Could this signal the collapse of the dollar?
http://www.investorsdailyedge.com/are-u … iling.html
Looks like foreign investors are finally starting to see the light and refusing to buy anymore debt. I wonder how the government plans to fund it's grandiose plans now? Taxes on those making over $200,000 will only fund so much. (Why over $200,000? Why not 150,000 or even 100,000?) So we can expect our taxes to go up.
One thing not mentioned anywhere is the effect this is going to have on prices. If you though almost $5 gas was bad, wait until the effects of all of this deficit nonsense make themselves known. $5 a gallon gas will be a fond memory then. Why is it so hard for people to understand that nothing is free and we all pay for it in one way or another?When we have everyday American citizens like you claiming that America will never pay back its national debts, is it any suprise that people will stop propping you up?
Although I will point out that gas, or 'petrol' as we call it over here, has been over $5 a gallon in Europe for years.
It is currently £1.02 per litre at my local petrol station, there are 4.54 litres in a gallon, I will let you work out how many dollars that is! Same in France, same in Ireland, same in Spain... put simply, join the club!Gas is actually worse here. The government subsidizes part of the cost, so in reality gas is much higher than it currently sells for. For you general fund of information, it sells for about $2.60 in the Midwest currently, although cities generally pay more than towns or villages. As for what gas should be selling for, well that's anyone's guess. I can tell you that the price for gas will go up because the value of the dollar will decline. That always happens when you increase the supply of something. More money = less value.
Going by the figures you gave me you're paying about $9 a gallon or so in gas. 4.5 liters per gallon, £1.02 pounds per liter = $2.00 a liter multiplied by 4.5 is $9.00 a gallon.
I wish you foreigners would stop propping up our government. Without them falling all over themselves to buy our debt, our government would have to make, I don't know, rational decisions instead of promising people the moon in order to be reelected.Im not sure where you got your exchange rates from ledefensetech, £1 sure doesnt buy $2 anymore! It did 14 months ago when I had a fantastic time in New York, Chicago and Las Vegas..... I would currently get $1.63 for my £1....
Hence the reason that our towns are full of America tourists at the moment, our currency has taken a battering.... its the best time for a long time for Americans to visit the UK.... and the worst time in a long time for Brits to visit America...
A few months ago it sunk as low as $1.50 for £1.... its crept back up thankfully...
Same with the Euro, which was a very bad thing for us Brits. We import a lot of energy from Europe, and about 50% of our food.... which meant that we had about 25% food price inflation and even more on our utility bills...
I know that you are very negative about the situation in the USA right now, but this is a GLOBAL financial crisis, the US is doing no worse than most of Europe, including the UK and Ireland.
Germany isnt doing quite as bad as they are completely self sufficient and export at a huge surplus....
The financial markets of Europe and the USA are interlinked, hence the reason that the whole of the west has sunk...
Even China and India are effected, this is a global thingI'd be lying if I said that I kept up with exchange rates of currencies. The last I'd heard the pound and dollar were trading at 1 for 2. I have to say I'm a bit curious as to why that is. Has the BoE cut interest rates or something lately?
Sure, it's a global thing, but that's in part due to the way the post-WW II world lined up. Most of the problem is that there is too much debt in the world. In a way it's a shame the Chinese have started the same "stimulus" nonsense as the rest of the world. They have so much potential in selling to their own people that they hardly need to sell to us anymore. I don't think India has done the same thing as Chine so I'd expect them to recover far earlier than the Chinese. Still, we'll just have to see.
You also may not know much about the history of the auto industry in the US. Due to fuel subsidies, the oil embargo hit the car industry worse than anything since the Great Depression. But, remember the subsidies. Since we don't have to pay as much for gas, car companies marketed the power of a car for generations. Generations. You don't turn around from that without quite a bit of pain.
Then came the Japanese. They made horrid little cars at the time, but very fuel efficient. Thus Toyota and Honda began to replace Ford and GM on the roads. Not having had experience in fuel efficiency, the car companies were ripe for the plucking by anyone with a "plan" to kill the stirring Japanese behemoth. Also about that time, oil companies began an unprecedented search for new oil fields. The effects took time, but when they did, oil prices crashed and stayed low for about a decade. Funny how nobody seems to remember those days.
So, not only did they get scammed, but gas prices crashed to under a dollar until the first Iraq war. Good times were here again, and car companies abandoned any plans they had about fuel efficient vehicles. From what I understand, Europeans don't have the subsidization we do and thus have to more fully bear the costs of gas prices. Thus you have European cars that are more fuel efficient than American cars.
@Mark. I really can't blame foreigners for putting their money in Treasury bonds. Compared to much of the rest of the world, Treasuries seem like a pretty good place to put your money. Problem is, that's like locking a fat man up in a doughnut shop. The easy money makes them fatter and flabbier and it get's that much harder to break them of the habit. I just wish they could have come to their senses before things got this bad.Our interest rates are the lowest they have ever been I believe.... 0.5% base rate.... In an attempt to encourage consumer spending, and well.... discourage saving. Its all has done for me is persuade me to put my money in the stock market instead of a savings account. It has taken a fair bit of pressure off of the housing market in fairness, and has cut repossessions.
The problem with cutting the interest rate is that inevitably it has to go back up... I hope that those who have saved money on their mortgage payments have done just that SAVED the difference, else they may be in for a shock when they shoot back up.
Actually, we have to pay huge amounts of tax on our 'gas', it is a big government money spinner it seems... subsidies for gas are pretty unthinkable in this country! As for European cars, its a shame that we no longer have non specialist UK cars, our industry dissapeared a long time ago. We still make Jaguars, we assemble the Lotus, we probably still make the Bentley...... but our mainstream car industry dissappeared a long time ago. I think a few years ago there was 1 car plant in the whole of the UK which could be considered profitable (that was a Nissan plant).
Anyway, if you need a holiday then I guess that the UK is the place to go! then again if you need sun and relaxation... then I guess the UK is the last place you would want to go!That would explain it then. The UK is inflating the monetary supply, i think, at a faster rate than the Fed. At any rate, one of the effects of monetizing our debt through Treasuries is that the effects of interest rate cuts can be put off, for a bit. That is, I imagine, what is behind the "strengthening" of the dollar relative to other currencies lately. People probably are attracted to our faux recovery and that is going to cost them in the future.
As for cars, would you say they've become more affordable or less than they were when you had domestic car manufacturers?
Also I'm not sure you understand the significance of cutting interest rates below market value. It does stimulate spending. It also penalized people for saving. I'd be careful about the stock market if I were you. Try to invest in low debt companies that pay dividends. They will weather the coming economic storms better than most, I think. Even if you lose money in the market, you'll still be getting some of it back via dividends. That helps insulate you a bit from the madness of crowds. Something else to consider is investing in companies that produce infrastructure. I don't know about the UK, but here in the US, many of our roads, bridges, power plants, water mains, etc. are reaching the end of their useful life and will have to be replaced in the near future. Lots of opportunity there.
At any rate, in order to have a real recovery, you need savings. Savings lead to investing, which lead to new jobs, goods, services, etc. Contrary to government economics, you can't spend your way to prosperity. So cutting interest rates now makes people spend which is good for short terms forecasts only. After the mini-boom is over, people are worse off because now they have even less money with which to live on, and due to the inflationary policies of the central banks, it takes more money to live off of than before. In the end we're all worse off.I am not old enough to know how whether or not 'domestic' car manufacturers meant cheaper cars - I wasnt old enough to drive when the last big one dissapeared!
As for the stock market, I go as low risk as I possibly can (well at least recently). If buying in individual companies I tend to look out for cash rich companies, those that have enough cash to last them for a few years. Johnson & Johnson for example has a hell of a lot of cash.
I am still investing in higher risk business in markets such as the AIM, I have been pulling those investments out as quickly as they go in. I have doubled out on a few, and then put the proceeds into lower risk investment (funds, trusts, etc)
I am shifting my investments and reinvesting my dividends into large funds at the moment, low-medum risk, one of them just paid out more in dividends then I paid for their shares a while back.
The way I look at it ledefensetech, is that my money in a UK savings account is losing money.... interest at 1% per year is the norm, and inflation is around 4%-5% (maybe a little less now), I am not going to sit and watch my cash erode, I may as well take a risk with it.... so far it has worked, I am up 90% on my investments since the end of 2008.
I have been putting money in at high risk, taking it out as soon as I can make a decent profit and sticking it right back into low-medium risk. I have lost big on one investment, I learnt from that.... it was far too speculative and I allowed myself to be led by hype, but Im happy with my portfolio at the moment, its pretty diverse and isnt particularly volitile or susceptible to overall market influence. Most of my shares are in the FTSE or AIM, the markets fell a fair bit today... my shares didnt, so Im happy in the respect that my investments seem realistically valued at the moment.
LOL
So it is the foreigners at fault. Everything would just be fine if..........
Not sure you can really lump us English in with the Chinese, but whatever floats your boat. We have enough problems of our own thanks.
I wish you Yanks would stop buying all that plastic crap from China - then they would have no money to buy your debts.
The problem is Mark, our government has done exactly the same thing! We have bought tons and tons of cheap Chinese consumer goods, and then borrowed the money back.
To make things even worse, we sold half of our entire gold stocks to the Chinese at the market bottom. Gordon Brown (yes, the man we trust to run our country and trusted with our economy for a decade) ANNOUNCED that he was to be selling the gold the next day, thus immediately pushing down world gold prices BEFORE we had sold our gold.
So yeah, we sure do have our own problems... at least the USA still has its gold stocks, a hell of a lot of the stuff actually.... the question is, have they borrowed from China and secured the debt on the strength of their gold? Gold underpins every bit of world currency, in fact it is the true world currency, unless you are Gordon Brown who sold it because "economic cycles no longer exist".That's typical Keynesian economics for you. Or government economics as I like to call it. Governments like Keynes because it gives them an excuse to spend, spend, spend, in the name of "making the world a better place" no matter the consequences. Keynesian economics is not that far removed from mercantilism. In fact, I'd argue that government economics is a direct descendant of mercantilist economics.
In reality the best way to keep your wealth is to invest it in gold and other precious metals. Thank God for Ron Paul who made it legal for US citizens to own gold again. That may be the only thing that saves us from full monetary collapse.Oh, I know - Gordon "no more boom and bust" Brown needs a good hiding.
I wonder how much US gold is actually sitting in a Chinese vault right now. You think our government Inc is good at covering up. you should see theirs............None of it. So far as I know, all of our gold is supposedly under Fort Knox after FDR confiscated in all in the early 30's. It doesn't matter, the government no longer maintains a link to gold in any way shape or from when it comes to treasury notes. All you get when you buy Treasuries is an IOU.
Thanks to Ron Paul and Strom Thurmond, of all people, the mint has to mint gold coins and citizens are now allowed to own said coins. I wonder how long it will be before they start being accepted as payment for services, goods and debt. Some cities are already issuing scrip that can be used instead of Federal Reserve Notes. It'll be interesting to see what happens.So - you do not trust your government in anything else - but oddly - you believe them when they tell you all the gold is in place?
Dear oh dear.
And it never occured to you to wonder why Ms. Clinton went to China recently? A little insurance perhaps?Perhaps I should have been clearer. They claim that all of our gold is in Fort Knox, but I think that's a red herring. It's probably spread all over the place in Federal Reserve banks to keep people from trying to get a massive one shot score.
China won't get our gold because we stopped exchanging dollars for gold in 1972, that's what Nixon said when he said we're all Keynesians now. And, of course, there's the whole issue of how they can force the US to give up their gold in the first place.
Clinton went to China to make sure they would still buy our debt. The Dems need that to happen in order to fund the massive increase in the welfare state they're attempting to expand during Obama's presidency.I have explained this to you already, any country that effectively 'steals' money will have countries all over the world refusing to trade with it and refusing to lend it money. America is just like any country, you would be expected to hand over your gold to the 'creditors' if you go truly bust. The only alternative to paying your way is to cut yourself off from the world like North Korea and attempt (but fail) to be completely self sufficient.
Most of the world placed trade embargos on France in 1985 for blowing up a greenpeace boat.... i'm sure that people would do similar if china lost $500bn+, this would have a huge knock on effect to chinas debtors and chinas creditors, including the UK etc... etc... America is not untouchable, it is becoming a spent force just like the collapse of the unsustainable British Empire.Embargoes, by their very nature, don't last long. Not when you're talking about a 300 million person market. Look at how well OPEC was able to keep their embargo in force. Will it hurt? Sure. Will it cause suffering. Most definitely. Will it compel our politicians to pay back the debt. No. By forcing the issue with an embargo, nations around the world will give our politicians ammunition to cast blame on foreigners, not on the politicians, as it should be. Again, I'm not saying this is right, nor is it fair, but just as you have self-serving scumbags in office in the UK, so do we here. Concepts like honor and keeping your word are foreign to them and they certainly don't act like those virtues are guiding lights. What remains to be seen is what the American people are going to do about their government.
I suppose we'll find out one way or another, at any rate.I've never said that our situation is any better than yours, we have tons of national debt too. Our government has borrowed hundreds of billions to bail out banks.
But its quite an easy concept to grasp, a country is much like a person.
If Mr Ledenfensetech borrowed $200k from a bank, lets say to buy your house, and then you never repaid that money... your house gets taken by the bank.
Lets say that America is you, it borrows $200bn from a major consortium of business people and never repays the loan.
Two years later you decide that you want to buy a house again, you go to banks and you none of them want to touch you. You have become 'sub-prime' and there are huge risks attached to lending you money. They lend $200k to Mr & Mr Smith instead, who have never cost a financial institution money, its much lower risk.
Mr America goes back to the UAE, China, Japan seeking to borrow $200bn. They have no reason to think that America will pay back this time, they lend their $200bn to Mr India and Mrs Germany. Mr India has been earning a lot more money and Mrs Germany paid back their loan last time.
People just dont give away money. As it happens I believe that America will recover within the next few years, just like the UK, and will begin to make inroads on its national debt. So that shouldnt be a problem. My issue is with the fact that you genuinely believe that America is untouchable and the only country in the world that doesnt have to pay back debt.
If you run out of money you will have no choice but to sell gold, just like Russia felt the need to sell you Alaska for money. Just like the UK probably got some financial 'favours' for handing back Hong Kong to China.I hope the government gets rejected when they go out with their hat in hand after burning foreigners. It would do our leadership a lot of good. Much of our corruption can be traced to easy money. Get rid of the easy money and prudence will have to return to the vocabulary of the political lexicon. I'm not sure how similar our situation is to yours because I'm not sure at the influence Progressivism has had on your political system.
Without easy money, the government will be reduced to raising taxes and inflating the money supply, two things that are last resorts now. We won't run out of money, after all the Fed can just make more out of thin air. What they can't do is influence the value of said currency. As people flee fiat money for something that is stable, we'll see a lessening of government power and its influence over our lives. That is a scenario I look forward to.Like I have already said, just so long as you can become self sufficient and can happily take holidays in your own country. Devaluing the dollar will make your imports incredibly expensive, on the plus side... you might be able to export something and you would probably see the return of your manufacturing industries. But pumping money into the economy (again) is only going to give China a greater argument for holding the worlds primary currency, that wont do you any favours either.
Pumping money into an economy will only serve to cause massive inflation and further devalue the strength of the dollar. See Zimbabwe for example of how this does not work. Fiscal Stimulas never works, go and find me one example of fiscal stimulas ever working.... it sure didnt work for Japan did it?I agree 100% about the stimulus. Never works. But that's why I want to see the destruction of the dollar. Right now the politicians have their hooks in it, they're in bed with the bankers and everyone else is screwed. If the dollar does a Zimbabwe, then at least then people will be free to choose which sort of tender they will accept. My guess is gold and silver, historically those have been currencies. The good thing about that is that it is remarkably resistant to outside tampering. No printing presses, in other words. It'll be a hard transition, to be sure, but just like a good dose of bad tasting medicine, such a change will be good for us. Things cannot continue the way they have for very much longer. We do so many things contrary to economic laws that it is no surprise that we find ourselves in this mess today.
P.S. The only thing Japan has going for it their historically high rate of savings. That's probably why they're stuck in a stagnant economy and not a full out depression like we are in.I still think that the western countries can get therselves out of a rut, what bothers me more is whether we will change when we get out of it.
As for the UK's approach, I believe that Gordon Brown and Barrack Obama had a meeting in London before the G20.... where they planned a 'strategy' together before trying to force it upon the reluctant French and Germans... the stimulas was a joint UK-US thing, I guess that the rest of the G20 had no choice but to accept it. The Chinese were concerned about their falling imports.
I would say that the UK and the USA are pretty much in bed with each other with regards to thinking of ways to mess themselves up... the UK has since fallen from 4th to 6th in the total GDP league table.....Well that's pretty much the case. The status quo will remain until things change. I can very easily see China and other emerging countries retool their economies to reflect emerging economic trends. Those realities probably won't focus on either the US or UK being at the center of trade.
@Aya, in short the Federal government. Through certain laws that FDR established and the courts basically saying that only Federal Reserve notes can be used to discharge debt, you pretty much can't pay someone prior to 1974 in gold and have that be accepted as legal currency. Also until 1974 it was illegal for Americans to own gold.
That interestingly enough is not the case today. The mind is forced by law now to mint gold and silver coinage, in theory this can be used to pay wages and debts according to the face value of the currency.
http://www.lvrj.com/news/9893062.html
According to this, it may be possible to pay in metallic currency and get it accepted to pay debt.
http://www.lvrj.com/news/46074037.html
But that doesn't keep the government from trying to wear people down. Is this really the kind of tactics we need to let the government use against their own people?
It makes you wonder... if he genuinly believed that we would live in eternal economic stability (and with GDP rising every year, we were clearly still experiencing a boom) then why the hell did he feel the need to sell the gold in the first place? We were in a balance of payments deficit even then - whilst Germany sat there completely self sufficient. The man is an idiot. I have never, ever, considered myself to be a conservative. I was raised by a very socialist father, I considered myself to have certain socialist traits as a young man - I am now 24 and feel unrepresented. My very socialist dad (who will be spoiling his ballot) told me the other day that he thinks that Cameron (with his £30m fortune) is more socialist than Brown. Whatever happened to the Labour party?
Tony Benn is still alive.... would you?I can not tell the difference between the labor party and the conservative party.
Self serving scumbags all of them. Politicians. See what Mr. Obama changes...............Mr Obama is being stifled by the 'other half' of America... 8 years just is not long enough to completely change a country, it looks like it will take him 8 years to introduce a national health service at this rate, and then he is relying on a democrat to follow him for that health service to remain.
Sending Mr Clinton to North Korea instead of threatening a war, allowing Cubans into America to visit relatives, taxing the bonuses of financial fat cats at 90%..... it all looks positive so far. Is there any rule preventing Obama from moving to the UK and standing as an independant in 8 years time? I would certainly be welcome to that.Looks like you guys are suffering from the same sort of Demopublican problems the US is suffering from. Not much difference between the parties and they both serve their own interests at the expense of society as a whole.
Don't kid yourself. Obama is not the answer, he's a continuation of the problem. It's all about tax and spend, tax and spend when it should be about save and invest, save and invest. Until we start doing that, the best we can hope for is a stagnant economy. Worst case, well the worst case is that the economy totally collapses.
LOL - couldn't agree more on buying from China.
Maybe not a crucial detail... but 1 Gal = 3.785 L.
Don't bore me with facts when I'm in the middle of a tirade.
Nah, it's not that crucial, we were just guesstimating.Cool.... not sure if UK folks have different conversion standards.
Well I know that asking for a "pint of beer" in New York gets me a smaller glass than I am used to!
Maybe Germans should grasp that concept, have you seen how big their beers are? You could have a bath in their glasses!
Don't forget Australians.... http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid … 2391041706
Oh I don't know about that...
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= … d0GrpduxbI
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125053180726537627.htmlI wish the fed thought of that before they created money out of debt.No money no lending ,sounds simple enough.I wonder where we would all be without all that lending today,if it had never happened,for the last 44 years.
- ryankettposted 14 years ago
0I do sympathise that Americans have to drive further.... bigger place of course, but you also have incredibly uneconomical cars, absolute gas guzzlers, hopefully an increase in 'gas' prices will see your countrymen looking at ways of becoming more fuel efficient.
It has been America that has held up the process of hyrda powered cars for quite some time.... and America that wont sign agreements in relation to greenhouse gases etc...
Personally I look forward to the day that Americans are driving around in Citreon C1's or Fiat Panda's.... hell, why not plump for a Honda Insight... at 83.1 mpg (thats miles, i guess you work with kilometres - we dont!), who cares about the gas prices?All of your complaints are part and parcel of the subsidization of fuel. Since it costs us less to dive, we will increase the amount we will drive. The problem with subsidizing something is that over time you have to pay more and more in order to keep up with the demand. So instead of driving more economical cars, we've been influenced to buy cars that are less economical. Eliminate the subsidies and you'd see us driving far more economical cars than we do now.
I feel as if the American motor industry has completely missed the boat though.... a lot of the world has gone 'green' crazy. I am seeing more and more hybrid cars everyday.
I have seen GM collapse (which also affected the UK pretty badly), yet it is the Japanese that have embraced the worlds changing attitudes towards efficiency and people like Hyundai and Toyota are doing ok.
Americans have fought the change towards green cars, and it appears have now completely missed the market....
It is obvious why. You have too much of an interest / reliance on oil, so wanted to protect that interest. But surely Americas success have been through the exploitation of opportunities and being 'innovaters'.... even things like McDonalds - that was great innovation.
For a country which is supposed to offer the best universities and business schools in the world, closely followed by us, surely identifying a growing export market and attempting to muscle in with market share would have done a lot more for your economy - at least for your failing car industry?Americans traditionally love BIGGGG. It's prosperous! It's RESPECT.It's a sales pitch. We loved to see the opposite of our super sensible ways of life and economics on the borderline of miserliness. However, IT'S ALSO PURE WASTE when you know you are paying far more than you need to at the gas station.
Try crashing your Insight into my Hummer and see how wasted you feel. There's more to life than microscopic cars. If waste is the issue, ride a bamboo bike. Any gasoline powered engine is a waste by that standard.
Strange logic.... "all or nothing".... try this... gotta be the Chairman of the company .... no point being any other employee.... go figure.
Dang straight. If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes. I never met an astronaut who wanted to be co-pilot.
Not if you can handle the challenge. The only difference between an entrepreneur CEO and anyone else is that the entrepreneur is willing to do those things most other people aren't. Of course they reap the fruits of that, but they also take on all the risks of failure, another thing most people don't do. You'll note, I hope, that I don't add big business CEO in that statement, they're a whole different kettle of fish.
How do I get a 4X8 sheet of plywood in my Insight?
Staple it to your forehead with a big nail gun.
as much as I disagree to Fiery on many accounts, I think him calling you a jerk is justified.
Thats fair enough, you are entitled to think of me as a jerk, it was only a very poor attempt at humour... personally I think that your ok.
Umm yeah, now I see how this could have been intended as humor. Jokes online is a tricky thing, and you are better off thinking trice before attempting any.
Sorry if this offended you? It was just a very poor joke... obviously I was trying to play dumb on the word 'Insight'...
Actually we have a 2010 Insight and you can get quite a lot in them. I'll get back to you on the plywood, but just eyeballing it I'd say yeah, fold down the rear seats it'll fit.
We have a '92 Ford F250 that we drive about four times a year to get wood pellets. There are some decent little electric trucks out already, but we already have the gas hog so we'll keep it until it rusts to death.
It isn't necessary to frame every single issue as all or nothing, but it is one way to go to score points. I'm tired of it though. That tactic is designed to maintain the status quo, it doesn't lead to any solutions.
That is an overly categorical statement. Americans (currently) have a wide variety of vehicles to choose from based on their transportation needs, cost, preference, etc.
I was just making reference to the population density in relation to the UK's..... I also appreciate that your domestic aviation is top notch, having flown about in the USA a fair bit at relatively low cost... but everything in the US is bigger, the roads are longer, and I still believe that Americans as a very general rule do consume more fuel in their everyday lives; often through no fault whatsoever of their own.
If everyone; meaning we the people; would realize that we are being played for the fools we are ,then we would become more involved in what our governmnent represerntitives are doing in our name.There are too many self rightious people running the worlds governments ,that keep too many secrets for selfish reasons.Money is at the root of it all.Certain global interests don't want to lose in the game of energy efficiency.
They would lose money and power if we had cheap energy.- pgrundyposted 14 years ago0
We were screwed about a year and a half ago and we're just waiting for the rest of it to fall apart. I think that's part of what is making people so crazy--the disconnect between the 'first green shoots' of the recovery BS and the reality on the ground.
It's called dead cat bounce, Pam. From what I've been able to gather, it happened all the time in the 1970's.
- ryankettposted 14 years ago0
Things will get better people.... it will take time, too much time when you are unemployed... but it will recover. It always has and it always will.
Pam, 4x8? I seriously doubt.
Not to say that Insight does not have its uses, in fact everyday uses.I don't know about a 4x8 piece of plywood, but you can fit a pretty remarkable amount of stuff in a Prius, too. My mom's a gardener and she carts around all kinds of s*** (often literal) in hers.
My husband and I jammed all our worldly possessions into a Honda Civic several times over when he was working as a traveling nurse, also. (No furniture, obvs, but virtually everything else you'd need to set up house.)- ryankettposted 14 years ago0
In fairness, the USA is self sufficient with its food production (just about).... unlike the UK which relys far too much on Europe.
Ledefensetech, but aren't people free to choose what form of exchange they will accept now? For instance, if say I won't work for anyone unless they pay me in gold, is there anyone to stop me?
RyanKett, yes, that's always a risk we take whenever we make any stipulation -- it might be rejected by the other party!
Are you referring to the Obama/Brown proposal?
I think the main issue of the French and Germans was that it was UK and US policies and practices that brought about this global crisis... and perhaps they felt that they couldnt trust the people that got us into this mess to get us out.
Probably a very valid chain of thought considering Germany and France have just come back out of recession (announced yesterday) whilst the US and the UK remain in recession.
All 10 of the worlds largest economies entered recession at the same time.... 7 of them are now out.... the UK and the USA are 2 of the 3 that are still in recession...
I guess that listening to the French and Germans at the G20 would probably have been a good idea!AFIK, the Germans and French didn't advocate stimulus spending. Strangely enough the French and Germans have both been more hard currency oriented than the English or Americans. It's an old story. Only in the US is the Great added to the Depression.
- susanafeposted 14 years ago0
Do any countries have a gold standard? What countries mint silver and/or gold coins for circulation?
Currently nobody does. If the Lakota get their way and become recognized as a state, they may be the first in a long time who do.
http://freelakotabank.com
http://www.nowpublic.com/politics/lakot … endence-us
Countries that don't have a gold standard are at the mercy of the guys in control of the printing presses. Currently the government of the US is attempting to use that power to enact Progressive legislation they've been trying to pass for over a century now, in some cases.
The problem is that sooner or later, people lose faith in the paper because it becomes more and more worthless. That's one of the reasons why people work harder today, but make less and less. Well before the economy cracked up, that is. Most people make less and less today because they are out of a job. That's why gold has historically been used as a preserver of wealth. You can't print more of it and any method used to get more gold involves labor, so it doesn't usually have the effect that turning on a printing press does.In the UK the government has reserved the right to call in every piece of personal gold should the country ever need it.
That would be a smack in the mouth considering our hopeless prime minister sold half of ours at the absolute market bottom.
They can chop off my hand if they want the ring on my finger, which was bought by my girlfriend as a symbol of commitment.Sorry to say that it seems as if the UK has been infiltrated by Progressives as well. I wish our grandparents had been that intolerant of government fiat when FDR took our gold. My suggestion would be to keep it all and bury it deep. The reason they want your gold is because when the paper currency goes worthless, people will use substitutes instead of their worthless currency. By keeping your gold, you not only ensure that you can provide for yourself, in conjunction with others you can take back control of your economic destiny.
I know, which is why it beggars belief that our society has allowed Gordon Brown to continue. As me and Mark Knowles have already said, his reason for selling was that "economic cycles no longer exist", to think that he is the UK's most powerful man.
You have quite rightly said in the past that I am no economics expert, but even I know that gold underpins any paper currency, always has and probably always will.
I have a feeling that the law about gold is in fact hundreds of years old, but a government wont change a draconian law if it is to their potential benefit!Part of it is lack of education. We're only schooled in certain subjects, at least those of us who go to government run schools. I was once as ignorant as any other drone from the public schools, but mostly through serendipity, I was able to find resources that changed my view of things.
In the 30's there came to be a change in the way kids were educated. It was restructured along Progressive lines: http://mises.org/story/3617 . It's no wonder that people don't seem to understand concepts our ancestors would have considered common sense.
One interesting article I came across was the possible use of tobacco as a form of currency. It was at one time used in Virginia and some of the Western Territories of the US used whiskey for the same purpose. http://mises.org/story/3653
I just took a look through the Free Lakota Bank's fee structure.
They charge a monthly set fee, no matter how big or small your account is. The fee is 1 oz per 200,000 ozs deposited.
Shall I translate? I think I shall.
If you deposited 50 oz of gold (which right now is 941.60 dollars per oz per the New York spot listing) your account balance is $47,080.00 in non-fiat paper American money. On or about September 1, your account will hold 49 oz of gold and be worth $46,138.40 in worthless non-fiat paper money that you can actually buy a loaf of bread with (this assumes that the price of gold did not change - yeah right....).
So, you did nothing and lost $941.60 as a monthly fee. If you wanted part of your gold back, you are going to pay shipping fees. Chase only charges me $5.00 a month with no shipping fees and that's worthless paper, so technically I'm not losing anything. In 50 months the gold account will be $0.00 no matter how you calculate it and Free Lakota Bank will have a pretty nice profit history off of that particular account.
So, how is this preserving my wealth?Surely you would divide 50 ounces by 200,000 to determine how much their monthly fee is?
1 Ounce for your 50 Ounces would be the equivalent of 4000 ounces for every 200,000....?Web site states this is a flat rate - 1 oz monthly fee for every 200,000 ozs. No pro-rating, sorry. So you can either believe that there are no fees unless you deposit 200,000 ozs or you believe that up to 200,000 ozs you pay 1 oz a month. At 200,001 ozs you would pay 2 ozs a month as a fee.
Having done enough business with companies that need to generate income to cover expenses, I'd recommend that you better believe there is a monthly fee below 200,000 ozs. Just so you get the idea of how much 200,000 is - it's $188,320,000.00 bucks American. Do you really think there will be enough people (because what company is going to buy into this?) who deposit $188,320,000.00 for cover the cost for the rest who only deposit $1,000,000.00? Remember, not FDIC insured either...
Of course there is the option of no fees as was also posted - 200 ozs donated to the fund. 200 ozs times $941.60 is how much? $188,320.00. Wow, I'd better get something better than no monthly service fee for that much of a donation!!!!!!!!
Additionally, the bullion deposited is only in AOCS currency. This is coinage that is minted by private companies and is not recognized as legal tender. Free Lakota Bank does not print these coins, but they won't accept anything else for deposit. There's no regulations regarding these minted 'coins'. Who knows what the actual content is? So, you can't pay for anything with these coins and you'll be selling them as bullion to dealers to actually get purchasing power with them.
Sadly enough, there are people who will actually buy into this kind of thing and find out that they have lost a large percentage of their value.
People, if you are going to move to bullion, move to actual bullion!!!! There's companies that will store your bullion for a whole lot less as well as provide excellent service to boot. Don't mess around with stuff that is fringy.Wow, that was a long reply!
I dont know anything about bullion to be honest, and I dont even have enough spare cash to buy an ounce of the stuff at the moment... so dont worry, I believe everything that you say.
So basically that 'bank' is a giant con merchant, who are hoping that some old dear will deposit 5 ounces of gold, before finding out that they are entitled to it after 5 months?
All I know about gold is that there are hundreds of people trading the stuff on ebay, which is amazing to watch in the current climate!Yep, anybody you will take your original deposit, convert it into non-recognized 'currency', charge you for holding it and return it to you (after a shipping fee) in that non-recognized 'currency' for you to have to exchange (oh - there's another fee, plus you sell at less than spot price) before you can use your wealth - that sounds like a scam to me.
I don't think they will actually cater to small depositors - you'd probably find that there are minimums to depositing with them.
Bullion isn't all that hard to buy once you get in touch with the dealers. It is annoying to deal with though, gotta keep that stuff safe!!!! Sort of like bearer bonds.
Yeah - I write long. Been working on that i chat rooms, but not having a lot of progress so far.
I'm very intrigued by the thought of replacing currency, but not sure what could be an acceptable subsititue. I'm thinking Gold and Silver are really not much of a long term option for several reasons, mostly the problems in setting exchange rates, transportation and storage and the accounting issues. Additionally Silver is a diminishing resource, where as Gold is not, making Silver potentially a more valuable commodity at some point.
Author J.T. McIntosh's (the pseudonym under which James Murdoch MacGregor published all of his science fiction work) novel 'One in Three Hundred' deals with the need for a community to set up a currency system in the third part of the story. The colonists set up a currency named the 'Labor Unit'; each Labor Unit is equal to an hour's work and is recorded through the central computer as to each individual's account balance.
Problems immeadiately arose regarding the value of a doctor's hour versus a trench digger's hour, what if people are sick or women are pregnant and cannot work, how do children afford basic services and what about the elderly?
The novel was published in 1954 and is a little dated as to some of the social constructs, but is one of the few written works where an author seriously examines the issue of currency when establishing a new society.
I don't think a currency based on actual work performed as measured in hours would be functional. I do think we need a new way of establishing value that can be transferred accurately and safely between parties and that is globally based.
What would you guys suggest?- susanafeposted 14 years ago0
The fee is one ounce of silver per 200,000 ounces of silver deposited. (It doesn't say one ounce up to 200,000 ounces.) The monthly fee is waved if you commit 200 ounces to the General Investment Fund. The interest rate is 7.24%.
By stating that they only accept silver, then by definition, they are not on a gold standard either. Due to the traditionally low value of Silver, countries do not run on a silver standard.
For every 200,000 ounces you deposit, there is a one ounce fee. This is normally interpreted as for the first 200,000 there is one ounce as a fee, for the second 200,000 there is one additional ounce and so on. There is no interest paid on these accounts, only on the General Fund accounts.
Your deposit into the General Fund is 200 ounces which earn 7.24%. You cannot withdraw for the first year unless the fund is doing well, then there is a "small fee" for withdrawl. Withdrawls are limited as they do not do fractional reserve banking. Basically, this is not liquid funds for you and you have no idea when you will get your silver back. 7.24% interest based on what?
Gold or silver, the percentages are the same and losing that much percentage regularly is a bad deal.
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