I found this in an another forum from ageka.

I like the sound of silver and gold. Makes me wonder the sound of platinum.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w0LOtWmy_o

Some currency note bashing though I'm afraid

The accent is to much for me. He reminds me of the evil cop/warden in Oh Brother Where Art Thou.

Good video. Very interesting point of view. I found myself agreeing with everything he said.

-Bobby

Was that a commercial for the Liberty Dollar?

I thought the same thing actually.

Here is a question I should know the answer to: Why did the US come off of gold/silver backed currency?

I think it was around the Great Depression.

Excellent video, I also agreed with what he said.

heheh...there wasn't any bashing. everything he said was correct. even the most die-hard currency collector will acknowledge the status of "fiat currency"... printed pieces of paper that's worth face value just because the government says so.

maybe this is one aspect in which coin/paper money collectors differ. a lot of coin collectors like the feel of valuable metal in their hand. the heft & weight of gold or silver. the knowledge that they have something that will always have intrinsic value. paper money collectors...are more like art collectors. we collect small, limited-edition, historical pieces of art. there's no illusions of having "real money".

if there was a vote, i'd vote against fiat currency. we should definitely go back to paper currency backed by "real money". i'm from california, and i'm all for 30 cent gasoline! as a collector though, it makes little difference to me if they're back by precious metals or not. i'd never redeem them anyway. i'd just be trading paper for metal.

on a different tangent...why is metal considered "real money" anyway? because it's an accepted standard? because it's not man-made and is found in limited quantities in nature? so are cowrie shells. why is gold worth more to humans than cowrie shells? why do we have silver certificates instead of cowrie certificates? or oil certificates? or bald-eagle feather certificates? what exactly is "money" anyway? from my point of view...money is something people perceive to be of set worth. whether it's a hunk of metal or a slip of paper, the perception is still there. there's no scientific law that makes one natural substance to be of value. it's all in the human mind.

as a world paper collector, it amazes me sometimes. i can look through my collection and think "wow....thousands of miles away, somebody worked and toiled for a month just to receive this one slip of government-produced paper."

anyway...the only part of the movie clip i don't agree with is when he goes through foreign currency. he says "azerbaijan...fifty, one hundred, a thousand". the images they show are clearly a russian 50 rubles, and a macedonian 100 dinars. heheh...at least he got the filipino 20 peso note right.

I never thought about this, but I agree wit him 100%.

And we don't use shells or eagle feathers because they cant be shaped. Imagine having to bargain every time "No, this would be worth x pieces of paper". There wouldn't be any standard. And, you could gather some "Money" for yourself, by yourself. The bald eagle and the cowrie would be extinct within days.

IMHO

He's completely wrong about what money is and isn't.

The simple fact is that money is and always has been what people think
it is. If paper money had no value than why would it buy any gas at all?
Money is worth what people think it is. If the government prints to much
or too much is mined from the ground then its value crashes. If people
come to suddenly believe that there is no gold than its value crashes.

He also misses the point about the value of gold. Gold has no intrinsic
value beyond what people ascribe to it. It pays no dividend and can earn
no interest. More and more people are coming to regard it as a barbarous
relic which has already eroded its value relative other money for 200 years.
Gold is an excellent store of value for short term changes in the value of
money and many believe this is about to occur now. But gold is obsolete
as money in the modern age where the very essentials of life are dependent
on the smooth functioning of the entire economy.

The perturbations inherent in the use of gold as money are far too severe.

Not really sure what to make of that. Not really sure what makes people produce stories like that although mostly true. What gets me is he is obviously not a coin collector. Not many collectors would bounce coins to hear the difference in sound. As to paper money, it is almost at the end of existance as the credit/debit cards take over anyway. Now why didn't he bounce them?

Certainly we could use shells or feathers or rocks for money, but ultimately for anything to serve as money it must be universally recognized as having a set value (not sure about you note collectors, but you could show me currency from 95% of the countries of the world and I would have no idea of their value outside of being pretty pieces of paper). Gold and silver are standard, and everyone on the planet recognizes them for what they are. An ounce of gold is an ounce of gold wherever you are, but commerce would be impossible if we couldn't trade due to arguments about the size or quality of your shells vs. my feathers.

Cladking offers some popular arguments by proponents of fiat currency, but unfortunately there are some serious problems with these arguments. It's true that gold does not pay interest or dividends, but neither does fiat currency! I have a series 1990 $50 Federal reserve note on my desk, it's been sitting there for a few years, and you know what? It's never paid me any interest or dividends! Sure, if I put it in a bank I could have earned 3% or 4% interest, but the currency wouldn't pay that, the bank would. In the same way, I could loan out my gold and earn interest on it for the duration of the loan, they even publish gold lease rates daily on Kitco.com, of course the gold doesn't pay the interest, the borrower does. So that entire arguement is just a red herring.

Of course, there is the other arguement that a gold or silver standard is obsolete and couldn't function for the modern economy. Usung his words, "But gold is obsolete as money in the modern age where the very essentials of life are dependent on the smooth functioning of the entire economy." I am not sure we really are better off with this modern economy. Think about it, since the end of the gold standard in 1971, it now takes both parents working to have a life that's still not quite as good as our parents or grandparents had with only one of them working. Are we really better off? Sure we have a lot of neat gadgets and such, but are our lives really better? This is what fiat currency has brought us, a life of harder work to get less than our ancestors had.

And he says, "More and more people are coming to regard it as a barbarous relic which has already eroded its value relative other money for 200 years." Wow, I am not even sure where that comes from. Back in 1971, the dollar was pegged to gold at $35/oz. and oil was selling for about $3.50 per barrel, or about 1/10th of an ounce of gold. Today, oil is $66 per barrel, which is still about a 1/10th of an ounce of gold, looking at that, it doesn't seem like gold has been what's eroding! In fact, you can look at any number of items, and their prices in terms of gold have changed very little over the last millenia, let alone 200 years, so judge for yourself whether gold or paper money is eroding in value...

The value of the fiat money is actually declining at a greater pace more recently, as evidenced by the sustained rise in the price of gold.

If you like your fiat money you can have it, but I prefer what people for thousands of years have.

the bit about the 3 silver dimes and a gallon of gas hit home.

this guy agrees with him
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji_G0MqAqq8...ted&search=

I remember when silver was so high back in 1980 that there was a gas station in Boston that was selling gas for a quarter, a silver quarter, a gallon.

It is all very well having a vast hoard of Gold/Silver/Platinum at hand but just imagine if you have to relocate then the problems begin Hence the onset of paper money that was a promissory note much easier to carry & hide from those rouges who would take it from you OK so over the years these notes have developed and changed and unfortunatly the bank wont give you the value in Gold/Silver/Platinum So which would you rather have LOL me a mix of both

De Orc

You are, of course, right that fiat currency pays no dividend either. The point was that
money does not and never did derive its value from some intrinsic thing. Gold has real
value and always has, but gold money worked because they believed the money and the
gold had value.

There are many good reasons to dislike aspects of modern life and the modern economy.
Be that as it may we are stuck with it. The billions of people on this planet depend on all
the various parts to work. If one part breaks down then the entire system breaks down
and this planet will simply not feed six billion people without technology.

I don't believe gold has lost a substantial part of its value yet. A good case can be made
that it's as valuable as it was two hundred years ago but there are growing numbers who
believe that it did reach its peak back then and has ebbed slightly in value. It will probably
remain a good vehicle to protect one's wealth from sporatic inflation for generations.

The problem with gold is the ame as for fiat; politicians can gut either. Changing banking
law, debasing the coinage, selling the backing for currency, etc, etc, has occurred forever.

It's not the nature of fiat that causes inflation, it's the nature of politicians. It's the nature of
people to put leaders in place who promise to raid the treasury or to stop the taxing to fill it.

I think we are crossing agruments for investments, money, and security.

As an investment having a lb. of gold is better than having a lb. of paper money,, one will maintain it's value and one will erode.

As money, and for the purpose of commerce, I believe them to be equal with a slight nod to paper as the convenient media in high volume trading of today,,,, and each can experience errosion via the Theory of Quantity (paper by printing more of it, gold by mining more of it). Look at what happened in Spain when all that new America's gold hit it's economy.

As security both suck, although gold abit less ("abit"). At the lowest level, we must eat (grain / meats currency),,, be clothed (Cloth / leathers currency),, and be housed (lumber / home currency).. you can't eat gold , wear gold , or seek shelter in gold.... same goes for paper.

Well you can wear gold and it's quite fashionable. You can also wear paper, but don't go out in a rain storm wearing it!!!

Burrrrr..... lol

I think the thing is that paper mony is supposed to draw its value by representing something with inherent value while paper money is today simply fiat...the same as emergency money of old. Paper money now has value simple because someone says so and with fractional banking money is just created out of thin air and floods the market with new money thus keep us in a constant state of inflation.

Today this note is worth.... $5.50
Today the silver dollars that would have paid out this note are worth....$51.74

Anybody wanna hand me their Morgans for this?



Today this note is worth about $25-$30 today(collectible value you know)

Today the $20 Gold St. Gaudens it would have paid out would be worth....$653.20!

Who is going to give me their Saint for this one?

Your right. This should be the most significant point in this argument. The comparison of an old twenty dollar bill vs. it's gold currency counterpart is a comparison of investments in my mind. Anyone holding a $20 gold coin in a safe for that period of time would have been much better served by putting it into the stock market or real estate or numerous other investments that historically outperform gold as a place to park money over time.
Now as to the inherent value of gold,,,, well, I guess it's pretty. Silver is used more in industry so I see it's value abit more clearly. Copper is consumed in large quantities in industrial and residential applications, so I really see it's value...... and any of them are subject to the laws of Quantity (inflation) as mining production can be amped up at will. ..... and what the heck would we do if we couldn't inflate our national deficit away as needed.... Fiscal responsibility in the land of backyard pools, SUV's, and hair spray... r u kidding

You realize the gold and silver money could be carried out of the country and melted and we end up with a broke country. . . .

We already are a broke country!!!!

OK - now let me ask you a question. Let's say you had 10 Troy ounces of gold ( just plain ordinary gold not coins with numismatic value ) and I offered you 8 current $100 dollar bills for each ounce - would you say no ?

Well I already know you wouldn't say no, but why ? It's just worthless paper isn't it ?

its worthless paper that someone arbitrarily gave a value to backed by nothing but say so...If the paper was a promissory note it would be different. Its not the paper but what backs it. That paper is worth less and less as the they create more and more each day...it now takes like 61/2 of those pieces of paper to buy each of those ounces while at one time it took much much less, because those pieces of paper represented something at one time..

It is slowly taking more and more of those pieces of paper to buy anything at all...because of course the more pieces of paper you make (or make on a computer)...the less all those other pieces of paper (or 1's and 0's ) are worth.
I would take your 8 pieces of paper and buy more gold at the current market value (or wait for a dip) and keep the extra to spend in the system set up by welathy private banking families that almost forces us to use that paper and the banks they own if you want to get by (or plastic and credit)...

In essence, the paper is worthless but the government (fed) fiat isnt as long as they prop up the system. Of course the whole world is on fiat now so it is one big fiat system. Like WWI notgeld but on a worldwide scale...when the US goes fiat...the world does. So worth of money is proped up by a worldwide system and all nations fiat is validated by a few nations fiat...its all very interesting. Since we have went fiat there has been constant inflation and thats even with the hedging to slow it down. I think soon our money will be much like italy where 50,000 lira rents you a moped for a few days

Hehehe, I remember when I first started buying silver bullion rounds, I loved to clink them together. Not only do they have a beautiful ring, but they sound so different from the 'change' minted today.

The video was cool. A really condensed version of info that any good Capitalist already knows. Paper money that isn't directly linked to specie of some sort, that is to say, exchangeable on demand, is ultimately worthless. Linking paper to specie also limits the amount of promissory notes that can be printed at all, which stops inflation.

I'm surprised that no one arguing this viewpoint cited Murrey Rothbard's definitive work on the subject: The Case for the 100% Gold Dollar. It's a long read for a weblink (about 30 pages printed), but very informative.

Actually I would say yes, because the net profit would be $1500, which I could take along with the other funds and buy 12 ozs to sell to you at the price of 14

We already are a broke country!!!!

True,, but if we inflate that 10 bazillion debt down to 1 bazillion, then we ain't really that broke anymore... and printing debt away is a heck of alot easier than mining it away. R.Rodney makes a good point also.

Of course you would say yes, that was my whole point. The real question was why you would say yes. I mean here you would be giving me gold, "real money" for worthless paper.

As you can see the point I am making is that you don't really consider it to be worthless paper - you consider it to be money with which you can go and buy things - that's what you do with money. And the reason you can go and buy things with it is because everybody else in the world considers it to be money as well.

Which of course is the point of the entire conversation - "real money" can be anything, anything at all. There is no denying this, there is no arguing the point. The facts speak for themselves. Real money is anything that people are willing to accept as money - even worthless paper.

And if anyone disagrees with GDJMSP's last line there, I might just end up doing a MA (Econ) thesis paper on this topic agruing that.

Right, you have made a very good point, real money is whatever people are willing to accept. People accept worthless paper because they believe that it has some value, in fact the only value it has is the confidence that somehow the government or institution that issued it will back it up somehow. But the comparison to gold or silver coinage is that if the government that issued them lost the ability to value them, at least they retained the value of the metal included in them, that is a universal value. Paper is only utilitarian at that point for recycling or using to light a fire, or if it is pretty or historical retain as a collectible. I have whole albums full of paper money that only now has collectible value and none other.

As I illustrated above in the thread with the gold and silver certificates, the government issued paper, but basically decided it no longer is redeemable for gold or silver or anything universally and historically recognized as value, but only that the government deems it legal tender.

GDJMSP and ccq, what you say is true, but really only in the short run. Certainly, I would accept your offer of $800 for each ounce of my gold because in the short run I know I can go out right now and buy more gold with that $800 than I just sold to you. So you are right, in the short run the paper is worth what people believe it to be worth. I'm sure you could have made the same offer in 1922 in Germany and offered 1 billion marks for an ounce of gold, and someone would have been happy with the deal. If they merely held the marks, they would have been sorry a year later when an ounce of gold was selling for 475 trillion marks.

Similarly, if you offered me just 5 $100 bills for an ounce of gold in 2002, I would have taken it, but by today I would be kicking myself. Ignoring the time element is missing much of the story, especially since, like it or not, in the long run every fiat currency in history has gone to its intrinsic value, but gold and silver are still gold and silver.

I really think many people are beating a dead horse, so to speak. I think I've told this to many people before and they have all agreed. In the not to distant future such things as paper money, Gold, Silver, Platinum, coins for money, etc will all be a thing of the past. The not to distant future is dueto the constant improvements in trades with all countries all over the planet. Eventually there will just have to be one type of monitary system for everyone. Regardless of even that, I'm afraid the plastic thing we almost all now carry will be the thing in the future. A computer will automatically change your US bucks into whatever they use in China, Japan, Germany, Australia, Lower Slobovia and possibly the Moon or Mars. Even now so many gas stations have slots for credit cards and then leave. Stores, hospitals, even Las Vegas have gone to the computer for money systems. I forsee even gum ball machines will soon be credit card freindly.
Someday, and not to long from now, a kid will be saying "Hey Grandpa, what was that stuff you people used to use way, way back called cash or money? I heard at school some was actually made out of metal"

But the comparison to gold or silver coinage is that if the government that issued them lost the ability to value them.......
** Then in that environment you'd be much better served by a gun and plenty of ammo.. maybe a piece of land, some seed, and livestock. Gold is worthless in a worthless economy, and a bag of rice would have more value than a bag of gold.
This argument is commonly used to sell gold using fear... powerful marketing.

GDJMSP and ccq, what you say is true, but really only in the short run
** That's what money is for, short term transactions. Anything else I'd consider an investment,, which gold is o.k., but not the best.

Gold, Silver, Platinum, coins for money, etc will all be a thing of the past..
** nod.

This is exactly what makes gold and silver or any other commodity so exceedingly
dangerous in the modern age. Gold has no intrinsic value. It is worth no more and
no less than what people think it's worth. But people have a long history of suddenly
revaluing things. If a huge gold discovery is made the value of the currency would
evaporate overnight causing a financial panic. Such events are not sufferable in mod-
ern times.

Ideally currency should be like a stock certificate in the issuing entity or perhaps like
a bond. As productivity and wealth increases, its value should reflect most of that in-
crease. As is the government spends so much that they take all of that increase plus
add on the large tax called inflation.

Again I say, the problems of fiat have no bearing on the composition, or lack thereof,
of the money but rather it lays in us who vote for politicians who promise to rape the
treasury. Start voting for statesmen and quit voting for populists and the money will
be strong soon enough even with no backing whatsoever.

I agree, but this will never happen as long as human nature is what it is.

I'm sure you're right.

Perhaps a new Constitutional Convention is called for.

Any tinkering with the Constitution will not lead to any improvements. The Constitution is fine, leave it alone. What needs to happen is the citizens of the USA need to actually learn and appreciate what is there, and apply the rights given accordingly. In essence the Constitution is not the problem, the people that have no earthly idea what is in it are the real problem.

More people can also stand up and exercise their Constitutionally afforded right to vote, yet they don't. Blames are common, work, school etc. But I have always known that any employer must legally allow employees time to vote. Frankly it all comes down to pure and simple laziness and the "I don't think it does any good" scenario. Here locally we have had a millage defeated three times in a row, by only a few votes in the whole county. This is with approximately 30% of the electorate voting. So now services which we have relied on and need are gone.

It's my fault for leading this off topic and I don't intend to post further on this but
I don't want you to misunderstand my point. The only real error of The Constitution
is that The Articles of Confederation were never properly superceded. The document
itself lacks only to the degree that it has not been followed and going back to correct
this is an impossibility. An onion can not be returned to its start by peeling away layers.

It's not that there is any fault in The Constitution; it's merely that it has been changed
in the name on convenience over the years. Perhaps a new one which incorporates
more of the current realities while preserving and expanding on the original would revit-
alize the spirit of the founders and spread it among more of its citizens.

I'm really dreading the day that happens. I know several people, including my mum who have been victims to card cloning & have now decided to use cash more.

As far as I'm concerned cash is still superior, at least if you have a fake you have one & only lost the value of that fake (be it a £1 coin or £20 note). Depending on how quick you are depends on how much the b*st*rd who cloned your card gets away with.

Also could you imagine buying a 45p chocolate bar with a Natwest card, just ridiculous