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Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 7 months
Re: It was all a lie. [Re: Yrat]
    #14884994 - 08/07/11 10:55 AM (12 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Yrat said:
zappa, i will never understand why you don't believe in honest money.  in your support for govt sponsored paper "money," you are no different from the liberal statists/socialists that you claim to despise.  there are some serious misunderstandings evident in your post here.  i suggest you read the two essays i quoted in the previous post.  they will answer the questions you have raised (it is clear you did not read them) and much more.  but i will answer your questions just for the sake of argument here as well...




There is nothing more or less statist in one currency vs another.  There is nothing in the form of the currency that either causes or facilitates government spending one over the other.  The form of the currency is completely and utterly irrelevant to government expansion and spending
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Quote:

zappaisgod said:


1.  Inflation existed with the gold standard.  Or didn't you know that?




not at a rate that seriously inflates the money supply.  that is the whole point of the comment, and meams', that you seem to conveniently miss.




Oh no?  And why shouldn't the money supply increase with population and productivity increases?  Answer is that it actually must or wealth will diminish.  There hasn't been any inflation to speak of for over 2 decades.  Several times there has been huge inflation under the gold standard.  The form of the currency is irrelevant to inflation.  It is a simpleton's argument to say that gold standard will curb inflation any better than fiat.  It is historically inaccurate.
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2.  Gold mining is not a one gram costs the same as another gram to mine.  If gold is at $32 it isn't worth digging for.  If it is at $1600 there are much lower yield mines that become profitable.  In your theoretical mishmash do you know a single fucking thing about gold mining?  It isn't the cost of mining it that gives it its value.  It is its value that decides how much you will spend to mine it.




you are still pricing gold in terms of dollars, which is entirely irrelevant to this conversation.  you need to shift your frame of thought towards energy/labor expended, not some arbitrary paper value which you are having trouble looking past.




And how is energy and labor expended counted these days?  With dollars.  By the way, under your gold backed currency scheme it will still be expressed in dollars.  Not all gold mined is equal.  Sometimes it costs about $300 an ounce and sometimes it costs $1,000 an ounce.  Or didn't you know that?
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3.  Mali, a complete shithole, was #8 in 2006 for gold production.  Peru was #5, Ghana #10.  These countries can print money under your scheme.  Japan is 29, India 51.  Germany and England don't appear at all on the list




again, not "printing" anything if you are expending a tangible amount of energy to produce it.  think of gold as a measuring stick for expended energy.  i can pay for your expended energy with my expended energy, an entirely fair trade when we come to a voluntary price agreement and make a transaction.




It is only tangible because you assign it a value.:facepalm:  Think of dollars as a measuring stick for expended energy.  It is just as easy with fiat as with commodity backed currency.  Fiat also has the added feature that mineral rich nations are not favored simply because they have more rocks in the ground.  Then there is the fact that you readily admit above that the value of gold has to be established through convention.  Hmmmm, sounds like fiat to me.
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meams, the way you try to focus on the word assign is disingenuous at best.  WHO exactly was responsible for this assignment that you speak of?  you make it sound like a few people gathered round one fine day and decided to use gold as money from then on out, when in reality it was the sum of countless voluntary transactions over thousands of generations across thousands of years that "assigned" gold value.




Wampun lasted for a long time too.  So what?  The reason why gold was used as a currency in the stone age you can't advance beyond is that it didn't rust.  That is no longer a relevant feature.  We have banks.  Almost all financial transactions are in bytes.  They don't rust either.  And yes, a few guys did get in a room and assign gold a value.  Sometimes they changed it.




wampum is an interesting case, and i am working on an idea that, like gold, wampum had value because it took a shit ton of time and energy to produce.  thus, again, it was successful money because it allowed native american society to measure energy/labor against energy/labor.  your trust in banks and their government-provided monopoly to generate "wealth" out of thin air undermines your credibility and shows you for the statist that you truly are.




Aside from the fact that wealth is not generated out of thin air (currency is not wealth.  It is a measure of wealth.  Fiat/commodity, it doesn't matter.  And the banks existed long before we got off the gold standard.  Or didn't you know that?
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Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 7 months
Re: It was all a lie. [Re: zappaisgod]
    #14884996 - 08/07/11 10:55 AM (12 years, 5 months ago)

Continued
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Quote:

 
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gold's value is inherent in that it functions as the perfect form of money discovered by human society thus far.  i'm not saying it will always be that way, as some day in the future the free market might settle on an even more efficient form of money than gold, but that form is certainly not paper money.  and the world, having long been asleep to the paper shenanigans, is finally waking up again.




You have to be an idiot to think that gold is a convenient form of money.  It is a pain in the ass to schlep that heavy shit around.




the most childish argument you could have produced, on par with "you can't eat gold" (hint: you can't eat paper dollars either).  that is why you have gold redeemable, or "gold-backed," paper currency.  you know... king of like how the dollar started out?  you would be an idiot to think that anyone would want to carry around actual physical gold.  instead, you carry around paper representation of gold, which you can then take to a bank to exchange at the set rate if you require the metal.  c'mon zappa, now you're just being disingenuous.




Commodity backed currency that is arbitrarily assigned a value based on nothing other than the scarcity of the commodity, which scarcity can change at any time simply by digging in the ground, and convention.  Huge difference there.  Just huge.  Humungous huge.:facepalm:
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from Rome to the USA, the greatest empires in the history of the world were founded on and grew upon widely circulated and standardized gold coinage.  and all of these empires collapsed once this coinage was debased and/or discontinued.  there is a good reason for this: gold is honest money.  when released from the shackles of monetary systems with the potential for debasement and inflation, human society flourishes and thrives, and great civilizations are built.  however, once removed from this life force by individuals seeking to parasitize off the actual productive classes of society, humanity withers and retreats.




Did the Roman Empire collapse because it stopped using gold for trade?




actually yes, gold and silver.  go research the history of the silver denarius before you make more of a fool out of yourself.  if you do, you might be surprised at the parallel between gold/silver currency during the decline of Rome, and gold/silver used in US currency in the last 50 years.  why do you think silver coinage was discontinued in '64?  it's all about debasement of the money supply zappa, and you are convincing me more and more than you simply can not grasp this concept.




:facepalm:The Roman Empire did not decline because of their currency.  This is one of the reasons why I think the gold bugs are actually religious simpletons[quoet]
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Why not diamonds?  Why not a whole bunch of other nonsense?  Titanium, platinum, foreskins?




if you actually read my quoted posts above, you will easily find several answers to this ridiculous question.




No.  Just do it here.  Not a hard question.  Why the fuck not diamonds?  There is not one single feature of gold that does npot apply to diamonds or platinum.
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Are you so fucking ignorant that you don't realize there were "parasites" even with the gold standard?  Good fucking zappa the raw trembling nonsense from the gold nuts makes my hair hurt.




gold stands in the way of the welfare state and prevents the deficit spending that supports it.  seriously, read those essays.  you might actually see the light.  by supporting a paper regime you are propping up the welfare state that you claim to oppose.  i seriously can not understand why you are unable to see the glaring hypocrisy in your own philosophies.




Gold does not stand in the way of the welfare state.  It sure as shit didn't under FDR and they sure as shit had no problem arbitrarily changing its exchange rate with the dollar when it suited them.
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i am not saying take the money supply back to a gold standard.  what i am saying is remove legal tender laws, thus removing the state-endorsed monopoly on what can and can't be used as money, and let the free market decide what to use as a medium of exchange.  yes, it would likely go back to gold and silver for a time, but there is nothing preventing humanity from settling on a different medium if it is indeed more efficient.

if paper money is indeed a more efficient medium of exchange, why does it need the state to uphold its use through legal tender laws?  riddle me that one, oh genius-zappa.





Every nation on the planet regulates its currency.  It is a necessary function of government.  Do you know about what a disaster it was when banks printed their own script?


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OfflineMr.Al
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Registered: 05/27/07
Posts: 5,388
Loc: N.S.A. D.C.
Last seen: 30 days, 20 hours
Re: It was all a lie. [Re: zappaisgod]
    #14885552 - 08/07/11 01:17 PM (12 years, 5 months ago)

"...banks printing their own scrip."



Is that anything different from the relationship between the federal reserve and the treasury today?

The only distinction I see that you advocate for is the ability for the government to maintain a monopoly on the printing press.

I think that you are barking up the wrong tree when you are concerned about banks issuing their own "legal tender", you are referencing wildcat banking again, yes?!?  I find it odd that you appear concerned about various institutions issuing different forms of paper (?) and yet you remain mute about private minting as a viable competing alternative to the fiat (that means "by decree") money.

I maintain that competition is healthy for mediums of exchange and therefore advocate the immediate repeal of legal tender laws.

Fiat currency should have to compete with other mediums of exchange on a level playing field.

What sayest ye zap?!?

How is your dogmatic support of fiat currency truly any different from  the monarchies of old who practiced seignorage?


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Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 7 months
Re: It was all a lie. [Re: Mr.Al]
    #14885880 - 08/07/11 02:50 PM (12 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Mr.Al said:
"...banks printing their own scrip."



Is that anything different from the relationship between the federal reserve and the treasury today?




Yes.
Quote:




The only distinction I see that you advocate for is the ability for the government to maintain a monopoly on the printing press.




I believe that is the law of the Constitution and the law of every nation in the world.
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I think that you are barking up the wrong tree when you are concerned about banks issuing their own "legal tender", you are referencing wildcat banking again, yes?!?  I find it odd that you appear concerned about various institutions issuing different forms of paper (?) and yet you remain mute about private minting as a viable competing alternative to the fiat (that means "by decree") money.




What do you mean by private minting?  There are lots of private mints.  They just aren't allowed to present themselves as US currency.  Like baseball cards.
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I maintain that competition is healthy for mediums of exchange and therefore advocate the immediate repeal of legal tender laws.




I and history maintain that it is idiotic
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Fiat currency should have to compete with other mediums of exchange on a level playing field.




Do you know why there is only fiat currency in the world, Al?  Because it out competed commodity currency.  Bye Bye commodity.
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What sayest ye zap?!?

How is your dogmatic support of fiat currency truly any different from  the monarchies of old who practiced seignorage?




The only dogma I see is from the religious L. Ron bots.


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OfflineYrat
Hello

Registered: 11/08/07
Posts: 2,312
Last seen: 2 years, 10 months
Re: It was all a lie. [Re: zappaisgod]
    #14885896 - 08/07/11 02:54 PM (12 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

zappaisgod said:


There is nothing more or less statist in one currency vs another.  There is nothing in the form of the currency that either causes or facilitates government spending one over the other.  The form of the currency is completely and utterly irrelevant to government expansion and spending.




wrong.  completely, utterly, and could not be more, wrong.  a currency is indeed statist if its use is required by the state via laws enforced by the threat of violence.  if the use of a currency is mandated by the state, and would otherwise collapse if not for the threat of violence enforcing its use, this is not statist?  you are so far off base here it is almost painful.  government spending and expansion is entirely reliant on inflation of the money supply (i.e. monopoly on counterfeiting) that funds said expansion through theft via inflation.  this is not possible under a hard-backed currency, since the spending and expansion would have to be funded by direct taxation, instead of the stealth tax of inflation.  such a direct taxation would soon meet resistance, and likely revolution, and thus government resorts to the more covert measure of inflation instead.

Quote:

Oh no?  And why shouldn't the money supply increase with population and productivity increases?  Answer is that it actually must or wealth will diminish.  There hasn't been any inflation to speak of for over 2 decades.  Several times there has been huge inflation under the gold standard.  The form of the currency is irrelevant to inflation.  It is a simpleton's argument to say that gold standard will curb inflation any better than fiat.  It is historically inaccurate.




under a gold standard, money supply does increase with population and productivity, at about a 2% increase per year... coincidentally, about the rate of a healthily growing economy.  even if it doesn't, however, wealth will not diminish, because prices will deflate and reward those who produce and save, instead of our current system that rewards debtors and punishes savers.  the ability to save and safely store capital is the only solid foundation to any economy, and you are arguing against this fact. 

are you arguing about price inflation or monetary inflation?  you need to define this.  i am using the classical definition of inflation:  an increase in the money supply that results in an increase in prices.


Quote:

And how is energy and labor expended counted these days?  With dollars.  By the way, under your gold backed currency scheme it will still be expressed in dollars.  Not all gold mined is equal.  Sometimes it costs about $300 an ounce and sometimes it costs $1,000 an ounce.  Or didn't you know that?




energy and labor expended is currently counted in dollars, but this is entirely meaningless when a group of bankers can produce more dollars willy-nilly at the drop of a hat, matched by zero energy or labor.  this is the basis of the fraud inherent in a paper money system.  you are unable to grasp this. 

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It is only tangible because you assign it a value.:facepalm:  Think of dollars as a measuring stick for expended energy.  It is just as easy with fiat as with commodity backed currency.  Fiat also has the added feature that mineral rich nations are not favored simply because they have more rocks in the ground.  Then there is the fact that you readily admit above that the value of gold has to be established through convention.  Hmmmm, sounds like fiat to me.




no one is assigning it value except for the free market composed of countless voluntary transactions.  your argument is completely unfounded.  what assigns the paper dollar value:  government mandate.  you are a statist.

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Aside from the fact that wealth is not generated out of thin air (currency is not wealth.  It is a measure of wealth.  Fiat/commodity, it doesn't matter.  And the banks existed long before we got off the gold standard.  Or didn't you know that?




don't even know what you're saying here.  you are not making any sense.  of course banks existed before gold standards.  banks' business is the collective pooling and storage of wealth, no matter what form that wealth takes.  your statement makes zero sense, wtf are you even saying?  you support the government provided monopoly of banks to produce currency out of thin air, and take a slice of it as "profits," thus stealing value from anyone else holding dollars.  you are a statist.

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Commodity backed currency that is arbitrarily assigned a value based on nothing other than the scarcity of the commodity, which scarcity can change at any time simply by digging in the ground, and convention.  Huge difference there.  Just huge.  Humungous huge.:facepalm:




wrong.  value is based on free market exchange by countless voluntary transactions, with prices shifting to accommodate such.  if scarcity can change so easily at any time, why don't you go digging in your backyard for some gold?  you are being disingenuous again. 

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:facepalm:The Roman Empire did not decline because of their currency.  This is one of the reasons why I think the gold bugs are actually religious simpletons




lol.    yes. it. did.    seriously, this is proven true by anyone wanting to do 5 minutes of research.  when Rome began debasing its gold and silver coinage in order to inflate its money supply, and steal wealth from the citizens, it marked the beginning of the end for the empire. 

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No.  Just do it here.  Not a hard question.  Why the fuck not diamonds?  There is not one single feature of gold that does npot apply to diamonds or platinum.




diamonds are neither divisible nor homogenous.  platinum does function as money, mostly in russia in parallel with gold and palladium.  really, just read those essays.  your continued refusal to do so only paints you as ignorant.

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Gold does not stand in the way of the welfare state.  It sure as shit didn't under FDR and they sure as shit had no problem arbitrarily changing its exchange rate with the dollar when it suited them.




again, read the essays to see how you are wrong.  if anyone held gold under FDR, they were perfectly fine, whereas if they traded in their gold for paper dollars, they lost 60% of their purchasing power.  and yet you somehow use this historical fact in support of paper "money."  you are in over your head.



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Every nation on the planet regulates its currency.  It is a necessary function of government.  Do you know about what a disaster it was when banks printed their own script?




oooo... so it is necessary to regulate what is used by individuals as a medium of exchange?  now we know for sure: you are a statist.


--------------------
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil
to one who is striking at the root."
-Henry David Thoreau
Strike The Root


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Offlinezappaisgod
horrid asshole


Registered: 02/11/04
Posts: 81,741
Loc: Fractallife's gym
Last seen: 7 years, 7 months
Re: It was all a lie. [Re: Yrat]
    #14886010 - 08/07/11 03:14 PM (12 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Section 8.

The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;

To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;


To establish post offices and post roads;

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;

To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;

To provide and maintain a navy;

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.




Apparently the founding fathers, every other nation in the world and the vast majority of the world's population is too statist for you.  Do you realize that simple fact makes you and the other dogmatic nuts look like idiots?  Do you have any idea how simpletons would be destroyed in the anarchy you espouse?  Do you know who I mean by simpleton?


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OfflineYrat
Hello

Registered: 11/08/07
Posts: 2,312
Last seen: 2 years, 10 months
Re: It was all a lie. [Re: zappaisgod]
    #14887170 - 08/07/11 07:43 PM (12 years, 5 months ago)

do you realize that what you just quoted is not the system that is in place today?  and thus your argument is entirely irrelevant? 

there is nothing in there that would provide government with a sole monopoly on coining money, just that it would be allowed to compete with private industry in generating the most efficient medium of exchange.  that doesn't mean mandating what can and can not be used for commerce via legal tender laws... nor granting monopoly status to a private corporate bank to make the one and only legal tender.

do you ignore that gold and silver were the money that the founders had in mind?  thus coining money, and fixing the standard weights and measures of such?  as in, .999 fine, 1 troy oz? 

tell me, what is the standard weight and measure of the fiat dollar?  and does the government coin our money? 

keep digging your hole.


--------------------
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil
to one who is striking at the root."
-Henry David Thoreau
Strike The Root


Edited by Yrat (08/07/11 07:51 PM)


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Invisiblememes
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Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 01/11/05
Posts: 27,785
Loc: In a Tree
Re: It was all a lie. [Re: Yrat]
    #14887651 - 08/07/11 09:39 PM (12 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Yrat Said:
meams, the way you try to focus on the word assign is disingenuous at best.  WHO exactly was responsible for this assignment that you speak of?  you make it sound like a few people gathered round one fine day and decided to use gold as money from then on out, when in reality it was the sum of countless voluntary transactions over thousands of generations across thousands of years that "assigned" gold value. 




Sorry I've been gone - been drivin to/from DC (finally found an apt to lease).  You pretty much summed up my argument with the conclusion of the above quote: "when in reality it was the sum of countless voluntary transactions over thousands of generations...etc"

Yes.  That is how gold was 'assigned' its value.  Which, if you go back to my ORIGINAL postin this thread - is exactly what I said:  Gold was assigned value by the accepting populus just like fiat money is today.

The advantages of the olden days (as zappa has said) are by-and-large moot.  Its desirable feature of being a stalwart against human-manipulated inflation is simultaneously its downfall, disallowing any sort of economic boost in times of need:  essentially forfeiting a spiralling economy into submission until it hits rock bottom.

While this may be the "morally correct" option, I don't see it as politically or financially viable in today's world.  Humans (specifically us westerners) have become accustomed to a certain baseline level of lifestyle.  I'm not a huge advocate for gov't injections, but I understand their role.  I can't think of a single gov't on the planet that would willingly let their national economy spiral into a perpetuating downfall.  Expansionary fiscal & monetary policy allow intervening actions.  I'm NOT a keynesian, but I understand their fundamental principles.










And on an entirely seperate note:  You & Zappa have to stop posting these goddamn books.  Do you guys actually read the multi-page documents you quote in your posts?  I know I don't.  If you can't sum up your argument conceisely in a few paragraphs, then its probably a shitty argument.


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InvisibleIcelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
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Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
Re: It was all a lie. [Re: Gibson33]
    #14887708 - 08/07/11 09:54 PM (12 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Gibson33 said:
Quote:

meams said:
Quote:

only theoretical worth allows it to perpetuate and facilitate in society



that goes for anything.  Gold only has value because people think it does :shrug:



Exactly what I was thinking. Technically nothing has true value, it's all theoretically valued.





Really? What about things like food, shelter, water, etc.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC


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InvisibleDieCommie

Registered: 12/11/03
Posts: 29,258
Re: It was all a lie. [Re: Icelander]
    #14887765 - 08/07/11 10:05 PM (12 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Icelander said:
Quote:

Gibson33 said:
Quote:

meams said:
Quote:

only theoretical worth allows it to perpetuate and facilitate in society



that goes for anything.  Gold only has value because people think it does :shrug:



Exactly what I was thinking. Technically nothing has true value, it's all theoretically valued.





Really? What about things like food, shelter, water, etc.




Those only have value with respect to wanting to stay alive.  There is no inherent value in anything, only value with respect to some thing.


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OfflineYrat
Hello

Registered: 11/08/07
Posts: 2,312
Last seen: 2 years, 10 months
Re: It was all a lie. [Re: memes]
    #14888831 - 08/08/11 05:39 AM (12 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

meams said:
Quote:

Yrat Said:
meams, the way you try to focus on the word assign is disingenuous at best.  WHO exactly was responsible for this assignment that you speak of?  you make it sound like a few people gathered round one fine day and decided to use gold as money from then on out, when in reality it was the sum of countless voluntary transactions over thousands of generations across thousands of years that "assigned" gold value. 




Sorry I've been gone - been drivin to/from DC (finally found an apt to lease).  You pretty much summed up my argument with the conclusion of the above quote: "when in reality it was the sum of countless voluntary transactions over thousands of generations...etc"

Yes.  That is how gold was 'assigned' its value.  Which, if you go back to my ORIGINAL postin this thread - is exactly what I said:  Gold was assigned value by the accepting populus just like fiat money is today.




well yes, but there is a huge difference.  the use of fiat is mandated by government decree, instead of being voluntarily chosen by the free market.  other than that, yes, i agree.

Quote:

The advantages of the olden days (as zappa has said) are by-and-large moot.  Its desirable feature of being a stalwart against human-manipulated inflation is simultaneously its downfall, disallowing any sort of economic boost in times of need:  essentially forfeiting a spiralling economy into submission until it hits rock bottom.

While this may be the "morally correct" option, I don't see it as politically or financially viable in today's world.  Humans (specifically us westerners) have become accustomed to a certain baseline level of lifestyle.  I'm not a huge advocate for gov't injections, but I understand their role.  I can't think of a single gov't on the planet that would willingly let their national economy spiral into a perpetuating downfall.  Expansionary fiscal & monetary policy allow intervening actions.  I'm NOT a keynesian, but I understand their fundamental principles.




if you read the greenspan essay i quoted, you will see an explanation of why this is actually a good thing.  have you ever read greenspans gold essay?  it is really quite fascinating considering his talking points now... especially this one from yesterday:




Quote:

And on an entirely seperate note:  You & Zappa have to stop posting these goddamn books.  Do you guys actually read the multi-page documents you quote in your posts?  I know I don't.  If you can't sum up your argument conceisely in a few paragraphs, then its probably a shitty argument.




i have read those two gold essays i posted multiple times.  i recommend them to anyone interested in learning a little bit of economics/history, even if the main arguments are not agreed with.  you should really read them meams.  smoke a bowl one night and go through both... they don't take much more than 10 min to read.


--------------------
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil
to one who is striking at the root."
-Henry David Thoreau
Strike The Root


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Invisiblememes
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Registered: 01/11/05
Posts: 27,785
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Re: It was all a lie. [Re: Yrat]
    #14889406 - 08/08/11 09:27 AM (12 years, 5 months ago)

K - will do.  As soon as I can smoke again :frown:



I'll likely read them before, regardless. 








But i stand by my contention that essays should not merely be posted-in-full in teh stead of an argument.  Surmise it yourself, link the essay for those who wantmore.  Otherwise, we could simply have a link-war-debate, which, i'm sure, nobody would consider valuable.





Quote:

well yes, but there is a huge difference.  the use of fiat is mandated by government decree, instead of being voluntarily chosen by the free market.  other than that, yes, i agree.




Valid point.  Sadly it ends in the same result - and one that supports my argument.  The fiat money of today has value because the masses recognize that it does.  Whether it was "deemed so" by thousands of years of transactions (as in gold), or by a one-time government decree (fiat), the end result is ONLY VIABLE if the masses continue to recognize the assigned value. 

OUr gov't could say "1992 Volvo's are the new currency, paper money is useless".  And nobody would listen.  And volvo's would be worth the same they are now.







Its not the origin that is relevant, its the means of perpetuation.


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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: It was all a lie. [Re: Yrat]
    #14889430 - 08/08/11 09:34 AM (12 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

Yrat said:
do you realize that what you just quoted is not the system that is in place today?  and thus your argument is entirely irrelevant? 

there is nothing in there that would provide government with a sole monopoly on coining money, just that it would be allowed to compete with private industry in generating the most efficient medium of exchange.  that doesn't mean mandating what can and can not be used for commerce via legal tender laws... nor granting monopoly status to a private corporate bank to make the one and only legal tender.

do you ignore that gold and silver were the money that the founders had in mind?  thus coining money, and fixing the standard weights and measures of such?  as in, .999 fine, 1 troy oz? 

tell me, what is the standard weight and measure of the fiat dollar?  and does the government coin our money? 

keep digging your hole.



:rofl2:

It never fucking ends.  It says, "to coin money and regulate the value thereof."  It does not specify the form in any way at all.  As to fixing the standards of weights and measures that does not specifically apply to coinage.  Note the clause in between the two;  "To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures".  Does the Constitution also grant powers to fix the standards and weights of foreign coins?  No, obviously, it does not.

I don't know what the standard weight of a dollar is but I guarantee it has one.  Even during the gold standard days there wasn't 20 dollars worth of gold in a twenty dollar gold coin.  You weren't trading bullion.

Nor can you back up either claim that the gold standard protects against inflation as the word is commonly used
http://inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/HistoricalInflation.aspx?dsInflation_currentPage=5

Or that the gold standard prevents government deficit spending
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_deficit_chart.html

Every government in the world reserves the right to coin money to itself.  When the US didn't it was chaos. 

The particular choice of gold as a medium is itself arbitrary.  Arbitrarily choosing gold has a disproportionate international effect in that many shitholes have a lot of gold in the ground and many economic powerhouses have none to speak of.

The government can at any time it wishes adjust the gold reserve standard (and has).
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/fdr-takes-united-states-off-gold-standard

Quote:

On April 5, 1933, Roosevelt ordered all gold coins and gold certificates in denominations of more than $100 turned in for other money. It required all persons to deliver all gold coin, gold bullion and gold certificates owned by them to the Federal Reserve by May 1 for the set price of $20.67 per ounce. By May 10, the government had taken in $300 million of gold coin and $470 million of gold certificates. Two months later, a joint resolution of Congress abrogated the gold clauses in many public and private obligations that required the debtor to repay the creditor in gold dollars of the same weight and fineness as those borrowed. In 1934, the government price of gold was increased to $35 per ounce, effectively increasing the gold on the Federal Reserve's balance sheets by 69 percent. This increase in assets allowed the Federal Reserve to further inflate the money supply.




They took the gold away for $20 then resold it for $35.  Yes, they government can do that even with gold currency.

The money supply must expand as production and population grow else everyone will have less each year.

Flexibility is a good and Constitutionally mandated role of the federal government regarding the regulation of the money.


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Invisiblememes
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Re: It was all a lie. [Re: zappaisgod]
    #14889682 - 08/08/11 10:45 AM (12 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

zappaisgod said:
The money supply must expand as production and population grow else everyone will have less each year.

Flexibility is a good and Constitutionally mandated role of the federal government regarding the regulation of the money.



Yrat. I want you to pay close attention to these last two sentences, from Zappa's last post.

Specifically the first.  It is paramount to our debate here.


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OfflineYrat
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Re: It was all a lie. [Re: memes]
    #14890022 - 08/08/11 12:25 PM (12 years, 5 months ago)

(ignoring for a moment that a gold supply is actually increased at a rate of ~2% per year...)

i believe that is a common misunderstanding of a static-money supply system.

people will not have less each year, as zappa assumes.  instead, the purchasing power of each unit of money increases in order to match the growth in goods.  this occurs in the form of slowly dropping prices, as each unit of money can buy more over time, but not drastically more.  it is the opposite effect that we have today, where purchasing power of each unit of money is eroded via inflation of the money supply, which we witness as the constant increase in prices.

not to mention that the currenct rate of currency production, and that of the past several decades, far outpaces that of population and economic growth, otherwise we should see no increase in prices at all.  thus, zappa's argument is meaningless.

in the current system, people DO have less and less each year as inflation erodes away their purchasing power.  zappa, how do you manage to convince yourself otherwise??

a system of static money supply rewards savers, promotes production, and allows for the safe storage of capital, all vital pillars of any economic foundation.  what we have today is a foundation built on sand, nevermind the inherent problems in a system based on credit and compound interest.  there is only one way for it to all end...

the essays i posted should not be taken as substitutes for my arguments, but rather references and support.  they truly are fascinating articles, and i know zappa could learn a lot from them if he weren't stubborn enough to refuse to read them.

zappa, there is no point in continuing to respond to you as you fail time and time again to understand the very materials you are posting.  if you think anyone actually turned in their gold during FDR's confiscation, you are very mistaken.  back then people actually understood the role of gold in the global monetary system, unlike the sheeple of today.  they knew the govt was about to devalue the dollar by 60%.  anyone who turned in their gold lost 60% of their savings overnight.  that is the flaw inherent in government mandated fiat.  why do you think they made holding gold illegal?  it was in order to force everyone into the fiat system so they could steal value from their savings through inflation in order to pay for their runaway spending.  the very fact that gold had to be outlawed was because it functions as real money!

imagine one big bank run, where many paper receipts have been printed reedemable for gold in the bank's vault.  except that the bankers have printed many more receipts than there is actual gold... causing depositors to make a run on the bank to withdraw what they believe is the gold they own in the vault.  this is what happened resulting in FDR's confiscation (hitler, lenin, and stalin also made gold illegal to own... why do you think that is?  READ BUFFET'S ESSAY!!), and then again after WWII and during vietnam.  the govt printed many more gold-backed $s than there was gold in the treasury.  france called this bluff, and started exchanging its reserves for physical metal.  this forced nixon to close the gold window for good, canceling the convertability of the once-backed paper into metal.  this was the US defaulting on its obligations to pay its contractual debts.  everything since then has been a big paper ponzi game to pretend that default never happened.  the only problem is that the compound interest is starting to go exponential, and you can not continue to grow credit exponentially in a finite system.  we are at the end game.  this is the fraud inherent to all paper currencies that always results in their collapse.  not to mention the problems with providing just a few people with the ability to inflate (read: monopoly on counterfeiting) the currency supply.

zappa, do you understand that it is not our government that controls nor "regulates" our currency?  but rather a private corporate bank?  i don't understand how you can make arguments about how government needs to regulate the medium of exchange (statist!) when that is not even the case today.

a freely inflatable money supply is what funds the gargantuan state excess that you continuously rail against, and yet you also continuously support the very system that allows it to exist!  doublethink much?  unreal...

meams, i am interested in your thoughts on the essays when you are finished with them.  especially greenspan's, in light of his more current positions and actions...


Edited by Yrat (08/08/11 12:37 PM)


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Offlinezappaisgod
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Re: It was all a lie. [Re: Yrat]
    #14890146 - 08/08/11 12:52 PM (12 years, 5 months ago)

1.  The point of that piece on FDR's gold flim flam was that the government in less than one year adjusted the value of gold vis-a-vis the dollar by 69%.  They can do it any time they want contra your assertions that the gold standard prevents it.
2.  The government deliberately established the quasi private bank to regulate the currency in order to insulate it from the daily vicissitudes of political wrangling.  It is on purpose and for good reason.

Inflation is peanuts and wages also rise.  But that is irrelevant to the argument that the gold standard will eliminate it.  As I have demonstrates, it does not.

You continue to look to an utterly simplistic solution that neither addresses your concerns (inflation and government manipulation) nor is there anything inherently problematic about fiat currency.  Our difficulties are 100% the result of  government interference in the housing and other markets and overall liberal "fairness" bullshit that rewards bums at the expense of the useful.  It doesn't have one fucking thing to do with the form of the currency.  None.  If you want to keep your assets in gold, knock yourself out.


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Invisiblememes
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Re: It was all a lie. [Re: zappaisgod]
    #14890209 - 08/08/11 01:04 PM (12 years, 5 months ago)

Quote:

zappaisgod said:
You continue to look to an utterly simplistic solution that neither addresses your concerns (inflation and government manipulation) nor is there anything inherently problematic about fiat currency.  Our difficulties are 100% the result of  government interference in the housing and other markets and overall liberal "fairness" bullshit that rewards bums at the expense of the useful.  It doesn't have one fucking thing to do with the form of the currency.  None.  If you want to keep your assets in gold, knock yourself out.




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OfflineYrat
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Re: It was all a lie. [Re: memes]
    #14890225 - 08/08/11 01:08 PM (12 years, 5 months ago)

nothing problematic with fiat currency, eh boys?

k, i'll remember that one.

it's just funny, ya know, looking at the results of all the countless attempts at fiat currency over the past thousands of years...

oh, right... it's different this time.


--------------------
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil
to one who is striking at the root."
-Henry David Thoreau
Strike The Root


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Invisiblememes
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Re: It was all a lie. [Re: Yrat]
    #14890277 - 08/08/11 01:19 PM (12 years, 5 months ago)

Yes.  fiat money is fine.
Quote:

Our difficulties are 100% the result of  government interference







[and b4 you rebutt.  fed =/= gov't]


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OfflineYrat
Hello

Registered: 11/08/07
Posts: 2,312
Last seen: 2 years, 10 months
Re: It was all a lie. [Re: memes]
    #14890297 - 08/08/11 01:22 PM (12 years, 5 months ago)

ouch.  i'm hurt that you think i would make such an amateur mixup :wink:


--------------------
"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil
to one who is striking at the root."
-Henry David Thoreau
Strike The Root


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