A return to the Bretton Woods international gold standard is inevitable - Eric Janszen

[jtabeb]

Re: A return to the Bretton Woods international gold standard is inevitable

he's not saying confiscation but taxes. really... are guns going to save you from the irs? have you tried that re your income taxes? :eek:

Already have it covered, as you should if your invest heavily in physical PM's.

Never enter into any investment with out knowing when your are going to get out, what are you going transfer into, and how to structurally minimize (or in my case eliminate) tax liability.

V/R

JT

[jeffolie]

Re: A return to the Bretton Woods international gold standard is inevitable

Most certainly Obama and the Democrats in both houses of Congress are not going to do any favors to precious metals in any form. Converting physical pm to fiats maybe problematic under hyperinflationary, socialist times. Perhaps the most likely advantage will be the conversion of pm after the hyperinflation is over. As a traditional store of value, pm should survive the hyperinflationarly period which tends to be over in a few years.

[akrowne]

Re: A return to the Bretton Woods international gold standard is inevitable

I just can't see it. This could be a generational disconnect, the only thing I've ever known or has existed in my lifetime is the current system, so I don't know what a gold-backed system looks like.

Au contraire, rj1; most people STILL THINK the dollar (and most other major currencies) has a gold backing! In fact it is rumored there are people on congressional banking committees that think this...

You just happen to know enough to know the ugly truth; most people don't.

To most people, a completely unbacked fiat currency is so bizarre and reckless that it is actually unintuitive. People intuitively understand real value (labor-value or use-value) and the concept of intrinsic stores of such value -- they don't readily understand how something with no intrinsic value could be widely treated as if it has value; so most impute to the dollar some value through a "phantom gold standard".

Case in point, I guarantee if you go out and ask 100 people "is the dollar backed by gold?", most will say "yes".

Even better, if you subtly suggest the dollar is backed by gold and then proceed to ask a follow-on question, nearly all will let the assumption slip.

I.e. "should we re-calibrate the dollar's peg to gold to inflate the currency, in the process making it easier to pay off debt?"

See what happens ;)

But the reason we went off gold was because we were losing our power to the current system because we weren't economically strong enough to justify our then-current position. So I don't see why the Fed or government would subject our country to the gold standard just for us to continue that decline that Nixon got us out of in the 1970s, unless they plan on using the fact that most governments' gold is physically held in New York.

Actually what Nixon did and what FDR did are similar and all Eric is saying is that they will have to do more of it. Nixon did stop gold convertibility; but the dollar was nontheless devalued relative to gold and more substantially relative to the balance of payments.

The only reason the cessation of gold payments was doable was because of the US's central status plus the presence of the Soviet bloc at the same time. Basically, the US's trade partners nicely agreed to go along and not hold the US to task for ceasing gold payments. In essence, the US's trade partners agreed to go along with a "phantom gold standard"; accepting a devalued dollar but allowing the peg to gold to become imaginary.

That scheme is coming to an end because they can no longer afford the luxury of such fantasy; the scenario Eric paints is therefore just a return to ACTUAL gold convertibility. The price shift is simply because this will have to be done at a market clearing level to monetize all the bad debt and balance trade.

[metalman]

Re: A return to the Bretton Woods international gold standard is inevitable

Most certainly Obama and the Democrats in both houses of Congress are not going to do any favors to precious metals in any form. Converting physical pm to fiats maybe problematic under hyperinflationary, socialist times. Perhaps the most likely advantage will be the conversion of pm after the hyperinflation is over. As a traditional store of value, pm should survive the hyperinflationarly period which tends to be over in a few years.

much simpler than that. everyone agrees to a 4x deflation of currencies against gold. bang! everyone's import prices go up 2 - 3x. remember the inflation that $100 oil was causing? wasn't that long ago.

[WDCRob]

Re: A return to the Bretton Woods international gold standard is inevitable

I'd bet not more than 5% of the U.S. population has a freaking clue what 'gold standard' or 'gold backed' even means. I'd also bet that even fewer could tell you what Bretton Woods actually meant beyond vague generalities.

As for the idea that money is supposed to be tied to production... forget about it. We'd need to clone Finster a million times over and disperse all of him to every census tract in the country.

Or at least that's true for people born after, say, 1960.

[jk]

Re: A return to the Bretton Woods international gold standard is inevitable

This is as dire, and dour, a piece as I have read in some time.

now that events are developing more or less as expected, is this: when the time comes, will owning gold do us any good? Is there some other asset we should own either in addition or instead?

I’m pretty much with qwerty

oil companies, "plantation" stocks, miners of resources needed for renewable energy and high technology.

[metalman]

Re: A return to the Bretton Woods international gold standard is inevitable

This is as dire, and dour, a piece as I have read in some time.

I’m pretty much with qwerty

had the same impression. maybe he's making sure we don't keep looking for a bottom in stocks :eek:

[metalman]

early adopter... iran

Iran switches reserves to gold: report

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has converted financial reserves into gold to avoid future problems, an adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in comments published on Saturday, after the price of oil fell more than 60 percent from a peak in July.

Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, is under U.N. and U.S. sanctions over its disputed nuclear programme and is now also facing declining revenue from its oil exports after crude prices tumbled.
"With the plans of the presidency...the country's money reserves were changed into gold so that we wouldn't be faced with many problems in the future," presidential adviser Mojtaba Samareh-Hashemi was quoted as saying by business daily Poul.

[jk]

Re: A return to the Bretton Woods international gold standard is inevitable

time to reconsider gold mines?

[WDCRob]

Re: A return to the Bretton Woods international gold standard is inevitable

Isn't this basically what Hudson was saying? That when the S really HTF there's nowhere to hide. They'll get you one way or another?

[Adeptus]

Re: A return to the Bretton Woods international gold standard is inevitable

Ron Paul's recent commentary on the G-20 meeting & going back to a gold standard (not according to him).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COtE1J5NMbo

5:21 mins

Thought some of you might like to hear it.
Cheers,
Adeptus

[Nicolasd]

Re: early adopter... iran

Iran switches reserves to gold: report

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran has converted financial reserves into gold to avoid future problems, an adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in comments published on Saturday, after the price of oil fell more than 60 percent from a peak in July.

Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, is under U.N. and U.S. sanctions over its disputed nuclear programme and is now also facing declining revenue from its oil exports after crude prices tumbled.
"With the plans of the presidency...the country's money reserves were changed into gold so that we wouldn't be faced with many problems in the future," presidential adviser Mojtaba Samareh-Hashemi was quoted as saying by business daily Poul.

Just curious : Who would have so much gold (US 75 Billions or 45,000 tons ?!) to sell ? Smells like propaganda to me.
Only a fraction was converted ,if any , IMHO

[Jay]

Re: early adopter... iran

Just curious : Who would have so much gold (US 75 Billions or 45,000 tons ?!) to sell ? Smells like propaganda to me.
Only a fraction was converted ,if any , IMHO

And if they did, would they sell it to the Iranians? Dicey bit of chicken with the US that would be.

[DaveBrown42]

Re: A return to the Bretton Woods international gold standard is inevitable

he is not talking about a gold standard in the usa or anywhere. the article is about an INTERNATIONAL gold standards, ala bretton woods. don't they teach you kids this stuff in high school?

Not sure if you're joking, but I'm fairly certain this sort of thing is not taught in high schools and has not been for well over a decade.

[metalman]

Re: A return to the Bretton Woods international gold standard is inevitable

Not sure if you're joking, but I'm fairly certain this sort of thing is not taught in high schools and has not been for well over a decade.

honestly, have no idea what they teach kids in school besides how to borrow and buy stuff and listen to their gov't and media... all the important aspects of good citizenship.