"... like all gold letter writers, none of our gold bulls
attempted to repudiate these numbers."
All those pieces you quoted assume that gold production is a limiting factor. Now consider gold as a currency rather than a commodity. Why can't the exchange rate fluctuate (through changes in the POG) to maintain the relative value of total of the worlds production of goods and services to available currency.
That's the way fiat currencies are supposed to work and nobody bats an eyelid as exchange rate fluctuations shift the relative values of whole nations by trillions up or down in a matter of minutes. Just calculate the change in value in all of Japan's Yen denominated assets on Friday with a 3 Yen increase in the value of the Yen relative to the US dollar.
Of course the relative balance of fiat currencies is distorted by the unrestricted printing of more paper (or the electronic equivalent)by the favoured governments who can get away with it.
If gold was a true "floating" currency the actual total available quantity of gold and the production levels become almost immaterial providing it couldn't be produced in massive quantities without restraint like fiat.
Absolute numbers are meaningless when measured in fiat currency terms. You simply don't have a stable unit of measurement for comparison. GOLD may be $380 and ounce in US dollars and 44,000 an ounce in Yen... So what... why couldn't it be $44,000 in dollars just as easily... and the yen trade 1 to 1 to the dollar some time in the future???
It's easy to define an ounce or a gram... but what the hell is a dollar?
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