From: cmk@athena.mit.edu (Charles M Kozierok)
Subject: Re: Views? :
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 05:12:08 GMT

In article <1992Dec16.142218.18962@samba.oit.unc.edu> bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden) writes:
>In article <HWT=BL+@engin.umich.edu> positron@engin.umich.edu (Jonathan Scott Haas) writes:
>>In article <1992Dec16.123301.14776@samba.oit.unc.edu> bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden) writes:
>>>	Why is it that you time and time again refuse to accept the
>>>existence of commodity certificates and insist on pretending like people
>>>actual have to cary oil around.  Recently a large chunk of IBM was sold at
>>>the NYSE do you think that they picked up Poughkipse NY carried over to
>>>the exchange building on Wall Street and sold it?!
>>>	Stop with silly tanker stuff.
>>
>>Because in that case, you're just shifting faith in one body to another.
>>If you convert your "oilbucks" to futures contracts on the exchange, then
>>you're withdrawing your faith in the government, but taking faith in
>>the commodity exchange. If said exchange folds up, you're up a creek...
>>which could very, very well happen, if all currency was backed by oil
>>and there was a panic. When you buy shares in IBM, all you've got is
>>a piece of paper saying that you own X% of IBM. If NYSE suddenly folds,
>>you've got a very serious problem.
>>
>>A good store of value, in order to both promote confidence and accomodate
>>those who have no confidence, must be portable.
>
>
>	If the major exchanges collapse, I can't see gold being worth much
>either.

huh? you must be joking. gold is reknowned as a place that investors put
their money during bad times. as John Updike said, "the beauty of gold is,
it loves bad news". your statement smacks of ignorance bordering on the
negligent for one so involved in this discussion.

>What your describing is a the collapse of western civ.

no he's not. why do you say that? a certificate is just an IOU from
a brokerage house. if it goes under, or its president absconds with the
items which are allegedly in storage, your certificate is meaningless.
the rest of western civilization may coincidentally collapse, but so what?

>If that
>happens, to quote a Russian proverb, "you can't eat gold".

no, but you can barter with someone who has wheat,
because he has more wheat than he needs, and he likes gold. or he knows
that he can then trade *that* gold with someone who has more fish than
*he* needs, etc. etc. gold is simply a marker, a placeholder representing
real wealth or value.

is that really so complicated?
it has been that way for thousands of years.
meaningless fiat currency is a recent invention.

>No currency
>standard will matter because there won't be a currency.

then why would gold be valueless? this statement implies the opposite.
see the above -- whatever people decide is the currency would be the
currency.

>That would just
>be an aweful situation.  Finally if society collapses to that extent, why
>would the government (if there still was one which would be doubtful) make
>good on the old govt. promise to pay in gold for green paper.  

because if it had the gold, it would have no legal basis for not doing so.
it can't just decide to renege on its promises without serious consequences.

--
charles
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian