Ch 11.3 - Gold
"A pillow of gold might be a little hard, but it will actually help you sleep better at night." - Unknown
Narrative: Gold is a barbarous relic. People dig it up, refine it, and then just put it back in another hole in the ground somewhere else. It’s a colossal waste of time and resources.
---------------------------
a. History
---------------------------
”Gold has been money for 4,000 years.” - Gold: The Story of Man's 6000 Year Obsession
"Roman coins were less than an ounce of silver (they shaved the coins, ancient ‘inflation’), whereas the Hebrew shekels weighed a full ounce of silver. It is believed that Jesus told the Hebrews to pay Caesar’s tax with Caesar’s shaved coins (give unto Caesar, that which is Caesar’s) and keep your shekels (God’s money) for tithing to the temple." - Unknown
"Your Founders told you to use gold and silver for a reason. You ignored them." - Unknown
"No state shall coin money, emit bills of credit, or make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts." - US Constitution, Art. I, sec. 10, cl. 1.
"The FED and IRS were created in 1913. In 1920 the average household income was $3,269 or 158oz of gold. In 2022 the average household income was $70,957 or 38oz of gold. If our money still held the same purchasing power as 158oz of gold in 1913, the average household would be making $280,175!" - Unknown
"In 1808, an ounce of gold was $20 and could buy a good suit, shoes, shirt, socks, breakfast, lunch, dinner, a cup of coffee at an OK restaurant, and a pack of smokes. Today an ounce is $2,000 and can buy the same. $20 today can buy a cup of coffee and smokes." - Unknown
”Nixon Lies:
- Suspend temporarily the convertibility of $ into gold
- Strength of the currency based on the strength of the economy
- Your dollar will be worth just as much tomorrow” - Richard Nixon after closing the gold window in 1971
b. Properties
---------------------------
"Gold is money. Gold is durable, divisible, consistent, convenient, scarce, and, most important, it's the 'hardest' of all physical commodities. In other words, gold is 'hard to produce' relative to existing stockpiles and is the one physical commodity most resistant to inflation. That's what gives gold its monetary properties." - Unknown
"Gold has a large number of characteristics that make it an ideal currency and of all the elements available it is perhaps the best physical element to serve as a currency.
- it isn't a gas or liquid
- It doesn't burn
- it's non-reactive
- it doesn't have an absurdly high melting point (as with platinum)
- it's rare but not TOO rare (like rhodium)
- it won't kill you (as with a radioactive metal)
- it doesn't corrode or tarnish
- it's relatively easy to test with a 'touchstone' and 'the acid test'
- it's easy to divide, or 'mint' in various sizes (an issue with gems, diamonds, etc.)" - Unknown
"Yet gold has special properties that no other currency, with the possible exception of silver, can claim. For more than two millennia, gold has had virtually unquestioned acceptance as payment. It has never required the credit guarantee of a third party. No questions are raised when gold or direct claims to gold are offered in payment of an obligation." - Unknown
“Gold is money. Everything else is credit.” - J.P. Morgan
"Gold is Bearer asset doesn’t involve trust." - Unknown
"Gold is the only asset that is not simultaneously someone else’s liability." - Unknown
"Gold has intrinsic value unlike a dollar or any other currency, let alone bitcoin." - Dutch Central Banker
"Gold isn’t money. It’s an insurance policy against financial chaos." - Unknown
"Gold isn’t a hedge against inflation. It’s a hedge against government." - Unknown
"Gold is a handgun you keep in your drawer you never want to use." - Unknown
"People buy gold for six reasons:
1) as an inflation hedge
2) as a currency hedge
3) as a portfolio diversified
4) as a commodity
5) as a safe haven
6) as savings" - Unknown
"Three possibilities in the future:
1) Gold goes back to jewelry.
2) Gold goes back to money of last resort. Jewelry + Insurance.
3) Gold goes back to some sort of monetary function. Jewelry + Insurance + Money" - Unknown
"Luxury goods have long fascinated economists because they stress the normal laws of demand. There are two types:
- Veblen goods - higher status triggers a sense that it should be more valuable (French wine/LV Handbags)
- Giffen goods - price rise itself signals a great broad demand regardless of social status (Bitcoin/Gold)" - Unknown
c. Reserve Asset
---------------------------
"Because of Basel 3, Gold is the only asset on a bank's balance sheet that doesn't carry a national currency risk, doesn't have a duration risk, and doesn't carry a BIS risk weighting. Nothing else does this. Bankers need Gold on their balance sheet and they need it to go higher." - Unknown
"There's a chance we do get to this BRICs currency that will have gold as part of a basket and I've always said that if Gold's part of a basket it will eventually rise to the top of it for all. The reasons we know if you put wheat in the basket wheat rots. If you put oil in the basket oil gets consumed. If you put copper in the basket copper gets used in industry. Gold's the only thing that is a pure asset. Pure gold can be put in there. It's a pure asset that has no real other need, but to be this Reserve asset. You know that's why it's perfect money. Because you don't need to consume it in any other way so what would happen is people would start to trade out these other Commodities that they're using to back their currency for gold." - Parallel Mike
"Gold is the currency of kings.
Silver is the currency of gentlemen.
Credit is the currency of slaves.
Bitcoin is the currency of grifters.
Gold is money and nothing else." - Unknown
"Why is Gold superior to Bitcoin?
Gold without miners still has value
Gold below production cost still has value
Gold spends 500 yrs at the bottom of the ocean and still has value
Gold without private key still has value
Gold can leave zero if it ever gets there
#Gold $BTC" - Unknown
"When you buy gold and silver, it comes with a central bank guarantee. The guarantee is they will absolutely not stop printing money... If you had the ability to print money out of thin air, would you stop?" - Unknown
"The West has become extremely aggressive in its geopolitics. You simply do not buy the debt of your enemy. Central banks are buying gold because the USD is political." - Unknown
"Not to worry, USA has 8000 tons of Gold at Fort Knox. Sure, nobody has seen the Gold since before the 1970's, but to imply that it is not there is crazy conspiracy crap." - Unknown
”We already have digital gold. It's called a futures contract.” - Raoul Pal
d. Insurance
---------------------------
"The family motto has always been: 'Keep a fast junk in the harbour with gold bars and a second set of papers'. The modern equivalent would be a private jet, a couple of passports and foreign bank accounts. That is the world we are in . . . it is tough stuff." - Lesperance
"Crypto - and gold - is really only a threat to government tax exactions...and that's the most terrifying thing of all to any regime. Never mind all this nonsense about 'your security', 'terrorism', etc., etc." - Unknown
"Many of the assets you think you own you are merely holding in trust for another beneficiary... Any coin with a monarch on the back is a 'coin of the realm' according to Coinage Act of 1971 (coincidentally the same year Bretton Woods failed) issued by a British Commonwealth nation. Coins with denominations on the back classed as legal tender is considered a coin of the realm. Legal tender means it can be used in the settlement of debts. Do not buy coins that are capital gains tax free issued by a national mint. 'Her Majesty may... call in coins of any date or denomination, or coins made before a date specified in the proclamation.' Also ' no person shall... melt down or break up any metal coin...'" - Parallel Mike
"They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed: their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumbling block of their iniquity." - Ezekiel 7:19 KJV
Previous Chapter
Next Chapter
Table of Contents