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[rayzentz AT aim.com]

You know, until recently, I was planning on buying more gold, but figured it 
was more prudent to stock up on items that may not be available..., food, 
firearms, ammo, tools, etc. Those may be of more value than gold, and much 
more readily "spendable"

Ray


-----Original Message-----
From: bobf <bobford79 AT yahoo.com>
To: cayadopi AT yahoo.com; homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Tue, 23 Dec 2008 10:41 am
Subject: Re: [Homestead] More on Gold



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?hoardin
g 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 cons
ensus 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
> > t
ime 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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>       
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