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Fearing Grexit, Greeks Turn To Gold Again
It never fails: every time redenomination risks and the specter of the (New) Drachma rear its ugly heads, Greeks, like dutiful Austrian economists, realize that Neoliberal economics is nothing but a steaming pile of drivel that only works when everyone is "confident" and gets deeper in debt with a smile on their face while failing in every other instance, and decide that the time has come to convert their paper wealth into hard assets. It happened in 2010, in 2012, and now that Greece is on the verge of its third Grexit in the past 5 years, it is happening again.
As Bloomberg reports, "Greek demand for gold coins is rising as investors search for a safe haven from the country’s political turmoil, according to the U.K. Royal Mint."
“There has been a noticeable increase in demand in this last quarter,” Lisa Elward, head of bullion sales at the Royal Mint, said in an e-mail to Bloomberg News. “We tend to see an upsurge in sales at times of political and financial uncertainty.”
They said that with a straight face because in Greece "times of political and financial uncertainty" are now a monthly if not quarterly development. As a result, Greek investors are turning to gold. The Royal Mint declined to provide exact sales figures for the gold coins, known as Sovereigns.
Domestically, the Greek gold demand is currently run-rating at more than double that of Q4 2014: the Bank of Greece sold 5,849 Sovereign coins in January, according to an e-mail from the central bank. Bloomberg cites government data which show sales of 7,857 coins in the last quarter of 2014.
Why gold? "The one thing everyone knows about gold is it is a good thing to hold if your currency is about to devalue,” Matthew Turner, an analyst at Macquarie Bank Ltd., said via phone. “It would be understandable for Greeks to buy gold because they are afraid of losing their money.”
Hardly surprising, and yet one would think that with the entire world hell bent on destroying its currency now that, as we first observed earlier, for the first time ever global central banks are about to monetize more than 100% of global debt issuance...
... that everyone's demand for gold would be higher instead of just those on the edge of completely monetary collapse. We suppose we should thank anyone who is actually surpressing the price of paper gold in their increasingly more desperate attempts to telegraph that central banks are still in control when with every passing day it becomes abundantly clear they are not.
But back to Greece, where withdrawals from banks may have exceeded 11 billion euros in January in the run-up to the elections that resulting in the dramatic victory for Tsipras and his anti-austerity Syriza. Expect withdrawals to accelerate to the point where ATM lines start forming. Of course, if there is no agreement on the Greek bailout continuation by Friday as the Eurozone warned, then those lines will only get bigger. As will Greek demand for gold:
Online retailer CoinInvest.com reported increased sales to Greece around the country’s elections in January, the Frankfurt-based director Daniel Marburger said in an interview last week.
"During periods of monetary uncertainty people will always think gold is a useful addition to their portfolios," Turner of Macquarie said.
But why: can't they just BTFD and hope that while central bankers are unable to preserve the sanctity of a monetary union which as recently as 2014 was considered untouchable, they will have no problem with keeping the S&P at or near it all time high in perpetuity?
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When all else fails... Gold! The ultimate wealth protection asset.
Where is Thanassis when you need him?
You know with all the Euros those Hun's gave to the flaky Greeks, one would have thought the Greeks purchased Gold (physical delivery of course) already. It would be fucking hilarious if they actually did that!
the horses are gone so we're shutting the barn doors.......
Don't leave the euro without it.
With all this physical gold demand around the world, one would think that prices would be moving back near the highs..... oh wait the algos are programed to sell in this everything is awesome dreamland.
Physical is a barbarous relic. However paper gold is cool and can be traded like baseball cards. Just try to convert the paper to physical though and see how long you wait for delivery.
You know you can trade gold eagles and maple leaves digitally now too.... desperate industry is desperate. Huge consolidation going on in the retail metals industry. Stick to stacking the real stuff.
“It would be understandable for Greeks to buy gold because they are afraid of losing their money.”
Good thing we don't have to worry about that in the US!
Now that Greece is once again printing Drachmas, 99% of the fresh new currency is going to those below poverty level instead of going to the elite as it did before.
I turned to gold in 1978....Columbian gold, Acapulco gold. Oaxacan gold.....I been hooked on Silver ever since.
Yes - until it all starts again.
Buying gold, gives new meaning to the phrase "BTFD"
Too bad our good man the comedian Thanasis passed away in 2011.
Even without subtitles he was funny - see the boxing scene starting at 20:00 min.
That is Greece of today - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ch7jZQlYBHM
IIRC, you're Greek, right? If so, I have a completely OT question:
How difficult is it for a native Greek speaker to learn ancient Greek? I know that 2500 or so years is long enough for a language to change a lot, but I'm still curious.
So, maybe 3/4 of it is almost exactly the same. reading it is pretty easy, i.e. without having studied anything in particular for it. (native greek speaker here who grew up abroad, thus did not have any ancient greek in school).. i can read most things and with what i would call a basic amount of education i can understand the majority of it. There are a number of words which have come into or gone out of style between then and now, and the rate of change in greek has also slowed down over time: reading homer for example, which is an oral composition dating back to the 12th cent BC, but in its present form was written down in the 8th cent BC, it a lot more difficult for the un-prepared modern speaker than reading, say, plutarch (1st cent AD) or even say herodotus (4th c BC).. Often reading ancient texts as a modern native speaker who has never had any special training in ancient greek, i will miss a word's implication til ive read further on and then it will make sense, usually by some context reminding me of an obscure useage of the word surviving into modern greek. Lots and lots of words like that. very simple example could be 'door'.. today usually ????? , borrowed from latin porta, but with a greek root from even further back (possibly borrowed _into_ latin!) , which remains in some words, e.g. ???????? == invading conqueror, literally meaning 'he who enters'. At the same time, the word for door common in ancient times ????, today is only used for very formal kinds of doors like big fancy gates, however the word for window ???????? , which literally means 'like a door but not quite' , is still the common word for window in modern daily use. So there are lots of those kind of migrations of usages even though the words themselves are the same and entirely recognizable as such.
A second thing is that most preserved ancient _texts_ are compositions made wither explicitly in verse, or were at least composed to be compact on paper. Paper (and copying what was written on it) were horrifically expensive until the late middle ages, and most texts, not just greek, from the ancient world , are composed in a style which is not very much the way people even spoke then, but was deliberately terse to economize space. Thus, when scraps of colloquial expressions do get preserved, e.g. from comic plays, one can tell the difference immediately. One major difference in 'feel' between most classical greek texts, and modern greek, is the very heavy use of articles one encounters in modern greek, whereas those are often omitted wherever possible in ancient texts. did people really speak that way? it sounds awfully stilted to us, perhaps they still didnt use them as much, but once in a wihle one finds ancient texts which make the same kind of use of articles which are familiar today , and one gets the suspicion they were usually coposing writtex text in a more terse style. Beyond that, one also must remember that education in the greek and later roman worlds was extremely heavy on learning classic literature and on very precisely imitating its style. Two thousand years of greeks at least were schooled on homer, which was already very archaic sounding even in the classical period (the rate of change of the language slowed down a lot after the modern greek alphabet's adoption in the 8th cent BC) and on top of that was deliberately stilted away from ordinary speech because it's in verse.. and that _style_ was the style all educated people were expected to imitate, and if you didn't imitate that style you were a totally illiterate buffoon. This attitude prevailed through byzantium almost to the end, and indeed only in the 11th century AD does one start to see texts from the 'educated' classes begin to diverge from this style (still with heavy relapsing to the style) , and not til the very end of byzantium in the 14th and 15th centuries does one see the greek literate tradition finally accept that it isok to not imitate the style of homer (though references were still admired, and everyone was expected to get them).
So the style of almost all ancient texts, imposed by the pressure of conformity among educated classes in ancient greece, rome, and byzantium, also contributes hugely to the stuffy and archaic feel of a lot of ancient greek texts.
Now, being able to compose something properly is different- for that one really needs to properly study it to compose anything other than a short one-liner.
Thanks for the detailed answer.
See Costas Gavras "Z"
Switch to silver if you really want a shot at the feds backdoor. Greeks are backdoor experts!!
Russian gas for silver!!!
RIPS
What do you do when you get over a few hundred lbs. of it? It's not very portable.
"When all else fails... Gold! The ultimate wealth protection asset."
Yes, but only if held by Owner.
Corollary: The TRUE owner of PM bullion is the Holder, not its theoretical owner.
Based on the time-proven principle: "Possession is 9/10ths of the Law in a law-abiding society and 10/10ths in a lawless society". Just ask Iraq, Libya and Ukraine, or Germany and Switzerland...
Stack accordingly.
p.s. For Harry Potter fans, there is a nice parable in Book 7, where it says the Goblins (who own Gringotts Wizarding Bank), consider Precious objects as theirs, and not belonging to the Wizard buyer. The Wizard/Buyer is merely 'leasing' it in their worldview.
A nice and subtle allusion by JK Rowling to modern Moneychangers and bullion holders, I suspect.
Don't forget leasing your property from the state, ala property taxes. We need allodial title, BITCHEZ!
Income tax is the problem. Property tax has always existed if for no other reason than to protect property rights.
Property tax protects property rights? LOL! Don't pay your property tax and just see what property rights you actually have. They'll come and evict you from your house. That is not protecting property rights.
This is not something plebs understand, they only care that the rent is affordable.
Of course if the Property Taxes are held to 0.5% of FMV, then that's "close enough" to Alloidal. E.g. a $300,000 property would be taxed $1500/yr. Few people would bitch about that. But...
Real taxes seem to be 1-2%, it seems, and that is worth bitching about. If Incomes kept pace with this, then you're ok; but this not the case for most people, since their Incomes are not indexed to the same range as the property value ($300k here), so the absolute dollar values do not align. For reference, in our city the prop. taxes are ~ 1.2% (Services, Schools and Bonds/Debt).
Which is why I'd live outside the tax jurisdiction of a city, if I didn't have needs/priorities for access to the best Public schools in the area. When we are empty-nesters, this will change (from City to County prop. taxes).
The muni model has swithched to the insurance model. Municipalities are letting the infrastructure crumble while continuing to increase taxes. The money goes in, but your claims on it are denied.
<< The money goes in, but your claims on it are denied. >>
A model perfected by HMOs.
Yes it's true but it takes years to evict. Lawyer up and sue the city it town, one can drag it on for years.
That is simply not true, property tax did not always exist it really is in the last under 100 years in the USA that they started coming around. Allodial title means the property is yours and yours alone no taxes can be lieved because how can you tax something that you do not own.
It simply is TRUE.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_tax_in_the_United_States#History
Property taxes in the United States originated during colonial times. But WTF do we know?
I would still get rid of them. (And the income tax too. And probably a bunch of other taxes.) I don't really care how old they are. They mean that the defacto ownership of the land is by the state, and IMO, if there is going to be state owned land, it should be public land or not state owned at all. Everybody has to live somewhere, and if you have paid for the land that you live on, you shouldn't have to continue to pay rent to the state just to dwell somewhere.
Some people live in Realville, others live in Shouldville.
Yet your premise that they protect property rights is still wrong.
The original intent of property taxes had to do with the enforcement and protection of individual property rights. When you say "They", do you mean the current slew of Marxists? they are anti-propertry rights, but not againts taxation.
When I say "they," I mean property taxes. You can test the "protects property rights" premise by not paying them. The people who's salaries that property taxes are paying will show up with an eviction notice. Without either jail time, or forefiture, property taxes are unenforcable, and since we aren't supposed to have debtor's prisons in the US, that means forefiture. You only have what right to your property that you pay the state for.
How much tax does the state collect if the property owner goes bankrupt? ZERO
If an idividual overextended themselves and can't afford something, there will be someone else to take up the slack and rent him something they can afford. Realville.
Translation: You enjoy being a slave.
Taxes are fine as long as the government cap them at max let's say 20 or 30% of what you earn annually. Hell it should be enshrined in the constitution !
If you are "victim" of speculation the government should be forbidden to force you to sell your property to pay the taxes, same things with death and wealth taxes (that should not exist in the first place.)
Hell, if I was a president or King of a country, it would be the first measure I would enshrine in Law (with other measure for strong private property preservation) no nation be it democratic, monarchic, theocratic or else can be strong without private property.
(And a strong or a Gold based currency).
Good one, El Vaquero.
Had to look it up... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allodial_title
That means it's your property only until I kick your ass off of it and call it mine. Who's going to enforce?
The same person who is ultimately responsible for protecting your safety and property even under today's twisted laws: You and your 870.
That's simply childish talk.
I'm assuming you're being sarcastic there.
Imagine no law enforcement except me and my Posse vs your 870.
Imagine that the SCOTUS has already ruled that the state has no responsibility to protect you from non-state actors. Wait, you don't need to imagine that! The cases of DeShaney v Winnebago and Castle Rock v Gonzales were such cases. One was a case where a child wound up with a severe brain injury and the state knew that the kid was in danger and did nothing and the other was a case where the cops knew that an unstable man had taken his kids despite a restraining order, did nothing and he killed the kids. The court ruled in both cases that there was no redressability against the state in either case because the state had not caused the harm. You are responsible for your safety, and if you want to go rading houses, around here, be my guest.
BTW, there wasn't a lot of law enforcement in the early history of the US compared to what there is today. The world didn't end.
There was actually much more law enforcement in the early history of the US compared to what there is today. But WTF do we know? We live in shouldville.
You mean like NYPD in the early history of the US? Or how about those county cops on the frontier?
Yes just like the NYPD in Early history of the US. HANDS UP, DON'T POOP! YOU'RE A ...... AND I WILL STOP RESPONDING TO YOU, THANK YOU.
LOL, there was no NYPD until 1845. But again, as you put it, what do we know?
That's right, there was no NYPD in the early history of the US. I was making fun of you, douche.
I thought you were going to stop responding to me. I'd rather be a douche than a liar.
talk us through how a plunge from 1900 to 1200 provided wealth protection.
In USD's it provided a buying opportunity. In Rubles it provided wealth protection for Russian plebs, look at any 10 year Gold chart in Rubles or yens or any other collapsing currency. I need to explain this here because the IQ of ZH posts has dropped off the charts. "Obama is Gay" and "I have a mancrush on Putin" is about the extent of the comments now.
That's kinda harsh don't ya thnk?
Oh look, Bruce Jenner is getting a sex change operation.
I like playing head games with low information douches on ZH. Crucify me.
"Crucifiction? Good, 2nd door on the left, one cross each." :>D
At least in Russia they give you 10 to 17 % interest rate in "the axis of good" they give negative interest rate or 0.5 something for the 10 years like in Japan...
Also look at the price in USD of commodities expect Oil and Gold such as butter or orange juice you will see some real hard inflation.
I know a lot of smart people that are putting there money into rubles for the higher interest rate and eventual gold backing. That's my recommendation for the people here.
we're on the same page
"talk us through how a plunge from 1900 to 1200 provided wealth protection."
Timeline isn't long enough.
I think guns are a better wealth protection asset. But gold could be a second place I guess.
Ammo: fungible, divisible, durable, recognizable.
Think of a round of 223 or 7.62 as a 25 cent piece. Then consider what that same round will be worth in ten years.
Would you rather be holding that cartridge or a fiat quarter?
If the SHTF, anyone with gold will be handing it over to someone with a gun. The only difference will be whether the guy with the gun also has a badge.
Yanis should peg the new Drachma to the gold price.
How's he going to do that?
He has no gold reserves, or at least not enough to back the currency.
He has no foreign reserves to sell in order to keep the drachma at a value of choice.
Ergo: Any new Greek currency is going to float.
And "sink" is the Greek word for "float".
According to the World Gold Council, Greece owns 140 tons or thereabout of the yellow metal. If he chooses to back the drachma with gold, he could print 5.3 billion drachmas, each worth about a USD. Or he could print even more depending upon the ultimate common unit.
1 Drachma = 1 Euro
in other words, a value of zilch......
Yep if they can print them we can print them too. Only ours will look better, use more paper, and more ink.
"Legal tender for all debts public and private" Greek Drachma
Pray tell, how do broke, unemployed people buy gold?
The same way broke, unemployed people seem to find ways to buy beer, cigs, and weed?
the Obama stash?
you mean brew it, bum it, or grow it? that works for gold & silver?
That, or the old fashioned way, just steal it.
depending on your latitude, it's about time for onions, taters and tobacco seed starts (indoors on these)... i kinda wish unkle sugar would ease up on the reefer laws, i might could get some good bartering on that and i really like the smell of the stuff. i guess it's more important to get folks strung out on whatever pharmco is peddling :-(
The broke, unemployed people I know are all on the dole. They all have enough for weed and smokes. Some do additional bludging off people who care about them. Some are petty crimminals. Any extra cash goes to various addictions, then to "entertainment" or consumer crap which will be gone, one way or another, within a year. Nothing productive. Nothing long term. Certainly no PMs. Giving these FSA man-children any money is just pissing down a rathole. Of course, they are nowhere near as big a drain as the elite FSA. Trickle-down economics my ass. The elites just piss on you and telling you it's raining.
bankers cant have cash outside "the system". so, time to convert the cash under your mattress, in the safe deposit box, buried in the back yard, etc.....into (paper) gold. and then lose 30% when a greek default sends the system into a tailspin and liquidations send gold under $1000.
In the US it does no good to keep valuables in the safe deposit box at the bank (just get your own safe and don't tell anyone). Banks can seize cash or anything of value (like PM bullion and coins) either on suspicion of terrorist activities or under civil asset forfeiture. And keeping paper dollars or other cash is hopeless, because one day it will all be electronic (at least that is the hope by the powers). So keeping your own store of wealth squirreled away somewhere is your only protection against being bailed in.
Some people just stumble accross it.
http://cubiclane.com/2015/02/07/17-pound-gold-nugget-chinese-herdsman-fi...
At 50-60% youth unemployment and 25% (official) unemployment, Greeks are having a tough time just getting by.
They don't use plastic, eat out much if at all, live in multi-generational dwellings (unemployed kids in their 20s live with parents, and retired people live with their kids). They grow whatever food they can, job-shop for anything and even resort to the vice and flesh trade. Have heard of attractive female nurses & doctors moonlighting as call-girls.
Ain’t Wall St style (vulture) capitalism great?
Thanks/Efharisto, GS! Thanks, ECB and IMF! Vielen Dank, Merkel!
Coming to 'Merica soon. Oh, wait...
Soooooooo... This Barbaric Relic is not only a hedge against currency devaluation, but also a unit of account, a store of value AND a medium of exchange... Interesting...
we got another one.
JPM
Wonder what a country would look like without a Government..
been to Beirut?
.....(no? how about Detroit?)
It doesn't have to be violent, like the Shiites and Kurds in Iraq. Belgium went without a government for a year-and-a-half, following the elections in 2010, and the national and regional political structures are still missing key pieces. http://www.expatica.com/be/news/country-news/Belgian-king-urges-speedy-f...
Usually, when a country ends up with no government it means that the political deadlock is so hopeless that the only long-term solution is TWO governments and political partition. In Belgium, there would probably be one government for the Flemish-speaking north and another for the French-speaking south, but who knows what will happen.
Worked fine here in Belgium a couple of years ago.
(Didn't stop the regional assemblies or local gov though)
The correct answer would be Somalia.
I have said this before here, but here we go again,
I clean fucking windows for a living, and on a couple of rounds I do I clean the old folks bungalows for nothing as they have nothing, they dont have fuck all, for fucking Dogs sake, over here in England they go walk about on public tranport to stay warm, they have less than nothing, and I dont have a great deal mind. Just like the Greeks, where are these people getting the money from to buy gold? I cant afford gold, how can the Greeks?
?? Something doesnt add up boys, and it aint fucking me.
;-)
while it's admirable that you help out the little old ladies who are struggling it needs stating that they will not struggle as much as you and your family if you don't own gold. Their generation wasn't badly looked after compared to ours. A sovereign is approx £200+. The figures out of Greece aren't groundbreaking. Remember that there is much wealth stored in Europe from past generations. If you charged for that shining you did then you might own a little shiny yourself to protect your family. If you are genuinely concerned about your neighbours which I have no reason to doubt then recommending to them holding a solid gold position might benefit them in the not too distant future also.
Thanks for the reply Drummond mate.
I genuinely cannot afford gold. My legs were chopped off in 2008 and I aint never recovered. My outfit is just staying alive. Such is life eh?
Have a yard sale, pawn the tv...we've usually got some clutter taking space in the house - buy a coin.
Damn straight fella! It's hard times now and even harder to come I think. A few of the blokes I work with have got a fiddle on the side doing some shining and they've moved over to these pressure fed pure water systems on a pole. Bit pricey to set up and expensive on their water bill (unless you can plug into a hydrant on the sly to fill up) but they swear they'll never go back to a traditional round.
They may be turning to gold, but you can bet they aren't paying their bills with it.
As for issuing a new drachma backed by gold, forget it.
https://craigeisele.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/greece-had-to-pledge-all-of...
Just wait for the announcement that there isn't any gold in the treasury, or there are lead bricks like the Ukraine found.
I thought in the case of the Ukrain there were no lead bricks the vault was simply emeptied out.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-22/ukraine-central-bank-conned-swa...
The amount of gold pledged is only about $5 billion worth, hardly collateral for tens of billions in bailouts. Interesting though. I imagine the ECB has already re-hypothecated that to $100 billion. or more.
Perhaps this is leading to the royal mint declaring they are out of gold sovereigns due to Greek demand
The money may be leaving the banks, but I see no signs of panic, or indications that the money is fleeing Greece. Maybe they are withdrawing just to get it out of those banks, not because they fear Greece is going to collapse.
Well, wouldn't that be the smart thing to do? Because if I were in Greece, I'd be getting my money out of the banks and buying some PM's to stash, and wait to see how things settle out. I'd be thinking that if we're gonna go back to the drachma, then my euro bank deposits might be difficult to work with (where would I spend them now that everyone who uses them hates me?), and I'd stash gold to 'buy' drachmas with. Or whatever currency they end up using. (I haz gold...I can haz some rubles?)
Rubles are possible...even if they use them as an 'interim' currency on their way to 'drachmazation'...if they try to use Euros, I'm pretty sure the EU will go out of their way to fuck around with them...Rubles would clear them out of Greece pretty thoroughly, and eliminate the 'hold' they have over Greece's economy.
Of course, then they'd be dealing with Russia and it's economy, not exactly the Emerald City at the end of the yellow brick road, but at least it ain't Brussels. Going from the frying pan to the fire? Maybe, but if you've been IN that pan for a long time, you might decide to take the leap just for the "air-time" you get in between landings.
Or you can eat gold and this might happen.
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7OwkPGIYY64" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
http://youtu.be/7OwkPGIYY64
Fiat probably has more fiber.
Shit. When Mr. Yellen sees this news you know what will happen.
At the height of the Weimar Republic hyperinflation, 1 oz. of gold would buy 119 billion marks. In 1918, an ounce would buy 87 marks....
Trump Plaza will be going for 1 OZ of .999 fine.
Yet another Gold commercial at ZH. I own gold and would like to see it go up too but I don't keep trying to scare people into buying it for the last 5 years. I remember when Gold "bottomed out" around 1600. Yeah those were the days.
I had a friend who went all-in around $1,800.00, not sure what premiums were then. “Going to $6,000!”
Only gold is money.
Meanwhile in Greek political life - aka Alexis Tsipras:
Old and busted - you Germans shouldn't have given us a bailout.
Hot and new - give us a baiout, you filthy decendants of NAZIs.
Negative interest rates = permanent gold backwardation.
Game over.
Wonder what kind of gold they are talking about? Bars, coins? I thought they were broke.
They bought all that gold with money they saved from paying those pesky taxes....
in a 'non capital control country':
max allowable cash accross a border? 10,000€£$
max allowable bitcoin across a border = ? ... thats right, no limit
Bitcoin is about to be less volatile than euro so any zh greeks should at least consider it along with gold to weather the coming weeks potential storms
I expect to be downvoted for suggesting this , but desperate times ...
Fuckig really? They should be buying US DOLLARS, just like Russians, Europeans and Canadians SHOULD have been buying DOLLARS, and NOT GOLD. Do some math ya knuckleheads. The CAD/RUB/EUR is devaluing against the dollar, and gold in USD is going NOWHERE.
BTW, once Russia completes buying a metric shit ton of gold, the US will manipulate gold back to 600, negating ALL of what Russia has bought.
Go ahead and downvote and prove to us all that you can not do simple MATH.
And yet ANOTHER reason why 9/11 was hilarious. Don't you agree, bill1102inf? "Oh my god, the North Tower is starting to collapse...run!" LOLOLOLOLOL...
Gold is what it is - a store of value and maintainer of purchasing power...You won't necessarily get rich, but then you won't be using your life's savings to buy a ham sandwich......
FIRSTLY:
There is no official issuer of currency anywhere, ANYWHERE, who has advocated or offered or shown any intention of offering a Gold Standard.
ALL OF THEM simply promise they will give you variations on a single theme... you give them your gold, and they will give you paper receipts of varying quality in return. The only difference is in the quality.
Specifically, the Western issuers want you to turn in all your 'barbarous relic' to them, to be kept permanently in their, or their cronies' vaults from which location it will be one of many assets inconvertably backing the paper promises they give you in return.
The EASTERN issuers offer you almost exactly the same deal. They want you to give them your gold, your 'barbarous relic' in return for paper also. And upon receipt they will place that gold in their or their cronies' vaults from which location it will be one of many assets inconvertibly - now - but maybe, at some later date between now and the year 10,000,000,000, and at some rate between 0 and infinity paper-promises to the ounce, it MIGHT become convertible.
In either case they want you to trade a physical asset you own free and clear, that can easily be traded directly roughly the same basket of goods anywhere in the world, for a piece of paper worth nothing in particular.
SECONDLY:
At current prices less than 1/10th of 1% of the paper promises in the world could physically be converted into Gold...which is why they will not ACTUALLY offer convertibility. If they offer it, it beggars them, because the price of Gold must rise. If they do not offer it, but only promise to offer it at some future date, then they have the freedom to issue as many promises as needed to ensure that it is you and not they who are beggared.
THIRDLY:
150 years ago only rare individuals with rare equipment could actually validate the quality and quantity of a hard currency offered as payment. As a result, people had to rely on reputable mints with recognizeable coins to authenticate the value of their currency.
Today, any idiot can cheaply order a graduated cylinder and an electronic metals tester from Amazon.com, which in concert would be just about impossible to fool at the user-payment level.
Why do you need governments to go to a gold standard? If you barter with it you've paid/been paid!
hee hee hee
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-05/whispers-greek-capital-controls...
yeah... that's why kitco gold is plumeting ...
yeah... that's why kitco gold is plumeting ...