(10-13-2011 10:47 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(10-13-2011 10:36 AM)ImMoreAwesomeThanYou Wrote:  

(10-12-2011 02:41 PM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  Oh no no this is all crazy conspiracy talk that only nutters like Ron Paul talk about.

Trust the government when they say the gold is still there. Has the government ever done you wrong before?

Yes...but it kind of shoots RP's gold standard idea in the foot. Once again RP is out of touch with reality. SHOCK!

Competing currencies. Thanks for playing here's some lovely parting gifts.

As a gift could you get my iPad2 to take this friggin update!!!

An angle in all of this I can't escape. You can't discount the lynchpin of oil being sold in dollars. Petrodollars. Since oil is sold in dollars this makes other countries hold our dollars. Every country who holds the greenback is charged a tax of whatever the inflation rate is. It's an imperial tax. Saddam wanted to start his own oil bourse in Euros. That would be more destructive to our economy than an empty Fort Knox. We can keep our gold holdings as a state secret keep everybody guessing, but if people can start buying oil or if people stop using oil, that would be very harmful to our economy.

(10-13-2011 11:00 AM)ImMoreAwesomeThanYou Wrote:  Oh...my bad. Please explain how this works...

Do you believe in a free market, or don't you?

We have competing currencies now, but only for the mega investors, in the form of international exchange markets. Why not simply repeal the legal tender laws, and allow private individuals to transact however they wish. If you do this, you will immediately see private individuals transact in commodity currency (gold/silver) as pegged against the dollar's value that day. I would say you would see the Swiss Franc or some other existing currency used, but the Swiss removed their gold peg. Despite this the Swiss don't inflate that much, and so their currency is still actually SCARCE on the international exchange markets. It's actual difficult to buy Swiss Francs since all the other currencies are failing so hard.

(10-13-2011 11:33 AM)ImMoreAwesomeThanYou Wrote:  

(10-13-2011 11:19 AM)Fo Shizzle Wrote:  Sound money does not have to backed by gold. It can be backed by any commodity. It also does not have to be in a 1 to 1 ratio. The US ran on a fractional system for decades. What we currently have is simply paper backed by promises. There is nothing special about the dollar as a form of exchange. Competition in regard to currencies that are "actually" backed by a sound commodities should be allowed. Unfortunately our government forces us at the point of a gun to use it's fiat system.

Sooooo which commodity should we use? Wheat?, iPods, Coal? this is nonsense.

Oh, and then there is the whole world reserve currency problem...how would RP's plan affect that? GLOBAL MELTDOWN OVERNIGHT. just sayin

There are a plethora of hard assets that could be used as exchange other than gold. Oil...a multitude of minerals and combined alloys...anything that people consider of value...even water...could be used to back up a currency. The point is...that a currency that actually is backed up by a hard asset is more valuable than a fiat currency that is backed up by promises.

Every paper currency in history has failed.....What makes one think that magically the Dollar will be the first to succeed? We have been very lucky to have great natural resources...good neighbors..and great geography that makes invasion almost impossible. Our demise will be from "inside" due to our foolish economic and foreign polices. Such has been the case over and over and over throughout history. We are not as smart as we think we are.

(10-13-2011 05:11 PM)Machiavelli Wrote:  An angle in all of this I can't escape. You can't discount the lynchpin of oil being sold in dollars. Petrodollars. Since oil is sold in dollars this makes other countries hold our dollars. Every country who holds the greenback is charged a tax of whatever the inflation rate is. It's an imperial tax. Saddam wanted to start his own oil bourse in Euros. That would be more destructive to our economy than an empty Fort Knox. We can keep our gold holdings as a state secret keep everybody guessing, but if people can start buying oil or if people stop using oil, that would be very harmful to our economy.

Oil...and even potable water could easily become an asset that is as valuable as gold as our world evolves. We have NO idea what may become the next "most valuable" thing to the populace. Let us not forget that our existence on this rock is a mere blink of the eye in its time span. It is very possible that some technological advancement or discovery could produce a substance, compound, product or service that could be billions of times more valuable that Gold. Let your imagination ponder that for a second.