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Debunking Anti-Gold Propaganda

derrybderryb Posts: 36,834 ✭✭✭✭✭
Doug Casey




"The bottom line is that gold and its friends are again cheap, and they have a long way - in both time and price - to run. Until they’re done, I suggest you be right and sit tight."

Natural forces of supply and demand are the best regulators on earth.

Comments

  • rickoricko Posts: 98,724 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Interesting article, and with good information. The financial world is full of pitfalls and

    opportunities. Best to be aware, balanced and cautious. Cheers, RickO
  • roadrunnerroadrunner Posts: 28,303 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Today's financial world is very FAR from balanced. It's about the most unbalanced that it's ever been.
    Barbarous Relic No More, LSCC -GoldSeek--shadow stats--SafeHaven--321gold
  • rickoricko Posts: 98,724 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Correct Roadrunner.... my reference was for the individual.... Cheers, RickO
  • EagleEyeEagleEye Posts: 7,677 ✭✭✭✭✭
    The author writes:



    Let me first disclose that I’ve always been favorably inclined toward gold, simply because I think money is a good thing.



    The author makes the assumption that gold is "Money" rather something that money is made out of. Gold itself has always been a commodity, not a currency, which he glosses over when he states:



    More importantly, people have gotten into the habit of giving the price of gold in dollars, rather than the value of the dollar in gold. But that’s another subject.



    That is the entire subject - A commodity is priced by a currency.



    Of course anyone that disagrees with him is a knave, a fool, or uninformed. That type of rhetoric is always used to disparage critics, regardless of how right they are. He even uses it in his title.



    Most people have no idea what really happens when a currency collapses, let alone how to prepare…



    Buy canned goods. But seriously, our economy flourishes on our productivity (and access to money in the form of bank loans - debt), it is not slowed by the debt our nation (or any nation) carries, unless productivity slows. A quick way to stop productivity is to try and reign in the debt. It would mean less loans, less business, less productivity.
    Rick Snow, Eagle Eye Rare Coins, Inc.Check out my new web site:
  • derrybderryb Posts: 36,834 ✭✭✭✭✭




    I suspect central banks throughout the world see gold as physical money and their vaults are full of it to protect them from their huge holdings of paper money and it's related paper products.











    The advent of fiat currency removed the need for gold money in modern public commerce. This does not mean it is not still money. Central bank gold holdings tell us that they realize something that most of the public does not. Otherwise their vaults would be full of other "commodities."

    Natural forces of supply and demand are the best regulators on earth.

  • rickoricko Posts: 98,724 ✭✭✭✭✭
    The debate over 'gold is money' or just a commodity has raged here and elsewhere for

    years... likely it will continue. There are points on both sides....I will continue to follow the

    discussion and stack some gold - and currency. image Cheers, RickO
  • EagleEyeEagleEye Posts: 7,677 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Ricko, you got it right - its not a question whether currency collapses, or gold is used as money. It is pure economics. Our economy works without gold because it was determined long ago that gold-backed currency holds back growth and with growth comes prosperity.



    Just keep buying gold with cost-averaged dollars. You'll acquire wealth.



    Our debt-managed economy works well if we are all working. The only way it collapses is if we as a society collapse. How could that happen? Likely by putting too many constraints on the management of the economy. Try to reign in the debt too much and you'll drastically slow the economy. You would create the problem you are trying to prevent.
    Rick Snow, Eagle Eye Rare Coins, Inc.Check out my new web site:
  • roadrunnerroadrunner Posts: 28,303 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Gold backed currency didn't limit the nation's growth from 1850-1913, probably the strongest growth any industrial nation has ever seen....all done on gold standards of varying sorts. Debt-money collapses under its own weight when the debtors (i.e. "us") decide that enough is enough, and confidence is lost in said debt-money currency. It's one thing to have confidence in a fiat currency of which there is around $1.3 TRILL in USDollars in circulation....and a total debt in USDollars/USTreasuries of around $18 TRILL. That can be managed to some extent. What can't be managed are the TBTJ bankers that have piggy-backed on those treasuries and dollars with bets to the tune of $200 TRILL ($1.1 QUAD if all world banks are included)....all those bets denominated in US dollars. The Euro banks have the same issue though with bets primarily in Euros.



    The average person has no clue as to this linkage. They don't even know it exists or what it means. It might as well be pie in the sky. The US govt-approved debt-money dollars and treasuries didn't fail in 1998, or 2008. It was the debt-money banker otc derivatives that did. That's the issue. Imagine if bankers had their hands on otc derivatives 10X that of the sovereign debt back in the 1850-1939 period. They really could have blown up the system. Otc derivatives were a tiny factor prior to 1989. But, they've grown from $1 TRILL then to over $1,000 TRILL today. Anything else in the world economy "growing" by 1,000X since 1989?
    Barbarous Relic No More, LSCC -GoldSeek--shadow stats--SafeHaven--321gold
  • Anti-gold propaganda=every source of information other than far right conspiracy theories.
    Positive BST transactions with Timbuk3, coindeuce, charlottedude.
  • DeepCoinDeepCoin Posts: 2,781 ✭✭✭
    FWIW, IMHO gold is no longer a leader, but a follower of economic changes. At times it is a great investment, at other times, not so much. Not bashing it, just saying it is not the underpinning of financial economics anymore.

    Retired United States Mint guy, now working on an Everyman Type Set.
  • PerryHallPerryHall Posts: 46,148 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Gold is a refuge during times of economic turmoil. As the national debt continues to balloon and interest rates increase there will be a day of reckoning when the tax revenues are no longer sufficient to pay both the interest on this debt and all the entitlements promised to the American citizens.

    Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
    "Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
    "Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire

  • OPAOPA Posts: 17,121 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Originally posted by: DeepCoin
    FWIW, IMHO gold is no longer a leader, but a follower of economic changes. At times it is a great investment, at other times, not so much. Not bashing it, just saying it is not the underpinning of financial economics anymore.



    And hasn't been for some time. I will continue to purchase it as a potential gain of investments, just like any other security.
    "Bongo drive 1984 Lincoln that looks like old coin dug from ground."
  • roadrunnerroadrunner Posts: 28,303 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Originally posted by: PerryHall

    Gold is a refuge during times of economic turmoil. As the national debt continues to balloon and interest rates increase there will be a day of reckoning when the tax revenues are no longer sufficient to pay both the interest on this debt and all the entitlements promised to the American citizens.




    Also:



    Global debt has to either be serviced or be defaulted upon. If the service cost cannot be met with sound money then an attempt will be made to meet it with devalued money. The bond market is now the largest in history and the percent of marginal investment grade paper is at all time highs. As defaults rise, downgrades will follow begetting more selling and more price collapse. Equities will tank in concert or be supported by massive money printing. When the panic rush to safety from bad money begins, even a tiny fraction of currency seeking a place in gold will be like trying to push the contents of Hoover Dam through a garden hose (Doug Casey). It was never a matter of if, only a matter of when



    Not my words, but, I don't disagree. Debt has to be serviced one way or the other.
    Barbarous Relic No More, LSCC -GoldSeek--shadow stats--SafeHaven--321gold
  • Precious metals are a commodity. They have no earnings or dividends. They are not investments.
    Positive BST transactions with Timbuk3, coindeuce, charlottedude.
  • jmski52jmski52 Posts: 22,867 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Precious metals are a commodity. They have no earnings or dividends. They are not investments.

    Tell that to China, Russia, India, Iran, Turkey and the IMF, which has re-classified gold as a Tier 1 Asset.
    Q: Are You Printing Money? Bernanke: Not Literally

    I knew it would happen.
  • derrybderryb Posts: 36,834 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Originally posted by: hopsin
    Precious metals are a commodity. They have no earnings or dividends. They are not investments.

    Commodities not an investment? What world are you living in? Earnings and dividends are only marketing tools to make some investments more attractive than others; they are not a requirement to qualify something as an investment.

    Natural forces of supply and demand are the best regulators on earth.

  • BaleyBaley Posts: 22,661 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Of course PMs are an investment, and an asset, and a commodity.



    Good article, which summarizes the reasons many of us own gold (and, similarly, why we own stuff besides gold)



    However, can opinions be "de-bunked" by different opinions?



    No one knows the future.

    Liberty: Parent of Science & Industry

  • PerryHallPerryHall Posts: 46,148 ✭✭✭✭✭
    While PM's are most certainly an investment, I consider PM's as primarily a means to preserve wealth and as an insurance policy against irresponsible government mismanagement of our financial system. PM's will always have a place in a well balanced investment portfolio.

    Worry is the interest you pay on a debt you may not owe.
    "Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value---zero."----Voltaire
    "Everything you say should be true, but not everything true should be said."----Voltaire

  • DeepCoinDeepCoin Posts: 2,781 ✭✭✭
    hopsin, an item may be an investment without dividends or earnings. For example, the investment most commonly held by the middle class is their house.



    PMs are typically a hedge held for a variety of reasons. Assets can increase or decline in value, and thus they are an investment of your capital by your choice to hold them in your portfolio, regardless to category of asset.
    Retired United States Mint guy, now working on an Everyman Type Set.
  • roadrunnerroadrunner Posts: 28,303 ✭✭✭✭✭
    Originally posted by: hopsin

    Precious metals are a commodity. They have no earnings or dividends. They are not investments.




    PM items can have dividends. ETF's GDX and GDXJ give off dividends. And they certainly are investments. Investing in cash/currencies, real estate, collectibles, rare art, etc. are quite popular methods...and they don't give off any dividends. You'd almost wonder why the very wealthy "bother" with rare art, antiques and collectibles. image



    In reality, everything you put your money into that isn't going to the cost of basic living is a form of speculation, and not necessarily an investment....as it should be. In many forms of speculations, the price of the items can appreciate so quickly that a lack of dividends can be meaningless. The best US rare coins appreciated 16X from 1975 to 1980. Do you think anyone that took part in that felt slighted because they had no 1-3% in annual dividends?

    Barbarous Relic No More, LSCC -GoldSeek--shadow stats--SafeHaven--321gold
  • rickoricko Posts: 98,724 ✭✭✭✭✭
    I agree with Roadrunner... everything beyond subsistence is an investment of some

    sort....payback can take many forms. Cheers, RickO
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