Replies to post #153203 on Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[schloss_1]

Elroy-

<<There is not a shortage of gold - there is too much paper money.>>

I think this argument has a small flaw in it. If all of the gold ever mined in the history of the world could fit in a 20-yard cube, then wouldn't it be necessary to limit the population to a predetermined--and somehow interelated-- number. After all, each person on the face of the earth requires a certain amount of "wampum" to conduct their daily affairs. As the population expands, linking paper money to gold, or any precious metal, becomes less and less tenable.

Personally, I like the EU's idea of limiting deficits to a percentage of GDP, but that has flaws too and no politician is going to abide by such a rule anyway. A further flaw is that the final calculation in determining GDP is to deduct inflation--giving politicians a further reason to fudge the CPI numbers to the downside. Less inflation, greater GDP.

No system is perfect, but if you think our system is bad now, consider what it was like before 1862 when every bank in the country was printing their own notes! When traveling, your notes from, say Boston, would be discounted in Chicago at a rate directly proportionate to the size and prestige of your bank back home. God help the traveler from Pigsknuckle, Georgia.

schloss

[dvdmogul]

Greetings Elroy...there might be a technical solution in the offing. If your of the mind that the gold scarcity can be used to augment currency than it stands to reason that the Price of gold is way too low. One solution might be the Nanoization of Gold...yes by building embedable nano particles of gold into the currency, you might be able to pull it off. In case you didnt know a nano measure is a billionth of a meter, perhaps Zeev could contribute the equivalent weight of a nano measure of gold (to early for me to undertake the math).

Within the currency demand to gold supply measure, a country could conceivably construct a currency using these metrics thereby extending the available gold supply to the task of the currency in such a way as to satisfy the gold bugs...

Just thinking outside the box here, but this is the ONLY way that the Math could be made to work, and the only benefit would be that the gimmick itself would have a shelf life of perhaps 20 or so years it could be a Lysenkoism of economics.

Failing this as the end all; the next most precious imbedded substance might be Iowa farm land...perhaps we could mix nano measures of gold and Iowa dirt to come up with the rational that swings the religous right and the enviromentalists to the gold camp, thereby increasing support for the entire venture.

This would bring new meaning to Dust to Dust...on the one hand , and recycle gold to dirt on the other. Those are more broadly based coallitions which might stregthen the gold case.
We could also sociologicaly speaking comment broadly about Dirty Money or My does that Money shine...depending on our political views.

PS I'll be running for president next cycle...want to join my team?