201–210 of 238 posts
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Gold coins so people can steal them from you in this doomsday scenario? Gold is about as useful as monopoly money when facing a gang of people that will just kill you and take whatever they can.
With gold, you will be the gang.
> Gold is money, which is based on physical ownership, not on trust in the willingness and ability of another party to honor their promises. If you have gold, but you do not have it under your control, it is almost pointless to have gold. Really digging this one. That's why I proactively not listen to investors/consultants who suggest to buy some gold derivates for savety purposes. In other regards: What's the point…
All the bars look identical, to me anyway - there are no stacks of coins or goblets etc. that I could see. (Not all the cages are visible from the vault entrance).
The Fed states in the tour that sovereign nations can keep their gold in the vault, virtually free of charge. And take it back at any time. This is basically a service to the world that the US has provided since the second world war, when much of Europe wanted - for obvious reasons - to move their gold to a safe haven.
As the Federal Reserve is a very secure place, and great value for money, I think most nations have been fine to use that - much cheaper and easier than building a facility that is equally secure.
So personally I'm not sure about the conspiracy theories saying that the Fed refuses to release the gold; to me that is easy for any nation to test - just ask for it, it could be done publicly except that you signal to any thief the date/time of when to attack :-)
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Gold is valued at only $41k per kilo because central banks managed to convince us that we don't need it to back up our currency. If China really created gold-backed currency then gold price would skyrocket, increasing at lest 6 times (that's how much inflation we had since 1971, when the gold standard was abandoned)
> because central banks managed to convince us that we don't need it to back up our currency. No, it's because we switched to much more productive things to back up our currency. Our currency is backed by the willingness of our citizens to work and the value of the land and other possessions. The currency is stabilized by not printing more than what there is to back it up, nor less. Gold is a terrible thing to use be…
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$44 billion current US dollars worth of gold can back 10 to 100 times that amount of "money" (depending on how far you stretch the definition of money) in a fractional reserve banking system. It's no trivial amount.
That's already built into our understanding of what "$44b" is. If not, then all values should be inflated by 10x, which would keep the $44b at the same ratio of the total pie - which is to say nothing.
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Even if the Fed "lost" some of the gold (which would be a hilarious story), does it really matter? There has to be some liability clause in whatever agreement put the gold in the Fed's hands to begin with- if they lose track of Germany's property (or claim to have, or whatever), they're obligated to pay Germany back for it. Revealing that would be a gigantic embarrassment, sure, but primarily only concerning the Amer…
1200 tons of gold is worth around 44 Billion, a trivial amount of money as far the US government is worth. So the idea that it would be stolen by the government is ludicrous.
NASDAQ claims a gold market volume of barely 5 tons at this time. Good luck buying 1200 tons at a decent price.
Edit: Whoops. I meant to reply to your parent.
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With gold, you will be the gang.
Only if you can persuade the gang they can't get more gold from killing you than working for you.
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I also hear 9/11 was set up by the Americans, the moon landing was faked etc etc. Yet as far as I know just making 3 people keep a secret for years is next to impossible. If people wants me to believe in frauds so enourmous that you'll need hundreds of people to never mention anything - then I will need pretty solid evidence.
You mean just like NSA warrantless surveillance. If it is done by the state you can keep it confidential, can't you? And I don't think that you need hundrets of people to steal gold. Several people with state orders to delete and change regord will be enough.
Someone did come forward.
> the New York Fed, an institution that is owned and controlled by Wall-Street-banks
No, it isn't.
> In a country, whose current president considers it an imposition that the law and so-called judges tell him what he is allowed to do and not allowed to do.
His rhetoric doesn't prevent the judiciary from acting or render the other two branches moot.
> The way in which the official gold of the US, and the gold held in custody for other countries, is guarded against public scrutiny and shielded from its owners, gives fodder to any number of conspiracy theories.
You can bet the largest repository of gold is off-fucking-limits. And, no, it doesn't.
> Had the New York Fed refused to let a foreign central bank, which was under such obvious pressure, retrieve some of their gold, these conspiracy theories around official gold might very well have become intense enough to damage trust in the dollar.
What? How? Negative.
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Gold is not useless in industry. It is used to conduct electricity in many industrial settings. It also has other uses - dentists use it as a tooth crown etc. That it is useful is why it has value. Yes, storing and transporting gold for financial purposes may be a waste of resources. But gold is easier to store than most commodities - put it in a vault for several centuries and forget about it. You can't do that with…
When was the last time gold was used in dentistry?
http://www.webmd.com/oral-health/guide/dental-health-filling...
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Only if you can persuade the gang they can't get more gold from killing you than working for you.
To build the gang you must recruit where `new-recruit-power < total-gang-power`. Since to start you are the only gang member, you can only recruit one dude who is 0.75 your strength. Now the gang is 1.75 strength, so you can go after another dude who's really strong, say 1.25. Now your gang has a strength of 3. Eventually you will be able to swallow up whole other gangs.