OOOOHHHHH FFS people ,do you really think it's going to go down like that . What happened in WWII ,did real commodities go down What was it that got people out of the s**t Any body else read Max Stern's book ,he got his family out of Hungary & supported his family from the age of 12 HOW STAMPS When we left Russia in 1976 ,we mainly had gold & none of that was traded when we got here A family who left with us took nothing but a small book of stamps & 35 years later they are millionaires Gold/Diamonds & the right stamps will always get you out of the s**t If you are really concerned that you stake has devalued by X% ,your in the wrong game Rant over back to making beer ,I swapped with the boss for his brew kit
When my father arrived in Australia, leaving war torn Europe, he had only the clothes he was wearing, a few useless Deutchmarks, and a small hessian bag containing a several momentos of his life in Poland. luckily for us, the momentos were gold bars
Sorry if it seems like a stupid question but what are these "stamps" you speak of? like postage stamps?
The stamps wouldnt have a fiat face value on them such as Aussie ones do. UK stamps don't have a face value but are good for postage if a letter at anytime. So don't race out and buy Aussie stamps as an inflation hedge
True ,the kind of stamps I'm talking about are pre WWII I've been told by 2 dealers DON'T buy polymer notes & modern stamps
i have very early OZ stamps they are hitting the stamp auction soon if the shtf my silver will not see the light of day till things get better i will be in the soup line with everyone else where will you sell silver anyway? the local coin store won`t be open
Some of the arguments I had against this are: 1) It may be possible to simultaneously deflate while at the same time printing enough money to service the debt. We cannot say that money printing = inflation in a strict sense, because a deflating private sector might give the government enough wiggle room to monetise their public debt. The deflationary forces could offset the inflation. 2) If the dollar loses value, America becomes competitive again. It may be unlikely, but it is possible that a deflated US economy stimulates enough economic growth after the downturn that the recovery allows the US to service the debt, given the massive inflows of capital that would come into the country. Now, I'm just throwing ideas around here, but it's usually things we fail to consider or consider well that end up having the biggest impacts on us. I don't believe the future is going to pan out exactly the way the PM spruikers would have us believe, because they are too heavily invested ideologically in the Austrian School of economics. When you have that ideological investment, you tend to be inflexible when new information dictates changed circumstances.
Not sure if I really agree with points 1 and 2. I do however, 110% agree about your last point. People do not do enough critical thinking. Nothing should be off limits for a CONSTRUCTIVE debate or to be challenged.
I think point 1 may be very valid. If everything is deflating in the private sector, printing money to service the public debt would not have an inflationary impact if everyone saved the money instead of spending it! The possible impact is that we would have a Depression and then a hyperinflation afterwards when the recovery comes around. Or even worse, the inflationary impacts could be felt in other parts of the world, not necessarily America. But the timeframe on these scenarios could be years. Years when our money might actually be better invested into something else (temporarily). The question I ask myself often is "Was now the right time to buy PMs"? Because at the moment their capital growth is negative and the money I spent on them could be earning at least 5% in the bank. Despite what Maloney, Sprott and the others say, there may actually still be plenty of time left to buy PMs...maybe even a few years more. This isn't to say PMs are a bad investment, but the PM crowd makes fiat seem a lot more unstable than it probably is at the present time. For example, Peter Schiff was predicting hyperinflation in 2010 in interviews in 2008.
Critical debate away! If the private sector is deflating (which it is now, paying down debt both at the corporate and household level) printing more money to service the debt is still inflationary, I understand your premise that all the public sector is doing is replacing debt that the private sector paid down, however this monetising of the debt by government is still inflationary. These transfer payments by governments still go into the ecnomomy in the form of infrastructure spending, food stamps etc correct? Driving up prices for commodities and general prices. Ok, Now If the private sector pays off $100 worth of debt, yes this $100 is not spent on other good and goes towards the banking world, where they take the $100. (despite creating the loan from nothing). The $100 that the private sector 'paid' does not reduce the currency supply, the banking world book it as a profit, where they pay it out to CEO's and shareholders. Nothing more than a transfer of funds. The 'deflation' that you talk about by the private sector deleveraging can only occur in the case of a default or write down in debt in which case it is anulled, and the bank writes down the loss, reducing money (in broad terms). For deflation to prevail there will need to be defaults, bankruptcies and general writedown of debt. Debt repayment will not be deflationary. We all saw what happens when large scale bankruptcies are facing governments and I do not doubt that they will do the same again, all the while flooding with more money by monetising the national debt. This is how I understand it. PM growth now is negative? Over the last few months perhaps, but anyone who bought before juneish this year is still in the money. What is your time horizon and reason for investing in PM's? If it is just a couple of months for a quick buck, then you are probably in the wrong field, that is a trade and not a hedge nor investment. If you are in it for the longer time (>2yrs) who cares if price has fallen down slightly in the last month or so? in 12 months you will be wishing you bought more.
polymer won't last 100 years. :lol: , try put a drop of petrol on it, it will melt. my modern stamps can still be re-cycle, on the face , sent to a member here by post and considered my paying postage
Hahaha, reminded me of what Einstein said: "I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones." Great thread Earthjade...there are some well thought-out ideas presented and discussed.
First, I'm not sure what your concern is here, if the 'entire world' (I assume you mean the currency markets) is deflating, then who cares? If an ounce gold cost $800 and other stuff also halves in price, what's the difference? I'm not interested in the dollar, that's just an inbetween step to what I really wanted, I'm interested I what I can buy with it. Second, money printing is unlimited, and people that can spend without having to produce first will always be found. People can chose to not buy luxury items. But people cannot chose to stop eating or stop using energy, and trading is extremely hampered without a medium of exchange (alike the dollar or a gold/silver coin). Third, debt problems are always solved with new money and/or artificially lowered interest rates. These two manipulations are fundamentally erasing debt in terms of production. It's easier to pay $1000 back if the production cost of a cake is $1000 than if the production cost of house is $1000. Hyperinflation is just a later stage in this debt-erasing spiral. If prices double then half the effort needed to pay debt back is erased. And so on. Simply because the financial system is worldwide with numerous inter-dependencies and the same fundamental economical problems (huge government spending / massive regulation) occur everywhere. Fiat currencies last as long as people have confidence in them, yes, the question is now confidence in which monetary purpose. Confidence in the short term (trading), or in the long term (saving). Only hyperinflation also ceases the trading confidence (because a price doubling every day makes it way too hard to compare values of traded goods). But confidence in saving ceases much sooner. Why did prices of stuff rise? Because people decide to buy some ground, a house, some gold, silver, whatever goodies instead of letting them devalue on a bank account. I wonder why you name that $10000 USD an 'advantage' for the Americans. A hyperinflating dollar is just getting less purchasing power at a fast rate. Which Americans, or anyone, benefits from this? Those that can then pay off their debt much easier? How is that related to gold/silver? . Historically nearly all hyperinflating currencies resulted in extreme growths of black markets, whatever government tried to stop the trend. Why? Because people chose to live. And do you think the world will easily get a new monetary system? It takes years to make people trust a new currency, with 'trust' meaning that they are willing to use it for longer term savings. It's very well possible that they gonna require a backed currency, after all this experience with these fiatcurrencies. If such a new monetary system does come into place, then it's because people trust it, and that $5 silver will then buy the same as that $150 silver before. I think your scenarios lack some insight in the bigger scope. Markets are not islands. Economy is not a bunch planets with zero traffic between them. Economy is a whole of numerous markets with numerous interactions. Your scenarios are like sandbox stories. You pick out a couple elements and ignore all the rest. People that do this often predraw conclusions they already made before they started collecting arguments for them.
And your 'religion' is just people trying to protect themselves against thieves. Is it your 'religion' to deny that?
Because if everything 'halves in price', then that means $1 doubles in value. Thus having your money in dollars over gold would have been a very wise decision.
I hear ya, but the thing is those articles are such a croc of shit that it's very hard to take them seriously
The Austrian School of Eonomics is the ONLY school of economics... not that a collectivist Keynsian cheerleader would accept this of course
