The reality of the 80’s is that trickle down economics does work, to some degree.

If I were Mark, and my I wanted to make X per year (assuming that this was a reasonable number and the calculation is X= (actual income – (involuntary expenses + voluntary expenses)) {voluntary expenses being charitable contributions, payroll, etc}) then as my involuntary expenses went up, I would lower my voluntary expenses to keep a balance. Ways of lowering the voluntary expenses include lowering chartiable contributions, hiring less people, etc.

That being said, there are certain things that should be paid by both the rich and the poor. An example of this is Social Security. As it stands, the SS Wage limit this year is 90K, meaning that the money you earn over 90K is not subject to the 6.4% tax that is paid on the money that you earn upto 90K. If our SS system is so hosed for the future, there is one way of pumping more $$’s into it, remove the cap.

That being said, I am not advocating that as a solution, we need to fix the system, not throw more money at the problem. When the system is fixed then we can throw money into it (not allowing the government to play with it) and create a scenario where no one has to worry about not having the $ when they retire, but that is for another topic.

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The ONLY thing that prevents politicians from stealing from the masses is having a hard currency – ie one that is backed and fully exchangeable with a valuable hard asset. Funny how the period from 1982-2002 is considered a great disinflationary period, yet the value of the US $ went down by 50%! The fiat money and fractional reserve system is a centrally planned monetary system that punishes savers.

I wonder why Mark believes that a small group of people can set the price of money more effectively than free markets, and also astounded that he would back a monetary system that guarantees that politicians will NEVER pay down our debt…..they just inflate it away or we’ll be crushed by a deflationary credit crunch. I suggest Mark read some economic history books!

In that sense it is probably no better or worse an asset than the other assets that sit in the central bank vaults.

But it is nothing special.

The wierd thing about its monetization is that perfectly good resources (cash costs over $300 per OZ) are used to dig up and process more gold (causing considerable pollution I might add) so that it can be buried in vaults.

That is sick.

J

maybe you should stick to what you are good at, and let the 10,000 years + of humans using gold as a store of value be.

btw, i’ll buy the mavs from you with my stash of confederate dollars, what do you say?

Interesting fact: Over the past 200 years commodity prices declined on average 3% a year.

So much for a hedge against inflation.

In this day and age of more agressive terrorism, one can speculate that the U.S. government may employ “stealth” bribes of various sorts to form alliances in areas of potential unrest. Rumor has it that this has already been done with various warlords in rich poor countries as Afghanistan; money doesn’t talk, it “screams” in a poor country.

Doing this from a position of military strength, this kind of thing is a great way for the U.S. to win a war without ever fighting. If anything, it is a strategy that will only see increasing use in the 21st century. The U.S. should arguably hold its position in Gold, if not accumulate. Private traders do not have the same constaints and should do what they feel is in their best interest.