Money

I was just reading this article Money As the Greater Depression Deepens | International Man
It struck me how many non-precious metals also meet the criteria of money.
Can the same arguments be made for holding Copper, Nickel, or Aluminum?
Without getting political, I'd love to hear your thoughts

What are the characteristics of a good money? Aristotle listed them in the 4th century BCE. A good money must be all of the following:

• Durable: A good money shouldn’t fall apart in your pocket nor evaporate when you aren’t looking. It should be indestructible. This is why we don’t use fruit for money.
• Divisible: A good money needs to be convertible into larger and smaller pieces without losing its value, to fit a transaction of any size. This is why we don’t use things like porcelain for money; half a Ming vase isn’t worth much.
• Consistent: A good money is something that always looks the same, so that it's easy to recognize, each piece identical to the next. This is why we don’t use things like oil paintings for money; each painting, even by the same artist, of the same size and composed of the same materials, is unique.
• Convenient: A good money packs a lot of value into a small package and is highly portable. This is why we don’t use water for money, as essential as it is. Just imagine how much you’d have to deliver to pay for a new house, not to mention all the problems you’d have with the escrow.
• Intrinsically valuable: A good money is something many people want or can use. This is critical to money functioning as a means of exchange; even if I'm not a jeweler, I know that someone, somewhere wants gold and will take it in exchange for something else of value to me. This is why we don’t, or shouldn’t, use things like scraps of paper for money, no matter how impressive the inscriptions upon them might be.

Until quite recently, 90% of the world’s people were either flat-out prohibited from owning gold (Russia, China and the rest of the ex-communist world) or simply too poor to consider it (most Indians and other residents of the Third World). But these people are now allowed to own gold and have a fast-increasing ability to buy it. And they’re rapidly doing so. Their cultures have long histories with the metal and recent histories of living in a police state; they understand the value of real money. Although common people are now the biggest gold buyers, many governments and central banks are accumulating it as well.

I expect that gold will soon become the preferred medium of exchange for many. Early adopters will include dealers in drugs, armaments, and other prescribed merchandise; these folks are very security conscious. They will be joined by all manner of people who just want to do business below government radar. And in the years to come, paper currency is gradually going to be eliminated by governments in favor of debit cards, credit cards, and other media of electronic transfer. Governments prefer these things, for obvious reasons; they make anything you buy or sell a matter of permanent record. People, therefore, are going to need a private way to trade when paper cash is unavailable.



The downside, of course, is that these same things will draw more attention to gold from the state, which doesn’t like to see competition to its currency. Will they, therefore, attempt to outlaw gold again? Or, more likely, regulate its use; perhaps by requiring all gold owners to register it and/or store it in approved facilities? Anything is possible.

i think metals have some kind of occult power to them and they can be thought of as savings bonds.

Originally Posted by logansryche

I myself know alot about certain fiat currencies but don't talk about them because they have no place in the world of scrapping.

That is why I posted in 'Off Topic Discussions'. I also beg to differ ...

Many here likely know much about fiat currencies and that they are all doomed to fail.

If you believe that line of thinking and follow the logic of this article, the question it begs is how many people do you know that will be walking around with a pocket full of gold coins? If that day ever comes, won't most people then be trading with Silver (more affordable) and non-ferrous metals? How will you trade for necessities and other things you desire?

Is the turn and burn strategy short sighted? Maybe stockpiling now makes a lot more sense than most have considered.

I think a lot of it has to do with population and the size of the economy.

In small isolated communities the barter & trade thing works okay as money.

As small communities start doing business with one another you need some kind of physical coin. it can be copper for the small transactions, silver for the medium size, and gold for the large transactions.

As the communities form into a nation you need paper money.

As the nations come together to form a global economy you need an international reserve currency so that they can do trade with one another.

As the global economy grows it becomes physically impossible to print enough paper money so it has to work as account entries in cyberspace. ( That's where we are right now. )

The next step, that will probably happen within the next ten years, is that we will create a truly international reserve currency through the International Monetary Fund. ( It won't be the U.S. dollar anymore.) It just doesn't seem like there would be any other way of creating a system of money that could serve the needs of seven to ten billion people.

If we tried to go back to gold it would be like asking a monkey to do an elephant sized job.

The hard currencies stopped working as the primary medium of exchange back in the 1930's and our economy collapsed into the Great Depression.

Scrappah, I think you are correct in where we are headed. Like it or not. The money lenders need a global currency to keep multiplying their assets and control.

But is it necessary? I certainly don't think so. Maybe ONLY to keep funding war.

The great depression was not caused by the gold standard. It was an opportunity to begin manipulating currency through interest and inflation.

In all sincerity .... i try to avoid assigning blame. This seems counterproductive to me. It's too easy to get bogged down in playing the blame game.

The Japanese have a saying : Attack the problem .... not the person.

Drawing from the Eastern Philosophies : People ALWAYS do their best. If they could have done anything any differently they would have.

What we are left with is just the economic situation we presently find ourselves in. It simply is what it is.

Originally Posted by matador

Realistically, I view gold as one step above worthless. It's too large to buy most items, and doesn't have nearly the industrial value of silver.

That said, I think if the dollar (Or any other nation's currency) were to collapse, the currency system would involve a lot more bartering. It's hard to know what to do with a gold coin, but it's pretty easy to transform a chicken or a pound of wheat into something useful (food).

It works on small scales, but it encounters issues when dealing with the wheat/car ratio or the chicken/house transaction. There must be a much more dense value to accommodate larger transfers of value easily.

Originally Posted by Scrappah

In all sincerity .... i try to avoid assigning blame. This seems counterproductive to me. It's too easy to get bogged down in playing the blame game.

The Japanese have a saying : Attack the problem .... not the person.

Drawing from the Eastern Philosophies : People ALWAYS do their best. If they could have done anything any differently they would have.

What we are left with is just the economic situation we presently find ourselves in. It simply is what it is.

The Japanese have been attacking the problem for decades and are a manifestation of the problem.

The problem is that too much money has been created and there is noway to pull it out from the system. The only answer is to walk away from the failed system(probably would be more accurate to say destroyed) and start over. How will that work? I don't know. Some things seem to hold value, and some things, not so much. Gold, silver and copper have been used to transfer value for thousands of years. Preserved food is good for small transactions. Weapons and ammunition and tools are stores of value as well as being useful to the possessor.

Probably the most valuable item you can have in your possession is the ability to do for others or the ability to add value to something else. Learn how to repair a toilet or a car. Take wood and build a cabinet or repair a roof. Teach others a skill. You are your own and your familys' most valuable asset. You are the most value dense item you have in your possession.

Originally Posted by ChildhoodDream

WHO made the money problems?

Do their best at WHAT,

denial?

it simply is what it is.

I'm not picking on you, I just find what you wrote very vague.

It's fine ... i'll take another run at it.

First off: There's the question of what led us to this place. That's not an easy question to answer. If you asked a person left of center they might say it's debt spending on wars. If you asked a person right of center they would point the finger at debt spending on the social programs. ~ This will get us absolutely nowhere. ~

If you were to ask me i would say that our current economic problems are a direct result of irresponsible economic policy from the GWB administration. Alan Greenspan served with distinction as the chairman of the Federal Reserve across a goodly number of administrations both Dem & Rep. Something happened partway through his service under the GWB administration that caused him to step down.

One of the hallmarks of the GWB administration was it's secretive nature. At some point along the way the Federal Reserve declined to produce information on the M3. As i understand it ....the M1,M2, and M3 constitute a yearly report on the activity of The Fed and most importantly the amount of money that is being created & released into circulation.

It wasn't terribly long after that the Chinese government stopped buying our Treasury Bonds & Treasury Bills. My opinion is that they caught wind of the possibility that we might be hyper inflating our currency.

Secondly: This begs the question of why. I could offer any number of opinions. I don't like what they did, but had i been in the same situation i might have done the same thing myself. It's easy to armchair quarterback when you're not the guy in the hot seat. I'm satisfied to accept that they did the best that they were capable of at the time.

Maybe all of this isn't very important. What's in the past is in the past. That cannot be changed.

What we do have is the present and the situation at hand. What we've got is what we've got. It is what is. We have to move forward from there.

Does this make more sense ?

Originally Posted by ChildhoodDream

anyone heard of the flat earth society?

they are much like little children that want to believe in the easter bunny and such.

I find it sadly amusing what people choose to try and believe is far more then it truly is.

What I view many doing is much like blaming the baked bean for making them fart.

Is it the FAULT of the baked bean or the person that ate the beans?

What does this have to do with the concept of money?

That most worship the money God in their many ways and then try and place the blame for money problems elsewhere.

I find it interesting that there is NO talk anywhere about the honest condition of the worldwide economies and WHAT caused it in DEEP detail.

was it the bean or the human that ate it that is the most blame for the music and aroma?

there's plenty of science around to prove the earth is flat. if the earth was round and rotating the sun would appear to set and rise in the same place i think. the more i think about it the more things that don't really make sense....like the moon is reflecting the sun's light back to the earth but why are there times when the sun and the moon are both visible in the sky at the same time.

Ahh i get it ... you're one of them there non-conformists !

How dare you challenge the reality of the Matrix !

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Matrix

Seriously though ...you ought to check out the Principia Discordia & the Black Iron prison. I think you would find that a lot of it would ring true for you. The crew at Eris Bar & Grill run deep but they've also got a wicked sense of humor about it all too.

It's all good CD.

Where you said before that you don't watch a lot of TV i thought you might /might not be into the Matrix. It's a pop culture thing.

Reserve judgement about the PD & the BIP. It's not a religion but a parody religion. Huge difference ! Those guys don't take themselves seriously at all.

It takes somebody who has taken "the blinders off" to be able to perceive it for what it really is.

Thought you might be that kind and would find that it stimulated your mind with thinking that's outside the box.

Originally Posted by Scrappah

It's fine ... i'll take another run at it.

First off: There's the question of what led us to this place. That's not an easy question to answer. If you asked a person left of center they might say it's debt spending on wars. If you asked a person right of center they would point the finger at debt spending on the social programs. ~ This will get us absolutely nowhere. ~

If you were to ask me i would say that our current economic problems are a direct result of irresponsible economic policy from the GWB administration. Alan Greenspan served with distinction as the chairman of the Federal Reserve across a goodly number of administrations both Dem & Rep. Something happened partway through his service under the GWB administration that caused him to step down.

One of the hallmarks of the GWB administration was it's secretive nature. At some point along the way the Federal Reserve declined to produce information on the M3. As i understand it ....the M1,M2, and M3 constitute a yearly report on the activity of The Fed and most importantly the amount of money that is being created & released into circulation.

It wasn't terribly long after that the Chinese government stopped buying our Treasury Bonds & Treasury Bills. My opinion is that they caught wind of the possibility that we might be hyper inflating our currency.

Secondly: This begs the question of why. I could offer any number of opinions. I don't like what they did, but had i been in the same situation i might have done the same thing myself. It's easy to armchair quarterback when you're not the guy in the hot seat. I'm satisfied to accept that they did the best that they were capable of at the time.

Maybe all of this isn't very important. What's in the past is in the past. That cannot be changed.

What we do have is the present and the situation at hand. What we've got is what we've got. It is what is. We have to move forward from there.

Does this make more sense ?

I am not a GW Bush fan, but, he was neither the creator or ender of the money problem. If GWB was bad, how does Obama rate as he has spent three times as much as GWB? Debt and spending and has been increasing exponentially for a long time (since the Federal Reserve was created). The real problem is that with a debt based currency, debt must continue to grow or the currency and structure of our economy will collapse. If only it was just GWB, we would have hope to repairing the currency. The only hope to repairing the debt problem is to destroy the current debt based currency system and reset to a new collateral based currency ( I doubt it will be a painless transition).