold coins. Most have families that that care about and would be devastated if such a destruction of our civilization ensued.
Being prepared for economic collapse is wise though as those that have been elected to act for our benevolence are not doing so. As the entrails zip off to Honolulu for a 2 week ice cream break in paradise and no doubt a briefing with Renman, the rest of us have a responsibility to look out for ourselves and those that we care about.
Preparation is different for each of us. One fella may have an underground shelter, an Uzi and a stash of Ramen Noodles. Another may have a slingshot, lots of water, flashlights and a carton of double A batteries. Sounds like you have a stockpile of Skittles and a years supply of Archie comics.
<< <i>here. And spending so much time and energy focusing on something that may or may not happen way off in the future is far from a productive activity. >>
If a man carries health insurance, does that mean he is anxious to get Cancer? Does auto insurance suggest that he can't wait to wrap his Mercedes around a tree?
Regarding time and energy baseball, you have out posted everyone here on this thread.
<< <i>First off, if you consider my comments "incendiary", then you clearly need to grow thicker skin. None of your comments, or anyone else's, ever address the fact that gold is a useless rock. Everything else you just stated is either an opinion and/or obvious. So what? >>
Baseball,
Your hair brained 'useless rock' theory has been proven bogus. If it were true, central banks would not hoard gold. Currency has to have something of true wealth backing it or it's not worth the paper it's printed on. History has proven that.
You say people should grow thicker skin. Well, I contend that you need to come off of acting like a pompous jerk as you have throughout this thread to anyone who opposes your silly ideas of gold being a useless rock.
If you guys who worship and fully believe in this paper Tower Of Babel, why do you all buy metals? Surely, if you truly believe that these are useless rocks, you should be all for placing everything you own in the rigged paper system.. After all, who needs those 'useless rocks'? Right?
<< <i>I think it's amusing when someone like baseball comes along to call people idiots, morons, fringe lunatics - just to try and plant the idea that his fiat system is somehow more legitimate than gold, and that gold is a fantasy asset for fools. He seems just a hair desperate to MAKE you feel stupid for not believing in his "system". And yet, it's well-documented that "the system" is corrupt and rigged from A to Z. Who's the fool here?
Everybody has to deal with "the system", whether we want to or not. Baseball thinks the system is the ONLY way to go despite any and all historical references to the 100% failure rate of fiat monetary systems in history. To me, this clearly shows how dependent baseball is on the system. He's totally into the system, and wants everyone else to buy into it totally as well. Frankly, his name calling and histrionics don't convince me. Dependency on a corrupt system isn't a reason to dig a deeper hole, it's a reason to start planning some contingencies and an exit.
The problem with dependency like this is that he'll never figure out how to think independently, and he won't see it coming when his "system" collapses, or when his money all gets sequestered and then picked over by the courts while he's trying to get it back. Ask the Madoff victims, and the Corzine victims, and the Peregrine Financial victims. Ask the Lincoln Savings & Loan victims and the Continental Illinois victims. It's not really that smart to think you'll never get Corzined, especially when the whole system is designed around future revenues in a Ponzi scheme that's leveraged to the hilt already.
If you don't think that Social Security and Medicare aren't massive Ponzi schemes that have no chance of surviving intact, then we have a completely different opinion, and I can accept that. The system may never crash in our lifetimes. But really, if you know how corrupt and weak the whole paradigm is - why would you put your trust and any significant chunk of my money into it? Easy answer. You wouldn't. >>
This pretty much sums up my feelings as well. Great post, jmski52!
<< <i>No, but then again, a man who has heath insurance doesn't spend all his time focused on the threat that he'll probably (or definitely in the case with you guys) get cancer soon, unless he's a hypochondriac. >>
People have been known to spend a lot of time and money eating better and keeping themselves in shape in an effort to avoid the disease. Others don't give a damn and expect the Docs to fix em up.
Your synonym link is FILLED with words that describe gold PERFECTLY. "Idle", "futile", "impractical", "nonfunctional", etc. TVs provide entertainment. Airplanes and autos provide transportation. Farmland provide food. Housing provides shelter. Computers provided communication, entertainment, and a litany of other productive activities. Gold just SITS there USELESS with the only attribute that people want to ascribe value to it. >>
You picked 4 items out of a list of dozens. And all of them poor/incorrect choices. You didn't mention "worthless" though. And that's on the list...confirming that your statement of "useless" is essentially calling it "worthless." I didn't create the thesaurus. There's not a single person on this forum who would agree with you on those 4 words to describe gold. Gold is not idle as it is traded every day to the tune of $240 BILL (only exceeded by the currency pairs of USD/EUR, USD/AUD, USD/YEN, USD/BP). That makes it the 5th most important currency pair in the world. On the LBMA it is estimated in one day, more than the entire world's yearly production of gold is traded (Ie >2800 tonnes). In the course of a year, 8X the amount of all gold mined in history is traded (171,000 tonnes). Yeah, that surely doesn't make gold "idle, nonfunctional, impractical, or futile." Don't blame me, blame your financial system as this is how it works. If it was even the last bit impractical central banks would not own it. Gold is without a doubt the #1 debt extinguisher in the world. Governments would prefer gold when having debts settled up. That's why when Iraq, Libya, and other nations were recently toppled, the gold was quickly found, seized and transported to western vaults. The ONLY synonym on that list that could describe gold is "unavailable." Gold is hard to come by as it costs around $1,100/oz just to mine it. All the above ground gold in the world would fill 2 Olympic sized swimming pools.
<< <i>....what you can't grasp is that the ONLY reason that kingdoms fell apart in yester centuries and yester melliniumns is because gold was money and countries were trying to stack riches. There isn't really enough gold to go to war for anymore in any one location nor do modern nations consider gold really worth having apart from once again perception and controlling the masses.
You have failed History 101. I have consistently stated in these forums that booms and busts of the US 19th and 20th century were not caused by a gold standard, but occurred on the watch of the gold standard. The cause of those failures were bankers debauching the currency and making more loans than they could ever cover. It was the over-printing of paper money and excessive credit that has always caused these busts. And if we went back to a gold standard, busts would still follow because the bankers will debauch whatever standard is in play. It's always about cheating on the financial standards of the time....and not the fault of the standard itself. Don't blame gold. It was doing it's job during every bust of the past 225 years. Nations didn't go to war in the 19th and 20th century over gold. They went to war over land and political will. WW1 was financed by putting the gold standard on hold and debauching sovereign currencies. Gold did nothing wrong...it was just ignored as it was inconvenient as a monetary standard from 1914-1919. I'm less concerned about the failure of nations from centuries ago vs. how the world works since central banks and fiat came into being....in particular, since the US FED in 1913. Yester melliniums is a "useless" comparison.
<< <i>Once again, ask yourself this, if computers all vanished from earth tomorrow, it would be a near catastrophic situation. Mankind would eventually get by but it may very well be an apocalyptic event. If oil all vanished tomorrow, if all TVs vanished, if all cars vanished, etc. Do I really need to go on??? And if gold vanished in one felt swoop, who would really care when the dust settled apart from some fringe lunatics? >>
Most assuredly, life would go on. We don't need these things today any more than we did 400 yrs ago. Are you that addicted to your computers and TV's that you couldn't live without them? People need water, food, clothing, and shelter, preferably heated. Everything after that is icing on the cake. But, if it were found out tomorrow that central banks owned no gold because they sold it all to suppress its price the past 20 years (ie gold "vanishes" from their published inventory sheets) then the financial system would have a significant collapse. For how long, who knows? It would be similar to the USDollar being frozen overnight, or it's value cut in half, etc.
Don't kid yourself that gold could "vanish" tomorrow and your cyber-euphoric world would be the same. I suspect big banks would be shutdown and so would numerous computers, ATM's, financial markets, etc. A few $TRILLION in "paper" derivatives nearly caused this in October 2008. I'm certain that the disappearance of 30,000 tonnes of CB gold being confirmed would be far more destructive. The US is particularly vulnerable as they claim 8,133 of those tonnes. Germany, Italy, France, Russia, India, China, Switzerland, and Japan would all take serious hits too. You don't remove >$1 TRILL in an effective alternate "currency" from the market and expect good things. What would happen if the $1.3 TRILL or so in FRN's scattered around the world "vanished?" How would that effect US markets and trade tomorrow morning if paper currency were gone, frozen, or heavily devalued?
<< <i>By the time the SHTF, if that ever occurs in my lifetime, I'll probably be stacked way better than most here. And spending so much time and energy focusing on something that may or may not happen way off in the future is far from a productive activity. But then again, I'm talking to a group that swears that gold is useful. >>
Being "stacked way better" will ensure you'll be one of the first to go. Others will want your "stack." You're the ONLY person on this thread who has stated that gold is useless/worthless (synonyms). If you do ever need to bunker down deep, I suspect Robert Rubin or Larry Summers would have room in their bunkers for you.
<< <i>BTW, my initial involvement in this thread spoke to the obviously idiotic comments that were made about all stocks being worthless. Since then, I have just been playing along with everybody else's comments and professing my views on things, >>
I think this comment u posted may be worse... "Once again, a stock is NOT a piece of paper. It's an OWNERSHIP stake in a business that owns plenty of resources, many of which are PHYSICAL and PRODUCTIVE in the real world. I'm stunned you can't draw these SIMPLE conclusions. And your fascination to pray to the alter of a useless unproductive rock that has virtually NO ability to do anything useful for society is beyond belief."
Stock not a piece of paper? It absolutely is and it's unsecured(yea I know about preferred, but obviously the minor leaguers have none)... It may represent ownership but in reality it doesn't...
One of golds greatest values is it fulfills a foundational economic requirement for all of society - The biblical law of just weights and measures, that is a command for justice in business — buying and selling — and all economic transactions...
<< <i>Speaking of gold, I'm looking forward to the 1 troy ounce 2015 UHR from the United States Mint next year, which was just recently approved. I still have my 2009 issue, which was one of the most attractive issues from the Mint.
<< <i>Yes all are able to take advantage of the system or be crushed by it... >>
Not all are equally "able", just theoretically. >>
Good points both. 2/3 of the country has zero stake in the equity markets and zero disposable income. Yet in theory they are able to take advantage of the system.
<< <i> You know and I know that gold is absolutely USELESS. You've written a TON to try and refute the notion WITHOUT any success because its uselessness is not based on my opinion but because it is fact. >>
<< <i>BTW, my initial involvement in this thread spoke to the obviously idiotic comments that were made about all stocks being worthless. Since then, I have just been playing along with everybody else's comments and professing my views on things, >>
I think this comment u posted may be worse... "Once again, a stock is NOT a piece of paper. It's an OWNERSHIP stake in a business that owns plenty of resources, many of which are PHYSICAL and PRODUCTIVE in the real world. I'm stunned you can't draw these SIMPLE conclusions. And your fascination to pray to the alter of a useless unproductive rock that has virtually NO ability to do anything useful for society is beyond belief."
Stock not a piece of paper? It absolutely is and it's unsecured(yea I know about preferred, but obviously the minor leaguers have none)... It may represent ownership but in reality it doesn't...
One of golds greatest values is it fulfills a foundational economic requirement for all of society - The biblical law of just weights and measures, that is a command for justice in business — buying and selling — and all economic transactions... >>
Everything is a piece of paper. If you can't comprehend beyond the literal, there's no point in any rational discussion. Of course owning stock refers to buying a piece of the business and not paper. In fact, most people don't own actual stock certificates or any actual paper that proves ownership in their stock holdings. >>
U a pretty funny character... requiring of those what u refuse to do, hilarious, yet sad...
Oh n do me a favor BB if u can, get a hold of maybe the top 10 central banks and have them value the gold on their balance sheets as zero(worthless), when u get finished u can get back 2 me, thanks...
Text If you guys who worship and fully believe in this paper Tower Of Babel, why do you all buy metals? Surely, if you truly believe that these are useless rocks, you should be all for placing everything you own in the rigged paper system.. After all, who needs those 'useless rocks'? Right?
And here we go...back to religion. If not for religion, gold would be just a worthless rock. Human belief is all that gives gold value. What that all means I don't know, and don't really care except that gold is an asset class that sometimes performs better than others. I won't save me or protect me anymore than any other asset over my lifetime.
<< <i>BTW, my initial involvement in this thread spoke to the obviously idiotic comments that were made about all stocks being worthless. Since then, I have just been playing along with everybody else's comments and professing my views on things, >>
I think this comment u posted may be worse... "Once again, a stock is NOT a piece of paper. It's an OWNERSHIP stake in a business that owns plenty of resources, many of which are PHYSICAL and PRODUCTIVE in the real world. I'm stunned you can't draw these SIMPLE conclusions. And your fascination to pray to the alter of a useless unproductive rock that has virtually NO ability to do anything useful for society is beyond belief."
Stock not a piece of paper? It absolutely is and it's unsecured(yea I know about preferred, but obviously the minor leaguers have none)... It may represent ownership but in reality it doesn't...
One of golds greatest values is it fulfills a foundational economic requirement for all of society - The biblical law of just weights and measures, that is a command for justice in business — buying and selling — and all economic transactions... >>
This is basically what myself and many others have been trying to tell Mr. Baseball. Stocks are essentially promises made on paper. The promise is only as good as the paper it's written on if one fails to hold up their end of the bargain. Baseball doesn't seem to comprehend that. All he can come back with is nasty name calling and such. It's not going to sink in because people with a complex like he has will never admit defeat and must have the last word. They will out argue anyone that they come in to contact with. I have worked around a few of them in my lifetime.
Here we have someone who vows to be "stacked way better" than most people here. He's so convinced that gold is useless that he's going to be stacked way better with "USELESS ROCKS" (as he puts it) than most of the people here.
Is that not hypocritical in some small way?
He professes complete confidence and trust in a rigged system that's been shown to be corrupt and has failed 100% of the time, yet he considers gold so useless than he's going to accumulate it all the more. Why not just pile up paper, if it's so much more useful? There's a basic inconsistency between his statements and his plans.
The usefulness of gold is in preservation of wealth. You don't have to believe it, but that won't change the facts. Paper is not as useful in preservation of wealth. You don't have to believe that either, but don't pretend to philosophically take one position while saying that you will be accumulating the other.
This is typical of the banking system and the financial manipulators, they talk out of both sides of their mouths, which is why they just can't be trusted. They've proven it consistently, over and over. Dependency on them for your security is truly a risky endeavor, but actually believing what they say is dangerous. Baseball apparently suffers from both conditions.
Q: Are You Printing Money? Bernanke: Not Literally
<< <i>....Everything is a piece of paper. If you can't comprehend beyond the literal, there's no point in any rational discussion. Of course owning stock refers to buying a piece of the business and not paper. In fact, most people don't own actual stock certificates or any actual paper that proves ownership in their stock holdings. >>
And that's a big potential problem if/when the financial system gets a 1-2 week holiday and the computers are all shutdown. In a true crisis, no one will even know you own shares of XYZ company. The Corzines of the world will be the first to claim shares and cash out. Just hope you aren't at the end of the line when it's found out that too many shares were rehypothecated and none are left for you. That's one of the "risks" you take in investing in businesses. There's no proof of anything if the system locks up due to a banking crisis, cyber attacks, weather crisis, govt takeovers, military crisis or insurrections, etc. Those first 2 should be the biggest concerns. Your shares are only 1 mouse click away from belonging to someone else. The burden of proof will be on your shoulders to show that you owned them.
I can see Baseball has run out of logical things to say, now resorting to rants without adding anything new. This is how one probably would feel when they've be Corzined, Summersed, or Rubined. And no, those aren't on the sandwich menu at the Carnegie Deli, though they probably should be. Jmski52, that softball that Baseball left in his last post concerning "out-stacking" everyone was such an easy out of the park home run I couldn't bare to swing at that pitch.
I was curious how this thread came to be. So in checking back since the start, I'm sort of surprised at these comments by Baseball (in order of date/time appearance):
What's worse is that you naively think that you actually "own" anything when the ONLY thing that even allows you to "own" these "physical" things you think you own are SOLELY provided for by "written words" that society approved.
This one takes the proverbial cake. Everything he said over the past few says contradicts this. On one hand he bashes the paper empire and now seems to be supporting it.
However, to put your mind at ease, let me just say this. It would scare the CRAP out of me to put more than 10-15% in PMs (and that's only assuming they decline AT LEAST 40-50% from here). AND I only do that literally relying on the stupidity of human beings in the future to continue to want to value these useless rocks. I'd have NO QUALMS about putting 150% of my worth in stocks if I thought they were undervalued.
Huh? In one post he's saying he supports diversification and now he's ready to go all in on the stock market with up to 50% additional leverage. In other words, putting one's life savings entirely on one form of paper.
Probably for the same reason that I sometimes put thousands into a small piece of cardboard or a "collectible" rare coin. Just because. But mostly with the thought of diversifying my assets and way down the line in the distant future, PMs may have a role if and when some form of currency devaluation occurs. If I had NO such worries about the dollar, I wouldn't spend even a penny on PMs.
Now back to diversifying again.
When you stop generalizing and put forth some FACTS, I'd be more than happy to explain why, how, when and in what manner you happen to be wrong. Who are these banks that are "hoarding" all this gold? How much are they hoarding? What manner are they hoarding it in? And what paper are they exactly pushing? How much of it are they pushing? Just exactly how are they manipulating it in your mind? Why is the "paper" worthless?
FACTS? Baseball hasn't presented any of those in all 7 pages of this thread. It's just repackaged opinions and rants. Which banks are hoarding gold? Hmm...ever hear of entities called central banks? Or if you don't know what a central bank is just google "who owns the world's gold?" And that would only be on paper. Who actually owns the world's gold are those who have it in their hands or have ownership of the vault in question.
Why are banks buying so much stocks (which is actually TURE) and why do banks manipulate people with lies and scheming to buy useless gold? Why? Why? Quit being so evasive and answer the question? They're just rocks! Why do banks manipulate and lie to people that they are worth anything when we all know they're not. They are completely useless. Explain why banks are buying so much stocks? Why would they buy stocks if they weren't valuable? Why? Why do they continue to manipulate people into buying useless gold? Why are they selling all they're gold? Why?"
Why do banks manipulate gold? Ask them yourself. Send a letter to the CEO's of JPM, GS, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Scotia, Duetsche, etc. and ask them why they do it. Maybe because it's far easier to swing a small market like gold than the currency markets which are 10X to 100X bigger. Gold is always in competition with currencies and tracked by the minute each trading day. That's why they do it. Some countries are more heavily reliant on commodities for their nation's well being (ie Canada, Australia, Russia, South Africa, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Mexico, etc.). Manipulating gold, silver, oil and other commodities via the NY and London paper markets gets stuff done a lot quicker than playing with currencies or trade balances. It's debatable which central banks buy stocks and to what extant as they don't publish their holdings. However, it is common knowledge they own >$1 TRILL in physical gold.
Rather than selling off all their gold, the central banks have been net buyers of gold since 2009. Go figure. That could change when the 2014 numbers come out, assuming China and India come clean with how much gold they have been accumulating. It's not likely China will do that. Whatever gold is being dumped by other CB's in 2014 is probably going right to China CB's were net sellers of gold from 1999-2008....some (or most?) being recycled to other central banks. But on the flip side, some banks that were buying weren't reporting it. China secretly bought 500 tonnes in the 2004-2009 period. When they came clean in 2009 it spiked the price. So they learned a lesson about reporting their gold buys. They likely won't do it again until they've accumulated 3,000-5,000 tonnes total. The IMF and ECB were notorious for "gold sales" from 1999-2008. It's questionable though how many of those gold sales were just pushing paper around to coincide with the new central bank owner. Central bank gold leases are counted as "owned" gold by both the seller and new owner. Try that trick with the stock market and you'll get tossed in jail.
BTW, in case you weren't aware of the obvious, banks own TONS of stocks. I'm not sure how much gold they own but I'm pretty sure it's a tiny fraction of their stock holdings.
You don't know how much gold the banks own? Why didn't you spend 2 minutes and look it up before making the above useless statement? Your whole premise of gold being "worthless" seems to emanate from your limited knowledge of the gold market itself. This stuff is taught in high schools. CB's own >30,000 tonnes of gold. That's worth >$1 TRILL. Now convince me that such an amount of gold is a "tiny fraction of their stock holdings." Prove to us that the Central Banks of Germany, Italy, Russia, France, India, and China all have huge stock market reserves that dwarf their gold holdings? For at least once in this thread present an actual number of fact to support something you said.
<< <i>Similarly, this particular thread might signal that we're near a top in the stock market.
And that's why some folks say things like "metals and stocks are neither the only thing, nor nothing, but they're both something, and perhaps a balanced approach, with rebalancing, by selling what's overbought, and buying what's oversold, might be best for most investors, in the long run"
Yeah, Baley - thanks for being a voice of reason here. You know, I keep wondering just how long they can pump the market with ZIRP and QE - it seems like the financial system has more capacity for this kind of thing than I'd have thought.
Then, I have to remind myself that the system already crashed (in 2008) and unknown numbers had to be stuffed in the bottom drawer and revalued at full value even though they couldn't be put on the market without taking a potential 80% to 90% loss on them.
So, here we are. Apparently, the leverage is even greater now than it was then and now the restrictions on derivatives has been completely removed again by Congress. OMG. If you can figure out where this leaves us, you're a better man than I am Gunga Din.
My feeling is that "they" really do think that they can keep it going ad infinitum. I just don't trust 'em. What do ya think, Baley? I really want to know where your head's at. >>
I'm usually somewhere in the middle of opinion spectrums (depending, of course, on the composition of the population in the discussion) and when either side says something that I think is logically ridiculous, I'll usually take a swipe or two at the straw man, but not batter myself senseless against them.
I do think that overall, "things" will continue for a very long time much like they have been in some respects, and also change very very much in others.
One of my favorite concepts is "punctuated equilibrium" and another is "selection event", both from evolutionary biology, the same field that includes terms like "carrying capacity" and "adaptation". That markets experience booms and crashes has significant parallels in the study of population ecology of various environments and ecosystems.
What none of us has witnessed is a mass extinction in the financial world, or the natural world either. Sure, there are the financial equivalent of earthquakes, wildfires, floods and mudslides, must as there are the financial equivalent of algae blooms, or deer overpopulation, or tuna overfishing. Sometimes species go extinct, usually the ones that react poorly to changing conditions because they are so specialized in their behavior that they can't adapt.
I trust "they system" enough to participate in several areas, but not enough to bet everything on one square of the environment. I fully expect a stock market correction, and you won't have to say "I told you so" because, I know. It's going to crash again. And then it's going to rise even higher. I'll probably live to see a couple more big cycles.
But the fact is that gold in an of itself is absolutely useless
That is NOT a "fact" by any realisitic definition of the word "use", since any use at all proves the statement false, (never mind electronics, for example, jewelry will do if the "use" is "to wear it" or "to look at it" or "to enjoy having it")
By your innane definition of "use" that you keep insisting on, your logical arguments are rendered invalid. Not understanding why you won't let it go, unless your "use" of the words "absolutely useless" is to push our buttons and make us type messages to you, in which case, it is working (in my case, for this one last time)
Baseball has had his rump handed to him many times over in this thread but still believes he is 'winning' this debate. The one thing he has never answered is if gold is a 'worthless rock', why does the central banks hoard it? He also fails to address the issue that a stock is a piece of paper backed by nothing but some sort of hollow promise when it comes right down to it. He called me all sorts of juvenile names and said I was wrong when I explained that to him. He even went as far as to say I didn't know what a stock was. I have came to the conclusion that Baseball is the one who doesn't get it.
Fact; Gold has never been worthless or useless. There are thousands of years of history to back that fact. We can't say the same for governmental forms of 'wealth' or 'corporate promises' printed on paper.
<< <i>Baseball has had his rump handed to him many times over in this thread but still believes he is 'winning' this debate. The one thing he has never answered is if gold is a 'worthless rock', why does the central banks hoard it? He also fails to address the issue that a stock is a piece of paper backed by nothing but some sort of hollow promise when it comes right down to it. He called me all sorts of juvenile names and said I was wrong when I explained that to him. He even went as far as to say I didn't know what a stock was. I have came to the conclusion that Baseball is the one who doesn't get it.
Fact; Gold has never been worthless or useless. There are thousands of years of history to back that fact. We can't say the same for governmental forms of 'wealth' or 'corporate promises' printed on paper. >>
I have no doubt I'm winning because it's a FACT that stock are NOT worthless and gold is USELES. And with all the drivel that you have written, the best you could do was that it's "physical" or that one "can hold it in your hand". Please. And you have a repeatedly difficult time comprehending what you read. I stated multiple times that central banks "hoard" gold only for the fact that they use it to "manipulate" the weak minded like yourself.
When has a stock ever proven to not be backed by the underlying company "when it comes right down to it"? Once again, you are an IDIOT because you NO clue what you're talking about.
I'm not sure what you think you have "explained", but it wasn't anything worthy of a five year old let alone an educated adult. >>
Well, being a pompous jerk who thinks you know it all doesn't mean you are right. You obviously don't have a clue what a FACT is. You have been schooled by many FACTS in this thread as proof of such. I know guys like you in real life, and they MUST always have the last word to back up their personal insecurities as to why no one buys what they are selling. Go ahead. I know you need it to feel like you have won the debate
Again:
Fact; Gold has never been worthless or useless. There are thousands of years of history to back that fact. We can't say the same for governmental forms of 'wealth' or 'corporate promises' printed on paper.
<< <i>No one EVER stated gold has been or is worthless. Gold WAS useful for thousands of years but no longer. Those are FACTS. >>
Wrong! It's your OPINION that gold is no longer useful, and that is because you don't get it. Now, even the people who started out this thread defending you are turning on your silly ideology because they know you are full of it.
FACT; Gold IS useful and IS used everyday.
FACT; Gold has never been worthless or useless. There are thousands of years of history to back that fact. We can't say the same for governmental forms of 'wealth' or 'corporate promises' printed on paper.
This is my last reply to you in this thread because you are so blinded by the paper Tower Of Babel, you will never see the light until it's too late. You get what you deserve.
Stocks are worthless....well, at least my company stock in my 401K went kaput. This was a Fortune 500 company at that time of the Chapter 11 in 2002. Cost me a nice loss in my 401K seeing it go from $12, to $4, to $1, and finally to 2c per share went it went off line in 2003. Had been working there for 13 yrs at that point. A 2 yr re-organization, new funding, and today back to being a nearly $3 BILL company. None of that made me whole however. It got hammered post 9-11 due to assets associated with the air line industry and liquidity drying up.
<< <i>Baseball has had his rump handed to him many times over in this thread but still believes he is 'winning' this debate. The one thing he has never answered is if gold is a 'worthless rock', why does the central banks hoard it? He also fails to address the issue that a stock is a piece of paper backed by nothing but some sort of hollow promise when it comes right down to it. He called me all sorts of juvenile names and said I was wrong when I explained that to him. He even went as far as to say I didn't know what a stock was. I have came to the conclusion that Baseball is the one who doesn't get it.
Fact; Gold has never been worthless or useless. There are thousands of years of history to back that fact. We can't say the same for governmental forms of 'wealth' or 'corporate promises' printed on paper. >>
This thread is USELESS without a poll.
DID BASEBALL WIN HIS ARGUMENT THAT GOLD IS USELESS PER CURRENT WEBSTER'S DEFINITION (OR OTHER LEGIT SOURCE)?
<< <i>Stocks are worthless....well, at least my company stock in my 401K went kaput. This was a Fortune 500 company at that time of the Chapter 11 in 2002. Cost me a nice loss in my 401K seeing it go from $12, to $4, to $1, and finally to 2c per share went it went off line in 2003. Had been working there for 13 yrs at that point. A 2 yr re-organization, new funding, and today back to being a nearly $3 BILL company. None of that made me whole however. It got hammered post 9-11 due to assets associated with the air line industry and liquidity drying up. >>
Ah, now that's very interesting information that goes a long way in explaining your perspective.
Central banks own gold for the same reason there are churches, synagogue, temples and mosques. Human like believe in something even if it cannot be proven true or useful.
It is arguable that humans are manipulated via their belief systems.
Comments
The London Gold Pool... What does that have to do with today? That was 50 years ago?
Show me where banks purposely ran gold higher to remove this alternative currency from the sheeple's hands. Then they drove the price lower to give thus gold to the Chinese so they won't dump US and European debt thus throwing the global economy into chaos.
Go ahead..prove that didn't happen. You can't. Therefore it must be true. LMFAO!!!
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
<< <i>The word manipulation is thrown around these boards with reckless abandon. It us used as an excuse when something doesn't go ones way.
The London Gold Pool... What does that have to do with today? That was 50 years ago?
Show me where banks purposely ran gold higher to remove this alternative currency from the sheeple's hands. Then they drove the price lower to give thus gold to the Chinese so they won't dump US and European debt thus throwing the global economy into chaos.
Go ahead..prove that didn't happen. You can't. Therefore it must be true. LMFAO!!! >>
Don't you work for the system? Hmmm... Yeah, you are probably one of the last guys I want advice from!
I have also enjoyed seeing poster Baseball being schooled by forum members who do understand the very important reason for gold, and why this paper society is on a ticking clock.
<< <i>The word manipulation is thrown around these boards with reckless abandon. It us used as an excuse when something doesn't go ones way.
The London Gold Pool... What does that have to do with today? That was 50 years ago?
Show me where banks purposely ran gold higher to remove this alternative currency from the sheeple's hands. Then they drove the price lower to give thus gold to the Chinese so they won't dump US and European debt thus throwing the global economy into chaos.
Go ahead..prove that didn't happen. You can't. Therefore it must be true. LMFAO!!! >>
Now you want to make exceptions that anything 50 yrs old doesn't count? They manipulated gold in the 1960's. Fact. Seems like you have conceded that point. The FEDs wish they had manipulated gold back down in the 1970's. Fact. Arthur Burns admitted that fact in correspondence. The gold carry trade in the 1990's and onward has manipulated the gold price. This was part of the Rubin - Summers "strong dollar" policy of the Clinton and Bush 2 era. And because they have manipulated gold in the past.....they won't dare manipulate it today? Too funny. Prove none of this happened. You can't therefore it must be true. The tricks Rubin learned playing for Goldman Sachs in the 1960's LGP were on display in the 1990's and 2000's in his tenures as Treasury Secretary and Citigroup chairman. Those same influences are still alive today passed along to Summers, Paulson, Geither, Lew, etc. Old dogs don't learn new tricks when the old ones still work.
And the example you provide above does appear what happened the past 3-4 years. The Chinese are getting the gold cheap so they can build towards the next reserve currency and not tank the current system by disposing of TBonds and dollars. I agree with you. This has happened. And a great case of manipulation that we can both agree on. Thanks for proving my point about gold manipulation.
<< <i> And if gold vanished in one felt swoop, who would really care when the dust settled apart from some fringe lunatics? >>
Guys up in the Space Station might have some concerns.
<< <i>roadrunner,
There is nothing you have posted that has even partially refuted the notion that gold is useless. You can talk and write and research until the end of days and you won't be able to do any better because what I have written aren't opinions but facts. Don't kid yourself, I have no high opinion of my viewpoints and are perfectly willing to toss them aside if I think they are incorrect. Case in point, I though this massive bond buying was going to be a huge problem a few years back much sooner (like pretty much now) than it has turned out.
Your synonym link is FILLED with words that describe gold PERFECTLY. "Idle", "futile", "impractical", "nonfunctional", etc. TVs provide entertainment. Airplanes and autos provide transportation. Farmland provide food. Housing provides shelter. Computers provided communication, entertainment, and a litany of other productive activities. Gold just SITS there USELESS with the only attribute that people want to ascribe value to it.
You say that kingdoms fall apart because of gold but how does that even work in today's or even 1920s society? What you can't grasp is that the ONLY reason that kingdoms fell apart in yester centuries and yester melliniumns is because gold was money and countries were trying to stack riches. There isn't really enough gold to go to war for anymore in any one location nor do modern nations consider gold really worth having apart from once again perception and controlling the masses.
It's ONLY real use in society is the value that people ascribe to it as being worth something. That is it's ONLY real use in life. And that's not a real use but LITERALLY religion on the part of those that prey to it. That only exists because brainwashed people think that gold has some inherent value, which it doesn't. Once again, the irrefutable fact is that gold is a useless ROCK. You can try to make lame comments like human beings are useless and to the extent of the greater universe, that may be true. But in the human being centric world, which is what we're talking about, most human beings add productive roles to society, which are how economies work. And yes there are humans that are pretty much useless. But society has deemed that the value of any life is precious or whatever.
Once again, ask yourself this, if computers all vanished from earth tomorrow, it would be a near catastrophic situation. Mankind would eventually get by but it may very well be an apocalyptic event. If oil all vanished tomorrow, if all TVs vanished, if all cars vanished, etc. Do I really need to go on??? And if gold vanished in one felt swoop, who would really care when the dust settled apart from some fringe lunatics? >>
Now u contradict your position in this thesis? Lol... Are u describing gold or fiat currency...lol...
<< <i>
<< <i>
Now u contradict your position in this thesis? Lol... Are u describing gold or fiat currency...lol... >>
Is there a difference??? >>
Sure. See if the Japanese can produce twice their GDP in gold overnight. Had little trouble doing it with digital paper.
<< <i>You just further prove my point about the brainwashed human beings who prey to the alter of a useless rock. >>
Kindly clarify your point. My brain is addled by 8 hours of sleep.
<< <i>My apologies to mariner67 as I made reference in this thread to StanTheManMusial as being the OP. >>
Don't give it a second thought baseball.
Gee, I kinda recall the Congratulations to Silver thread being one big party of everyone slapping each other on the back and giving high fives.
Sure is different now.
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>You just further prove my point about the brainwashed human beings who prey to the alter of a useless rock. >>
Kindly clarify your point. My brain is addled by 8 hours of sleep. >>
Kindly clarify your's first. You have a tendency of trying to say too much with less words than I have fingers. >>
Then perhaps it is best to ask for a clarification before coming back with an incendiary comment.
Japan, the US and Europe (with some wise restraint from Germany), has tried to overcome decades of reckless spending on Socialist programs as well as enormous spending on defense in the US case, by wantonly creating money that is backed by absolutely nothing. This dilution of currency has substantially weakened the existing paper and though we are not yet seeing hyper inflation at the consumer level, it has certainly inflated the price of equities and government debt instruments.
We like to cheer the rise in stock prices and crap on the old timers that are starring like deer in headlights (using the Bidask analogy). Is this really healthy though? Of course not. It is a market rise of weakness and necessity, not confidence and real growth.
This rally is as phony as a 50 year old woman in a push up bra.
Gold or any precious metal or any real asset cannot be created at will as paper currency can. In times of economic stability and competent governance, the paper can be trusted to a moderate degree. Today though, we lack both.
As gold reached $1800 plus a year or so ago and is now at $1200 it is minimized as a hedge against such reckless monetary policy. Unfortunate logic as the metal is still at over 4 times the 15 year low and ten times what it brought in the early 70's.
All markets are subject to unabated speculation and the PM group is no exception.
<< <i>Gee, I kinda recall the Congratulations to Silver thread being one big party of everyone slapping each other on the back and giving high fives. >>
Never wise to celebrate panic buying (or selling).
Oh, I remember a few people here kind of saying, "hang on there guys, silver has come too far too fast, and this kind of thread is indicative of a potential top" or something to that effect.. Have to look at January 25, 2011, among other dates, to find them
Similarly, this particular thread might signal that we're near a top in the stock market.
And that's why some folks say things like "metals and stocks are neither the only thing, nor nothing, but they're both something, and perhaps a balanced approach, with rebalancing, by selling what's overbought, and buying what's oversold, might be best for most investors, in the long run"
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
<< <i>
<< <i>My apologies to mariner67 as I made reference in this thread to StanTheManMusial as being the OP. >>
Don't give it a second thought baseball.
Gee, I kinda recall the Congratulations to Silver thread being one big party of everyone slapping each other on the back and giving high fives.
Sure is different now. >>
Lol, as in baseball, u can high 5 all u want as the bases get loaded, but when u get 3 outs and no runs home, it's meaningless...
<< <i>Don't give it a second thought baseball. >>
That rarely, if ever, is a problem.
5 major banks fined for currency manipulation - Nov '2014
JPM to be fined $400 million for manipulating the electric power market in california
I think it's amusing when someone like baseball comes along to call people idiots, morons, fringe lunatics - just to try and plant the idea that his fiat system is somehow more legitimate than gold, and that gold is a fantasy asset for fools. He seems just a hair desperate to MAKE you feel stupid for not believing in his "system". And yet, it's well-documented that "the system" is corrupt and rigged from A to Z. Who's the fool here?
Everybody has to deal with "the system", whether we want to or not. Baseball thinks the system is the ONLY way to go despite any and all historical references to the 100% failure rate of fiat monetary systems in history. To me, this clearly shows how dependent baseball is on the system. He's totally into the system, and wants everyone else to buy into it totally as well. Frankly, his name calling and histrionics don't convince me. Dependency on a corrupt system isn't a reason to dig a deeper hole, it's a reason to start planning some contingencies and an exit.
The problem with dependency like this is that he'll never figure out how to think independently, and he won't see it coming when his "system" collapses, or when his money all gets sequestered and then picked over by the courts while he's trying to get it back. Ask the Madoff victims, and the Corzine victims, and the Peregrine Financial victims. Ask the Lincoln Savings & Loan victims and the Continental Illinois victims. It's not really that smart to think you'll never get Corzined, especially when the whole system is designed around future revenues in a Ponzi scheme that's leveraged to the hilt already.
If you don't think that Social Security and Medicare aren't massive Ponzi schemes that have no chance of surviving intact, then we have a completely different opinion, and I can accept that. The system may never crash in our lifetimes. But really, if you know how corrupt and weak the whole paradigm is - why would you put your trust and any significant chunk of my money into it? Easy answer. You wouldn't.
I knew it would happen.
And that's why some folks say things like "metals and stocks are neither the only thing, nor nothing, but they're both something, and perhaps a balanced approach, with rebalancing, by selling what's overbought, and buying what's oversold, might be best for most investors, in the long run"
Yeah, Baley - thanks for being a voice of reason here. You know, I keep wondering just how long they can pump the market with ZIRP and QE - it seems like the financial system has more capacity for this kind of thing than I'd have thought.
Then, I have to remind myself that the system already crashed (in 2008) and unknown numbers had to be stuffed in the bottom drawer and revalued at full value even though they couldn't be put on the market without taking a potential 80% to 90% loss on them.
So, here we are. Apparently, the leverage is even greater now than it was then and now the restrictions on derivatives has been completely removed again by Congress. OMG. If you can figure out where this leaves us, you're a better man than I am Gunga Din.
My feeling is that "they" really do think that they can keep it going ad infinitum. I just don't trust 'em. What do ya think, Baley? I really want to know where your head's at.
I knew it would happen.
Ahhh the Keating Five. Anyone that does not know the story should read this.
Glad that McCain is finally hanging it up.
Text
<< <i>
2015 UHR 1 oz Gold
Collecting 1970s Topps baseball wax, rack and cello packs, as well as PCGS graded Half Cents, Large Cents, Two Cent pieces and Three Cent Silver pieces.
<< <i>I think it's amusing when someone like baseball comes along to call people idiots, morons, fringe lunatics - just to try and plant the idea that his fiat system is somehow more legitimate than gold, and that gold is a fantasy asset for fools. He seems just a hair desperate to MAKE you feel stupid for not believing in his "system". And yet, it's well-documented that "the system" is corrupt and rigged from A to Z. Who's the fool here? >>
The thoughts and actions of not understanding that which came first...It's a dangerous road that alot of people are caught on, like letting a blind man only touch the tail of an elephant and then have him described the totality of the animal... Lol, it is because of gold that the fiat exists and is the foundation, or that which was 1st or the fundamental law/principle whatever u want to call it... So because of gold the rampant run of fiat has occurred ...
<< <i>First off, initially I didn't call anybody an idiot. I said the notion that stocks are worthless is an "IDIOTIC" statement. If you don't agree with me on that, then you ARE an IDIOT. What you don't get is that it's YOU and your fellow fools that "depend" on the system. Guys like me spend time trying to make the best for ourselves based on what the "system" may be at the time, now and for the future. Don't blame me because all people like you have to cling to is merely hoping that the system crumbles so that all you're left with is the mere perverted satisfaction of being able to say, "I told you so." If the system goes down, you'll be screwed like most people and no one will care whether you said it was coming or not. And if and when the system goes down, I'll position plenty fine relative to folks like you. >>
I doubt that many here relish the thought of living in a bunker, drinking Tang and gleefully clinking our gold coins. Most have families that that care about and would be devastated if such a destruction of our civilization ensued.
Being prepared for economic collapse is wise though as those that have been elected to act for our benevolence are not doing so. As the entrails zip off to Honolulu for a 2 week ice cream break in paradise and no doubt a briefing with Renman, the rest of us have a responsibility to look out for ourselves and those that we care about.
Preparation is different for each of us. One fella may have an underground shelter, an Uzi and a stash of Ramen Noodles. Another may have a slingshot, lots of water, flashlights and a carton of double A batteries. Sounds like you have a stockpile of Skittles and a years supply of Archie comics.
To each his own and good luck.
<< <i>here. And spending so much time and energy focusing on something that may or may not happen way off in the future is far from a productive activity. >>
If a man carries health insurance, does that mean he is anxious to get Cancer? Does auto insurance suggest that he can't wait to wrap his Mercedes around a tree?
Regarding time and energy baseball, you have out posted everyone here on this thread.
<< <i>First off, if you consider my comments "incendiary", then you clearly need to grow thicker skin. None of your comments, or anyone else's, ever address the fact that gold is a useless rock. Everything else you just stated is either an opinion and/or obvious. So what? >>
Baseball,
Your hair brained 'useless rock' theory has been proven bogus. If it were true, central banks would not hoard gold. Currency has to have something of true wealth backing it or it's not worth the paper it's printed on. History has proven that.
You say people should grow thicker skin. Well, I contend that you need to come off of acting like a pompous jerk as you have throughout this thread to anyone who opposes your silly ideas of gold being a useless rock.
If you guys who worship and fully believe in this paper Tower Of Babel, why do you all buy metals? Surely, if you truly believe that these are useless rocks, you should be all for placing everything you own in the rigged paper system.. After all, who needs those 'useless rocks'? Right?
<< <i>I think it's amusing when someone like baseball comes along to call people idiots, morons, fringe lunatics - just to try and plant the idea that his fiat system is somehow more legitimate than gold, and that gold is a fantasy asset for fools. He seems just a hair desperate to MAKE you feel stupid for not believing in his "system". And yet, it's well-documented that "the system" is corrupt and rigged from A to Z. Who's the fool here?
Everybody has to deal with "the system", whether we want to or not. Baseball thinks the system is the ONLY way to go despite any and all historical references to the 100% failure rate of fiat monetary systems in history. To me, this clearly shows how dependent baseball is on the system. He's totally into the system, and wants everyone else to buy into it totally as well. Frankly, his name calling and histrionics don't convince me. Dependency on a corrupt system isn't a reason to dig a deeper hole, it's a reason to start planning some contingencies and an exit.
The problem with dependency like this is that he'll never figure out how to think independently, and he won't see it coming when his "system" collapses, or when his money all gets sequestered and then picked over by the courts while he's trying to get it back. Ask the Madoff victims, and the Corzine victims, and the Peregrine Financial victims. Ask the Lincoln Savings & Loan victims and the Continental Illinois victims. It's not really that smart to think you'll never get Corzined, especially when the whole system is designed around future revenues in a Ponzi scheme that's leveraged to the hilt already.
If you don't think that Social Security and Medicare aren't massive Ponzi schemes that have no chance of surviving intact, then we have a completely different opinion, and I can accept that. The system may never crash in our lifetimes. But really, if you know how corrupt and weak the whole paradigm is - why would you put your trust and any significant chunk of my money into it? Easy answer. You wouldn't. >>
This pretty much sums up my feelings as well. Great post, jmski52!
<< <i>No, but then again, a man who has heath insurance doesn't spend all his time focused on the threat that he'll probably (or definitely in the case with you guys) get cancer soon, unless he's a hypochondriac. >>
People have been known to spend a lot of time and money eating better and keeping themselves in shape in an effort to avoid the disease. Others don't give a damn and expect the Docs to fix em up.
<< <i>roadrunner,
Your synonym link is FILLED with words that describe gold PERFECTLY. "Idle", "futile", "impractical", "nonfunctional", etc. TVs provide entertainment. Airplanes and autos provide transportation. Farmland provide food. Housing provides shelter. Computers provided communication, entertainment, and a litany of other productive activities. Gold just SITS there USELESS with the only attribute that people want to ascribe value to it. >>
You picked 4 items out of a list of dozens. And all of them poor/incorrect choices. You didn't mention "worthless" though. And that's on the list...confirming that your statement of "useless" is essentially calling it "worthless." I didn't create the thesaurus. There's not a single person on this forum who would agree with you on those 4 words to describe gold. Gold is not idle as it is traded every day to the tune of $240 BILL (only exceeded by the currency pairs of USD/EUR, USD/AUD, USD/YEN, USD/BP). That makes it the 5th most important currency pair in the world. On the LBMA it is estimated in one day, more than the entire world's yearly production of gold is traded (Ie >2800 tonnes). In the course of a year, 8X the amount of all gold mined in history is traded (171,000 tonnes). Yeah, that surely doesn't make gold "idle, nonfunctional, impractical, or futile." Don't blame me, blame your financial system as this is how it works. If it was even the last bit impractical central banks would not own it. Gold is without a doubt the #1 debt extinguisher in the world. Governments would prefer gold when having debts settled up. That's why when Iraq, Libya, and other nations were recently toppled, the gold was quickly found, seized and transported to western vaults. The ONLY synonym on that list that could describe gold is "unavailable." Gold is hard to come by as it costs around $1,100/oz just to mine it. All the above ground gold in the world would fill 2 Olympic sized swimming pools.
<< <i>....what you can't grasp is that the ONLY reason that kingdoms fell apart in yester centuries and yester melliniumns is because gold was money and countries were trying to stack riches. There isn't really enough gold to go to war for anymore in any one location nor do modern nations consider gold really worth having apart from once again perception and controlling the masses.
You have failed History 101. I have consistently stated in these forums that booms and busts of the US 19th and 20th century were not caused by a gold standard, but occurred on the watch of the gold standard. The cause of those failures were bankers debauching the currency and making more loans than they could ever cover. It was the over-printing of paper money and excessive credit that has always caused these busts. And if we went back to a gold standard, busts would still follow because the bankers will debauch whatever standard is in play. It's always about cheating on the financial standards of the time....and not the fault of the standard itself. Don't blame gold. It was doing it's job during every bust of the past 225 years. Nations didn't go to war in the 19th and 20th century over gold. They went to war over land and political will. WW1 was financed by putting the gold standard on hold and debauching sovereign currencies. Gold did nothing wrong...it was just ignored as it was inconvenient as a monetary standard from 1914-1919. I'm less concerned about the failure of nations from centuries ago vs. how the world works since central banks and fiat came into being....in particular, since the US FED in 1913. Yester melliniums is a "useless" comparison.
<< <i>Once again, ask yourself this, if computers all vanished from earth tomorrow, it would be a near catastrophic situation. Mankind would eventually get by but it may very well be an apocalyptic event. If oil all vanished tomorrow, if all TVs vanished, if all cars vanished, etc. Do I really need to go on??? And if gold vanished in one felt swoop, who would really care when the dust settled apart from some fringe lunatics? >>
Most assuredly, life would go on. We don't need these things today any more than we did 400 yrs ago. Are you that addicted to your computers and TV's that you couldn't live without them? People need water, food, clothing, and shelter, preferably heated. Everything after that is icing on the cake. But, if it were found out tomorrow that central banks owned no gold because they sold it all to suppress its price the past 20 years (ie gold "vanishes" from their published inventory sheets) then the financial system would have a significant collapse. For how long, who knows? It would be similar to the USDollar being frozen overnight, or it's value cut in half, etc.
Don't kid yourself that gold could "vanish" tomorrow and your cyber-euphoric world would be the same. I suspect big banks would be shutdown and so would numerous computers, ATM's, financial markets, etc. A few $TRILLION in "paper" derivatives nearly caused this in October 2008. I'm certain that the disappearance of 30,000 tonnes of CB gold being confirmed would be far more destructive. The US is particularly vulnerable as they claim 8,133 of those tonnes. Germany, Italy, France, Russia, India, China, Switzerland, and Japan would all take serious hits too. You don't remove >$1 TRILL in an effective alternate "currency" from the market and expect good things. What would happen if the $1.3 TRILL or so in FRN's scattered around the world "vanished?" How would that effect US markets and trade tomorrow morning if paper currency were gone, frozen, or heavily devalued?
<< <i>By the time the SHTF, if that ever occurs in my lifetime, I'll probably be stacked way better than most here. And spending so much time and energy focusing on something that may or may not happen way off in the future is far from a productive activity. But then again, I'm talking to a group that swears that gold is useful. >>
Being "stacked way better" will ensure you'll be one of the first to go. Others will want your "stack." You're the ONLY person on this thread who has stated that gold is useless/worthless (synonyms). If you do ever need to bunker down deep, I suspect Robert Rubin or Larry Summers would have room in their bunkers for you.
<< <i>BTW, my initial involvement in this thread spoke to the obviously idiotic comments that were made about all stocks being worthless. Since then, I have just been playing along with everybody else's comments and professing my views on things, >>
I think this comment u posted may be worse...
"Once again, a stock is NOT a piece of paper. It's an OWNERSHIP stake in a business that owns plenty of resources, many of which are PHYSICAL and PRODUCTIVE in the real world. I'm stunned you can't draw these SIMPLE conclusions. And your fascination to pray to the alter of a useless unproductive rock that has virtually NO ability to do anything useful for society is beyond belief."
Stock not a piece of paper? It absolutely is and it's unsecured(yea I know about preferred, but obviously the minor leaguers have none)... It may represent ownership but in reality it doesn't...
One of golds greatest values is it fulfills a foundational economic requirement for all of society - The biblical law of just weights and measures, that is a command for justice in business — buying and selling — and all economic transactions...
<< <i>Speaking of gold, I'm looking forward to the 1 troy ounce 2015 UHR from the United States Mint next year, which was just recently approved. I still have my 2009 issue, which was one of the most attractive issues from the Mint.
2015 UHR 1 oz Gold >>
Nice link. I hope gold stays around $1200 for awhile, long enough to pick up a 2015 UHR.
<< <i>
<< <i>Yes all are able to take advantage of the system or be crushed by it... >>
Not all are equally "able", just theoretically. >>
Good points both. 2/3 of the country has zero stake in the equity markets and zero disposable income. Yet in theory they are able to take advantage of the system.
<< <i> You know and I know that gold is absolutely USELESS. You've written a TON to try and refute the notion WITHOUT any success because its uselessness is not based on my opinion but because it is fact. >>
Piltdown Man was also a fact.....for a while.
<< <i>
<< <i>
<< <i>BTW, my initial involvement in this thread spoke to the obviously idiotic comments that were made about all stocks being worthless. Since then, I have just been playing along with everybody else's comments and professing my views on things, >>
I think this comment u posted may be worse...
"Once again, a stock is NOT a piece of paper. It's an OWNERSHIP stake in a business that owns plenty of resources, many of which are PHYSICAL and PRODUCTIVE in the real world. I'm stunned you can't draw these SIMPLE conclusions. And your fascination to pray to the alter of a useless unproductive rock that has virtually NO ability to do anything useful for society is beyond belief."
Stock not a piece of paper? It absolutely is and it's unsecured(yea I know about preferred, but obviously the minor leaguers have none)... It may represent ownership but in reality it doesn't...
One of golds greatest values is it fulfills a foundational economic requirement for all of society - The biblical law of just weights and measures, that is a command for justice in business — buying and selling — and all economic transactions... >>
Everything is a piece of paper. If you can't comprehend beyond the literal, there's no point in any rational discussion. Of course owning stock refers to buying a piece of the business and not paper. In fact, most people don't own actual stock certificates or any actual paper that proves ownership in their stock holdings. >>
U a pretty funny character... requiring of those what u refuse to do, hilarious, yet sad...
And here we go...back to religion. If not for religion, gold would be just a worthless rock. Human belief is all that gives gold value. What that all means I don't know, and don't really care except that gold is an asset class that sometimes performs better than others. I won't save me or protect me anymore than any other asset over my lifetime.
Knowledge is the enemy of fear
<< <i>
<< <i>BTW, my initial involvement in this thread spoke to the obviously idiotic comments that were made about all stocks being worthless. Since then, I have just been playing along with everybody else's comments and professing my views on things, >>
I think this comment u posted may be worse...
"Once again, a stock is NOT a piece of paper. It's an OWNERSHIP stake in a business that owns plenty of resources, many of which are PHYSICAL and PRODUCTIVE in the real world. I'm stunned you can't draw these SIMPLE conclusions. And your fascination to pray to the alter of a useless unproductive rock that has virtually NO ability to do anything useful for society is beyond belief."
Stock not a piece of paper? It absolutely is and it's unsecured(yea I know about preferred, but obviously the minor leaguers have none)... It may represent ownership but in reality it doesn't...
One of golds greatest values is it fulfills a foundational economic requirement for all of society - The biblical law of just weights and measures, that is a command for justice in business — buying and selling — and all economic transactions... >>
This is basically what myself and many others have been trying to tell Mr. Baseball. Stocks are essentially promises made on paper. The promise is only as good as the paper it's written on if one fails to hold up their end of the bargain. Baseball doesn't seem to comprehend that. All he can come back with is nasty name calling and such. It's not going to sink in because people with a complex like he has will never admit defeat and must have the last word. They will out argue anyone that they come in to contact with. I have worked around a few of them in my lifetime.
Is that not hypocritical in some small way?
He professes complete confidence and trust in a rigged system that's been shown to be corrupt and has failed 100% of the time, yet he considers gold so useless than he's going to accumulate it all the more. Why not just pile up paper, if it's so much more useful? There's a basic inconsistency between his statements and his plans.
The usefulness of gold is in preservation of wealth. You don't have to believe it, but that won't change the facts. Paper is not as useful in preservation of wealth. You don't have to believe that either, but don't pretend to philosophically take one position while saying that you will be accumulating the other.
This is typical of the banking system and the financial manipulators, they talk out of both sides of their mouths, which is why they just can't be trusted. They've proven it consistently, over and over. Dependency on them for your security is truly a risky endeavor, but actually believing what they say is dangerous. Baseball apparently suffers from both conditions.
I knew it would happen.
<< <i>....Everything is a piece of paper. If you can't comprehend beyond the literal, there's no point in any rational discussion. Of course owning stock refers to buying a piece of the business and not paper. In fact, most people don't own actual stock certificates or any actual paper that proves ownership in their stock holdings. >>
And that's a big potential problem if/when the financial system gets a 1-2 week holiday and the computers are all shutdown. In a true crisis, no one will even know you own shares of XYZ company. The Corzines of the world will be the first to claim shares and cash out. Just hope you aren't at the end of the line when it's found out that too many shares were rehypothecated and none are left for you. That's one of the "risks" you take in investing in businesses. There's no proof of anything if the system locks up due to a banking crisis, cyber attacks, weather crisis, govt takeovers, military crisis or insurrections, etc. Those first 2 should be the biggest concerns. Your shares are only 1 mouse click away from belonging to someone else. The burden of proof will be on your shoulders to show that you owned them.
I can see Baseball has run out of logical things to say, now resorting to rants without adding anything new. This is how one probably would feel when they've be Corzined, Summersed, or Rubined. And no, those aren't on the sandwich menu at the Carnegie Deli, though they probably should be. Jmski52, that softball that Baseball left in his last post concerning "out-stacking" everyone was such an easy out of the park home run I couldn't bare to swing at that pitch.
What's worse is that you naively think that you actually "own" anything when the ONLY thing that even allows you to "own" these "physical" things you think you own are SOLELY provided for by "written words" that society approved.
This one takes the proverbial cake. Everything he said over the past few says contradicts this. On one hand he bashes the paper empire and now seems to be supporting it.
However, to put your mind at ease, let me just say this. It would scare the CRAP out of me to put more than 10-15% in PMs (and that's only assuming they decline AT LEAST 40-50% from here). AND I only do that literally relying on the stupidity of human beings in the future to continue to want to value these useless rocks. I'd have NO QUALMS about putting 150% of my worth in stocks if I thought they were undervalued.
Huh? In one post he's saying he supports diversification and now he's ready to go all in on the stock market with up to 50% additional leverage. In other words, putting one's life savings entirely on one form of paper.
Probably for the same reason that I sometimes put thousands into a small piece of cardboard or a "collectible" rare coin. Just because. But mostly with the thought of diversifying my assets and way down the line in the distant future, PMs may have a role if and when some form of currency devaluation occurs. If I had NO such worries about the dollar, I wouldn't spend even a penny on PMs.
Now back to diversifying again.
When you stop generalizing and put forth some FACTS, I'd be more than happy to explain why, how, when and in what manner you happen to be wrong. Who are these banks that are "hoarding" all this gold? How much are they hoarding? What manner are they hoarding it in? And what paper are they exactly pushing? How much of it are they pushing? Just exactly how are they manipulating it in your mind? Why is the "paper" worthless?
FACTS? Baseball hasn't presented any of those in all 7 pages of this thread. It's just repackaged opinions and rants. Which banks are hoarding gold? Hmm...ever hear of entities called central banks? Or if you don't know what a central bank is just google "who owns the world's gold?" And that would only be on paper. Who actually owns the world's gold are those who have it in their hands or have ownership of the vault in question.
Why are banks buying so much stocks (which is actually TURE) and why do banks manipulate people with lies and scheming to buy useless gold? Why? Why? Quit being so evasive and answer the question? They're just rocks! Why do banks manipulate and lie to people that they are worth anything when we all know they're not. They are completely useless. Explain why banks are buying so much stocks? Why would they buy stocks if they weren't valuable? Why? Why do they continue to manipulate people into buying useless gold? Why are they selling all they're gold? Why?"
Why do banks manipulate gold? Ask them yourself. Send a letter to the CEO's of JPM, GS, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Scotia, Duetsche, etc. and ask them why they do it. Maybe because it's far easier to swing a small market like gold than the currency markets which are 10X to 100X bigger. Gold is always in competition with currencies and tracked by the minute each trading day. That's why they do it. Some countries are more heavily reliant on commodities for their nation's well being (ie Canada, Australia, Russia, South Africa, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Mexico, etc.). Manipulating gold, silver, oil and other commodities via the NY and London paper markets gets stuff done a lot quicker than playing with currencies or trade balances. It's debatable which central banks buy stocks and to what extant as they don't publish their holdings. However, it is common knowledge they own >$1 TRILL in physical gold.
Rather than selling off all their gold, the central banks have been net buyers of gold since 2009. Go figure. That could change when the 2014 numbers come out, assuming China and India come clean with how much gold they have been accumulating. It's not likely China will do that. Whatever gold is being dumped by other CB's in 2014 is probably going right to China CB's were net sellers of gold from 1999-2008....some (or most?) being recycled to other central banks. But on the flip side, some banks that were buying weren't reporting it. China secretly bought 500 tonnes in the 2004-2009 period. When they came clean in 2009 it spiked the price. So they learned a lesson about reporting their gold buys. They likely won't do it again until they've accumulated 3,000-5,000 tonnes total. The IMF and ECB were notorious for "gold sales" from 1999-2008. It's questionable though how many of those gold sales were just pushing paper around to coincide with the new central bank owner. Central bank gold leases are counted as "owned" gold by both the seller and new owner. Try that trick with the stock market and you'll get tossed in jail.
BTW, in case you weren't aware of the obvious, banks own TONS of stocks. I'm not sure how much gold they own but I'm pretty sure it's a tiny fraction of their stock holdings.
You don't know how much gold the banks own? Why didn't you spend 2 minutes and look it up before making the above useless statement? Your whole premise of gold being "worthless" seems to emanate from your limited knowledge of the gold market itself. This stuff is taught in high schools. CB's own >30,000 tonnes of gold. That's worth >$1 TRILL. Now convince me that such an amount of gold is a "tiny fraction of their stock holdings." Prove to us that the Central Banks of Germany, Italy, Russia, France, India, and China all have huge stock market reserves that dwarf their gold holdings? For at least once in this thread present an actual number of fact to support something you said.
<< <i>Similarly, this particular thread might signal that we're near a top in the stock market.
And that's why some folks say things like "metals and stocks are neither the only thing, nor nothing, but they're both something, and perhaps a balanced approach, with rebalancing, by selling what's overbought, and buying what's oversold, might be best for most investors, in the long run"
Yeah, Baley - thanks for being a voice of reason here. You know, I keep wondering just how long they can pump the market with ZIRP and QE - it seems like the financial system has more capacity for this kind of thing than I'd have thought.
Then, I have to remind myself that the system already crashed (in 2008) and unknown numbers had to be stuffed in the bottom drawer and revalued at full value even though they couldn't be put on the market without taking a potential 80% to 90% loss on them.
So, here we are. Apparently, the leverage is even greater now than it was then and now the restrictions on derivatives has been completely removed again by Congress. OMG. If you can figure out where this leaves us, you're a better man than I am Gunga Din.
My feeling is that "they" really do think that they can keep it going ad infinitum. I just don't trust 'em. What do ya think, Baley? I really want to know where your head's at. >>
I'm usually somewhere in the middle of opinion spectrums (depending, of course, on the composition of the population in the discussion) and when either side says something that I think is logically ridiculous, I'll usually take a swipe or two at the straw man, but not batter myself senseless against them.
I do think that overall, "things" will continue for a very long time much like they have been in some respects, and also change very very much in others.
One of my favorite concepts is "punctuated equilibrium" and another is "selection event", both from evolutionary biology, the same field that includes terms like "carrying capacity" and "adaptation". That markets experience booms and crashes has significant parallels in the study of population ecology of various environments and ecosystems.
What none of us has witnessed is a mass extinction in the financial world, or the natural world either. Sure, there are the financial equivalent of earthquakes, wildfires, floods and mudslides, must as there are the financial equivalent of algae blooms, or deer overpopulation, or tuna overfishing. Sometimes species go extinct, usually the ones that react poorly to changing conditions because they are so specialized in their behavior that they can't adapt.
I trust "they system" enough to participate in several areas, but not enough to bet everything on one square of the environment. I fully expect a stock market correction, and you won't have to say "I told you so" because, I know. It's going to crash again. And then it's going to rise even higher. I'll probably live to see a couple more big cycles.
Just like in gold and silver
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
That is NOT a "fact" by any realisitic definition of the word "use", since any use at all proves the statement false, (never mind electronics, for example, jewelry will do if the "use" is "to wear it" or "to look at it" or "to enjoy having it")
By your innane definition of "use" that you keep insisting on, your logical arguments are rendered invalid. Not understanding why you won't let it go, unless your "use" of the words "absolutely useless" is to push our buttons and make us type messages to you, in which case, it is working (in my case, for this one last time)
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
<< <i>I've admitted that it has some real uses but that it's splitting hairs >>
If not for Gold, all Rolexes would be stainless!
Fact; Gold has never been worthless or useless. There are thousands of years of history to back that fact. We can't say the same for governmental forms of 'wealth' or 'corporate promises' printed on paper.
<< <i>
<< <i>Baseball has had his rump handed to him many times over in this thread but still believes he is 'winning' this debate. The one thing he has never answered is if gold is a 'worthless rock', why does the central banks hoard it? He also fails to address the issue that a stock is a piece of paper backed by nothing but some sort of hollow promise when it comes right down to it. He called me all sorts of juvenile names and said I was wrong when I explained that to him. He even went as far as to say I didn't know what a stock was. I have came to the conclusion that Baseball is the one who doesn't get it.
Fact; Gold has never been worthless or useless. There are thousands of years of history to back that fact. We can't say the same for governmental forms of 'wealth' or 'corporate promises' printed on paper. >>
I have no doubt I'm winning because it's a FACT that stock are NOT worthless and gold is USELES. And with all the drivel that you have written, the best you could do was that it's "physical" or that one "can hold it in your hand". Please. And you have a repeatedly difficult time comprehending what you read. I stated multiple times that central banks "hoard" gold only for the fact that they use it to "manipulate" the weak minded like yourself.
When has a stock ever proven to not be backed by the underlying company "when it comes right down to it"? Once again, you are an IDIOT because you NO clue what you're talking about.
I'm not sure what you think you have "explained", but it wasn't anything worthy of a five year old let alone an educated adult. >>
Well, being a pompous jerk who thinks you know it all doesn't mean you are right. You obviously don't have a clue what a FACT is. You have been schooled by many FACTS in this thread as proof of such. I know guys like you in real life, and they MUST always have the last word to back up their personal insecurities as to why no one buys what they are selling. Go ahead. I know you need it to feel like you have won the debate
Again:
Fact; Gold has never been worthless or useless. There are thousands of years of history to back that fact. We can't say the same for governmental forms of 'wealth' or 'corporate promises' printed on paper.
<< <i>No one EVER stated gold has been or is worthless. Gold WAS useful for thousands of years but no longer. Those are FACTS. >>
Wrong! It's your OPINION that gold is no longer useful, and that is because you don't get it. Now, even the people who started out this thread defending you are turning on your silly ideology because they know you are full of it.
FACT; Gold IS useful and IS used everyday.
FACT; Gold has never been worthless or useless. There are thousands of years of history to back that fact. We can't say the same for governmental forms of 'wealth' or 'corporate promises' printed on paper.
This is my last reply to you in this thread because you are so blinded by the paper Tower Of Babel, you will never see the light until it's too late. You get what you deserve.
<< <i>Baseball has had his rump handed to him many times over in this thread but still believes he is 'winning' this debate. The one thing he has never answered is if gold is a 'worthless rock', why does the central banks hoard it? He also fails to address the issue that a stock is a piece of paper backed by nothing but some sort of hollow promise when it comes right down to it. He called me all sorts of juvenile names and said I was wrong when I explained that to him. He even went as far as to say I didn't know what a stock was. I have came to the conclusion that Baseball is the one who doesn't get it.
Fact; Gold has never been worthless or useless. There are thousands of years of history to back that fact. We can't say the same for governmental forms of 'wealth' or 'corporate promises' printed on paper. >>
This thread is USELESS without a poll.
DID BASEBALL WIN HIS ARGUMENT THAT GOLD IS USELESS PER CURRENT WEBSTER'S DEFINITION (OR OTHER LEGIT SOURCE)?
1. YES
2. NO
Huddle up and make a decision.
<< <i>Stocks are worthless....well, at least my company stock in my 401K went kaput. This was a Fortune 500 company at that time of the Chapter 11 in 2002. Cost me a nice loss in my 401K seeing it go from $12, to $4, to $1, and finally to 2c per share went it went off line in 2003. Had been working there for 13 yrs at that point. A 2 yr re-organization, new funding, and today back to being a nearly $3 BILL company. None of that made me whole however. It got hammered post 9-11 due to assets associated with the air line industry and liquidity drying up. >>
Ah, now that's very interesting information that goes a long way in explaining your perspective.
Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry
It is arguable that humans are manipulated via their belief systems.
Knowledge is the enemy of fear