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Perhaps we just get rid of money in all forms entirely. It's a rather foolish thing no matter how you cut it.
yep, digital is the way the governments want us to go, that way they can make sure you pay all of your taxes and this way the government can also track all of your income. Ireland has just changed to digital, this will kill the underground economy in that country.
yep, digital is the way the governments want us to go, that way they can make sure you pay all of your taxes and this way the government can also track all of your income.
from what i hear, the u.s. favors a cashless society as a way to fight crime too -since many criminals (the lower-tech ones for sure) love cash
Gold can be transported any where to any country and exchanged for there currency. Every ounce of gold that has ever been mined is still in existance.
As can nearly every paper currency in the world be it dollars, yuans, sheqels, or Haitian gourdes, although you would need a shipping container worth to buy a loaf of bread. I suspect that the permanence not to mention its shiny qualities and malleable qualities for being shaped into jewelry played a significant role - 50% of all gold is used for the manufacture of jewlry, played no small part in its history as a commodity of exchange when such things as paper were far rarer than gold itself, it is totally unnecessary today.
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The Chinese would rather own gold or silver than any currency. Now we have 1 to 2 billion people now on the market for precious metals when do you think the price may fall.
That is all fine an good but like the Chinese government I would rather have hordes of irridium, or Ytterbium, which I can (well not me personally) make products that multiply their value far more than gold. Again, what people yearn for doesn't make it intrinsically any more valuable than junk bonds or credit default swaps.
It seems to me that gold has no more intrinsic value than Conch shells, eagle feathers or dare I say it, paper money. As a commodity of exchange, you can't eat it, you can't heat your house with it, although it makes for a better rock to throw as a weapon but other than that... In the dooms day scenarios so pervasive amongst dystopian theorist I would no more exchange a pound of gold for a kernel of corn than I would for a ton of scrap iron... actually the scrap iron might have more value since I could at least make utensils out of the scrap metal.
You can't use the barter system for everything, you need some form of currency that represents value. If you want to heat your house, you can use wood but, if you want to use oil or coal, you better have access to an oil well/refinery or a coal mine or you'll be out of luck without gold (or some precious metal). People will be willing to honor it in exchange for goods because they it will be honored when they purchange something with it. Paper money with an unstable or no government to back it, would be as good a writing a check....it's paper. After dooms day if it ever were happen ever, it would be very unlikely that would still be mining gold with any significant degree of success so, the only gold that will be possibly available will be what ever had been previously mined. Corn you can grow (if the soil is not contaminated), scrap metal you won't need to get from someone else.....unless things are like the movie "Water World", scrap metal might be more available then air.
To use something as currency, there needs to be enough of it for circulation, while at the same in limited quantity or not realistically capable of being manufactured/produced.
Last edited by Danno3314; 04-05-2011 at 11:56 PM..
As can nearly every paper currency in the world be it dollars, yuans, sheqels, or Haitian gourdes, although you would need a shipping container worth to buy a loaf of bread. I suspect that the permanence not to mention its shiny qualities and malleable qualities for being shaped into jewelry played a significant role - 50% of all gold is used for the manufacture of jewlry, played no small part in its history as a commodity of exchange when such things as paper were far rarer than gold itself, it is totally unnecessary today.
The point of the matter is, gold has a certain amount of intrinsic value and will continue to have a value regardless of our current economic situation. It is very difficult for real gold inflation to occur, because gold is a limited resource. In contrast, the dollar is something like 1/25th of its original value at the inception of the federal reserve? There is not 25 times more gold today in the world than there was in 1913.
If an economic collapse happened tomorrow, the dollars you have now could potentially become absolutely worthless. Not only that, but they can be burned easily, or even counterfeited. Because the cost of producing paper is nothing compared to its supposed worth. And while US dollars can currently be exchanged with other currencies in the world, the value of the US dollar isn't fixed in any way shape or form. The US dollar could end up extremely weak and basically worthless compared to other currencies(if the institutions are even in place to allow the conversions). Because the only thing that gives the US dollar any value is the strength of our economy relative to other economies. If our economy goes into the tank, then our dollar is worthless. On the other hand, whatever happens to our economy, gold will still be valuable.
While I would agree that in an apocalyptic scenario that gold would feel sort of worthless(my friend always says that the most valuable items will be guns and ammunition). It is still the perfect foundation for a common currency. Every country has some amounts of gold already in it. Gold is untarnishable, unburnable, and rare. Those dollar bills you have in your pocket wear out very quickly. And are easy to rip, get damaged from water(like being washed), and will degrade into topsoil if left outside.
The only reason the federal reserve exists, is to allow endless spending by the federal government, otherwise known as Keynesian economics. Can you imagine what would happen if the federal government couldn't just print money as it needed it? It would be going broke like California, having to cut its size drastically to keep from insolvency. But what does the federal government do now when its going broke? It passes stimulus packages, while you have Krugman cheerleading that America should spend its way out into economic prosperity.
Last edited by Redshadowz; 04-06-2011 at 01:28 AM..
Ask the people in Japan who lost their homes in a giant flood about how your plan would have worked out for them.
Your plan only works if your area isn't danger of some of natural or man made disaster.
I wouldn't be such a smart a**.
The gold owner would win in this case, as he'd be able to easily transport his wealth in a backpack and go. When the dust settled (or waters receded in this case), he'd buy up what the prepper lost.
To that end, are there black markets appearing in Japan, based on the shortages?
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