https://www.galtsgulchonline.com/post...

I must have missed something...

"Perhaps skills will be most valuable, like vehicle repair, carpentry, plumbing...?"
I'm saying that's true now or in a crisis. Value is in skills/abilities to use the available means of production to meet people's wants/needs..

I recall how they used only gold as a medium of exchange in the Gulch. There's nothing wrong with using gold and silver coins. But they go up and down based on their own supply and demand. There's no perfect medium of exchange.

I do that a lot, obviously.
Thanks.

If things get that bad in the US, a number of Gulchers will be asking me about the construction of Atlantis, and given last year's lack of response, it will take quite a lot of Au to buy in, more than it would have had their been a more positive response.

True, but you disproved your own point about paper (fiat) currencies.

Now it is the middle class in a bear market.
Robotics are appealing due to min. Wage hikes.
Any companies That gulchers covet in that arena.

Cheers to you as well and best wishes.
Cycles and waves will be in the future.
I also am an equity investor.

And you could say, too, that the root cause of the problem was/is Government AND the 'solution' might not be 'gold.'
QED.
:)

ps... as countries become more 'developed' and 'advanced,' their population growth rate drops.
Some are now below 'replacement levels.'
Nothing grows to the sky and extrapolation based solely on historical trends is, in the end, foolish.

Many decades ago I saw a wonderful graph that showed how the price/cost of a jet fighter was growing linearly on a log scale graph.

Only problem was: GDP wasn't on as steep a slope, so the "logical conclusion" was that Eventually, one jet fighter would be equal in cost to the nation's GDP.

Beware of extrapolations and assumptions.
:)
But hey, WTF do I know... I'm just an old engineering-trained observer of the species.

As you wish, D... but over my 70 years, I've also observed that damned near every item you mentioned is Cyclical, with periodicity in the five-to-twenty-year range, AND subject to 'stochastic shocks' at unpredictable times.
So go for it and do your best.
I'm happy with my choices and results; happier than a lot of people who made other choices.
Cheers!

I WAS alluding to Venezuela, and it's my picture of probably THE Most Fucked-Up government on earth today!

Neither, of course... :)
I expect that government folks will screw anyone and everyone they can in order to amass power and control over others.
I don't hoard gold or 'believe in it' because, if TSHTF, the sellers of anything I need will either steal my gold or demand such high prices (in ounces of gold) that my hoard will be depleted quickly. In local 'trading' areas, there probably won't be a lot of competitors offering food and other necessities.
A lot of the post-apocalyptic sci-fi shows seem to agree... :)

Gold is money with out the devaluation. Gold can increase in value. My dollar that used to buy 3 packs of smokes at $.35 cents per pack now buys 3 cigarettes. During same time period $1 in gold is worth $36 today. GM stock went from 100 to belly up thanks to the looter govt and their crony unions.

Very long term Buy and hold theory for gold stacks up better than many many stocks as the RCA,s the India co., ITT,Xerox,Polaroid, Kodak, Enron GM Airline stocks, Trump stocks, diversify be vigilant and be not married to a stock is usually better than just buy and hold.
IRA-investments have tax advantages they are not the best place for non dividend or interest paying investments. Those income producing investments perform best during interest rate declines we are now at historical lows for interest rates. Any discussion of investment opportunities in the here and now should be focused on the windshield not the rear view mirror. Past performance is no guarantee of future performance.
Worse yet a myopic view of past performance not considering the massive leveraging up of the G 7 nations and the PIGS socialistic failed economy's of the world including our $19trillion govt debt.
Medium term historical values of gold have been manipulated by govt. The elimination of the gold standard then outlawing ownership of gold. The death and elimination of Gaddafi and Libyan gold plan for Africa. Today's Fiat currency is 1 big ponzu scheme . Print print print create inflation then lie about the inflation rate. Loot our future loot the retiree, loot our grandchildren.
World population adds a Chicago sized population every month a formula for increased long term demand for one of the rarest commodities. The future for gold holdings as a portion of assets
Looks compelling.

If you have to go to a black market, then your gov't is more screwed up than any self-respecting capitalist can stand.

Government f's, which proves my point. Whom do you trust more, government or Au?

More from Ron Paul's "The Case for Gold"

Sorry for the length, but it is important.

The Moral Argument for Gold
A monetary standard based on sound moral principles is one in which the monetary unit is precisely defined in something of real value such as a precious metal. Money that obtains its status from government decree alone is
arbitrary, undefinable, and is destined to fail, for it will eventually be rejected by the people. Since today's paper money achieves its status by government declaration and not by its value in itself, eventually total power over the
economy must be granted to the monopolists who manage the monetary system. Even with men of good will, this power is immoral, for men make mistakes, and mistakes should never have such awesome consequences as they do
when made in the management of money. Through the well-intentioned mismanagement of money, inflation and depression are created. Political control of a monetary system is a power bad men should not have and good men
would not want.
Inflation, being the increase in the supply of money and credit, can only be brought about in an irredeemable paper system by money managers who create money through fractional reserve banking, computer entries, or the printing
press. Inflation bestows no benefits on society, makes no new wealth, and creates great harm; and the instigators, whether acting deliberately or not, perform an immoral act. The general welfare of the nation is not promoted by
inflation, and great suffering results.
Gold is honest money because it is impossible for governments to create it. New money can only come about by productive effort and not by political and financial chicanery. Inflation is theft and literally steals wealth from one group for the benefit of another.
Gold is wealth; it is not just exchangeable for wealth. Today's notes are not wealth. They are claims on wealth that the owners of wealth must accept as payment. No wealth is created by paper money creation; only shifts of wealth occur, and these shifts, although significant and
anticipated by some, cannot always be foreseen. They are tantamount to theft in that the assets gained are unearned. The victims of inflation suffer through no fault of their own.
Legally increasing the money supply is just as immoral as the counterfeiter who illegally prints money. The new paper money has value only because it steals its "value" from the existing stock of paper money. (This is not true of
gold, however. New issues of paper money are necessarily parasitic; they depend on their similarity to existing money for their worth. But gold does not. It carries its own credentials.) Inflation of paper money is one way wealth
can be taken against another's wishes without an obvious confrontation; it is a form of embezzlement. After a while, the theft will be reflected in the depreciation of money and the higher prices that must be paid. The guilty are difficult to identify due to the cleverness of the theft. They are never punished because of the legality of their actions.
Eventually, though, as the paper money becomes more and more worthless, the "legalized counterfeiting" becomes
obvious to everyone. Anger and frustration over the theft results and is justified, but it is frequently misdirected and may even lead to a further aggrandizement of governmental power.
Neither the government nor private issuers of money can be permitted to defraud the people by
depreciating the currency. The honesty and integrity of the money should be based on a contract; the government's only role should be to see that violators of the contract are punished. Depreciating the currency by increasing the supply and diluting its value is comparable to the farmer who dilutes his milk with water yet sells it for whole milk. We prosecute the farmer, but not the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee. Those who must pay the high prices from the inflation are like those who must drink the diluted milk and suffer from its "debased" content.

Gold money is always rejected by those who advocate significant government intervention in the economy. Gold holds in check the government's tendency to accumulate power over the economy.
John Locke argued for the gold standard the same way he argued for the moral right to own property. To him the right to own and exchange gold was a civil liberty equal in importance to the liberty to speak, write, and practice one's own religion.
It is not surprising, then, given this background, that the Congress of 1792 imposed the death penalty on anyone convicted of debasing the coinage. Debasement, depreciation, devaluation, inflation—all stand condemned by then moral law. The present economic crisis we face is a direct consequence of our violations of that law.

Yes, I'm 'affiliated with Ken Fisher' ... as a client.
His company manages my IRA and my wife's IRA and in two days (Thursday), we'll mark our 12th anniversary with them controlling our loot.

After paying their fees and withdrawing about $60k a year for living expenses (to augment SocSec), our 'loss' has been approximately 1% per year of initial principal. And that includes the 'Market Crash' of a decade ago, too. We rode that 'coaster down and back again.
One of our only mistakes was to put too much of our holdings into bonds and similar instruments.
We should have stayed in equities. We'd have 3-5% more total cash now if we had.

Whatever... that's water over the bridge... or under the dam... or whatever. We're quite happy with the returns; we put zero effort into our wealth management other than throttling spending so we don't burn through our reserves quicker than our life expectancy.
At present, at a 1%/year, drop, our IRAs could be depleted in somewhere around 110 years from now, assuming the 1%/year drop.
We're in our 70's now, so we think we made a good choice 'way back then.

We tried the kool-aid, liked the flavor and have been happy with it ever since.

We made our bed and we've been comfortable in it, and never "lost our nest egg" as so many other "investors" did over that period.

Each to their own... choices and beliefs.
Cheers!

No argument at all, Floot...
But everything you've mentioned is based on Agreement, not any fixed, intrinsic, measurable or otherwise static parameter.
Do you see the dilemma in that?
Anyone can get a bunch of people together (Consensus) and Agree on 'what a dollar is' or 'is worth' and gee, golly-whillikers, Mr. Wizard... all you have is Agreement.
It's a nice starting point, but as I've asserted here, elsewhere and often, once that 'benchmark' is established, government gymnastics can turn that 'value' into anything they want it to.

Do you have suggestions on how THAT could be prevented?

And yes, I agree that the advent of the Fed and the demise of Bank notes probably set the ball in motion downhill.
I just can't conceive of any government or President or Congress ever reversing that decision!
But isn't that what would be needed/necessary to 'cure the problem'?

You might get a good price for it, as their currency looks like it's being replaced by USD or other currencies in the black market...

And was gold the driving force in all of them, or government fuck-ups?

Take your paper money to Venezuela, where it costs more to print their currency than it is worth.

Germany, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, ..., US

Those "believers" include the framers of the Constitution. The following excerpt is from Ron Paul's "The Case for Gold". This is public domain. For background:

http://www.cato.org/case-for-gold

The excerpt:

Legal Tender Laws

As we have seen, the Constitution forbids the states to make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debt, nor does it permit the federal government to make anything a legal tender. One of the most important pieces of
legislation that could be enacted would be the repeal of all federal legal tender laws. Such laws, which have the effect of forcing creditors to accept something in payment for the debts due them that they do not wish to accept, are
one of the most tyrannical devices of the present monetary authorities.
Not only does the Federal Reserve have a coercive monopoly in issuing "money," but every American is forced to accept it. Each Federal Reserve note bears the words, "This note is legal tender for all debts, public and private." The
freedom to conduct business in something else—such as gold and silver coin—cannot exist so long as the government forces everyone to accept its paper notes. Monetary freedom ends where legal tender laws begin.
The United States had no such laws until 1862, when the Congress—in violation of the Constitution—enacted them in order to ensure the acceptance of the Lincoln greenbacks, the paper notes printed by the U.S. Treasury during the wartime emergency. That "emergency" has now lasted for 120 years; it is time that this unconstitutional action by the Congress be repealed. Freedom of contract—and the right to have such contracts enforced, not abrogated, by the government—is one or the fundamental pillars of a free society.

Defining the Dollar

A second major reform needed is a legal definition of the term "dollar." The Constitution uses the word "dollar" at least twice, and it is quite clear that by it the framers meant the Spanish-milled dollar of 371% grains of silver. Since 1968, however, there has been no domestic definition of "dollar," for in that year redemption of silver certificates and delivery of silver in exchange for the notes ended, and silver coins were removed from circulation.

In 1971, the international definition of the "dollar" as %2 of an ounce of gold was also dropped. The Treasury and Federal Reserve still value gold at $42.22 per ounce, but that is a mere accounting device. In addition, IMF rules now prohibit any member country from externally defining its currency in terms of gold. The word "dollar," quite literally, is legally meaningless, and it has been meaningless for the past decade. Federal Reserve notes are not
"dollars"; they are notes denominated in "dollars." But what a "dollar" is, no one knows.
This absurdity at the basis of our monetary system must be corrected. It is of secondary importance whether we define a "dollar" as a weight of gold or as a weight of silver. What is important is that it be defined. The current
situation permits the Federal Reserve—and the Internal Revenue Service for that matter—to use the word any way they please, just like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland.

No rational economic activity can be conducted when the unit of account is undefined. The use of the meaningless term "dollar" has all but wrecked the capital markets of this country. If the "dollar" changes in meaning from day-to
day, even hour-to-hour, long-term contracts denominated in "dollars" become traps that all wish to avoid. The breakdown of long-term financing and planning in the past decade is a result of the absurd nature of the "dollar." There is very little long term planning occurring at the present. The only way to restore rationality to the system is to restore a definition for the term "dollar." We suggest defining a "dollar" as a weight of gold of a certain fineness, .999 fine. Such a fixed definition is the only way to restore confidence in the markets and in the "dollar." Capitalism cannot survive the type of irrationality that lies at the basis of our present monetary arrangements.