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posted by on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:06AM   Printer-friendly
from the raid-on-fort-knox dept.

Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard

A bill recently introduced in Texas seeks to obliterate the Federal Reserve's much-maligned monopoly on currency by establishing gold and silver as legal tender — but the groundbreaking legislation, if passed, would also prohibit those precious metals from being seized by State authorities.

[...] Senator Bob Hall introduced the bill last month, which, the Tenth Amendment Center explains, "declares specifically that certain gold and silver coins are legal tender, and prohibits any tax, charge, assessment, fee, or penalty on any exchange of Federal Reserve notes (dollars) for gold or silver. The bill authorizes the payment of taxes and fees in gold & silver in certain circumstances. It would also prohibit the seizure of gold or silver by state authorities."

Would this matter in a nation where money is mostly plastic nowadays anyway?

Source: http://thefreethoughtproject.com/texas-bill-gold-silver-money-federal-reserve/


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:14AM (31 children)

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:14AM (#494752) Homepage

    " Would this matter in a nation where money is mostly plastic nowadays anyway? "

    Yes, because if you get on the government's shit-list, you can still pay for things after you have your assets frozen (and possibly confiscated) by the government. And that is a likely scenario even for non-criminals -- for example, when the government starts raiding pensions, savings, and other assets Cyprus-style to make up for budget shortfalls; or when there is a countrywide implementation of negative interest on financial accounts.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:22AM (10 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:22AM (#494753)

      When you get on the government's shit-list, you will be in prison, and your relatives will be stealing your money.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:31AM (8 children)

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:31AM (#494756) Homepage

        Well, the joke's on them -- I don't have any money! Bahhahahahahaa.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:33AM (7 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:33AM (#494758)

          Debtors prison it is then.

          • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:15PM (6 children)

            by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:15PM (#495003) Homepage Journal

            Why are AC comments so often completely false? We have no debtor's prisons, dufus. Who are you trying to fool, foreigners?

            --
            mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
            • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday April 17 2017, @09:51AM (4 children)

              by TheRaven (270) on Monday April 17 2017, @09:51AM (#495192) Journal
              You might want to look up the term 'bail bond' and do some background reading before you make that assertion.
              --
              sudo mod me up
              • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday April 21 2017, @04:13PM (3 children)

                by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Friday April 21 2017, @04:13PM (#497469) Homepage Journal

                You don't need bail unless you're arrested for a crime.

                --
                mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
                • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Friday April 21 2017, @04:38PM (2 children)

                  by TheRaven (270) on Friday April 21 2017, @04:38PM (#497480) Journal
                  And arrested is basically the same as guilty, so why not save costs and eliminate that pesky trial?
                  --
                  sudo mod me up
                  • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Saturday April 22 2017, @09:57PM (1 child)

                    by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Saturday April 22 2017, @09:57PM (#498088) Homepage Journal

                    No, it isn't. I've been arrested twice and never went to court. Charges dropped both times (I was actually the victim both times and the cops screwed up).

                    --
                    mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
                    • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday April 23 2017, @12:09PM

                      by TheRaven (270) on Sunday April 23 2017, @12:09PM (#498288) Journal
                      Well done, you've completely missed the point. Now go and reread the thread again.
                      --
                      sudo mod me up
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 17 2017, @01:06PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 17 2017, @01:06PM (#495229)

              Uchh, wrong. I might have ignored this if you didn't seem so convinced by stating 'completely' - saying 'technically' i would have let you slide with a C- and kept my AC-rightness to myself...

              I'll leave this non-partisan article link here:
              https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/02/24/debtors-prisons-then-and-now-faq [themarshallproject.org]

              ...And it's not just bail bonds.

      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday April 16 2017, @09:58PM

        by kaszz (4211) on Sunday April 16 2017, @09:58PM (#494970) Journal

        And because you had so little to do with government. They don't know how to find you either..
        Might as well put out a wanted for a person that has settled on Mars and for which the face is unknown.

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:33AM (17 children)

      or when there is a countrywide implementation of negative interest on financial accounts.

      You realize this is precisely what inflationary fiat currency does already, yes? Inflation goes up, savings become worth less. You've never really been able to sit on your laurels and keep what you have since Nixon took us off the gold standard.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:16PM (5 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:16PM (#494806)

        So the great depression was....?

        • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:31PM

          by Nerdfest (80) on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:31PM (#494812)

          Before Nixon.

        • (Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:45PM (3 children)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:45PM (#494817) Journal

          The great depression was the result of buying on credit which was unsecured in any manner. Doesn't matter what the standard is, gold, silver, plutonium, sticks with notches cut in them, unsecured credit is risky. Unlimited unsecured credit is a recipe for disaster. THAT was the great depression - which differed little from the more recent depression of 2008.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @06:11PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @06:11PM (#494884)

            There's even a name for that kind of stock market activity: Buying on margin [google.com]

            the great depression - which differed little from the more recent depression of 2008

            Previous bubbles which had burst were the result of "irrational exuberance", as former Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan named it.

            The 21st Century version added another layer: Institutional dishonesty.

            Mortgage lenders granted loans to folks they knew were unqualified.
            They bundled those and sold them off as quickly as possible to greedy suckers looking for easy profits.
            (Companies whose business it is to rate the quality of investments lied about those, compounding the problem.)

            If there was any chance of a mortgage lender getting stuck with the crap mortgages, they would place bets against those with hedge funds.

            ...and none of the folks involved in this at the high levels have been sent to prison.
            ...or been put on trial, or been charged with crimes.

            -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

            • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:11PM

              by kaszz (4211) on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:11PM (#494974) Journal

              Perhaps the irrational exuberance was actually intentional exuberance to get people to loan and then bust so the assets later could be bought at a bargain for the people that really runs the show, albeit with huge discretion.

              Just imagine if you had a lot of money to buy assets in 1930 when the market had just crashed. And had some insight into future earnings.
              (Like in Timecop (1994) 13 minutes in)

              ...and none of the folks involved in this at the high levels have been sent to prison.
              ...or been put on trial, or been charged with crimes.

              In other words the government is run by crooks. And after all if the congressmen and senators are informed of anything bad happening before the rest of the market because they get to sit on privileged meetings and get to trade without any insider charges. They have little incentive to fix the perverted incentives.

          • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday April 17 2017, @10:01AM

            by TheRaven (270) on Monday April 17 2017, @10:01AM (#495193) Journal

            The great depression was the result of buying on credit which was unsecured in any manner

            The debt wasn't unsecured, it was secured by something highly volatile. You buy shares worth $X. You can now borrow $X against the value of those shares and buy shares worth $2X. Because people are buying these shares, the value of your shares goes up and is now worth $3X. Your purchasing power is now $3X, minus the $X that you've already borrowed, so you can buy another $X of shares. If you need to repay the loan, then it's fine too, because you can sell the $3X of shares, repay the $X of loan, and walk away with $X of profit plus your original $X stake. The problem wasn't that they the loans were unsecured, it was that the value of the security was intimately linked to whether people were repaying the loans. If one person's loans were called in, then they needed to sell their shares to cover the cost. This caused the share price to drop and so other people now had negative equity and had to sell their shares to make margin calls. This caused a cascading effect and at the end most people's shares were worth far less than their loans. After that, because of the rush of sales, a lot of companies' market value was below their asset value and so people who had available cash or credit were able to buy them up in large quantities, helping to concentrate wealth in the hands of a small set of people.

            --
            sudo mod me up
      • (Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:28PM (6 children)

        by Thexalon (636) on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:28PM (#494810)

        Blaming Nixon and fiat currency for inflation is demonstrably wrong, for one simple reason: The worst years of inflation the US has ever had were in 1917-1920, back when it were still on the gold standard and Richard Nixon (and FDR for that matter) weren't major political players.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:46PM (4 children)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:46PM (#494818) Journal

          My response above applies here as well:

          The great depression was the result of buying on credit which was unsecured in any manner. Doesn't matter what the standard is, gold, silver, plutonium, sticks with notches cut in them, unsecured credit is risky. Unlimited unsecured credit is a recipe for disaster. THAT was the great depression - which differed little from the more recent depression of 2008.

          • (Score: 4, Informative) by Thexalon on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:50PM (2 children)

            by Thexalon (636) on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:50PM (#494839)

            Except that neither the Great Depression nor the Great Recession of 2008 were caused by unsecured loans. In the case of the Depression, what was going on was that people were taking on credit secured by the stocks they were buying with that credit. In the case of the Recession, everything was ultimately secured by the homes the mortgages were based on. The problem in both cases is that the financial economy was not being sufficiently propped up by the real economy (i.e. people doing work to make stuff and sell stuff).

            Also, the period I mentioned, 1917-1920, was World War I, a full decade before the Great Depression.

            --
            The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
            • (Score: 1) by Scrutinizer on Sunday April 16 2017, @06:42PM

              by Scrutinizer (6534) on Sunday April 16 2017, @06:42PM (#494892)

              Except that neither the Great Depression nor the Great Recession of 2008 were caused by unsecured loans.

              If the price of your collateral crashes (or is fraudulent), it's effectively the same as an unsecured loan. Fraud is a regular tenant throughout the US' financial history.

            • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:20PM

              by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:20PM (#495006) Homepage Journal

              That's partly accurate. My college history class was about the 1920s and this [virginia.edu] was the textbook (full text at the link, and a very good read). Chapters X through XIV explain the stock market crash and its cause.

              I still have the copy I had to buy in school.

              --
              mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:50PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:50PM (#494840)

            plutonium, sticks with notches cut in them

            This must be the financial equivalent of inventing people with green skin and purple spots.

            Though I admit, there have been a variety of currencies before, such as sea shells.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 17 2017, @01:00AM

          You misunderstand. I've no objection to devaluing stationary money. It's all but vital for a healthy economy. I was just stating facts.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Tuesday April 18 2017, @01:46AM (1 child)

        by Nobuddy (1626) on Tuesday April 18 2017, @01:46AM (#495640)

        Ive noticed ancaps harp on the gold standadd, while being painfully ignorant of it.

        Helpful hint: the gold standard ended long before Nixon. He just took the last unused remnant of the law off the books. That would be like officially declaring the horse and buggy dead as a primary mode of transport today.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 18 2017, @12:56PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 18 2017, @12:56PM (#495808)

        Sure you can! Just buy TIPS. Moving away from the gold standard was a trade-off of some of the dollar's utility as a store of value for additional utility as a medium of exchange. That makes sense, given that most people don't require that the asset they use as a primary store of value be completely liquid.

        Besides, the core value-add of a government-backed currency like the dollar is that it is legal tender. A government can legislate a currency into being a better medium of exchange; they can't magically make it a better store of value. So it makes sense from that perspective that you'd play to your strengths.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday April 18 2017, @01:29PM

          Removing the utility of its storable value was, or at least should have been, by design. Circulating, or at least invested, money makes for a healthier economy than money stuffed in a mattress and inflation forces anyone with the sense god gave a jackass to keep their money moving.

          A lot of people don't get this when they talk about how rich people just sit on their money. Rich people never sit on money if they can help it; they know their cash loses $inflation_rate of its value every year.

          They also don't seem to get that money in the bank is not "sat on". It becomes part of the fractional reserve banking system and gets loaned to them to buy their house/car/whatever. Only money in a mattress or other non-interest-bearing storage facility can be called "sat on".

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
    • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:08PM

      by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:08PM (#494998) Homepage Journal

      You're only going to get your assets frozen if you're a criminal.

      --
      mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
    • (Score: 1) by i286NiNJA on Monday April 17 2017, @06:10PM

      by i286NiNJA (2768) on Monday April 17 2017, @06:10PM (#495397)

      This is just pandering to nutjobs with gold and ar15s buried in their backyards.
      This will naturally be a boon to the cross-border drug and sex trade though.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:35AM (20 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:35AM (#494760)

    So we got the Tricorder but where's our New World Economy when money goes the way of the dodo and Fort Knox becomes a museum.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:47AM (15 children)

      You'd need free production as well as free energy for that. Nearly free energy may happen one of these centuries but free production will only happen when human creativity dies. Humans have been mechanizing away work for thousands of years and yet we still keep coming up with new ways to be useful and thus valuable.

      tl;dr Probably never.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:02AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:02AM (#494765)

        The future will be just like the present except maybe spaceships. Babylon 5 saw construction workers who built the station end up homeless in Downbelow.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:53PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:53PM (#494842)

        Lest we forget, even Star Trek has gold-pressed latinum.

        Even then, I think the idea that currency goes away is a bit fantastic. There will always be currency because as you point out resources will always be limited. A UBI makes the most sense for dividing society's limited resources, be they bountiful thanks to technology.

      • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:55PM (4 children)

        by bzipitidoo (4388) on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:55PM (#494843) Journal

        Free energy has existed for billions of years. It's called sunlight. And most life depends upon it.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday April 16 2017, @06:30PM (2 children)

          Right but it won't push my boat around the lake without further capital being invested.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @07:29PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @07:29PM (#494907)

            That depends on whether or not your boat has a sail.

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 17 2017, @05:12PM

              Newp. Paddles and a motor. While the energy powering the paddles does ultimately come from the sun, it does so in an extremely roundabout and highly inefficient way. The battery powering the motor could be charged by solar panels but that would require uneconomic capital output on my part. Which is to say it's cheaper and more reliable to plug the battery charger in to the wall than to rely on the sun in the spring in Tennessee.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:15PM

          by kaszz (4211) on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:15PM (#494976) Journal

          And free production has been a long time to in the form of cells.

          Be it cellulose cells or animal cells, they still manufacture very useful things from stuff that is almost useless.

      • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:26PM (4 children)

        by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:26PM (#495008) Homepage Journal

        No, creativity doe not depend on profit. Art is older than commerce, even if literature isn't. When robots can do almost everyone's jobs we will have to have a Star Trek economy. If there was no such thing as money, Niel DeFrasse Tyson would still be an astrophysicist. Scientists don't study science for money, they study science because they're curious.

        Note that I and many other give books and music and films away for free. Creative people have no choice in the matter, it's a drive, just as Dr. Tyson was driven to learn.

        --
        mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 17 2017, @05:07PM (3 children)

          Fact 1: If given the choice between being rewarded for their efforts and not, nearly every person on the planet will choose to be rewarded.

          Fact 2: If your economic goals rest on fundamentally changing human nature, your goals are moronic.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 3, Informative) by urza9814 on Monday April 17 2017, @06:22PM

            by urza9814 (3954) on Monday April 17 2017, @06:22PM (#495406) Journal

            Fact 1: If given the choice between being rewarded for their efforts and not, nearly every person on the planet will choose to be rewarded.

            But that choice doesn't exist.

            Here in the real world, the choice is often between giving it away for free and getting minimal rewards for minimal additional effort, vs expending a much, much larger amount of effort possibly for a larger reward, but most likely nothing.

            It takes work to get a book published. It takes work to advertise a book and get copies sold. And there's no guarantee of a publisher being interested, there's no guarantee of customers being interested. Give it away for free instead, takes almost zero effort, and while you won't get paid you'll probably get some feedback and/or appreciation pretty quick.

            Fact 2: If your economic goals rest on fundamentally changing human nature, your goals are moronic.

            Like changing it so that people can be instantly rewarded for their work with no additional effort? :)

          • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Friday April 21 2017, @04:08PM (1 child)

            by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Friday April 21 2017, @04:08PM (#497463) Homepage Journal

            There are rewards that have absolutely nothing to do with money. Scientists don't study science for the riches, they study science because they're curious. Musicians play music for the music. Writers write because they must, as do visual artists. The money is just icing on the cake, and today is necessary.

            --
            mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
      • (Score: 2) by sjames on Monday April 17 2017, @01:35AM (2 children)

        by sjames (2882) on Monday April 17 2017, @01:35AM (#495052) Journal

        Valuable doesn't necessitate non-free production and nearly free production is certainly not inhibited by creativity. If anything, our current system probably kills a lot more genuine creativity than it fosters.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday April 17 2017, @05:04PM (1 child)

          If anything, our current system probably kills a lot more genuine creativity than it fosters.

          Yes, offering personal gain as a reward for creativity is killing us.

          More to the point though, your utopian idea rests on the assumption that you can fundamentally change human nature. If your world plan would work perfectly if it weren't for having the wrong kinds of people, your plan is shit.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 2) by sjames on Monday April 17 2017, @06:15PM

            by sjames (2882) on Monday April 17 2017, @06:15PM (#495400) Journal

            Who said anything about eliminating personal gain? Certainly not me.

            I'm more concerned about creative people too busy asking "want fries with that" for less than enough to live on instead of producing the great creative work they are capable of.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:50AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:50AM (#494762)

      New World Economy is next century. Get your ass into the Sanctuary District and wait for World War 3 to happen.

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:20AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:20AM (#494773)

        WWW3 already started when Europe was invaded a few years ago

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:11PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:11PM (#494831)

      There is always someone who needs more dilithium crystals for his project.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by aristarchus on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:20AM (40 children)

    by aristarchus (2645) on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:20AM (#494772) Journal

    The precious metals aspect of right-wing nut-jobbery has to be the most bizarre and irrational part of a wholely insane mindset. You want your own money? Your own money no one will ever take from you, or accept from you? Well why not just print your own, all by your lonely in your bunker/mom's basement, and see how that goes for you. You could be a billionaire, as long as you do not actually need to exchange your money for, say, Cheetos. And intrinsic value? Gold is only shiny because it does not like to interact with others, kind of like the bunker bound goldbug we just mentioned. But do you know how much Aluminium went for, in 1902? More precious than platinum! Today, not so much. But the point is, right-wing nut-job isolationists do not get to establish the value of anything. They don't have the intellect for it.

    • (Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:24AM (5 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:24AM (#494774)

      Did you have a point?

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:32AM (4 children)

        by aristarchus (2645) on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:32AM (#494777) Journal

        Yes, this article is not useful, appropriate, or even amusing for SoylentNews. It should not be censored, FSM forbid, but it should be ignored for being the crazy that it is. Point enough, AC? I could come up with a few more, if it would help you.

        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday April 16 2017, @01:34PM (3 children)

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 16 2017, @01:34PM (#494796) Journal

          It should not be censored, TMB forbid,

          FTFY

          (grin)

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: 2) by mcgrew on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:31PM (2 children)

            by mcgrew (701) <publish@mcgrewbooks.com> on Sunday April 16 2017, @11:31PM (#495009) Homepage Journal
            --
            mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
            • (Score: 3, Funny) by aristarchus on Monday April 17 2017, @12:19AM (1 child)

              by aristarchus (2645) on Monday April 17 2017, @12:19AM (#495027) Journal

              THE TMB, our very own reboot of Cowboy Neal, originally Neal Cassidy, one of the Beats, but now a goldbug right-wing provocateur who submitted this FA via IRC using the Mr Plow, you know, The Mightbe a Buzzard! (And, the crowd goes wild!!!!) Surprised you didn't know this, McGrew!

              • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday April 17 2017, @09:05AM

                by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday April 17 2017, @09:05AM (#495172) Journal

                Also a relentless defender of free speech on SN - no matter how good or stupid that speech may be.

                Come on, admit it, magister... Without TMB's... mmm... prose (can't call it a discourse, see...), SN would be rather boring.
                Who would you mock then? JMo? He's so lifeless in his droning even mocking him is useless.
                Eth-f? I suspect he's just fake trolling, he rather likes the idea of being just a chilly stuck in the SN-ers arse (even if, lately, his delivery dropped to the mild level of figging)... more of a trollish "lest we forget the racism is still alive" presence than a sincere one.

                TMB? Well, if you push his buttons right (and he doesn't have too many of them, he's not that sophisticated), you have a firework - his disdain for the "lib'rahls" is always so vivacious and passionate, almost to the level of a living oxymoron.

                --
                https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by GungnirSniper on Sunday April 16 2017, @12:28PM (16 children)

      by GungnirSniper (1671) on Sunday April 16 2017, @12:28PM (#494789) Journal

      It's hardly nutty to realize that gold is the safest harbor for cash reserves in turbulent monetary times. Gold has thousands of years of intrinsic value, where virtual money can be taken at the whim of politics. [theatlantic.com] Argentina, Germany, and others have sunk their own economies with endless printing of money. Why not have some hedge against that?

      Aluminium was more expensive because the separation process was inefficient. To compare that to the metal that has been valued throughout the course of history is a dishonest and disingenuous argument.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by linuxrocks123 on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:02PM (10 children)

        by linuxrocks123 (2557) on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:02PM (#494802) Journal

        It's hardly nutty to realize that gold is the safest harbor for cash reserves in turbulent monetary times.

        Gold lost over a quarter of its value in 2013. It's not a "safe" investment.

        In fact, investing in gold is speculation. If you invest in a broad portfolio of companies, you can reasonably expect to have a positive return after inflation in the very long run since companies create value through their productive deployment of capital, and this results in moderate profits for the corporate sector as a whole in a steady state economy. Inflation won't eat away your value since your shares are still worth the discounted sum of all future dividends that will be paid to the owner, and the nominal amount of money that will be paid in stock dividends will go up when money itself becomes worth less. If you invest in one company, or one sector, well, that's more risky, but, at the very least, you'll have a positive return after inflation with average luck.

        If you invest in a broad basket of commodities, you can expect to have a return of exactly the rate of inflation, because inflation is defined as the nominal increase in the value of a particular broad basket of commodities. With average luck, you'll have a zero return on investment. If you invest in a particular commodity, like gold, well, that's more risky, and you won't have a positive return on investment unless you get lucky.

        Investing in something that by rights shouldn't go up in value because you think you're smart and can deduce that it will go up for some reason -- that's speculation.

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:40PM (7 children)

          by jmorris (4844) on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:40PM (#494836)

          Buying gold isn't pure speculation. It is a bet on inflation. The spot price of gold varies wildly at times but over time it is a pretty smooth value when translated back to other commodoties, and vs fiat money it reflects the constant devaluation of that fiat money by inflation by rising over time.

          It is interesting what Texas is attempting. On the one hand it is blatantly illega and probably unconstitutionall, on the other since the entire monetary system the Federal Government would be attempting to enforce is even more unconstitutional it is a pretty safe bet neither side will ask a court to rule on the matter since nobody would win such a contest. Chaos is bad for the markets.

          Article I, Section 10

          1: No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.

          Not much there to debate, you either have five outright Progressive Justices willing to rewrite the Constitution or Texas can do what it is doing. They aren't allowed to coin money but they can rightfully claim they can't legally accept the FRNs either. Since FedGov refuses to coin sufficient lawful money they can probably do what they have to do to cope with the extraordinary situation. Since nobody would like to see the Federal Reserve and all the massive economic system that has grown up around it thrown down in one Supreme Court ruling no case is going to be brought. Ron Paul's followers will not be allowed to win an elimination of the FED. Yet.

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Bobs on Sunday April 16 2017, @04:20PM (1 child)

            by Bobs (1462) on Sunday April 16 2017, @04:20PM (#494848)

            "... isn't pure speculation. It is a bet on ...

            That is the definition of speculation.

            A couple of questions:

            • How are these bets NOT speculation?
            • How well has betting on inflation worked out for you over the last few years?

            Admittedly, even in the current environment, it is theoretically possible for someone to have placed the right bets on Gold, cashed out at the right times and generated a net profit.

            But it is much, much easier with the benefit of hindsight to go in and show how someone COULD have made money when buying at this time and selling at that versus knowing in advance when it will turn and repeatedly acting BEFORE it does. Most of the time recently people buy and sell at the wrong times and miss the window to profit on Gold.

            And how is this NOT speculation?

            Do you have a repeatable algorithm, with a fixed buy-sell-buy-sell pattern, that works when testing back multiple decades and will continue to work going forward over decades?
            If not, it is speculation.

            If you do, why are you wasting time posting here?

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 17 2017, @12:40AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 17 2017, @12:40AM (#495034)

              Most of the time recently people buy and sell at the wrong times and miss the window to profit on Gold.

              For every person buying at the wrong time, there is someone selling at the right time.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 17 2017, @12:34AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 17 2017, @12:34AM (#495031)

            Since FedGov refuses to coin sufficient lawful money they can probably do what they have to do

            Or what their Libertarian addled minds think they have to do! Seriously, is this is all that is left of the great Texas Succession of Gov. Goodhair? Wait, it's because the President is no longer a Black dude, right? So now all Texas can do is some passive aggressive doomed-to-fail legislative action that they learned about listening to Glenn Beck.

            But we all know what this is really about. It's about thievery. Coins have no serial numbers. There is no motivation to forge coins, since arguably the value of raw materials is nearly the same as the coinage itself. (jmorris evidently not know enough history to know about debasement and the use of touchstones.) So it would be very easy for libertarians, drug runners, racists, cockfighters, pedofiles, and libertarians who realize that bitcoin is not what they thought it was going to be, to launder their ill-gotten gains, and more importantly, evade the violent imposition of taxation. These are same people pushing for the legalization of silencers. Assassins, rogues, Ron Paul supporters, the scum and villainy of the hive of scum and villainy. Criminals.

          • (Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Tuesday April 18 2017, @07:10AM (2 children)

            by linuxrocks123 (2557) on Tuesday April 18 2017, @07:10AM (#495729) Journal

            Investing _PART_ of your money in a _BASKET_ of commodities is good diversification for the (highly unlikely) scenario of hyperinflation combined with a massive recession. If you just think there's going to be hyperinflation, but no massive recession, stocks will go up in value just as much as commodities. And putting more than a small part of your wealth in commodities is not a great idea because it would take something profoundly weird to cause hyperinflation to occur simultaneously with a recession: you usually only get one of those at a time for basic macroeconomics reasons.

            Commodities also should not lose too much value in a recession, so they have that advantage, but they have the disadvantage of fluctuating just as wildly as the stock market, which is why you're primarily supposed to get bonds for your "safe" / "diversification-for-recession" investments, not commodities. For bonds, I personally like defined maturity ETFs (i.e. "BulletShares") since you can just run out the clock and, nominally at least, not lose money because of rising interest rates. You can still lose value with inflation, but you're holding bonds for a recession, and there's usually very low inflation in a recession.

            So basically commodities combine the disadvantages of both the stock market and bonds, and have few redeeming characteristics. You're supposed to have some, because in investing you're supposed to have some of _EVERYTHING_, but there's not a strong case for making them a main focus of your portfolio.

            That's for a basket of commodities, though. By investing in just one, you multiply your risk by an order of magnitude at least, and don't improve your expected long-term gains. The only reason you would want to do that is because you _WANT_ the huge fluctuations because you think the short-term fluctuations will be in your favor. That's speculation. Your portfolio doesn't need speculation, and, if it does have it, it shouldn't have much of it.

            • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday April 18 2017, @06:04PM (1 child)

              by jmorris (4844) on Tuesday April 18 2017, @06:04PM (#495934)

              No, you want some gold because it is one of the few easily tradeable commodities you can physically own. If things go full hyperinflation few assets that only exists in a computer survives the kaboom! that is the only known way to break out of a hyperinflationary death spiral. Stocks in very large and durable entities, those able to survive almost any disaster, would also be a good place to be, ignore the dollar valuation during the troubles knowing that after things reset the value will still be there; it will likely be expressed in a totally new currency but that won't matter. Difference is physical gold's value can be realized to help you personally survive the troubles and the stock might not be until the worst is past.

              And with Yellen printing like mad and wanting to jack interest rates a full point this year, the amazing thing is we have yet to enter the spiral. Which means there are some mighty powerful deflationary forces being counter balanced. The '08 recession saw a lot of things that 'couldn't possibly be done' done, eventually we are going to find out if the masters of the universe really did know what they were doing or just managed to buy a little time. With every year that passes and no Kaboom! it looks encouraging but then you notice there also isn't any real growth, so this situation clearly isn't sustainable. Something has to give eventually.

              • (Score: 2) by linuxrocks123 on Tuesday April 18 2017, @09:15PM

                by linuxrocks123 (2557) on Tuesday April 18 2017, @09:15PM (#496017) Journal

                No, you want some gold because it is one of the few easily tradeable commodities you can physically own.

                Ah: you believe the end is nigh.

                Difference is physical gold's value can be realized to help you personally survive the troubles and the stock might not be until the worst is past.

                I'm not so sure precious metal exchanges would survive in a "the end is nigh" scenario. Canned goods might work better. But you're talking about prepping, not investment. The two don't really have much to do with each other.

                And with Yellen printing like mad and wanting to jack interest rates a full point this year, the amazing thing is we have yet to enter the spiral. Which means there are some mighty powerful deflationary forces being counter balanced.

                Raising interest rates is a deflationary policy action, not an inflationary one. It would not lead to an inflationary spiral; it would counter one if it already existed, which it obviously doesn't. The Federal Reserve kept rates low for a very long time because, despite that being an inflationary policy, inflation remained low due to the aftereffects of the 2008 recession. It's raising rates now because, even though inflation remains low, the potential for inflation is now a concern given the economy's full recovery.

          • (Score: 1) by Muad'Dave on Wednesday April 19 2017, @05:44PM

            by Muad'Dave (1413) on Wednesday April 19 2017, @05:44PM (#496442)

            ... make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts ...

            Looks like gold and silver are explicitly allowed.

        • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday April 16 2017, @05:49PM (1 child)

          by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 16 2017, @05:49PM (#494877) Journal

          Well, if it lost a quarter of its value then, it might NOW be a safe investment.

          FWIW, there *is* no safe investment. Not really. There are safer and riskier investments, and you also need to consider time frame and predicted events. If you're expecting civilization to collapse, then whiskey or rum might be the best investment. Or a collection of seeds. I don't worry about that, because I wouldn't live through it anyway, nor would nearly anyone living in a large city. Fires and hungry neighbors would ensure that. If you live in a really remote area, you might stockpile firearms, or even build a good blockhouse (think castle, and remember that the dungeon was mainly used for storing food). You'd best disguise it as a fancy barn, though, as you don't want to invite attack.

          For lesser collapses, currency metals are overpriced. But non-currency metals are hard to store and hard to dispose of. And if you ask someone else to store them, you've got to trust that someone else. Real property can be taxed by the government. Etc. There are multiple reasons that the stock market is considered the best investment, despite it's volatility. Banks are guaranteed to pay less than inflation, and currently that seems to include treasury bills. Bonds are relatively low risk, and often pay off at better than inflation, but the money is inaccessible if you need it.

          Basically all forms of money are social agreement, and those agreements change as circumstances change. Were I to invest in a hard currency, the safest one I can think of is monocrystaline silicon, but that's definitely subject to technological change, and we may be close to the transition where it will be replaced by something else, perhaps sheets of flawless diamond crystal ... though I'm not sure whether the nitrogen needs to be embedded at the time of construction or not. Even so, that transition won't happen until the cost of those sheets of flawless diamond drops considerably, so now's an extremely poor time to buy them. It'd be like buying aluminum in the late 1800's.

          --
          Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @09:03PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @09:03PM (#494943)

            Buying gold is speculation, not investing. Gold is too expensive to have much industrial use and non-industrial uses are mostly wearing and storing for trade later. It's a rather huge risk that only makes sense if society collapses in which case freeze dried food and ammo might be more helpful.

      • (Score: 1) by harmless on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:48PM (2 children)

        by harmless (1048) on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:48PM (#494821) Homepage

        Argentina, Germany, and others have sunk their own economies with endless printing of money.

        Sunk the economy? Endless printing of money? Germany?!

        Some numbers:

        http://www.tradingeconomics.com/germany/gdp-per-capita [tradingeconomics.com]

        http://www.tradingeconomics.com/germany/inflation-cpi [tradingeconomics.com]

        So what the heck are you talking about?

        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by jmorris on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:48PM (1 child)

          by jmorris (4844) on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:48PM (#494837)

          You might want to open a history book, you could learn something today. Ask Google to tell you about "hyperinflation" and the first hit (at least for me) mentions both the Weimar Republic (Germany) and Zimbabwe. You are welcome.

          • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday April 16 2017, @08:43PM

            by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Sunday April 16 2017, @08:43PM (#494933) Journal

            While you're right about history, there's a difference between well-managed inflation vs. a hyperinflation spiral. Hyperinflation can have a number of causes, but generally it is caused NOT by fiat currency, but effectively by the LACK of "fiat," in the normal sense of the word. "Fiat" currency is so-called because supposedly the money is granted value on the basis of the government, rather than "intrinsic" value. (Let's set aside the fact that things like gold as currency don't function on the basis of their "intrinsic" value either; their value is propped up by the same types of markets that other currencies are. The actual utility value of gold, which is closer to "intrinsic," is a lot less than its normal price.)

            Anyhow, hyperinflation is generally the failure of the "fiat," because the government no longer has control of the currency. How does this happen? Well, it varies, but a lot of times it has to do with debts incurred in foreign denominations. The Weimar Republic had this issue with war reparations. They would have been fine if they owed money in Deutschmarks, but instead they were forced to pay money in foreign currencies. What that does is often set up a forced feedback loop where one country has to exchange currency to make payments, which floods the currency markets, which devalues the currency that started the exchange, which means the next payment has to be even MORE of the devalued currency, which then floods the market more, etc., etc.

            It's a very specific phenomenon which wouldn't happen if debt were owed in the native currency. But when a government loses control of its finances by taking on debt in SOMEONE ELSE'S currency (while relying on payments starting in its own currency), all bets are off.

            Anyhow, all of this is very different from managed inflation, e.g., as part of the Federal Reserve system. For the past several decades, targeted low inflation is a FEATURE of that system, not a bug. Yes, people who have giant money bins stashed away will lose some value over time, but we ALL benefit greatly from what SMALL amounts of inflation do for everyone, i.e., encourage investment and economic activity. Deflation is a disaster for almost any economy, because it encourages hoarding (and, in extreme scenarios, dumping of any non-monetary assets). Economic activity creates more opportunities for everyone, and a small rate of inflation drives that along.

            Anyone who thinks they'd be better off in a deflationary economy has never looked at historical precedents for them or even thought through the basic steps of "what happens next" if you start seeing real deflationary pressures arising. Sure, the people who have giant money bins and basically enough to live on for the rest of their lives already will likely be fine, but the rest of the society will not. Since continuous zero inflation/deflation is just about impossible to maintain, a slight inflationary edge is both a buffer against the disastrous effects of deflation coupled with a mild pressure to drive economic activity through encouraging investment rather than hoarding.

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by Kromagv0 on Monday April 17 2017, @02:08PM

        by Kromagv0 (1825) on Monday April 17 2017, @02:08PM (#495247) Homepage

        It isn't like the US didn't have gold confiscation [wikipedia.org] so you should be safe.

        --
        T-Shirts and bumper stickers [zazzle.com] to offend someone
      • (Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Tuesday April 18 2017, @09:49PM

        by Nobuddy (1626) on Tuesday April 18 2017, @09:49PM (#496036)

        spouting ads that run on Fox news verbatim only tells us how gullible you are.

    • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:46PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:46PM (#494819)

      If you are not aware of it, the US dollar has been effectively backed by oil since the 70s. Due to a number of prescient agreements back then nearly all oil producing countries trade their oil pegged to the dollar. They also agree to purchase US securities with excess oil revenue. This has had an enormous stabilizing effect on the dollar. Imagine somehow the number of dollars in flow greatly increases - perhaps through quantiative easing measures. This would normally result in inflation as people end up having to pay more for the same amount. But the thing about the petrodollar, as it's called, is that so long as other countries are dependent upon oil they in turn end up having to increase their holdings of the USD to compensate for the inflation. The oil producing countries, such as Saudi Arabia, then invest that money buying up US debt. It ultimately ends up reducing the amount of USD in open circulation which, almost like magic, starts to reverse the inflation. And the same is equally true of deflation.

      In short the petro dollar has made the USD an incredibly stable currency. This stability is a big part of the reason why USD has been, for decades, the dominant reserve currency [wikipedia.org] or the money governments keep tucked under their bed in case of a rainy day.

      But now we have a little problem. The petro dollar is dying. Ever more countries are starting to threaten to trade their oil in currencies outside of the USD. Some examples that tried to do this were Iraq, Libya, and Syria. If you've ever wondered why we invaded. It wasn't about their oil - it was about our economy. Compare them for instance with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia is one of the most backwards and oppressive regimes in existence, but they stick to the petrodollar like an old lapdog. We can't just keep overthrowing government and government over this. Even if we could, there's then renewables. Again if you've ever wondered why the USA is lagging so absurdly far behind [wikipedia.org] much of the rest of the developed world in migrating to renewables, you have the reason. The price of renewables continues to decline. Oil needs to continue to stay cheaper than renewables or it simply has no justification for existence whatsoever. And the problem is that it simply cannot. Things like fracking and tar sands are breaking even at around $30/barrel. Early last year the price of oil briefly dipped below that.

      The point of this is that the future of our currency is extremely unclear. Directly backed currencies are a bad idea and tend to lead to a feedback cycle of deflation (something much worse than most would think at first) but on the other hand, currencies that have no backing whatsoever rely on massive trust and responsible governing and economic policy. Applying either of those traits to the United States now a days would be borderline satire. Numerous countries, including Germany and the Netherlands, have been repatriating gold stored in US banks and the same time other countries have been slowly divesting US debt. This doesn't mean the sky is falling or that they think the end of times is upon us, but as a simple prudent measure to ensure their own fiscal health is not directly contingent on the stability of US currency. I do not think gold is a desirable investment, but I think actually understanding the issues is important.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday April 16 2017, @05:14PM

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday April 16 2017, @05:14PM (#494866) Journal

        I wish I could mod you up more than once! This is so far the most informative and succinct summation of the problem I've ever seen and it really needs a +5. You should register a username.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
      • (Score: 1) by fyngyrz on Thursday April 20 2017, @05:32PM

        by fyngyrz (6567) on Thursday April 20 2017, @05:32PM (#496950) Journal

        ...the US dollar has been effectively backed by oil since the 70s... This has had an enormous stabilizing effect on the dollar.

        "stabilizing effect"

        I'm not really on board with your implied meaning for these words. Other than the meaning "it would have been much worse otherwise", the huge increase in cost of living leads me to say that the value of the dollar has been both unstable and massively corrosive.

        Since the 1970's, the value of a dollar has dropped considerably as in wages against costs, in that what it can do for you is much, much less in almost every corner of the economy with the exception of electronics and its subclasses, such as computers, cameras and AV gear, to ID a few. Those are certainly useful things, but the cost of a loaf of bread has risen from 36 cents in 1970 to $1.35; the median cost of a new home in 1970 was $22,300, and by 2012 (latest I could find government figures for), it had risen to $212,300. The cost of a gallon of gasoline has risen from 36 cents in 1970 to about $3.00 today. A (private) college education's yearly tuition has risen from $1,561 to $33,480 in 2017. The cost of an average new car has risen from $3,542 in 1970 to $33,560 in 2017. And so on.

        Food looks a little less expensive in re wages (see below); other things tend to look a lot more expensive. And I have to say, having a little extra leverage to buy food doesn't make up for the lost leverage on all the other things one must buy to get along in a similar lifestyle as compared to the 1970's.

        Working at McDonalds at the counter, in 1970 your hourly wage was likely $1.75, while today it's likely $8.37. That's the key metric by which the imposition of inflation upon the population should be measured, IMHO; it's a 4.7x increase. Anything larger than that for any given cost is a loss to the individual. Many of the common costs I cited above are in the 10x range. That tells you what's really going on. And stability... that's not any reasonable description of stability. A McDonald's wage is very likely a solid index for the bottom of the economy; that's where people experience the impact of the unstable, corrosive dollar the most. At the upper end, it's irrelevant -- if you're a millionaire or more, this stuff is laughably irrelevant (and those people tend to be the ones telling us the economy is fine. Imagine that.) Hence my application of the average or median expenses against the lowest wage earners.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:53PM (4 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:53PM (#494823) Journal

      You almost make a point. Currency of any kind is basically valueless. Or, nearly so. However, there is a distinction between fiat money - which we operate on today - and money which is backed by some kind of a standard. Gold has always had some imagined value to people, despite the fact that you can't eat it, it won't keep you warm, it won't keep the rain off your head while you sleep. Gold has no intrinsic value, yet people value it highly. You can take it anywhere, and trade it for almost anything.

      Not so much a roll of toilet paper with dollar denominations printed on it. Paper has no value beyond your faith in the institution printing the paper.

      And - your faith is seriously misplaced.

      NOTE: The US government doesn't print that paper. A private corporation prints that paper. The paper doesn't benefit either the people, or the government of this country. Once upon a time, when government printed "greenbacks", the currency profited the government, and indirectly, the people. Today, the paper only benefits some shareholders of a corporation.

      • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday April 16 2017, @04:37PM (3 children)

        by mhajicek (51) on Sunday April 16 2017, @04:37PM (#494854)

        Gold does have intrinsic value. Not enough to account for it's perceived value, but it's not insignificant.

        "How much gold is in a smartphone?

        Magann: In very rough numbers, there are 10 troy ounces of gold (or about three-fifths of a pound) per ton of smartphones. Ten thousand phones weigh one ton. [With gold selling for about $1,580 per ounce, that would yield $15,800.]

        How about a laptop?

        Magann: Two hundred laptops would yield five troy ounces of gold.

        How much is in an average desktop?

        Magann: A PC circuit board, where the gold is, weighs about a pound. If you had a ton of those boards, you should have 5 troy ounces of gold."

        - http://en.community.dell.com/dell-blogs/direct2dell/b/direct2dell/archive/2013/03/20/how-much-gold-is-in-smartphones-and-computers [dell.com]

        --
        The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @05:18PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @05:18PM (#494867)

          Gold does have intrinsic value.

          There is no such thing as intrinsic value. It has value to us humans, but that does not make its value intrinsic.

          • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday April 16 2017, @06:33PM

            by mhajicek (51) on Sunday April 16 2017, @06:33PM (#494890)

            Most things we discuss are human concepts that don't exist in the physical world.

            --
            The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
        • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:49PM

          by kaszz (4211) on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:49PM (#494993) Journal

          Given: 1 troy = 31.1034768e-3 kg ; Gold price = 1580 US$ / troy

          Smartphone: 1e-6 kg/unit = 1.6 US$ / unit
          Laptop: 777e-6 kg/unit = 40 US$ / unit
          Motherboard: 71e-6 kg/board = 3.6 US$ / unit

          Laptops really stand out.
          Now where is that acid...... ;)

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Sunday April 16 2017, @04:04PM (7 children)

      by Thexalon (636) on Sunday April 16 2017, @04:04PM (#494845)

      Here's the really nutty thing about it:

      The basic claim of the goldbugs is that the government could always cause hyperinflation which rendered worthless the dollars everybody had socked away. Which means that all your hard-earned savings would be worthless. The thing is, if the US dollar has been hyperinflated into worthlessness, you're now looking at a complete societal breakdown: It's pointless to go to work to earn worthless dollars, which means that not even the essentials like food get distributed to where they're needed, which equals riots in the streets.

      In that kind of situation, what makes you believe your gold has any value whatsoever? Why would anybody trade something essential for some shiny metal? The only things of real value in that kind of mess are those things that can aid survival: food, water, guns and ammo, arable land, housing, buddies who can and will help defend each other, etc.

      Even more worthless than gold: gold certificates, where you have a sheet of paper from some company claiming that you have the right to trade that certificate for gold. Because in this kind of situation, the company may not exist anymore, they probably can't be easily contacted if they do, and even if you reach them they'll have a heck of a time obtaining and delivering the gold they promised. And forget about suing them if they don't deliver, because there ain't no such thing as a functional judiciary anymore.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
      • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday April 16 2017, @04:39PM (6 children)

        by mhajicek (51) on Sunday April 16 2017, @04:39PM (#494857)

        "In that kind of situation, what makes you believe your gold has any value whatsoever?"

        History.

        "Even more worthless than gold: gold certificates"

        Agreed; that's just promissory note, and promises don't have to be kept.

        --
        The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Scrutinizer on Sunday April 16 2017, @06:49PM (1 child)

          by Scrutinizer (6534) on Sunday April 16 2017, @06:49PM (#494894)

          History

          Recent history, as well.

          Fernando "FerFAL" Aguirre [blogspot.com] authored a book about his life during the 2001 economic collapse of Argentina, and specifically noted that gold was accepted in trade for necessities. Among his "hindsight wishlist" items was a stockpile of plain gold wedding bands, as while gold coins drew attention, "nobody thought anything about some poor soul wandering into a pawn shop and pulling off the gold band on his finger to sell for cash".

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 17 2017, @07:04AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 17 2017, @07:04AM (#495147)

            He got that idea from David Bowie in "The Man Who Fell to Earth".

        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Sunday April 16 2017, @08:04PM (1 child)

          by Thexalon (636) on Sunday April 16 2017, @08:04PM (#494916)

          "In that kind of situation, what makes you believe your gold has any value whatsoever?"

          History.

          When? If you're thinking "after the fall of Rome", you are very very wrong: the things that everyone cared about for centuries after Rome were arable land, food, weapons, and (in deserts) water supplies.

          --
          The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
          • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday April 17 2017, @06:04AM

            by mhajicek (51) on Monday April 17 2017, @06:04AM (#495134)

            Early Roman dinari were close to pure silver. Over time they were debased, until at the end of the empire they were bronze with 5% silver. This made the currency worthless, and was a significant contribution to the fall of the empire. So Roman "silver" coins would have been worthless in that period, but people would always accept precious metals as currency.

            --
            The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
        • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Sunday April 16 2017, @08:53PM (1 child)

          by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Sunday April 16 2017, @08:53PM (#494936) Journal

          "In that kind of situation, what makes you believe your gold has any value whatsoever?"

          History.

          Whether or not this works depends on (1) how far the collapse goes, and (2) who you're trying to trade with.

          A lot of modern economic failures have been major disruptions for modern life, but they haven't always led to complete breakdown of civil order. In the latter scenario, weapons, food, etc. are the only "currency" that any rational person will want.

          And even if the breakdown isn't that severe, for the lower classes who may literally be starving, trying to trade a "nice shiny rock" for something they actually value probably won't work. It's like any number of movies where you see some idiotic character trying to drag a chest full of gold out of a desert or whatever... and dying. That's not what you need in a desert. You need water and food and protection against the sun, at a minimum. Anyone who has those things won't want your shiny rock unless they know they can still get out of the desert.

          Similarly, for struggling people in an uncertain economic situation where social order has somewhat broken down, they have no guarantee that others will accept your shiny rock for payment when they want to buy more food or water or guns or whatever.

          History shows that gold or any other "precious metal" tends to only be useful as a currency among the upper classes, particularly in times of social discord. The rest of people know where actual value resides in things humans actually need.

          • (Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday April 17 2017, @06:08AM

            by mhajicek (51) on Monday April 17 2017, @06:08AM (#495135)

            Yes, if things are bad enough all you can trade are lead and steel. Short of that however gold and silver will work. In the worst parts of WWI and WWII people were starving to death, yet they would accept gold and silver as currency for anything they could spare.

            --
            The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
    • (Score: 1) by Demena on Monday April 17 2017, @01:22AM

      by Demena (5637) on Monday April 17 2017, @01:22AM (#495048)

      Bitcoin anyone? At least gold has some engineering value. Bitcoin is just spent - wasted electricity. How do you feel about that Aristarchus? Just curious.

  • (Score: 5, Informative) by lubricus on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:56PM (4 children)

    by lubricus (232) on Sunday April 16 2017, @02:56PM (#494825)

    Before we get into another ridiculous theoretical argument about the merits or problems of fiat currency, let's look at the actual bill:
    http://www.legis.state.tx.us/tlodocs/85R/billtext/pdf/SB02097I.pdf#navpanes=0/ [state.tx.us]

    Under the bill, gold and silver coins are narrowly defined.
    For gold:

    (5)AA"Gold coins" include gold coins of the United
    States and gold coins of other countries.
    (6)AA"Gold coins of other countries" include:
    (A)AAthe Austrian 100 Corona and 20 Corona gold
    coins and the Austrian 4 and 1 Ducat gold coins;
    (B)AAthe British Sovereign gold coin;
    (C)AAthe Canadian 1 ounce, 0.5 ounce, 0.25 ounce,
    and 0.1 ounce Maple Leaf gold coins;
    (D)AAthe French 20 Franc gold coin;
    (E)AAthe Swiss 20 Franc gold coin;
    (F)AAthe Mexican 50, 20, 10, 5, 2.5, and 2 Peso
    gold coins; and
    (G)AAthe South African 2 ounce, 1 ounce, 0.5
    ounce, 0.25 ounce, and 0.1 ounce Krugerrand gold coins.

    and for silver:

    (11)AA"Silver coins" include silver coins of the United
    States and silver coins of other countries.
    (12)AA"Silver coins of other countries" include the
    Canadian 1 ounce Maple Leaf silver coin.

    This exposes the bill even more clearly than similar gold-bug aspirations for the scam that it is: a ploy to self-enrich by excluding specific assets from taxation by declaring them "currency", despite the inherent impractically of a metal-based currency system.

    The bill implicitly recognizes this also by establishing "dollar values" for the coins in all transactions. (I'm not going to copy and paste the whole section, if you really think that a gold and silver based economy is a good idea, you can read through the bill yourself.) In short, it turns any place accepting state payments into a spot exchange for gold and silver. <sarcasm> I'm sure that Texas state institutions will operate smoothly under that scenario </sarcasm>.

    Let's take a moment and think through and example. Let's say you're part of the administration at the University of Texas. The average time for a bachelor's degree in the US is currently around 6 years (roughly yada yada). Over the last 6 years, the value of gold has varied from over $1800 / oz. to below $1100 / oz. http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/gold.aspx?timeframe=6y/ [nasdaq.com] . Silver has ranged from over $45 / oz to less than $15 / oz http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/silver.aspx?timeframe=6y/ [nasdaq.com]. (Note this bill requires you to accept both, but of course only of those specific coins I'm sure the writer of the bill has interests in). How do you plan / budget / operate in this scenario? The answer is you couldn't.

    But who cares? GOLD!!!!

    This bill exemplifies short-sighted, selfish, patronizing BS being currently being dished out recently. I'm ashamed at Soylent for falling for it.

    --
    ... sorry about the typos
    • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:53PM

      by jmorris (4844) on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:53PM (#494841)

      Not at all. They are working around the reality that Texas is forbidden from doing the logical thing and simply coining its own. It is allowed, in fact required to, accept properly coined, lawful money. Since the U.S. Treasury has not made nearly enough they have decided to accept the coinage of other countries and established rules to regulate it.

      See above where I provide more detail.

    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:56PM

      by kaszz (4211) on Sunday April 16 2017, @10:56PM (#494995) Journal

      Do the University of Texas have access to the state coffers?
      In that case they can compensate for fluctuations that way.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by deimtee on Monday April 17 2017, @01:45AM (1 child)

      by deimtee (3272) on Monday April 17 2017, @01:45AM (#495056) Journal

      Over the last 6 years, the value of gold has varied from over $1800 / oz. to below $1100 / oz

      That's one way to look at it.
      Alternatively, and just as valid: The value of a dollar has fluctuated from less than 1/1800 to over 1/1100 of an ounce of gold.

      --
      If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 17 2017, @02:52AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 17 2017, @02:52AM (#495074)

        Unless everything else varied like that, saying that the dollar varied over that range is dishonest.

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:00PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:00PM (#494827)

    The jews in the Federal Reserve would never let it pass. In fact, the lawmakers who vote for the bill will be murdered using latest CIA techniques of murder. Some will have a heart attack. Others will die suddenly for no reason. A few will die after being strangled by a CIA hitman and they will call it suicide. Still others will have their cars run away and explode.

(1) 2