Homestead mailing list

[Leslie <cayadopi AT yahoo.com>]

Yes, it's the fiat currency that is debased.
 
As far as innate value of gold - I believe James definition of innate is more 
accurate.  Humans perceive gold to have value.  Gold isn't "born" with the 
value - the value is defined by humans.  But aside from that that, I 
understand the point you intend.  Humans for thousands of years have perceive 
it to have value and therefore use it as one way to store of wealth.
 
Hoarding to me implies instantly a means of storing wealth (no matter what is 
hoarded - gold, oil, rice, sugar) - even if not for the current owner's 
benefit but for an heir in the next generation or many generations down the 
road.    Gold being hoarded is an attempt to preserve wealth in the face of 
the possibility of wealth destruction.
 
The people that contribute to "FS".com contribute to many sites and I like 
that they don't limit one point of view - there are many on different sides 
of arguments.  As there are on other sites.  Each with their own areas of 
expertise also, a nice cross section.
 
As far as me drifting somewhere... no.  I try to explore all areas, and think 
about probabilities and the bell curve.  I've never understood why they call 
the lower statistical ends of the probability curve the "fat ends" btw...... 
because the ends look "skinny" and the middle is the part that looks fat to 
me.  
 
Dark Ages II should be towards the skinny end of one end.
 
Government can fix alld and people will live happily ever after should be on 
the opposite skinny end.
 
You know the history of LTCM.  The brightest of mathemeticians got together 
and created their mathematical programs, only they did not include the 
"skinny ends" on the probability curve, feeling they were too rare of an 
event to include.  You know the outcome - they blew up because of that error. 
 What they thought was statistically insignificant became critical in their 
modeling.  The human factor undid all their fancy math.
 
History (which I'm definitely not well educated in) has shown us 
civilizations come and fade away, empires rise and collapse, power shifts 
from one continent to another, knowledge is gained and lost, and history 
repeats with new twists and variations in the minute detail.
 
Knowing the story about LTCM, I don't think it is wise to ignore the 
possibility that the "skinny ends" include a Dark Ages II scenario.
 
Rather than ignore the possibility, I'd rather do the "what if" thing.  That 
way if things change while I'm still alive, I'll have at least thought about 
it, and maybe even have a contingency plant.
 
In history, I don't know if there was ever a time when a significant number 
of the world's civilizations/currencies collapsed simultaneously.  On a 
multiple choice test, I would guess no - because the world was not as 
connected together as it has become over the last few hundred years.  If one 
country collapses due to their foolishnesssss, others are strong, or power 
shifts from the collapsing country/empire elsewhere.
 
That is not the case now.  Productivity has been divided up all over the 
place, where countries are more dependent on each other.  With all embarking 
on the non-asset based currency inflation game.  This is probably a unique 
time in history, with the human element ignored by LTCM mathemeticians coming 
into play all over the world.  I would guess that the risks of disaster are 
definititely highly elevated.  Time frame?  Unknown.  Human element?  Hope 
and ignoring the "skinny" ends.  :-)
 
What concerns me more actually is the possibility of peak oil being around 
the corner.  Gold affects people in an invisible way.  Oil price is very 
visible.  It looks like we'll know in the next 2-10 years whether peak oil is 
here or not.  That will affect everyone.  If the IEA data is is anywhere near 
correct, the clock is ticking, and a tectonic shift is underfoot in energy.  
 
I wonder if alternative energies will come on line fast enough to prevent a 
world disaster and could over time lead to Dark Ages II.  
 
Meanwhile, I go about my days hoping that they are developed soon enough.  
And actively have started on a contingency plan in the event the skinny ends 
get too close for comfort.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


--- On Tue, 12/23/08, bobf <bobford79 AT yahoo.com> wrote:

From: bobf <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Homestead] More on Gold
To: cayadopi AT yahoo.com, homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
Date: Tuesday, December 23, 2008, 12:41 PM

Leslie my comments were specific to Dr. Fekete 's meaning, using his own
words : 

" In the end, no one was willing to exchange gold and silver coins for the
debased coinage of the empire."

Acoording to him, and others like him, I might add, the gold never lost its
value; the gold was never debased.  On the contrary, because if its innate,
intrinsic value, it was hoarded and hidden away, for there was nothing left,
proclaimed by fiat that had retained enough value that the owners of gold were
"willing to exchange" their gold.

Now, Fekete is an uber goldbug.  I find good points in alot of his writing; 
but
other groups would call him hysterical or even a 'nut'.
There are other finacial sites similar to financial sense--the site that you
quote.  Some or bigger, some smaller, but they all have well written 
commentary
by many well educated ,sometimes prominent, men.  Each commengtary makes 
perfect
sense until you read the next commentary.  There are many historical 
analogies,
and different ways of interpreting those historical events.  Even today, our
best economists still disagree on what finally ended the great depression, and
that wasn't very long ago.

There is also the factor of price manipulation of currencies (including gold 
if
you consider gold to be money) by governments and financials cartels all 
through
history.  Much tales of manipulation are real and much is the fabric of told
& yet untold conspiracy theories.

Dr. Fekete is just another very smart voice.  try 321Gold.com,or  
jsmineset.com
, for a bigger variety of commentary.  JSMineset is the most prominent (along
with the commentry section of Peter Schiff's Europac.net.).  You seem to be
drifting toward to very worst case senario set; and you could very well be
right.  I'm still reading and thinking, having not yet decided that anyone
is even close to perfecting predicting the future.  And, I always 'hope'
for a better case scenario..:-) .............

--------------------------------------------------------------------------  






--- On Tue, 12/23/08, Leslie <cayadopi AT yahoo.com> wrote:

> From: Leslie <cayadopi AT yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [Homestead] More on Gold
> To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Tuesday, December 23, 2008, 10:20 AM
> No I don't think I misinterpreted.
>  
> In other things I have read, governments, serfdoms,
> kingdoms, etc. practiced "clipping" coins (i.e
> they cheated on the value of the coin).  The modern day
> equivalent is clearly seen in US dimes and quarters, which
> are no longer solid silver.  They have been clipped
> (filled) with other metals.  The US government is cheating
> on the value of coins & paper currency.  The exchange
> of X units of labor for a 100% silver dime, is now exchanged
> for 1/100th% of the same amount of silver via
> "clipping"/cheating.  (Not an exact number, but
> illustrative for argument.)  This has been a long drawn out
> process of clipping both metal & paper currency in the
> US spanning some 80-90 years.
>  
> The hoarding events that has lead to current time
> backwardation probably has occured in two stages.  The
> first being those who hid their gold from the government
> confiscating it some 80-90 ago when the US made it illegal -
> and passed it on to their children.  And the second wave
> starting when the US made it legal to own gold again, and
> then took us off the gold standard in the 1970s triggering
> fear of monetary collapse.  I would venture there are a lot
> of gold bugs who never sold any of the gold they purchased
> in the 70s as back then they understood the collapse of the
> fiat currency was underway regardless of how many years it
> would take - even if they bought at the top.  I know I was
> in my early twenties, and I understood that back then - that
> gold is to be hoarded and exchanged as the currency finishes
> collapsing.
>  
> Fekete explains hoarding was a long drawn out event in the
> W. Roman Empire, and in modern times we have a similar event
> going on.
>  
> Backwardation in part is telling us that fewer and fewer
> people hoarding gold/silver today are willing to exchange
> it for paper dollars or for those "clipped" silver
> dimes and quarters that are no longer 100% silver.
>  
> Currently the troops are still accepting below minimum
> wage(?) paid in the form of paper fiat currency.   If the
> government doesn't increase their wages in sync with
> hyperinflation - how long will they stay?  How can they
> feed their families?  
>  
> There is no doubt in my mind that the US Gov't is, and
> has been for a long time, bankrupt.  So far the US is still
> paying debts by creating more and more currency out of thin
> air.  How long people will continue to accept that form of
> payment is another story.  I do believe we're headed
> for a monetary hyperinflation phase, where the currency
> collapses in the end.  (And not just the US, I believe a
> lot of G-20s are going the same way.)
>  
> What happens after that? 
>  
> >From what I've read, hyperinflations do not end
> until governments stop issuing the collapsing currency,
> issue a new currency, and promise not to debase it by
> increasing the number of units circulating.  It won't
> work until there is CONfidence that the government will stop
> the clipping.  I wish I knew if that typically happens
> overnight, or if the next new currency typically gets
> clipped again after a short period of CONfidence. The gold
> bugs may hoard their gold, even if it means passing to the
> next generation... meaning there is no centralized price
> mechanism.
>  
> How DO people value gold outside of a government issued
> money system - which in part is what I interpreted James to
> be talking about.  You can't eat it, but you can use it
> to trade without others willing to accept it, but what is
> the pricing mechanism?  
>  
> If the dollar collapses and people are still willing to
> trade gold for say Euro, you have a pricing mechanism.  If
> the Euro collapses, and the Canadian or NZDollar still
> sports a gold price, you can still exchange it, and so on. 
> After that, how do people come to a consensus of value - of
> fair value?  If no one is willing to trade for ANY fiat
> currency, then what?
>  
> The way I read Fekete's article is that during the dark
> ages there was a period where you could not count on
> gold/silver being used as a medium of exchange.  It may
> have been because there was no way to determine value (i.e.
> how many grams would be worth a dozen eggs, etc.)  He
> states that gold/silver went into hiding never to re-emerge
> during the lifetime of the original holders.  I assume from
> that that it was passed on from generation to generation
> until such time as there was a reason to swap out into a
> different kind of currency or other medium of exchange (as
> there have been many besides gold/silver).  Of course back
> then, computers and modern transportation did not exist to
> facilitate world wide trading.
>  
> In a Dark Ages II type scenario, you can't eat gold,
> can't wear it, can't heat with it.  However, you
> can pass it to the next generation clandestinely and avoid
> paying taxes to theiving governments.  LOL.  
>  
> I think Fekete is saying that gold/silver retains value as
> a more wide-spread medium of exchange (whether in physical
> metal or metal backed currency) only when their is
> wide-spread confidence in the governing body.  
>  
> Under a chaotic government(s) situation - and limited
> person to person gold/silver exchange - a large
> landowner/farmer MIGHT be willing to exchange his excess
> food production for some gold IF his goal is to acquire gold
> for his heirs or for a time when the governing body can be
> trusted again.  However, a small farmer barely able to
> produce above his own needs is not going to swap his one
> extra chicken for gold if he needs a horse shoe from the
> blacksmith for his plow, and the blacksmith doesn't want
> gold but needs to eat.
>  
> I don't know if the US or the world will decsend into
> another Dark Ages; I don't discount the possibility -
> but I don't have any way of determining how far out
> along the fat tail of a bell curve the possibility of a
> Dark Ages II needs to go.  Of if we will just return to a
> more agrarian society, or what.
>  
> One point that Fekete makes is that he foresees a time when
> there would be no sellers of gold/silver.  I would have to
> think about that for a long time.  But my first thought, is
> maybe initially but, I think in time some would be willing
> to sell as a last resort (or not knowing the value) to those
> who have excess production, who see gold/silver as a future
> generation(s) way of preserving wealth.  
>  
> On your point, "Anyone who now believes things will
> become 'that bad', should be out with ropes, rifles,
> pitchforks, and whatever else will kill and maim those in
> power who would allow such a thing to occur."
>  
> True, but in truth WHO allowed it to occur?  WE DID. WE
> who did not rise up in anger at the debasement of the
> currency and put a stop to it.  WE who understood the
> consequences and failed to teach values of exchange and of
> production and self-preservation through our own efforts. 
> WE DO deserve to get a new Dark Ages, not because we are
> sitting and waiting for it, but because we failed to
> recognize the cause of it and failed to prevent it, even
> with all of our accumulated knowledge of thousands of years.
>  
> Although ropes and guillotines won't be needed -
> starvation and disease will take care of it.
>  
> Yes, it echoes of Ayn Rand, but to me it is the much more
> accurate to blame "we" than those in power.
>  
>  
> PS CAPS are not "yelling",,,, but meant to
> emphasis on paper the words I would emphasis in person.
> 
> 
> --- On Tue, 12/23/08, bobf <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> 
> From: bobf <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: [Homestead] More on Gold
> To: cayadopi AT yahoo.com, homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Date: Tuesday, December 23, 2008, 11:04 AM
> 
> Leslie, I believe you mis-read Dr. Fekets's intenet
> where he draws upon
> historical anaylis.  He wrote:
> 
> "............... causation goes in the opposite
> direction. The
> disappearance of gold and silver coins as a means of
> exchange was a
> long-drawn-out, cumulative event. In the end, no one was
> willing to exchange
> gold and silver coins for the debased coinage of the
> empire. At that point the
> empire was bankrupt; it could no longer pay the troops that
> defended its
> boundaries against the barbarians threatening with
> invasion.'......."
> 
> That is to say, that the gold and silver still retained
> their value , in his
> opinion; but ttheir was nothing left in the fiat system
> worth the trade value of
> the gold and silver.  And, if we are sitting and waiting
> for a return of the
> "dark ages", we desrve whatever we get, anyway. 
> Anyone who now
> believes things will become 'that bad', should be
> out with ropes,
> rifles, pitchforks, and whatever else will kill and maim
> those in power who
> would allow such a thing to occur.  Most of us think we are
> witnessing a
> calamity, but not anything close to a repeat of the
> 'Dark Ages'.
> 
> --------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --- On Tue, 12/23/08, Leslie <cayadopi AT yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> 
> 
> >  
> > Fekete writes an update on the outlook for the value
> of
> > gold.  This one is quite interesting as he talks
> about what
> > happened to gold/silver during/after the collapse of
> the
> > Western Roman Empire and the parallels to today. 
> History
> > supports James' points a couple weeks ago that
> > gold/silvere will have zero value - the pricing
> mechanism
> > will be gone.
> >  
> > Fekete warns that gold in backwardation in Dec 2008,
> is
> > warning, is a premonition of what is coming down the
> road. 
> > He believes there will be repeated instances of
> > backwardation, each more severe than the preceeding,
> as
> > gold/silver go into hiding.  Hyperinflation and
> ultimately
> > the collapse of the monetary system - a point where
> > gold/silver will not have a value either, because
> those
> > hoarding will not be willing to part with it, until
> such
> > time as confidence in a fiat currency returns.  
> >  
> > After the collapse of the Roman Empire we went into
> the
> > Dark Ages, where payment in gold/silver could not be
> taken
> > for granted - gold/silver went into hiding never to
> > re-emerge during the lifetime of the original
> holders. 
> > Fekete warns that the disappearance of gold/silver is
> > ominous.
> >  
> >
> 
> 
>       
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>From lurine AT com-pair.net  Tue Dec 23 23:58:08 2008
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From: "Lynda" <lurine AT com-pair.net>
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Subject: Re: [Homestead] Dr. Dr. Give me some news....
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the problem with medications is that the docs usually, oh hell, 99.9% of the
time, only look at the usual culprits and not the "the list goes on" side
effects.  I was talking one a year or so ago.  One of the side effects was
upper respiratory infections.  I get diagnosed with pneunomia.  Another is
anephalactic type reactions (swollen lips, throat, etc.).  They gave me pen
for the pneunomia and they blamed the swollen lips on the pen and said I was
allergic to it.  Well, over the period of a year I had ever single adverse
reaction and it wasn't until I ended up at the ER when they had a visiting
doc that someone says "hey, stop taking - - - - "  Bingo, no more problems.

Oh, and one of them was a rash/hives/boils.  Those are gone too.  The docs
all say, "Oh, it wasn't that med because you don't get reactions after
you've taken it for a year and you don't get them one after the other and,
and, and."  BS!

They never look at the whole picture.

Lynda
----- Original Message -----
From: "EarthNSky" <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>
To: <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Tuesday, December 23, 2008 4:52 PM
Subject: Re: [Homestead] Dr. Dr. Give me some news....


> Kidney stones are actually listed as a side effect on the packet.
>
> <bev shakes head>
>
> Things are really becoming clear, now.
> Also on that article about lungs, it said
>
>> Since this injury appears to be a systemic process, other organs
>> should be evaluated, particularly the skin.
>
> Skin.
>
>
> B
>
>
>
>
>
> EarthNSky wrote:
>
>>> Researchers have demonstrated that these inclusions are primarily
>>> calcium oxylate crystals.13 14  Some investigators have proposed
>>> that these crystals play a role in the inflammatory pathway.15  For
>>> our patient, the role and composition of these inclusions remain to
>>> be determined, but their existence seems more than coincidental.
>>>
>>> The cornerstone of treatment for drug-induced lung injury is drug
>>> removal.
> --
> The true significance of Sacajawea's involvement in the Lewis & Clark
> expedition is that it was the first documented trip in history where men
> asked a woman for directions and followed them, allowing them to arrive
> at their destination.
> _______________________________________________
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