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Even Ben Bernanke Admits that Gold Is the Ultimate Safe Haven
As I noted yesterday, Alan Greenspan says that gold is the ultimate safe haven:
Gold still holds reign over the financial system as the ultimate source of payment.
Indeed, as I've previously reported, gold is in high demand during periods uncertainty and distrust of government. And see this.
As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard points out today:
Mr Bernanke himself was grilled by Congress this week on the role of gold. Why do people by gold? "As protection against of what we call tail risks: really, really bad outcomes," he replied.
Indeed.
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Don't Fucking Watch This Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwpy8GMzf4I
Gold got fashionable in the 1980s, and people got burned investing in it. I do think it would be interesting to buy a couple of gold coins or a small bar just as a curiosity, but I just don't think it's an investment at today's prices.
There are so many scams with anything to do with gold, it's just unbelievable. I don't think you can buy under an ounce of physical gold for less than twice the market price, and then if you try to sell it back to some jewelry store or pawnshop, they'll offer you a few pennies on the dollar for it.
Gold has to be certified with an intact chain of custody to be worth anything, and once you break that chain by taking physical possession, it's just way too expensive to prove that it's actual gold (i.e. you haven't debased it with something) when it comes time that you want to sell, say, no more than an ounce of it.
Wake me up when gas pumps and grocery stores start weighing, assaying, measuring, and accepting gold for payment. They'd probably have to do a NMRI with one of those super-expensive machines to prove it's actual gold atoms their customers are trying to pass off. If you want to transact business with those gold "bullion" coins, at a minimum, you have to carefully clean, weigh, and inspect each one to make sure it's not counterfeit, and then you have to figure the percentage of gold in the original alloy. I hope we don't have to go back to this kind of economy.
rise from thy slumber, for coming this judeo-christian holiday season comes the $99.99usd metal-a-matic from ronco a subsidiary of hop sing manufacturing and ponderosa labs. this device can give metal content and purity void of acid tests and bore holin bullion.
Is this yet another scam, or are you being sarcastic?
Ok, I'll test your coins with aqua regia to make sure they're real. And if you let me bore holes in them, nobody will notice if I fill them up with tungsten. No, there's more money in drugs than in gold. Those quack patent medicines from the Depression are making a comeback: JNJ, PFE, NVS, GSK, MRK, SNY, ABT, AZN, BMY, & LLY have the market cornered, and they'll be making money hand over fist until we can't afford their quack cures anymore.
"This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard."
Can you believe this is a quote from Alan Greenspan?
http://www.constitution.org/mon/greenspan_gold.htm
How could an individual write the aforementioned quote and become Chair-Satan?
Was he threatened?
Any thoughts?
And he's an idiot, with one caveat:
Does anyone NOT believe that there will eventually be a confiscatory event, completely like FDR?
I do not believe there will be any confiscation of gold...because we won't be returning to a gold standard.
It's a FUCKING ROCK!!
I was managing an American subsidiary of a successful large US Company in Mexico. It had been a financial turnaround for our team. Cash flow had accumulated in our bank in Mexico and corporate didn’t want the money repatriated to the US. Although we had already paid a 35% income tax to the Mexican government, we would have to pay an additional 30% exit tax to repatriate the money. In addition, we would have to pay high fees for the peso/dollar exchange, in order to make the transfer. The company wanted to expand our successful business and so we decided to keep the money in Mexican pesos to be used for further expansion. One morning, as my wife and I were on a trip driving on the highway, we heard a national message from the President of Mexico, Luis Echevarria, one of the most corrupt presidents in Mexican history. “It is a lie that we are going to devalue the peso,” he said.
Read more
https://lonerangersilver.wordpress.com/2011/06/20/living-through-a-curre...
Did you say "even Ben Bernanke admits that God is the ulimate safe Heaven" ?
He never could speak that clear with all that keynesian cock in his mouth.
The guys delusional.
Bernanke is a monetarist, he is not a Keynesian - the fiscal spending is a Joke in comparison to the bank bailouts.
sounds like bernankrupt will need some of that shiny.
cause his public service (controllership) will conclude with a really really bad outcome for like... umm.. seven billion people or so...
Paper does have some very good uses - bums use them as blankets on cold nights!
I'll wait until the Oracle of Omaha comes around to understanding why gold is valuable before I fall completely out of my chair.
Honest and Sound Criticism of Zarlenga’s American Monetary Act
Critique of an Austrian Critique
https://libertyrevival.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/honest-and-sound-critici...
More Smoke and Mirrors Folks - There is a third way out...
https://libertyrevival.wordpress.com/2010/07/14/milton-friedman-pay-off-...
https://libertyrevival.wordpress.com/2010/11/27/capitalism-without-monet...
https://libertyrevival.wordpress.com/2010/10/25/money-supply-for-liberta...
https://libertyrevival.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/the-henry-george-conspir...
"In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.
"This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard."
From the last two paragraphs of Gold and Economic Freedom by Alan Greenspan. 1966.
see: http://www.constitution.org/mon/greenspan_gold.htm
I think when Greenspan was "enlightened" to the ESF was when he changed his "tune".
I didn't see your post until after I wrote mine...
Sure, sure. The US world order is surprising day after day.
I always thought that was just typical Greenspan Gibberish - De Gaulle was a overt statist for Christ sake.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqxsHrOtLBc
and what about the Corsican ?
Just kidding - but they were Gold Standard statists......... not welfare statists.
I just find it hard to agree with anything that bastard says ... its instinctive.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtndOhSMpHs&feature=related
Sure! But, "its not real money"
We are at a historic Inflection Point. As Patriots of good conscience it is our duty to protect our country from the government. The threat to our way of life is real. We must not exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage.
Our birthright demands "We The People" physically stand together against Tyranny and demand a government of the people, by the people and for the people!
See: THE FOUNDING FATHERS: MYTH ASIDE, THIS IS A VISION GONE WRONG! - Part Two
Look. It's great for them really, really, really bad outcomes. Everybody here in ZH agrees.
But guys, calm the fuck down.
With the current financial team in place; Timmah, Benji, Lloyd, Jamie, 535 amazing intellects in Congress and who ever else unassociated therewith who have their fingers in the public till, we can't have a really, really, really bad outcome.
We can have really bad, really really bad, really really really really bad, just plain fucking awful, the End of Days walking arm and arm with Armageddon coupled with Revelations and Murphy's Law, not to mention a nuclear holocaust, but simply put, not a really really really bad outcome.
So the attraction of the barbarous relic you can neither eat nor screw becomes entirely moot.
Capisce?
I was worried there for a moment that you were going to say I have halitosis.
I'm just relieved we are not at the tail end of anything.
Time for another drink.
One of the most depressing statistics in the depressing June jobs report was
another decrease in the employment-to-population ratio. This ratio, which
shows the percentage of American adults (16 and older) who are working,
dropped again, to 58.2%. This is the lowest level since 1983.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7-e6Yhu5SU
This is IT! Bitchez!!
The government, after the deluge, is going to tax the hell out of anyone holding gold. Only "rich" people own gold.
I disagree.
Their crony friends are rich and can easily accumulate gold thus they won't want to tax gold.
It's the ordinary Joe who can't/won't try to get their head around exponential functions.
Joe can't see the end of the system approaching so he's not stacking Au/Ag.
I love showing people the 10Yr Dow chart vs 10Yr gold.
I think we should re-start the shell trade, ring of fire anyone?
I'm all about Wampum.
Even though you can't eat them, I prefer Rai stones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones)
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/images/2011/July/goldreserves.png
Upon returning to Italy, Polo showed off some Chinese currency notes and explained how they were used…An article by Will Willbond in the November 1995 issue of ‘The Bank Note Reporter’ describes the Venetian reaction:
The Emperor of China (who we call Kubalai Khan) gave the Polos a camel loaded with 1,000 cash paper notes as a gift from their sovereign. The doge (chief magistrate of Venice) and the cardinal (the Pope’s cousin) looked at these…notes in awe and dismay.
The hen-scratched writing was not in Latin or Greek but in a secret language, most likely the language of the Devil. They proceeded to burn these notes and accused Polo of heresy.
pg 38, Ralph Foster, Fiat Paper Money: the History and Evolution of our Currency, 2nd ed.
That's a shame. The paper could have been redeemed for some tasty food.
Yes, Big Ben believes that gold is held because of tradition.
The tradition of the usury boys to control, then destroy currencies in order to enrich themselves and make victims out of nations.
amen. can we say "vampire squid" and "parasite e-con-omics" ??
speaking of "e-con-omics", everyone does know, of course, who it iz that owns the "E-con-omist" rag (magazine).... right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Group
da same guy who implies dat TRILLIONS $$ of TAXPAYER EXTORTED dollars to "bail out" failed, fraudulent, insolvent, corrupt, bankrupt big banksters (and the hyper-wealthy they front for) is "CAPITALISM" -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Fw1RMKWypo
...while implying that ENFORCEMENT of anti-fraud foreclosure laws (much less, heavens forbid, anti-fraud loan laws; much less, heavens forbid, the sancitity of company (much less govt!) PENSION CONTRACTS w/ those millions of peons who had no choice but to pay in to their mandatory pension or social security funds is "evul SOCIALISM"
- only for the peons to see those funds be RAPED from inside out, see Jim Cramer's "FOMENTING" video, for how the Big Boys used coordinated ATTACKS on individual stock prices, to "pump & DUMP" siphon, SUCK the real asset wealth RIGHT OUT OF "well funded" pension funds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvUQg3woaWE
If you go below the surface of any mainstream media you see the same connected players again and again. I cancelled my subscription to "The Economist" 25 years ago.
gold is not money
to those
who have none...
Just because some reprobate doesn't know that food is something they need to consume to stay alive doesn't mean that they don't need to eat.
If not, gold (gourmet), then some facsimile thereof... silver (Chili's)...barter (McDonalds)...prostitution (7/11 burrito)...slavery (worms from the backyard)
You know this debate is pointless. Legally Gold is NOT money, as decreed by our governments. That is the definition Ben is using, so technically he is right. Our financial system defines money as debt, period. Why is everybody arguing this notion is beyond me. The fact that Gold will preserve your wealth better than debt instruments at times has nothing to do with whether legally it's defined as money. Let's all quit this silly verbal diarrhea and proceed with useful dialog.
Gold preserves nothing. What preserves wealth is the capacity to extract wealth.
Gold has the only merit to be accepted universally, meaning that if your society fails, you can find wealth elsewhere in another society.
If all societies fail and only the poorer remain, gold or no gold, your wealth has been vaporized.
"If all societies fail and only the poorer remain, gold or no gold, your wealth has been vaporized."
Will all societies fail at once? Suppose they only go into a depression. If all societies fail, what happens when, inevitably, they re-emerge? I wonder how gold did during the "dark ages"? If technology falters during a periods of societal failure, will that tend to help or hurt gold?
Knowing how gold does is irrelevant, knowing what it can do for you is better.
A currency unit is only worth the products that can be traded for.
The story of preserving wealth works only in stable enough environment to maintain wealth. No wealth to trade, no wealth traded.
How many years has fiat currency lasted in any cycle?
@ AnAnonymous...
Gold has been money for over 6,000 years.
That is a fact that is indisputable.
Gold and Silver will always be money.
Fiat = FRAUD.
You know better than that.
These comments are painfully weak. Please provide examples where gold lost all value? And if you even believed what you are saying, which you don't, why would you care about us to post it here? Wouldn't you be spending all your time liquidating your personal gold for "currency worth the products it can be traded for?" which you haven't mentioned what that is BTW???
You know this debate is pointless. Legally Gold is NOT money, as decreed by our governments. That is the definition Ben is using, so technically he is right. Our financial system defines money as debt, period. Why is everybody arguing this notion is beyond me. The fact that Gold will preserve your wealth better than debt instruments at times has nothing to do with whether legally it's defined as money.
Let's all quit this silly verbal diarrhea and proceed with useful dialog.
Section 8 - Powers of Congress
The Congress shall have Power:
…to pay the Debts… of the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To establish …uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
At the risk being called verbal diarrhea, may I please be allowed to note that in the preceding gold is not listed as the material of which the coin is constituted of, but neither is there any mention of federal reserve notes being a security of the US. The power to regulate the value of coined money, whether of foreign or domestic origin IS in the domain of our duly elected representatives. However, though federal reserve notes may rightfully fall into the “foreign” category, they fail on the “coin” issue.
As far as “Our financial system defines money as debt, period” goes, I’m not willing to concede this assertion. Your system may say “money = debt”, but there are other systems, (central banks in particular, according to BASAL requirements), that say “money = credit / ownership”. Naturally “money” = “money” but “credit / ownership” does not = “debt”, so who do we believe?
mundus vult decipi ergo decipiatur