Are you aware that a Federal Reserve note "dollar bill" is not a constitutional dollar? Perhaps you are, but if so, do you know what a constitutional dollar literally is? Is it gold? Is it silver?
What is a Dollar?
By Vaticanus Follow Wed, 10 Mar 2010, 10:18pm 9,300 views 292 comments
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tatupu70 says
Actually (to be pedantic) by definition you can't "invest" savings. Savings are savings, not investments.
It can be argued that a little inflation encourages risk-taking, moving people out of savings and into investments, while deflation decreases risk capital as savers dominate, and even the cash-in-the-mattress yields real returns.
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Troy says
It's probably not worth arguing, but until you invest it, it is savings. Then it is an investment
And I agree completely--managed inflation encourages investment which is a good thing. Jobs are created, productivity increases...
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tatupu70 says
Inflation encourages the speculation flavor of investment, as savers seek risky assets to try to keep up with inflation. This is not a good thing.
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I think the point is a mild monetary inflation is better than relying on how much of a certain shiny metal we can dig out of the ground each year determine inflation or deflation.
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Troy says
Troy, wasn't it terrible that under the gold standard the amount of gold that could be exchanged for one US dollar was STABLE till FDR confiscated gold?
(and consequently the poor and middle class were able to preserve their assets without giving control over to banks and/or wall street) That is why banks and wall street tycoons had to get rid of the gold standard, to force the average Joe's to "invest" with them (give them control over the average joe's assets) or watch them inflate away.
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AdHominem says
Anyone can buy gold if they wish to preserve their assets in precious metals.
Q: Why does AdHo insist on a government-run precious metals program?
A: Because he is afraid to buy gold in the free market. He wants Big Brother to take care of him.
Why are you afraid of freedom, AdHo?
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Troy says
Wasn't it milton friedman that suggested we use an automated, constant, money creation mechanism that inflated the money supply by 3% per year? This way, new fiat money would be created at a standard, expected rate.
Am I representing his idea properly?
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CBOEtrader says
Gold is fiat money as well. Aside from minor industrial demands, it's only use is as a medium of exchange for goods and services.
Goods and services are the only things with intrinsic value for humans. Gold has no intrinsic value for humans.
Personally, I don't hold my assets in currency, nor do I care much about dollar valuation. I think in terms of how much of my labor I must exchange for goods or services. How much of my labor is required to buy a quart of milk and pay the electric bill? That seems to remain magically constant.
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Nomo, stop! You're arguing the same sense I've argued in other "goldbug" threads. You'll scare 'em!
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NOMO says "Gold is fiat money as well." Hahaha. Thats because nomo doesn't understand the meaning of fiat money. Nomo can argue all he wants, but since he doesn't understand the basic definition of fiat money, he has no argument at all. [Same goes for name calling Simchaland]
"Pathological processes in liberal minds generate irrational fears and doubts, compulsive thoughts and behavior, severe impairments of emotional control and other disorders of reason which destroy the capacity of the mind to comprehend the real world. Minds afflicted with severe disorders do not exercise free choice or free will in any ordinary sense of those terms." Gabbard, Glen G., "Theories of Personality and Psychopathology"
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Nomo - are you out there?
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Nomograph says
Honest Abe says
Right you are Honest Abe, gold and silver were used as money for thousands of years, not because someone decreed them to be money but because the free market saw that these precious metals were the best form of money available. This is in stark contrast to true fiat money which is only money because the powers that be have decreed it to be money.
Nomo is right we are all free to use gold and silver as money (to a certain extent). But we are all forced to accept fiat federal reserve notes as payment for debts. We must pay our taxes, and we must pay them in federal reserve notes. That is not freedom. Not by any stretch of the nomograph.
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Nomograph says
What more proof is needed that some people argue for the sake of arguing. Nomo, study this, memorize it, then post your correction as to your gross misunderstanding as to what fiat money is.
Fiat Money
What Does Fiat Money Mean?
Currency that a government has declared to be legal tender, despite the fact that it has no intrinsic value and is not backed by reserves. Historically, most currencies were based on physical commodities such as gold or silver, but fiat money is based solely on faith.
Investopedia explains Fiat Money
Most of the world's paper money is fiat money. Because fiat money is not linked to physical reserves, it risks becoming worthless due to hyperinflation. If people lose faith in a nation's paper currency, the money will no longer hold any value.
Over 300 times in history, fiat money has failed and become worthless. Nomo, name one single time in all of human history when gold has been worthless.
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How many apples can I buy with 70 grains of silver? How many cars?
RayAmerica says
Worthless? Probably never -- but it's certainly lost a shit ton of its value through various actions, like countries changing their currency to being silver based, or dropping metallic standards entirely.
That said, I can name plenty of times. Find any society that hadn't discovered mining yet.
Name one single time in all of human history when land has been worthless.
Name one single time in all of human history when food has been worthless.
Name one single time in all of human history when steel has been worthless.
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Take your 70 grains of silver to most any coin shop in America and they'll tell you how many apples or cars it will buy. they will buy the silver and give you its equivalent cash value on the spot.
Go ahead, name a couple of the "plenty of times gold has been worthless". And while you're at it name a country thats "dropped metallic standards entirely".
Land, food, steel ...whats your point, and how does that relate to the thread "What is a dollar?"
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Kevin says
Detroit, Michigan. The city was attempting to sell homes, you know, the type that is built on top of "land" for $1.00 and they had no takers. The result? The City of Detroit is now in the process of bulldozing literally 10,000+ of these "worthless" homes. What do you think that land is worth? After an earthquake, land along the fault line can't be given away. Rural building sites in which the Health Dept. refused the permit for a septic system. Building sites that have been labeled "wet lands" cannot be built upon. Just a few examples off the top of my head of "worthless" land.
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Kevin says
Let's pretend you see a 1 OZ. bullion gold coin and a bundle of $20 bills worth $500 and you can only pick up one, which one would you pick up?
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RayAmerica says
Agreed. Gold is a fiat money by your own definition. It has no intrinsic value for human beings, and is not backed by anything that actually has intrinsic value to human beings (food, land, water, medicine, shelter, clothing, etc). It's value comes exclusively from faith. Gold = Paper.
Either way, you are free to buy and sell gold instantly in the free market WITH NO GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION. Why do you want to involve the government in the precious metals market? Why do you want Big Brother to hold your assets for you? Buy your own gold and stop trying to shove your big government gold programs down our throat.
There are three possibilities: (a) you are not competent to handle your own finances, (b) you are afraid of free markets, or (c) both. I'm going with (c).
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Just to clarify, gold does have slight intrinsic value for human beings (mostly in electronics) while silver has MASSIVE intrinsic value for human beings.
There are many modern technologies in both electronics and medicine that cannot exist without silver. The physical properties of silver mean that it will always be necessary to make the best optics, antibiotics, heat sinks, batteries, and electronic swtiches. You can't make a good LCD touch screen without silver, and they are taking over the world.
As far as gold is concerned, It's backed by 4000 years of human civilization. It's good enough for my purposes.
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Nomo still hasn't looked up the definition of fiat money. BTW, do you know what "the invisible hand" means?
Nevertheless, all modern liberal governments enslave, to one degree or another, the people they allegedly serve. Of course, modern liberal collectivism stops short of the psychotic delusions of full-blown communism. Yet liberal mentality still denies the individuals' full ownership of himself, denies sovereign control of his property, and declares that a very great deal of his time, effort and assets are the disposable property of the state, to be redistributed to others, at the discretion of government "officials", who are doing good deeds.
Although these actions are rationalized as beneficial, our elected "officials" have lost sight of Americas vision of individual liberty and individual responsibility. Liberty, opportunity and personal responsibility, are what made America great in the first place. Unfortunately, they are being destroyed one regulation at a time. The masses, through endless government handouts, are duped into voting for manipulators masking as statesman with noble purposes. The end result appears to be a self destructing system - simply because we won't follow our own laws (the constitution). Together we'll destroy America, but everyone will be happy along the way - UGH.
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Honest Abe says
Every time in history your ideal government is realized, it results in bloody revolution and in many cases a socialist or communist government.
I can't think of a quicker way to communism and the complete destruction of the constitution than to follow your misguided ideas.
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iwog says
Sure, but if the market value of gold and silver was determined by intrinsic industrial value, both would be cheap. They are worth much more simply because of perceived value (i.e. mutally accepted, like our paper).
iwog says
Exactly, it's backed concept and memory, not it's intrinsic value to human life.
Honest Abe says
You were doing OK there Abe, but then you lapsed into one of your "I hate Libs" rants. You'll never make any headway that way, and your ideas will gain no traction unless you can back them up in a logical manner.
Honest Abe says
Isn't that when you use your left hand so it feels like somebody else is doing it?
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Iwog - my "misguided plan" IS to follow the constitution...perhaps you misread my post. It's the lefty, feel-good, something for nothing, free lunch, free health care, nationalization of business, over-regulate everything, liberal ideas that are the misguided thoughts which are leading to communism.
How can liberals denounce communism and endorse it at the same time? Thats clearly liberal brain damage. Want an example? A heavy progressive tax. Thats one of the planks of the Communist Manifesto, endorsed by virtually all brain damaged lib's.
America is still worth defending and fighting for. I, for one, will point out all the defective thinking that is destroying our country. Its too bad the uninformed are complacent or even supportive of the very policies that are ruining our country.
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Honest Abe says
As far as I can tell, your "misguided plan" is to post blame rants on an Internet real estate forum. I've never seen you post any other than blame rants and ideological nonsense.
(HINT: Ideology always fails because it doesn't take reality into account)
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Honest Abe says
A heavy progressive tax means we're communist? That would have shocked the hell out of Americans in the 1950s.
Do you think Americans were all communists back then? I thought you said such a system was unsustainable and would ruin our country? Funny how it did exactly the opposite.
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RayAmerica says
It depends on what gold is selling for in the open market... Nomo is right-gold is only valuable because people perceive it as such. It has no intrinsic value.
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Honest Abe says
Yes, I understand that there are people willing to pay me DOLLARS to buy my silver, and that I can use my DOLLARS to buy apples, but how many apples can I buy with silver?
I see you didn't read my post.
The United States of America. Canada. France. Germany. The United Kingdom. Japan. Should I go on?
What does gold have to do with the thread "What is a dollar?", since that's what was being claimed to have never been "worthless". As far as I can tell, the claim here is still that a dollar is some arbitrary amount of silver. I know chemistry is hard, but most people know that gold is not silver. Or a velociraptor.
RayAmerica says
No, sorry, even then the land still has worth (as do the buildings on them). Yes, they have devalued. Just like metals can devalue. Never are they worthless.
RayAmerica says
That depends, what year is it? At present I would clearly be an idiot for not picking up the gold, since it can currently be sold to people who are in the business of buying gold for many more DOLLARS than 500, though if this was the 1920s I'd obviously go for the $500.
iwog says
So does iron. And oil, for that matter. That's still not a very good argument for using these things as money.
Abe -- do you really not understand that the entire new deal (which really seems to be what you are ranting against, not so much "libs") were a direct response to communism? If we hadn't adopted these policies, we WOULD have become yet another communist state.
The lassaiz faire philosophy that you espouse drove the western world to the brink, and triggered the massive, violent reaction to those power structures resulting in the rise to the likes of hitler, stalin, and mussolini (and, please read carefully here -- I'm NOT saying that any of those guys were into capitalism...)
The stuff advocated for in the constitution probably worked very well in the late 1700s, when 90% of us were farmers and the only people who had any need to deal with governance were wealthy land owners. By the beginning of the 20th century it was coming apart at the seems because it had made life for most people worse than it had been.
Yes, I am saying exactly what you think I'm saying. Social programs are a way for the political class to stay in power. What you're missing is that I'm saying that the alternative to these programs, to this style of government, was fascism. EVERY industrialized or industrializing country chose one of these paths. NONE were able to remain as they were when we were all farmers.
Your fantasy land can't exist because it assumes that people will just accept having shitty lives, even though history shows that they won't. Hungry people don't stay hungry.
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The suppression of human rights and freedoms ultimately leads to unjust imprisonment, confiscation of income and property, torture, corruption or the outright destruction of freedoms necessary fro human well-being leading to widespread poverty, hunger, instability, chaos, violence and famine.
The path America is on RIGHT NOW, in the name of good, is a familiar one. The unspeakable horrors of Nazism, Stalinism, Maoism and others were simply the end result of a long evolution of ideas like Liberalism, Socialism, Communism, Fascism, leading to the consolidation of power in a CENTRAL GOVERNMENT in the name of "social justice". Tens of millions of deaths were the result of powerful central government's engaged in social justice.
Show me where a sound dollar and capitalism causes anywhere near the pain, suffering, tragedy, misery and number of deaths that a fiat currency and a powerful socialistic central government has caused.
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Honest Abe says
Alright. What's that have to do with silver?
Well, no. The rise of hitler, stalin, etc. was a violent and rapid reaction to a system where the people had their lives turned to shit by capitalism and monarchy. It wasn't some evolution -- it was a reaction. People were ANGRY about what the capitalist / aristocratic class had done to their lives.
The social democracies that now exist in EVERY successful economy on the planet are what saved capitalism from itself. If they hadn't come into existence, the violent dictators like Hitler would have come to power, just like they did in about half of the countries.
And we instituted these systems while we were still on the gold standard. Both the dictators and the social democracies. Completely different paths.
Hey, I can conflate unrelated things too.
Show me one place where grape jelly has caused nearly the pain and suffering of capitalism. Obviously we need a grape jelly based economy.
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Wow - you successfully conflated your entire reply - well done !
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Honest Abe says
Other than memorizing some trite phrases it is obvious you have no clue about history of any kind.
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Which of the "trite phrases", as you call them, is wrong?
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Haven't read responses till now, but to clear this up so no one looking at these messages gets bad information...
tatupu70 says
It is impracticable for the average American not to use banking for most of his day-to-day financial transactions. Furthermore, it is ridiculous that a person should be forced to take any financial risk in terms of investing in stock, bonds, or other assets simply to RETAIN the value of his money rather than to grow it. Money should automatically store value without loss. That's part of the definition of money.
Your statements are empirically false. Real incomes have frequently over the past two generations failed to climb at all during economic booms while falling during recessions. Simply Google "real income of Americans over time adjusted for inflation." Furthermore, inflation has the immediate effect of lowering the purchasing power of your income. You are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts.
This is like saying, "insert counterargument here." You haven't actually said anything, so the only reply I can give to you is, never try to out logic a person who does logic 70 hours a week for a living. It's like trying to outrun a professional racer.
In addition to explaining exactly how inflation works to undermine economic prosperity, I have quoted the founding fathers to show to you that these facts have been well-known for a long time. However, if you really want to compare your reputation to Thomas Jefferson or Benjamin Franklin, I'll give more credence to the fathers of our country.
Who would more people trust as a source of wisdom: the author of Poor Richard's Almanac or tatupu70?
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Dan8267 says
Nope. Nice try though.
Dan8267 says
OK--I wasn't being literal that real incomes rise every year during a boom and fall every year during a recession. My apologies-I thought that was obvious. The point was that it's not unusual for real incomes to fall during very bad economic times and it has very little to do with a fiat currency.
Dan8267 says
Well, I don't think 70 hours is enough. You imply that the reason for the success of the colonies was the "honest" currency without any supporting evidence.
Dan8267 says
Nope--Jefferson and Franklin clearly have better reputations. My point is that even the Founding Fathers were not infallable. Every word uttered by Jefferson wasn't gospel.
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Dan8267 says
Money is issued by the government as tender. Are you actually suggesting that you think it is the job of the government to store your wealth for you?
(HINT: It isn't)
Sorry pal, but your cries for a nanny-state to shelter you from the perils of a free market will go unanswered.
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I realize this is "about.com" but similar sentiments can be found elsewhere:
http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/fallromeeconomic/a/econoffall.htm
Sounds like we are headed in the same direction, perhaps? For those of you who don't want to click the link:
"Nero and other emperors debased the currency in order to supply a demand for more coins. By debasing the currency is meant that instead of a coin having its own intrinsic value+, it was now only representative of the silver or gold it had once contained. By the time of Claudius II Gothicus (268-270 A.D.) the amount of silver in a supposedly (100%) silver denarius was only .02%.
This led to or was severe inflation, depending on how you define inflation."
.....
"Rome's wealth was originally in land, but this gave way to wealth through taxation.
The Cato Institute (a modern free-market think tank) says that emperors deliberately overtaxed the senatorial (or ruling) class in order to render it powerless. To do this, the emperors needed a powerful set of enforcers -- the imperial guard.
Once the wealthy and powerful were no longer either rich or powerful, the poor had to pay the bills of the state. These bills included the payment of the imperial guard and the military troops at the empire's borders."
....
"Since the military and the imperial guard were absolutely essential, taxpayers had to be compelled to produce their pay. Workers had to be tied to their land.
To escape the burden of tax, some small landowners sold themselves into slavery, since slaves didn't have to pay tax and freedom from taxes was more desirable than personal liberty."
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Good point. I think we'll soon see small landowners selling themselves into slavery in the US. Maybe 2015?
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Nomograph says
Nomograph, you ignorant slut. No, I am not suggesting that government should protect people from risks in free market investments. I have no idea how you pulled that out of your @$$ from my comments. Nor am I suggesting that we should have a nanny-state. I am not even suggesting that government should be the controller of money -- and in our country, it isn't, the fed is.
What I have stated is that money should retain value as that is one of its four functions. As Peter Schiff states in his book Crash Proof, the purpose of money is
1. A medium for the exchange of goods and services.
2. A unit of accounting.
3. A method of deferred payment.
4. A store of value.
When money fails in any of these purposes, the economy suffers. Before the federal reserve was created, the U.S. dollar held its value. After the fed was created, we got the Great Depression.
The only people who are pro-inflation are debtors and the big bankers.
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Dan8267 says
Still haven't figured out the whole cause/effect thing yet, have you?
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tatupu70 says
Insert argument here.