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US spends 28 Eiffel towers made of pure GOLD

1. [verwijderd] 22 maart 2006 10:51

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   Nou ben ik het zat.
   
   IK BEN GEEN DOMME EIKEL
   
   Nogmaals (minimaal kleuterschool nivo):
   
   Wat is het probleem met het hebben van een schuld? Wat is daar nou het probleem mee? Nou? Nou?
   
   Het probleem is "trade deficit" en het geknoei met kunstmatig koppelen van munten aan andere munten. Op zich is en blijft een tekort geen probleem.
   
   EIB
2. [verwijderd] 22 maart 2006 11:00

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   "Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said he was concerned about the U.S. budget deficit, noting in a letter released Tuesday that the aging of the population will increase the pressure on the budget."
   
   Budget - budget - budget - budget - budget - deficit!
   En ja, bovendien trade deficit!
   vr.gr. duro
   
3. [verwijderd] 22 maart 2006 11:38

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   quote:

   durobinet schreef:

   Nog zo'n eikel die het beter denkt te weten, net als sommige doemdenkers in de kk?
   vr.gr. duro
   
   vr.gr. duro
   

   Deze opmerking zegt waarschijnlijk meer over de persoon zelf dan over andere.
   Met een groeiend aantal overlopers neemt ook de grimmige sfeer weer toe.
   Andere schrijvers beledigen is schijnbaar weer toegestaan.
   Herleven ouden tijden weer?
   gr.fes
4. [verwijderd] 22 maart 2006 11:44

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   quote:

   fes schreef:

   [quote=durobinet]
   Nog zo'n eikel die het beter denkt te weten, net als sommige doemdenkers in de kk?
   vr.gr. duro
   
   vr.gr. duro
   [/quote]
   
   Deze opmerking zegt waarschijnlijk meer over de persoon zelf dan over andere.
   Met een groeiend aantal overlopers neemt ook de grimmige sfeer weer toe.
   Andere schrijvers beledigen is schijnbaar weer toegestaan.
   Herleven ouden tijden weer?
   gr.fes
   

   Wat ik hier schrijf is dat er in de kk gedacht/gezegd wordt dat die doemdenkers het beter weten en derhalve kennelijk eikels zijn, of het zijn linkse pessimisten. Goed lezen schijnt toch niet voor iedereen weggelegd te zijn!
   En nu ene Barnenke hetzelfde schrijft moet dat dus kennelijk ook een eikel zijn en een linkse pessimist. Tja...
   
   Hier trouwens nog een doemdenkersverhaal, maar voor de verandering m.b.t. Europa, maar maak je niet druk, er is niets aan de hand. Die gasten weten niets en maken zich druk om niets!
   vr.gr. duro
   
   Handelstekort eurozone in januari naar recordniveau
   Woensdag 22 Maart 2006 11:35
   
   AMSTERDAM (Dow Jones)--Het tekort op de handelsbalans van de eurozone is in januari opgelopen tot het hoogste niveau sinds de formatie van het twaalf landen tellende blok.
   
   Het handelstekort steeg fors naar 10,8 miljard euro, tegen 1,6 miljard euro in dezelfde maand vorig jaar, en 700 miljoen euro in december 2005. Dat blijkt uit cijfers van Eurostat, het Europees bureau voor de statistiek.
   
   Hoewel een negatieve impact van de energieprijzen was onderkend, stelden de cijfers sterk teleur. Door Dow Jones geraadpleegde economen voorzagen een tekort van 1,2 miljard euro.
   
   De stijging van het tekort is vooral te wijten aan het toenemende verschil tussen de groei van import en export. De import groeide harder dan de export. Dat gold onder andere op de energiemarkt.
   
   Dow Jones Nieuwsdienst; +31-20-5890270
   
   (END) Dow Jones Newswires
   
   March 22, 2006 05:34 ET (10:34 GMT)
   
   Copyright (c) 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
   
   
5. [verwijderd] 22 maart 2006 19:04

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   Hi Duro,
   
   Comment ca va?
   
   GH
6. [verwijderd] 19 april 2006 07:44

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   How Big Is Bush's Big Government? by Mark Brandly
   
   When teaching economics I sometimes find it beneficial to use government budget data to apply the lessons of economics to our current political circumstances. The students tend to be surprised at the size of our government, the amount of tax revenues that we "pay," and the amount of government debt. The following numbers get the point across.
   
   We, in the United States, live under the rule of the largest civil government, measured in budgetary terms, in history. Federal spending alone in fiscal year 2006 is expected to be over $2.7 trillion, which means the federal government spends $7.4 billion a day or $5.1 million in every minute of the year. This is 815 times the level of federal spending in 1930.
   
   Things have been getting worse recently. In the first five years of the Bush regime, federal spending increased 45%. Readers of Mises.org may remember that they were warned about Bush's fiscal irresponsibility before he took office. For comparison's sake, during the eight Clinton years nominal federal spending increased 32%, and under Bush I federal spending increased 23% in four years. In the 2000 election, Bush II promised to shovel money into all sorts of programs — and he's kept that promise.
   
   Since 1930, in addition to the spending increases, the feds also drove prices up more than 1,100%, according to the Consumer Price Index. Also, we should suspect that these inflation numbers are low since government officials have an incentive to underestimate inflation.
   
   If we adjust the spending numbers to account for this inflation, real federal spending is 65 times larger than it was in 1930. The US population has more than doubled since 1930 and if we take the population changes into account, real per capita spending is 27 times higher than in 1930.
   
   In estimating real federal spending I'm not dismissing the effects of inflation, nor am I absolving the state of its complicity in driving prices up. These calculations are simply an attempt to give us some idea of the growth in government and the attendant loss of our liberties over the last several decades.
   
   This $2.7 trillion in federal spending breaks down to $9,000 per capita or more than $36,000 for the average family of four. If we add in all state and local spending, then total government depredations (a term Murray Rothbard used to describe the greater of government spending and government receipts) are currently over $4.4 trillion or about $14,700 per person annually. Since 1959, government depredations, in real terms, have increased at an average annual rate of 4%. That kind of spending will buy a lot of votes.
   
   A significant portion of this spending is being financed with government borrowing. In 1930, the per capita debt load was $140 per person. The current federal total debt level is $8.4 trillion, which works out to around $28,000 per person. In short, the per capita debt load is 200 times larger than it was in 1930. Adjusting for inflation, the real debt per capita is still over 16 times more than it was in 1930.
   
   Federal government debt increased $553 billion in fiscal year 2005 alone. That's more than $1.5 billion of additional debt per day and over $1 million of borrowing per minute for every minute of the year. The interest on the debt in 2005 was $352 billion or more than $1,100 for every man, woman, and child in the country. These interest payments are roughly equal to 37% of federal income tax revenues.
   
   Much of this debt is owed to the Federal Reserve. US taxpayers are on the hook for $758 billion of government securities that are held by the Fed. So on average, every person in the country owes the Fed about $2500.
   
   Tax revenues and borrowing have financed all sorts of interventions. Since 1959, we have suffered from the Great Society, the war on poverty, price controls, increasingly burdensome environmental regulations, the establishment of the Department of Education and its increasing federal control over local schools, Federal Reserve created recessions, agricultural price supports, minimum wage laws, and energy policies that keep oil and gasoline prices high.
   
   There's more. We've also had labor policies that increase the costs of hiring workers driving down their take-home pay, trade restrictions and trade agreements that give the feds control over our international trade, massive increases in the welfare state, the drug war, endless pork barrel spending, and the prosecution of businessmen for political gain. There have also been the wars to extend the US empire, from the Vietnam War to the Iraq War. A partial list of the other military interventions would include conflicts in Cambodia, Laos, Lebanon, Panama, the Gulf War, Somalia, Bosnia, and Afghanistan. I could go on, but you get the idea.
   
   One way to see the harm of government intervention is to realize its effects on our standard of living. The depredations of the state reduce the incentives to be productive, destroy our capital base, and have a negative effect on economic growth. From 1959 to 2005, adjusting the numbers using the implicit price deflator, real Gross Domestic Product increased an average of 3.37% annually.
   
   Consider the possibility that government interventions reduced real economic growth 1% annually during this time. If there had been an additional 1% per year economic growth since 1959 then real GDP would currently be 55% higher than it is. The 2005 GDP of $12,479 billion would have been $19,342 billion. The median family income is estimated to be $44,389. A proportionate increase in this statistic results in a median income of $68,800.
   
   In this scenario, a worker with a salary of $44,389 who is losing 35% of his salary to taxes has a tax liability of $15,536. After paying the various types of taxes he gets to keep only $28,853 of his salary. With the extra 1% growth per year since 1959, if that worker represented the average, his gross salary would be $68,800 and he would get to keep all of it.
   
   Higgs on the enemy: $19
   It is conceivable that the $4.4 trillion of annual depredations could have caused more than 1% annual damage to our economic growth since 1959. What are the implications of a 2% negative impact on GDP? If the absence of interventions had added an additional 2% annual growth, this would have resulted in 141% more output today. The 2005 GDP would have been over $30 trillion and the median family income would now be $107,000. The worker described above with the $44,389 gross salary and the $28,850 of after tax pay, would have an income of $107,000. The depredations have reduced his net income by 73%.
   The point here is that we cannot precisely know the magnitude of the damages that intervention has on the economy but we do know that those damages compound over time, resulting in significant negative effects on our prosperity.
   
   Those of us making the case for liberty have logic, history, and morality on our side. Government intervention is immoral and should be stopped for that reason alone. However, the economic costs of the intervention are also important. Part of the appeal of freedom is that it leads to tremendously higher standards of living and these numbers show that government interventions that cause seemingly small amounts of harm, over time, impoverish a society.
   
   Mark Brandly teaches economics at Ferris State University and is an adjunct scholar of the Mises Institute and the Mackinac Center fo
7. [verwijderd] 19 april 2006 10:07

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   quote:

   jrxs4all schreef:

   [quote=robbedouche2 ]
   
   JR: Ik kom dan tot de conclusie dat het in het onderhavige geval niet gaat om een tekortpercentage op het GDP, maar om het aantal keren dat je het jaarlijkse GDP van GB met de schuld van de USA zou kunnen betalen.
   
   Jij niet kennelijk?
   
   Rob
   [/quote]
   
   Nog een keer dan en dan vertaald
   
   De US staatsschuld is 4 keer het GDP van Engeland.
   
   De US staatsschuld is 0,65 keer het GDP van de US.
   
   De Duitse staatsschuld is 0,68 keer het GDP van Duitsland.
   
   De Italiaanse staatsschuld is 1,07 keer het GDP van Italie.
   
   De US staatsschuld als % van het GDP is kleiner dan het gemiddelde van de Eurolanden en heel veel kleiner dan dat van Italie en Griekenland,
   
   JR
   
   

   Er van uitgaande dat bovenstaande klopt (volgens mij worden uitgaven aan bestrijding terrorisme er buiten gehouden...)....
   
   1. De schuld in absolute zin is niet zo interessant, relatief wel en die valt in vergelijking met de EU niet mee en niet tegen.
   
   2. Waar het volgens mij om gaat is hoe de schuld gefinancierd wordt. Daarbij moet je onderscheid maken tussen de nationale schuld en de internationle schuld.
   Laat ik even kijken naar het financieringstekort in 2005. Dit bedroeg ongeveer 520 miljard. Dat is 4.5% van het Bruto Binnenland Product (BBP). Over dit cijfer valt te twisten. Het is namelijk inclusief het zogenaamde Trust Fund (e Sociale Zekerheid). Halen we dit Trust Fund er af dan resulteert een cijfer van 5.9% van het BBP.
   Big Deal zou je zeggen...Met dat geld zullen wel goede dingen gebeuren, dus who cares???
   
   De overheid moet geld van de kapitaalmarkt halen om de zaak te financieren. Het is daar één van de spelers. Dit heeft een opwaarts effect op de rente, simpel zat. Daarnaast is het een vorm van asociaal beleid (zelfde geldt voor de EU overigens). De komende generaties zullen moeten terugbetalen links om of rechts om.
   
   De internationale schuld zou je kunnen zien als de handelsbalans van de betalingsbalans. De handelsbalans is het verschil tussen import en export van goederen en diensten. Is deze negatief, en dat is in het geval van de VS zwaar het geval, dan moet er dus ergens kapitaal vandaan komen (lenen) om dit verschil op te hoesten. Hoe doe je dat? Export verhogen, import verlagen of voldoende kapitaal binnenslepen om je te grote consumptiebehoefte te blijven bevredigen. Dit laatste is wat de VS doet. So what? Dit werkt toch al een tijd. Daar gaan we gewoon oneindig mee door. Iedereen tevreden...toch?
   Fout. Het is uitstel van executie. De VS is volledig overgeleverd aan derden. Tal van centrale banken (CB) maken geluiden die wijzen op het minder aanhouden van dollars. Zij denken aan divercificatie. Niet onverstandig natuurlijk. Als dit gebeurt zal de VS moeten aankloppen op de private markt. Wat zal er met de rente gebeuren? Juist, die explodeert. De gevolgen daar van? Een VS economie die in elkaar zakt en de rest van de wereld meetrekt.
   
   Ja het gaat nog goed. Maar er gerust op zijn? Nog niet misschien!
   
   Gr Postzak
8. [verwijderd] 19 april 2006 11:06

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   quote:

   Gung Ho schreef:

   Hi Duro,
   
   Comment ca va?
   
   GH
   

   Ca va très bien GH, comme de l'or en de l'argent!
   vr.gr. duro ;-)
9. handyman6 19 april 2006 11:39

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   quote:

   fes schreef:

   Ach...iedereen heeft schulden en bezittingen.
   Voor de bezittingen is geen aandacht.
   
   Ik zit nog steeds te wachten op iemand die de schulden en bezittingen eens naast elkaar zet voor een objectief beeld.
   
   Zolang de VS iedereen aan het werk houdt en de mondiale welvaart toeneemt zit er wellicht een generaal pardon in voor Amerika.
   Iemand zijn werk afpakken is veel erger.
   gr.fes
   

   Het maakt toch in wezen niet uit hoeveel schuld er is :bezit of schuld is hetzelfde geld alleen in andere handen, maar de hoeveelheid is hetzelfde -klinkt gecompliceerder dan het is,gelukkig- schuldgeld is geen geld dat er niet is dus : het is geen lucht.De hoeveelheid poen ivm inflatie da's wat anders
10. [verwijderd] 19 april 2006 12:40

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    Tegen elke euro en dollar die er nieuw bijkomt, staat een euro en dollar schuld.
    -pcrs
12. handyman6 19 april 2006 13:45

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    quote:

    pcrs7 schreef:

    Tegen elke euro en dollar die er nieuw bijkomt, staat een euro en dollar schuld.
    -pcrs
    

    nog een keer:dezelfde $/E die voor jou schuld is , is voor mij bezit-1+1=Niet 2-hetzelfde geld in andere handen
13. [verwijderd] 1 mei 2006 11:44

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    Een "must read" recente speech voor de US HoR door de republikeinse senator Ron Paul.
    Ron Paul is een ook vrije markt activist en representant van de "oostenrijkse" School
    www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec200...
    
    HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS
    Before the U.S. House of Representatives
    
    What the Price of Gold is Telling Us
    
    The financial press, and even the network news shows, have begun reporting the price of gold regularly. For twenty years, between 1980 and 2000, the price of gold was rarely mentioned. There was little interest, and the price was either falling or remaining steady.
    
    Since 2001 however, interest in gold has soared along with its price. With the price now over $600 an ounce, a lot more people are becoming interested in gold as an investment and an economic indicator. Much can be learned by understanding what the rising dollar price of gold means.
    
    The rise in gold prices from $250 per ounce in 2001 to over $600 today has drawn investors and speculators into the precious metals market. Though many already have made handsome profits, buying gold per se should not be touted as a good investment. After all, gold earns no interest and its quality never changes. It’s static, and does not grow as sound investments should.
    
    It’s more accurate to say that one might invest in a gold or silver mining company, where management, labor costs, and the nature of new discoveries all play a vital role in determining the quality of the investment and the profits made.
    
    Buying gold and holding it is somewhat analogous to converting one’s savings into one hundred dollar bills and hiding them under the mattress-- yet not exactly the same. Both gold and dollars are considered money, and holding money does not qualify as an investment. There’s a big difference between the two however, since by holding paper money one loses purchasing power. The purchasing power of commodity money, i.e. gold, however, goes up if the government devalues the circulating fiat currency.
    
    Holding gold is protection or insurance against government’s proclivity to debase its currency. The purchasing power of gold goes up not because it’s a so-called good investment; it goes up in value only because the paper currency goes down in value. In our current situation, that means the dollar.
    
    One of the characteristics of commodity money-- one that originated naturally in the marketplace-- is that it must serve as a store of value. Gold and silver meet that test-- paper does not. Because of this profound difference, the incentive and wisdom of holding emergency funds in the form of gold becomes attractive when the official currency is being devalued. It’s more attractive than trying to save wealth in the form of a fiat currency, even when earning some nominal interest. The lack of earned interest on gold is not a problem once people realize the purchasing power of their currency is declining faster than the interest rates they might earn. The purchasing power of gold can rise even faster than increases in the cost of living.
    
    The point is that most who buy gold do so to protect against a depreciating currency rather than as an investment in the classical sense. Americans understand this less than citizens of other countries; some nations have suffered from severe monetary inflation that literally led to the destruction of their national currency. Though our inflation-- i.e. the depreciation of the U.S. dollar-- has been insidious, average Americans are unaware of how this occurs. For instance, few Americans know nor seem concerned that the 1913 pre-Federal Reserve dollar is now worth only four cents. Officially, our central bankers and our politicians express no fear that the course on which we are set is fraught with great danger to our economy and our political system. The belief that money created out of thin air can work economic miracles, if only properly “managed,” is pervasive in D.C.
    
    In many ways we shouldn’t be surprised about this trust in such an unsound system. For at least four generations our government-run universities have systematically preached a monetary doctrine justifying the so-called wisdom of paper money over the “foolishness” of sound money. Not only that, paper money has worked surprisingly well in the past 35 years-- the years the world has accepted pure paper money as currency. Alan Greenspan bragged that central bankers in these several decades have gained the knowledge necessary to make paper money respond as if it were gold. This removes the problem of obtaining gold to back currency, and hence frees politicians from the rigid discipline a gold standard imposes.
    
    Many central bankers in the last 15 years became so confident they had achieved this milestone that they sold off large hoards of their gold reserves. At other times they tried to prove that paper works better than gold by artificially propping up the dollar by suppressing market gold prices. This recent deception failed just as it did in the 1960s, when our government tried to hold gold artificially low at $35 an ounce. But since they could not truly repeal the economic laws regarding money, just as many central bankers sold, others bought. It’s fascinating that the European central banks sold gold while Asian central banks bought it over the last several years.
    
    Since gold has proven to be the real money of the ages, we see once again a shift in wealth from the West to the East, just as we saw a loss of our industrial base in the same direction. Though Treasury officials deny any U.S. sales or loans of our official gold holdings, no audits are permitted so no one can be certain.
    
    The special nature of the dollar as the reserve currency of the world has allowed this game to last longer than it would have otherwise. But the fact that gold has gone from $252 per ounce to over $600 means there is concern about the future of the dollar. The higher the price for gold, the greater the concern for the dollar. Instead of dwelling on the dollar price of gold, we should be talking about the depreciation of the dollar. In 1934 a dollar was worth 1/20th of an ounce of gold; $20 bought an ounce of gold. Today a dollar is worth 1/600th of an ounce of gold, meaning it takes $600 to buy one ounce of gold.
    
    The number of dollars created by the Federal Reserve, and through the fractional reserve banking system, is crucial in determining how the market assesses the relationship of the dollar and gold. Though there’s a strong correlation, it’s not instantaneous or perfectly predictable. There are many variables to consider, but in the long term the dollar price of gold represents past inflation of the money supply. Equally important, it represents the anticipation of how much new money will be created in the future. This introduces the factor of trust and confidence in our monetary authorities and our politicians. And these days the American people are casting a vote of “no confidence” in this regard, and for good reasons.
    
    The incentive for central bankers to create new money out of thin air is twofold. One is to practice central economic planning through the manipulation of interest rates. The second is to monetize the escalating federal debt politicians create and thrive on. lees verder......
    www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec200...
    
14. [verwijderd] 8 mei 2006 00:13

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    quote:

    The artist schreef:

    ]
    
    Amor, waarom spring jij niet van de eiffeltoren, dat zou pas goud waard zijn.
    
    mvg
    
    The Artist
    

15. [verwijderd] 30 mei 2007 08:40

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    Rules 'hiding' trillions in debt
    Liability $516,348 per U.S. household
    
    By Dennis Cauchon
    USA TODAY
    
    The federal government recorded a $1.3 trillion loss last year — far more than the official $248 billion deficit — when corporate-style accounting standards are used, a USA TODAY analysis shows.
    
    The loss reflects a continued deterioration in the finances of Social Security and government retirement programs for civil servants and military personnel. The loss — equal to $11,434 per household — is more than Americans paid in income taxes in 2006.
    
    "We're on an unsustainable path and doing a great disservice to future generations," says Chris Chocola, a former Republican member of Congress from Indiana and corporate chief executive who is pushing for more accurate federal accounting.
    
    Modern accounting requires that corporations, state governments and local governments count expenses immediately when a transaction occurs, even if the payment will be made later.
    
    The federal government does not follow the rule, so promises for Social Security and Medicare don't show up when the government reports its financial condition.
    
    Bottom line: Taxpayers are now on the hook for a record $59.1 trillion in liabilities, a 2.3% increase from 2006. That amount is equal to $516,348 for every U.S. household. By comparison, U.S. households owe an average of $112,043 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined.
    
    Unfunded promises made for Medicare, Social Security and federal retirement programs account for 85% of taxpayer liabilities. State and local government retirement plans account for much of the rest.
    
    This hidden debt is the amount taxpayers would have to pay immediately to cover government's financial obligations. Like a mortgage, it will cost more to repay the debt over time. Every U.S. household would have to pay about $31,000 a year to do so in 75 years.
    
    The Financial Accounting Standards Advisory Board, which sets federal accounting standards, is considering requiring the government to adopt accounting rules similar to those for corporations. The change would move Social Security and Medicare onto the government's income statement and balance sheet, instead of keeping them separate.
    
    The White House and the Congressional Budget Office oppose the change, arguing that the programs are not true liabilities because government can cancel or cut them.
    
    Chad Stone, chief economist at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, says it can be misleading to focus on the government's unfunded liabilities because Medicare's financial problems overwhelm the analysis.
    
    "There is a shortfall in Medicare and Medicaid that is potentially explosive, but that is related to overall trends in health care spending," he says.
    
    usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/p...
    
16. [verwijderd] 31 mei 2007 19:34

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    Powerpoint presentatie "the Future of Gold" van John Embry (Sprott Asset managment)op site Canaccord
    
    www.canaccord.com/NR/rdonlyres/114A85...
17. [verwijderd] 24 juli 2007 08:15

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    When will gold go ballistic?
    Posted by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard on 23 Jul 2007 at 15:37
    Tags: Economics, Currency, Gold, Euro, financial markets
    A lot of readers have asked why I duck the issue of gold when talking about the dollar crisis and the M3 monetary blow-off.
    
    All that glitters: gold will soon sparkle again
    
    So here we go:
    
    I started buying gold mining shares in September 2001, missing the bottom by four months. I still hold some shares (mostly duds, since I am the village idiot when it comes to picking stocks). Gold’s 15 to 20 year upward cycle is alive and well.
    
    For those who don’t follow bullion, gold hit $252 an ounce in the Spring of 2001 in a final capitulation sell-off when Gordon Brown began his Treasury sales. It rose to a peak of $730 in May 2006.
    
    Gold has languished since, in part because of sales by the Spanish and Belgian central banks. I remain very wary in the short to medium-term.
    
    What unnerves me is the way gold has tended to move in sympathy with global stock markets. Whenever risk appetite rises, it rises. When investors shun risk, it falls. In other words, it has become correlated with all the speculative trades - notably the yen and franc carry trades - responding to abundant global liquidity. This liquidity is now being drained as the BoJ, ECB, SNB, BoE, Riksbank, and Chinese Central Bank, etc, turn off the tap. So be careful.
    
    While the pattern appears to have changed over the last couple of weeks, this is not long enough to establish a “paradigm change”, excuse the ghastly term. My concern is that gold will fall hard along with everything else (except the yen and the Swissie) in any market crash/correction.
    
    At some point it will decouple, as it did during the 1987 crash when it fell hard, found a ledge, and then recovered hard, while the DOW kept falling. But, I would rather hold Swissies or Yen until gold finds that ledge in a downturn, resuming its old role as a safe store of value. This may happen quite quickly in a crisis. (Of course, I may also be left behind right now in an accelerating rally, but that is a risk I accept)
    
    Ultimately, gold will surge, once it becomes clear that the euro lacks the staying power to serve as an alternative to the dollar. To restate a point I have made many times, the euro-zone is an ill-assorted mix of 13 unconverged national economies – with national treasuries, debt structures, taxes, pensions, and labour laws - that are not ready to share a currency, and are drifting further apart by the day.
    
    (Lest anybody forgets, the motive behind monetary union was PURELY political. The economists at the European Commission warned that the project could not survive over time if it included a Latin Bloc of countries with an unreformed culture of high inflation, rising wage costs, and an export base exposed to Asian competition [unlike Germany’s, which is complimentary] – unless it were backed by a full superstate. They were ignored. Indeed, any future crisis was to be welcomed as the “beneficial crisis”, a chance to force through full political integration that would otherwise have not been possible, as Romano Prodi so candidly admitted when he was Commission chief).
    
    At some point it will become clear to everybody that: the Club Med group cannot compete at an exchange rate of $1.40, $1.45, $1.50, or whatever it reaches; their credit booms are tipping over; they will soon need stimulus more than the US.
    
    Goldman Sachs, by the way, is already 'shorting' Italian and French bonds, while going 'long' on German bunds to play the divergence (the opposite of the euro-zone 'convergence play' that made the banks rich in the 1990s).
    
    We may have a situation where sharp dollar falls caused by impending rate cuts by the Fed sets off a systemic crisis for Euroland. If so, politics will quickly take over from economics and begin to dictate events in Europe. The ECB will have to stop raising rates (whatever Berlin wants), and the euro will become a structurally weak currency tilted to the need of the weakest players. If it doesn’t, the EU itself will blow up. So the ECB will have to change tack to support the union. And the European Court will interpret the treaties in such a way as to force the ECB to do so.
    
    Gold will fly once investors can see that neither of the two reserve currency pillars (euro and dollar) is on a sound foundation, and once the pair are engaged in a beggar-thy-neighbour devaluation contest to stave off a slump (if necessary with the use of Ben Bernanke’s helicopters, meaning mass purchase of Treasuries, mortgage bonds, stocks, or assets of any kind to support the markets). This would amount to a partial breakdown of the monetary system. Gold will not stop at $800. It might well go beyond $2,000.
    
    We are not there yet. Timing is not my forté, but 2008 looks ripe. Watch the Spanish housing market. Watch the French trade data. Watch Chinese inflation. And, of course, watch the US jobs market – the bogus prop to the alleged US recovery (on that, more later).
    
18. [verwijderd] 29 augustus 2007 08:24

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    The Great Escape!
    
    In the August 28 session on the TOCOM Goldman Sachs,
    with sleight-of-hand that would have made Harry
    Houdini look like an amateur, wrote yet another chapter
    of "The Great Escape". They covered an impressive 931
    short contracts to bring their net short position to
    9,579 contracts. This is another record low net short
    since I have been keeping records (January 2006).
    
    We are all disgruntled about the current state of
    affairs in the mining equities, but for those who are disgruntled enough to think of throwing in the towel
    you need to ask yourself why Goldman Sachs is
    reducing shorts like they were going out of style.
    Why the Large Commercials have massively reduced their
    net short position on the COMEX, and why some entities
    are amassing large gold call options. What we are
    seeing is unprecedented in this gold market. We have
    seen that the Big Banks have packaged up worthless
    sub-prime debt and sold it to Asia & Europe like the
    gangsters who make pay-offs with a briefcase of
    photo-copy paper and a few genuine $100 dollar bills
    on the top. We now note that the Bullion bankers are
    doing a wonderful job of finding some suckers to take
    on their short positions in gold.
    
    We are not watching the positions of some mindless
    day-traders whose synapses are fired by a rearrangement
    of some pixels on a trading screen; we are watching
    the positions of a bullion bank that is connected to
    the highest level of global finance. When they behave
    as if short gold positions are hand-grenades with
    the pins removed, the best that anyone who takes the
    other side of the bet might hope for is being
    posthumously awarded one of my coveted prizes!
    
    GATA has proved that gold is dramatically undervalued
    and suppressed. Does a growing financial crisis make
    it over-valued?? I think not!
    Cheers
    Adrian
19. [verwijderd] 16 januari 2008 19:22

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    The Broken Record Plays Again
    
    Author: Jim Sinclair
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
    Dear CIGAs,
    
    Today's weakness in gold and strength in the dollar are products of expectations that the Fed would drop rates by Emergency Action today. Talking heads on CNBC fed that rumor. When it did not occur as predicted today the suffering bearish gold interest took that non-event as a tool to hammer gold down and run weak shorts out of the dollar.
    
    Absolutely nothing has change. There isn't a snowball's chance in hell that housing will improve, the derivative meltdown will stop, the dollar will do anything but short cover or the Fed will fail to drop rates.
    
    Gold will again in the near future cross $887.50 and $900 on its way to $1050 and then $1650.
    
    If you have followed my instructions to eliminate all margin, given here many-many times, you have no problems and therefore no need to be concerned.
    
    If you are on margin in anything gold, shame.
    
    Please check back here at www.jsmineset.com and I will keep you in formed.
    
    Next post will be no later than 1:30 PM EDT.
    
    Respectfully,
    Jim
    
    
    
    
    
    
    
20. [verwijderd] 21 januari 2008 16:52

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    The Political and Economic Agenda for a Real Gold Standard by Ron Paul
    
    This paper was originally delivered at the Mises Institute's 1985 conference on the gold standard. It later appeared as the final chapter in The Gold Standard: Perspectives in the Austrian School.
    
    One of the basic insights of the great Austrian economists, both Carl Menger and Ludwig von Mises, is that money emerged by evolution from the market process. It was not invented by governments. There are basic economic forces today that are contributing to the further evolution of the monetary system, and there is a political strategy that I believe will make it possible to liberate those forces and restore the monetary role for gold. Because of the current economic and political climate, it is important to understand what we can do – and what we cannot hope to do in the short run.
    
    The Political Climate for Reform
    
    In his 1952 epilogue to The Theory of Money and Credit, Mises included a section with the title, "The United States' Return to a Sound Currency."[1] The Korean War inflation was fresh in most people's minds that year, when Mises prepared his proposal. Food prices in 1951 had jumped 11.1 percent, with consumer prices in general jumping 7.9 percent. Yet by the mid-1950s, the public interest in monetary reform seemed to abate. Changes in the consumer price index were in the vicinity of 1 percent per year for the next decade, and food prices even declined in 1952–53.
    
    The political and economic agenda for creating a real gold standard in the United States – a new international gold standard led by monetary reform in this country – depends very much upon the climate of political and economic opinion. If the Korean War inflation had continued, I believe Ludwig von Mises's proposal would have received much wider attention.
    
    My belief that periods of monetary disorder always focus attention on gold as the solution is strengthened by the recent occasion of a congressionally mandated Gold Commission, on which I was proud to serve. It was created in response to the high rates of inflation in the late 1970s and a rising cry from the general public to restore gold to its rightful monetary role.
    
    Most people know of the Gold Commission merely what the press reported – that it rejected a return to the gold standard. I believe the true significance of the Gold Commission is that the politicians and central bankers were so alarmed at such a thing that they made sure it was packed by an array of Keynesians and monetarists. These advocates of the established institutions and arrangements certainly don't want any role for gold to threaten their cozy theories about scientific monetary management and macroeconomic planning.
    
    The dramatic reduction in average price increases during the recent recession has once again diverted attention from fundamental monetary reform, but it is clear to me that our present unstable arrangement will break down once more, and there will be another Gold Commission in the future.
    
    The Mises Proposal
    
    I want briefly to review the plan Mises described, and then set down the steps I believe would achieve his goal. Any differences in the proposals I am supporting in Congress from the plan he described in 1952 are based on my judgments about the progressive deterioration in our monetary and fiscal system during the intervening thirty years and the politics of the task today.
    
    In The Theory of Money and Credit, Mises wrote, "The first step must be a radical and unconditional abandonment of any further inflation."[2] Although I strongly support this objective, I do not believe it would ever be possible to achieve such a requirement if we place it as "the first step."
    
    Banishing inflation is, in fact, the ultimate objective we expect to achieve by creating a new gold standard. The US government has moved so far in the direction of fiscal irresponsibility that the reform of our basic monetary and financial institutions has become much more complex. For political reasons, ending inflation cannot be the "first" step. We must subdivide it into many smaller preparatory steps even to approach the task.
    
    Happily, the second step that Mises described has already been achieved: "All restrictions on trading and holding gold must be repealed."[3]
    
    In January 1975 it became legal for Americans to own and trade gold, and in 1977 the remaining prohibitions on gold clauses in contracts were repealed. In my view, this restoration of liberty is the most important change in circumstances since 1952, and the one condition that is today most favorable to the restoration of gold to its proper monetary role.
    
    One of the points on which Mises was adamant is the role of the Federal Reserve System: "It is essential for the reform suggested that the Federal Reserve System should be kept out of its way."[4] Mises advocated the creation of a "Conversion Agency" that would be responsible for issuing gold coins and bullion to the public, and redeeming excess quantities of gold in circulation if the public should choose to exchange gold for paper. The Federal Reserve would continue to have some responsibility under his plan, as a fiscal agent for the Treasury in managing the national debt, but the Conversion Agency would maintain the domestic and international exchange value of the dollar.
    
    This is one of the most distinctive differences between Mises and other advocates of the gold standard, who want the Federal Reserve to buy and sell gold at a fixed conversion for dollars. The government's fiscal agent necessarily performs a banking function as it collects and disburses tax money. It would have to be separate from a conversion agency that would function more like an office of the National Bureau of Standards than like a bank. Mises's analysis of financial institutions and the market process led him to favor free, decentralized banking.[5] He was thus a consistent advocate of a separation of powers.
    
    Ludwig von Mises understood that the problem with monetary institutions is first of all a political problem. By proposing this separation of powers between the central bank and a conversion agency, he was an early proponent of an institutionalized competition in currency. Even the government of a constitutional republic like the United States could not be trusted with discretionary monetary power:
    
    The President, Congress, and the Supreme Court have clearly proved their inability or unwillingness to protect the common man, the voter, from being victimized by inflationary machinations. The function of securing a sound currency must pass into new hands, into those of the whole nation.[6]
    
    Restoring the monetary role for gold must become a popular crusade in the United States. In the political sphere, popular crusades require tangible – as opposed to ideological or intellectual – benefits that people can recognize and subscribe to.
    
    The First Step: Gold Coinage
    
    The heart of Mises's proposal to restore gold to our monetary system is a gold coinage. He wrote,
    
    Gold must be in the cash holdings of everyone. Everybody must see gold coins changing hands, must be used to having gold coins in his pockets, to receiving gold coins when he cashes his paycheck, and to spending gold coins when he buys in a store.[7]
    
    In this one detail – the critical importance of the gold coinage – I believe lies the key to establishing a new gold standard.
    
    We should make no mistake a
21. [verwijderd] 21 januari 2008 16:53

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    We should make no mistake about it: the more progress we make toward reestablishing the gold standard, the more aggressive our opposition will become. Some vested interests, as you know, have a lot to lose if we succeed in getting the monetary system reconstructed on a gold basis. The first political step is, therefore, to get the coinage into circulation.
    
    One objective might be to aim for every American to become a gold owner. We must encourage a broader base of political support for gold ownership and the availability of gold for personal economic objectives. Certainly a broader base of gold ownership in the country would help to reduce the threats of discriminatory taxation or regulation of gold ownership and gold coin transactions, which are seriously favored in Congress today.
    
    Ludwig von Mises and most advocates of a gold-coin standard have understood the coinage as something similar to what we had in the 19th century, until 1933. Under this concept, coins would be various sizes, with face values in "dollars" but not exact sizes in any system of weights. We could advocate a coinage of $50.00 denominations, about one-eleventh of an ounce, or $100.00 denominations, about one-fifth ounce; but that would start the process of rebuilding the gold monetary system at the wrong end. It would require, first, a majority in Congress to vote to establish a new par value for the dollar.
    
    By starting with the necessity for a congressional majority to decide on the sizes and weights of gold coins, we must presume in advance that we know the "correct" par value for the dollar. We must presume that a majority of the public already supports the restoration of a gold standard. The political task becomes a gigantic educational problem. Before anything constructive could be accomplished, millions of people who understand nothing about the causes of inflation or the advantage of a free-market monetary system would have to be persuaded to join a political movement. All the misconceptions that are propounded today by academic economists, all the mysticism of the central bankers, all the objections of the politicians would have to be expunged from the popular mind. I do not believe this would be an efficient way to approach the problem.
    
    What we must first do is get the coinage into circulation, and then build the political base to lock the government's fiscal folly with golden handcuffs. People have always understood the tangible value of gold coins in circulation. They don't need to agree or even understand the fine points of monetary theory to own gold coins, trade gold coins, or use gold coins to satisfy part of their marginal-utility demand for cash balances.
    
    Most people understand very little about economics or monetary theory. When they see supposed experts in disagreement, the status quo wins by default, because nobody with the power to change it has the courage of conviction. The majority of voters see the debate among experts and hesitate to support any leaders with comprehensive reform schemes. This is why all efforts to rebuild a gold monetary system have met with frustration and stalemate in the past.
    
    The demonstrated popularity in the United States of Krugerrand coins, and all the imitators of the Krugerrand (Maple Leaf, Panda, Onza, and the US Gold medallions) have shown us that it is possible to adopt another tactic, that of getting gold coins into circulation prior to setting a new par value for the dollar. Indeed, the only affirmative recommendation of the Gold Commission was to create a new US gold coinage in units of weight.
    
    I would love to see a purely private, free-market monetary system with any honest manufacturer able to produce coins, as Americans saw in California from 1849 to 1864. There must certainly be no restrictions on the private production of coins, but I believe that getting the US Mint further into the act, producing a gold coinage with some of the mystique of the government, will be useful in the further political stages of monetary reform. Honest money, after all, is a political objective; it is fitting that people should demand honesty from their government, as well as an economic policy that permits individuals to compete honestly. An official coinage that reflects honest bullion weights is a powerful symbol of the gold standard we support.
    
    The Transition to a Gold Standard
    
    The coinage should be based on exact units of bullion weight. The coins should be denominated in troy ounces, half-ounces, and smaller sizes if feasible. The denomination of the coinage is the secret to our success in the later stages of the political agenda, so let me take a few moments to explain the central importance of the denominations.
    
    There are several important advantages to starting with a gold coinage denominated in troy ounce and fractional units of an ounce. Since the unit of money should be defined as a definite weight of bullion, a coinage denominated by units of troy weight contributes significantly to the reeducation of the public. This knowledge, which is now almost completely lost to three generations of Americans, must be reimplanted.
    
    Murray N. Rothbard has made this point most forcefully:
    
    The transition from gold to fiat money will be greatly smoothed if the State has previously abandoned ounces, grams, grains, and other units of weight in naming its monetary units and substituted unique names, such as dollar, mark, franc, etc. It will then be far easier to eliminate the public's association of monetary units with weight and to teach the public to value the names themselves. Furthermore, if each national government sponsors its own unique name, it will be far easier for each State to control its own fiat issue absolutely.[8]
    
    Some writers have resisted the suggestion of a coinage denominated only by units of weight, arguing that the "dollar" was originally a unit of weight; but I think this is a misstatement. "Dollar" was the name of a coin that had a definite weight, but it was not a "unit" of weight. Adopting the name of the standard unit of bullion weight as the denomination of the coinage will bring together two important concepts about money that we must actively teach to a majority of Americans if we are ever going to restore a gold standard. The educational job becomes that much easier.
    
    Second, as Mises understood, the Federal Reserve and existing banks have to be kept separate from the remonetization of gold until the progress of popular support is broad and deep enough that special interest lobbying will not pervert the system. By avoiding any use of a dollar denomination on the coins, the Federal Reserve System is automatically kept out of the picture during this developmental period. The dollar denomination is today a monopoly trademark for the Federal Reserve System.
    
    Third, when the date finally arrives, at the end of the transition period, to provide the US dollar with a fixed definition in terms of gold, it will be a very easy detail to announce to the public that the conversion agency stipulated by Mises is starting to buy and resell the troy-ounce coins at a fixed price. The dollar was defined as 25.8 grains of standard gold in 1900. Today it might be defined as one grain of standard 0.900 gold. There is nothing inconsistent with this requirement if the coins are denominated in troy ounce, half-ounce, or quarter-ounce sizes.
    
    In Mises's monetary reform proposal, and under the classical gol