Can't we vote early and often? Isn't this Chicago? ;)

You're welcome LS. I normally try to ignore trolls but every so often egregiousness overwhelms.

and plus 999 for you! :) (not that I can vote you up more than once...but thank you for that.)

related video by Peter Schiff http://schiffgold.com/commentaries/golds...

IMHO, you are 100% correct. And the feds are going to have to take it back deflating currency or inflation will be rampant. Starting to see the effect right now. No win situation that is unless you enjoy stealing from you children and grandchildren via inflation.

Saw that post. Almost got sick reading it.

Hear hear. Mike seems to have a problem with reality.

MikeMarotta posted this "The US Mint will trade you gold and silver for your Federal Reserve Notes on demand at the market price." How generous the Mint is. Some necessary facts - In 1913, the price of gold was $18.92 according to http://www.nma.org/pdf/gold/his_gold_pri...
According to this site, the dollar is now worth $0.04 compared to 1913. http://www.comparegoldandsilverprices.co...
So if the spot price of gold is prox. $1193.00 http://www.kitco.com/charts/livegold.htm...
and I take my one dollar to the Mint, and one troy ounce contains 31.103 grams, will they really give me $1/$1193 X 31.103 = 0.02607 grams of gold? I guess if you cannot dazzle them with your brilliance, you will have to baffle them with your bullshit. Minus 1 for you Mike.

hear hear

One point to make here: most of that printed money never made it into the money supply. It was created by the Federal Reserve and used solely by the Federal Reserve to pay off its own debts!

If all that printed money actually had hit the open market, you can bet you would have seen prices triple.

And the additional downstream effects. Businesses can no longer maintain even sales volumes and stay on an even keel. Inflation devalues buying power, so employees (rightfully-so) petition for raises at a minimum to counteract the inflation. This in turn necessitates growth in the business just to account for inflation - way before even accounting for raises, additional capital investments, etc.

Inflation is a universally BAD idea. It devalues existing capital unnecessarily and the cascading effects only drive MORE inflation. It's also what leads to borrowing as an investment strategy, because you can use someone else's money more cheaply than your own!

I don't give a shit who cleans your house.. I asked about grocery shopping.
So...inflation doesn't devalue the dollar?

I am not sure what you question is. But I thought the most interesting part was the explanation of how the US dollar became the world's reserve currency. This has been a huge advantage for the US, but it is likely to end within the next decade. When this occurs there are likely to be a lot of extra dollars no one wants anymore.

Did you actually watch the video? No individual gets to rationally choose, because every country has a legal tender laws and a central bank.

Mike whether you can calculate inflation is irrelevant. What matters is that it is theft from every person who gets paid in dollars and has savings in dollars.

The currency we use is intricately tied to teh value of the US dollar. Furthermore, we are US citizens, we work and trade value for value in US dollars everyday.

that is getting ready to change. Russia and China have formed a partnership saying they will not pay for oil in dollars anymore.

I've read all the comments, and while I consider myself to be a pretty bright guy, -- you've lost me. Rand was once asked to explain the essence of her philosophy while standing on one foot. She did so with alacrity. Can anyone here do the same with the economics of this discussion thread?

Kurt Weimar's mythological Eden Story about the origins of money is the same one that Karl Marx told. Ludwig von Mises also subscribed to it. Mises, of course, as a rationalist did not feel a need for empirical research. Marx was wrong, but at least he dug for empirical facts while at the British Museum reading books. Mises just invented (or borrowed, actually), a story that he felt was "consistent."

That story does not explain why fiduciary contracts for future delivery of commodities were invented 2000 years _before_ "money". It does not explain why coins were not invented until 2000 years after silver and wheat were declared to be "money" (equally) in the time of Hammurabi but gold was not. It does not explain why when silver was the preferred and common medium across the Greek matrix c. 400 BCE, the soldiers in The Anabasis were happy to be paid in Kyzikenes, artificial electrum "staters" (about 1/2 a modern ounce). Those Kyzikenes were modern to them, but echoic of a payment common to mercenaries for 200 years - again, even after silver (primarily) and gold (secondarily) were struck.

It is true that we live in a "winner take all" society where first place is valued disproportionately to second, third, etc. And it is true that societies have all manner of such norms in food, clothing, language, etc., which come and go in fashion.

However, if it is _absolutely_ true as Kurt Weimar claims, then the US Dollar has been rationally chosen by most people in most places today to be at least one of the leading forms of money, if not the top if the heap.

I think that the dollar is good currently, despite our best efforts, because oil is only traded in dollars. An economic attack on the US would be to threaten that relationship, however since we are the greatest consumers of world production of almost everything, that would be suicidal. Of course, there are terrorists that think suicide is a virtue. Ultimately, I think the US dollar is backed by US nukes and we could effect some market corrections if more people realized it. That we could be the force of the greatest good on the planet does not mean that we could not also be equivalent in evil should our nice lives be threatened.

When inflation is predictable, it can be calculated in advance. Catastrophic inflation is a different problem. It is highly predictable that winter is colder than summer. The recent snowstorm that slammed much of the northeast was a singular event, though, again, we know very well that these things happen every winter.

Everyone talks about Weimar and the man with the wheelbarrow. Germany's money was worthless because Germany's gold went to England, France, et alia, to pay for all the civilian damage of World War One. When that happened, the people fell back on the silver and gold coins they had hoarded, and communities and others created their own ad hoc "Notgeld".

On the other hand, Turkey just went to a "New Lira" (2005) at a million to one against the old. Unlike the other losers in World War One and then again in WW Two - and unlike modern Israel - Turkey did not demonetize its old currency. Inflation was a predictable factor in their economy. The same was true of Italy, Portugal, Spain, and some other poor nations. In Africa, many nations formed small currency associations and/or pegged their common issues to the French franc. The old Hong Kong Dollar was pegged to the US Dollar. And, of course, after losing World War Two big time, Japan kept its yen. Once equal in gold to a US gold dollar, the yen fell to more than 300 to the dollar. But Japan kept their "worthless" yen, honored their commitments, and worked their way out. It is now about 118 in the industrial nations and just under 100 in the "developing economies" where it is somewhat more highly valued. So, yes, the USA could do the same thing - and without the catastrophic and radical remedies advocated in the video.

If government money were not any good, no one would take it. We would fall back to silver and gold or to other kinds of alternative currencies. This happened several times in the past. It goes on now with Time Dollars and Bay Bucks and maybe a dozen more that come and go. Nice as they are, they are emotional expressions, economic curios.

As a numismatist I know quite well what money buys and bought -- and what forms money may have in the future. I have published on all of those topics. And I live in the USA. I mean, really, Halling, why should you care about the dollar? You do not even live here. You are an ex-patriot.

I do the shopping usually, unless we do it together, like a date. Prices are rising because of inflation. They have not tripled since 2009. Also, I charge more for my labor than I did in 2009, but not triple. That is the empirical test.

(I also do most of the daily housework from cooking and dishes to vacuuming and ironing, and have for 38 years. My wife does a lot of things well. I fetched and carried for her when we built a deck on one house. We are building a home security system now. She likes to bake breads and desserts. She just does not find housework and homemaking satisfying. I do.)

Some people walk around blind. They think the US is invincible. The dollar will always be the world currency. We are too good to fail. Shall I go on? It will be people like you & I that will have to cover the others asses when it does fail because we have taken steps to prepare. Wonder if we will help??

Good!!

A good presentation, though somewhat abbreviated. Thanks for posting.
His idea for getting out of the debt dollar sounds interesting.