Re: [Pen-l] Re: Gold money is fiat money too.

[Laurent GUERBY <laurent@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 2009-01-30 at 14:33 -0800, Jim Devine wrote:
> Laurent GUERBY wrote:
> > In the internet age you can practically move away from fiat currency if
> > you want too: buy and sell gold/whatever ETF and keep the strict minimum
> > of fiat currency on your regular account (including the right amount
> > the day you pay your taxes). One click per day.
> >
> > So the government is no longer practically imposing a fiat currency
> > system on someone who doesn't believe in it.
> 
> one problem is that each "click" likely involves some sort of
> brokerage fee. 

Yes there's some cause but it's not much relative to the fee you pay in
fine when using credit/debit card (and may be inflation).

> Another is that the price of gold in terms of fiat
> money changes a lot from day to day, so that you may want to "click
> back" to fiat money and find that you're suffering from an unwanted
> and even unaffordable capital loss in terms of what goods and services
> you an buy. Gold is currently a speculative commodity and thus holding
> it involves risk.

Currently the volatility of about everything against fiat money
is indeed very high and there are many bubble-like values around.

But if you look at someone "self sufficient" with housing and a large
enough land area, the USD market value of this "stable" basket of goods
would also have a big volatility.

> Why would one not believe in fiat money? is the US government (the
> issuer of much of the stuff) about to go broke, fall apart in a civil
> war, and/or be replaced by a congress of workers' soviets?

If civil war only physical gold and armed guards will do it, not gold
ETFs :).

About belief, I don't know the why, but the argument that the government
is "forcing" you was true a decade ago but it's no longer true now
thanks to the internet.

Laurent


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