SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
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/
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Sunday April 16 2017, @03:40PM (7 children)
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.
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)
"... isn't pure speculation. It is a bet on ...
That is the definition of speculation.
A couple of questions:
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
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
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)
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)
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
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
... make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts ...
Looks like gold and silver are explicitly allowed.