Phat's Bookshelf

Au Contraire, Paulie. Do *your* research before you step in it.Let's look at the History of major decisions and what ideology the decision makers were, shall we? Quick question. Which would you rather have today? $100,000.00 in government bonds or $100,000.00 in precious metals or gemstones? Be honest and explain your reasons.1933-Roosevelt (D) confiscates public gold (for public good? )
1944-Bretton Woods. (Bi Partisan)
1971- Nixon(R) seperates gold from the US Dollar.
1974- Ford(R) makes it legal to own gold again. (gives back what was confiscated)2008-Obama(D) bails out banks and financial institutions too big to fail.
2020-Trump(R) oversees the quickest recovery from a stock market crash ever in history. (the downside is that the money supply increased exponentially. We still are observing the effects of that.I have an assignment for you. Write down the times the Fed has done QT. Compare it with the times the Fed initiates QE. Compare the two and note the patterns.Is the car moving forward or are we rocking it back and forth in the snow? We are stuck.

When you are hungry, try eating rock. In the meantime, I'll go buy some real food from humans.

Phat,You seem to have this weird belief that if gold stays at the same dollar amount it will protect you from inflation. This is obviously wrong. The price of gold has to increase at the same rate as inflation in order to protect your wealth.Let's put it a different way. Why not just keep physical cash (i.e. bank notes)? It will always be the same dollar amount, just as you think gold should do to protect you from inflation. Why is gold magic when it does the same thing as physical cash?Let's do the math.You cash out $10,000 in $100 dollar bills and hide it under your mattress. After a year of 10% inflation the purchasing power of your cash hoard is 90% of what it was.You cash out $10,000 in gold and hide it under your mattress. After a year of 10% inflation you cash in that gold and get the same $10,000 back. Your gold hoard results in you having 90% of the purchasing power you once had.

Just out of curiosity, do you think you have presented some kind of coherent argument there?

Is a dollar in 1940 worth a dollar today? Why or why not? My point is that the very idea of less is relative to the time or era we are in?A 2022 dollar is worth less than a 1933 dollar.
An ounce of gold is worth an ounce of gold.

It depends on the amount of risk I am willing take. Precious metals or gemstones are much riskier. I could lose a lot more than I would with bonds, or I could earn a lot more. Bonds offer a very safe investment, but with a ceiling on returns. It's all about risk assessment. No currency in existence today is backed by gold. There's a good reason for that. If we were on the gold standard neither could happen and we would be stuck.

I am not yet wise enough to write a book, but I am quite capable of reading them.
And I am in the process of weighing ideas and in effect teaching myself. I dumped the modern economic theorist around a year ago. They were a bad advertisement for their product.

A pound of water is worth a pound of water. No one is saying that the chunk of gold will lose or gain mass over time.Gold has value because we can trade it for currency. If we couldn't trade gold for currency then it would be worthless. It is the currency that has the ultimate value, not the gold. We don't buy food with gold. We buy food with currency. We don't buy houses with gold. We buy houses with currency. See a trend here?

An ounce of gold will still make as many electrodes as it did in 1933 or as many wedding rings as it did in 1933.But the value is how much you can exchange it for, whether dollars or bacon. That has changed a lot since 1933 and can also change again.

If we were on the gold standard neither could happen and we would be stuck. stable. There. Fixed it for you. If being stuck means not being in debt, I'm all for stuck. Explain how 30 trillion in debt is not worrisome. Explain how inflating both money and debt helps anyone. Life is a risk, carnale.

These days, I would rather bring home the bacon.If in 2030 we have to pay the hog farmer 1 million per pig and the grocer sells the bacon for a thousand dollars, I think I would prefer a different medium of exchange. Since you think humans have such stable value, maybe they should slap a chip on you and you can trade for whatever you want and run up the bill. Israel had a jubilee every 7 years.What would happen if they had that now? You would be off the hook at least.

The Great Depression happened when we were on the gold standard. It is better than a massive recession. Bonds are less of a risk than gambling on commodities. Don't you agree?

As usual, you miss the point.The point is that the value of gold DOES change. It's only worth the amount of bacon you can get for it. It's "stability" depends on the same factors as the stability of the dollar.

Yes, but I would say that bonds are less of a risk than gambling and that commodities are less of a risk than bonds in todays current environment.

Are you sure that a 2022 hour of work is not worth more than a 1933 hour of work?What's a 2022 ounce of gold worth compared to a 1933 ounce of gold?