Global Financial Crisis (10 Viewers)

OP
Dostoevsky

Dostoevsky

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May 27, 2007
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  • Thread Starter #1,241
    F@#% gold. People act like it has some intrinsic value that goes beyond time and space. That's bullcrap. Gold is subject to speculations like tulips, commercial real estate, subprime mortgages, and dot-com stocks. Sure, you can't "make" more of it, but you can certain mine more.

    Anything has a value in this world not because of the object itself, but because someone else is willing to place a value on it. The whole idea of gold as this monetary stability savior is an illusion. Gold makes people think they can hide from market forces who can place higher or lower values on their property, which is completely delusional. The best gold serves is as a hedge and nothing more.
    At this point gold is the only solution for many countries. Yes, anything can have a value now, but only gold's value is skyrocketing and why? Because there's no gold standard and we're only holding a piece of paper. Gold price has risen up to 600% over the past 10 years due to that. We're facing a shit economy state and we'll face a currency devaluation and when that happens it's going to be gold vs paper. Countries that own gold will be in a better position and there's no wonder China and Germany have the most of it, they are not idiots.

    On the other hand, in a healthy economy there wouldn't be a focus on gold. But now smart countries do put most of it on it, rightfully so, as it carries the least risk.

    Yep. That opened the doors to at least the stock bubble, housing bubble, the oil/commodities bubble, and the debt refinancing scams of the past decade.
    Mortgages fraud pushed it over the edge. It's too many problems at the same time but that one was huge. You know what the sad thing is... nobody can be responsible for it. Whoever makes the mess in Economy department they can say "oh fuck, that wasn't a wise move... but let's move on". I mean fuck that attitude. Clinton's signature sure fucked everything up, bank regulation exist no longer and their best friends are rating agencies in order to seal everything left on the Planet. Basically every 'money' that we posses at the moment is a debt.
     

    Buy on AliExpress.com

    Enron

    Tickle Me
    Moderator
    Oct 11, 2005
    75,252
    Word. I don't get it either. I'm not sure if it's the perception of control or not wanting to change our current debilitated health care economy or what. The system is beyond screwed up right now. Inaction is quickly moving US healthcare down the ladder of what's available in most industrialized nations, and yet we're paying a lot more for what we get. It's just wrong and expensive.

    IMO, it's also just wrong that as budgets take hits and people are losing their jobs left and right, healthcare just keeps trucking along adding jobs in the face of all these layoffs. Which, IMO, is part of the problem. It's wholly disconnected from what's going on and it depends on market forces of a third-party payer system that are totally incongruous with the rest of the financial markets. It's no wonder why healthcare keeps accelerating costs far faster than the cost of living here, and every labor dispute in the nation has something to do with health care now.
    Totally agree. I think things like requiring all citizens to have health care (see auto insurance) and introducing the community rating system will be huge, especially when you consider most small businesses are not hiring employees because current health care plans are too expensive for employers with less than 20 employees.
     

    swag

    L'autista
    Administrator
    Sep 23, 2003
    83,441
    At this point gold is the only solution for many countries. Yes, anything can have a value now, but only gold's value is skyrocketing and why? Because there's no gold standard and we're only holding a piece of paper. Gold price has risen up to 600% over the past 10 years due to that. We're facing a shit economy state and we'll face a currency devaluation and when that happens it's going to be gold vs paper. Countries that own gold will be in a better position and there's no wonder China and Germany have the most of it, they are not idiots.
    It's not because of the gold standard that the price has gone up. It's because a bunch of investors got group-think and flocked to gold and bid the prices up as the other guys were doing it. That kind of momentum-driven, copy-cat, money-after-money investing is the same retarded underlying mechanisms that created bubbles for housing, oil, etc. Nobody calls it a "gold bubble", but that's precisely what that is. And I don't care what color your bubble is, hyperinflated valuations of a given commodity are doomed to eventual failure.
     

    swag

    L'autista
    Administrator
    Sep 23, 2003
    83,441
    Totally agree. I think things like requiring all citizens to have health care (see auto insurance) and introducing the community rating system will be huge, especially when you consider most small businesses are not hiring employees because current health care plans are too expensive for employers with less than 20 employees.
    FWIW, I am directly affected by that last detail right now.
     
    OP
    Dostoevsky

    Dostoevsky

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    May 27, 2007
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    I don't know why people are so mad about Obamacare. It really has nothing to do with the financial state of the nation.
    Word. I don't get it either. I'm not sure if it's the perception of control or not wanting to change our current debilitated health care economy or what. The system is beyond screwed up right now. Inaction is quickly moving US healthcare down the ladder of what's available in most industrialized nations, and yet we're paying a lot more for what we get. It's just wrong and expensive.
    I'd more blame Clinton administration and Bush for the current mess than Obama personally.

    But you know what, despite the current mess Obama is not doing anything to help it, infact he just made the whole situation just worse. He changed the law and made it possible to make even bigger debts. Woopdy-fucking-doo, it's not just that he postponed the bankruptcy but made the situation worse for younger generation. Other than that he's not many any progress when it comes to monetary system.

    Bottom line - they all suck.
     

    Enron

    Tickle Me
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    Oct 11, 2005
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    FWIW, I am directly affected by that last detail right now.
    My dad is effected as well. His law firm has real nice insurance (they're rather large though), but the premiums are gigantic because they have a high population of young married woman who all had babies around the same time (some of them twins) and on top of that some of the older partners have had heart attacks and an older woman in the firm had cancer and survived.
     
    OP
    Dostoevsky

    Dostoevsky

    Tzu
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    May 27, 2007
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    FFS my Opera crashed and all of my typing was lost.

    It's not because of the gold standard that the price has gone up. It's because a bunch of investors got group-think and flocked to gold and bid the prices up as the other guys were doing it. That kind of momentum-driven, copy-cat, money-after-money investing is the same retarded underlying mechanisms that created bubbles for housing, oil, etc. Nobody calls it a "gold bubble", but that's precisely what that is. And I don't care what color your bubble is, hyperinflated valuations of a given commodity are doomed to eventual failure.

    I never said that's why they gone up. I only said that to point out how we're only holding a pieces of paper with no value whatsoever. If it happens a monetary crash, and it will, we'll be seeing gold as a primary weapon. I don't think it has anything to do with investors creating a bubble in that area.

    Prices went up and whole mess appeared because banks gave loans of non-existing money, even without printing it. Prices went up because of Bernanke, JP Morgan and other idiots holding the banking sector. They went up because rating agencies made a fraud so countries would lose billions on it just so bankers would profit. Prices went up because US gives bankers extra bonuses that end up in trillions just because they are great at financial terrorism. They went up because Clinton's signature and commercial banks getting involved in businesses that shouldn't be in their department at all. They went up because banks hold the control of money quantity and they manipulate with government while asking for a huge interest. Also, they went up because we're living in a world with legalized financial terrorist like IMF which exist only to destroy one country and kill the middle class, which they successfully do of course. All of that equals huge amount of debt that cannot be repaid, because so much money doesn't even exist. Gold went up because PAPER went down, rightfully so, because of idiots.
     

    swag

    L'autista
    Administrator
    Sep 23, 2003
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    Finite commodities with industrial use don't usually bubble.

    Diamonds, no THAT is retarded.
    But how is any invest-able object of value that gains 600% in value overnight like that not a bubble? Isn't that the definition of a bubble?

    Someone thought it was worth 600% less not that long ago. What's to say it won't fluctuate and everyone will lose 83%+ of their investment in a massacre?
     

    IrishZebra

    Western Imperialist
    Jun 18, 2006
    23,327
    I've yet to look at known supplies versus current consumption although I admit it's pretty stupid to invest in gold thinking it'll keep going.

    Property? worthless? Diamonds? worthless- industrially useful and infinite, Gold, industrially useful and finite. It can tank, not evaporate.
     

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