Idiotic waste of time

[Blake Noble]

Why does my head hurt so bad after reading that?

How did we get on this tangent anyway? I just don't get the issue here nor do I get the real point being made. My brain has been so pumped full of fuck I don't even know how to make a rebuttal on this.

[Satty]

Why does my head hurt so bad after reading that?

Luckily, we're nowhere near a point where you'll need a closet full of gold bullion or have to figure out how many chickens equal a roll of toilet paper.

[SAmadei]

you guys can laugh at me all you want, down rate me. but what i'm saying, you cannot dismiss as a falsehood.

Nobody is arguing that the physical money is worth anything more that the promise of the US government to keep its worth.

We're lampooning the idea that bills should be sized based on value... well, that negates the reason for making a monetary certificate in the first place. At that point, you might as well just use chunks of gold or silver as currency... since that has value based upon its weight.

Of course, for roughly 40 years (1930-1970), you couldn't use gold as barter because it was illegal to own gold in quantity (besides a small amount of jewelry). During that time, the government forced people to sell there gold for a cut rate... and it disappeared into Ft. Knox and to this day, nobody outside the government knows if its even still there.

There is no guarantee that our currency will hold up... during the Civil War, Confederate currency underwent massive devaluation... it was worthless afterward. Our currency works pretty good, though, assuming we don't drive our country into the gutter.

Oh, the only reason that someone brought up different sized currency is because, in theory, different sized currency would be easier for blind people to determine denomination.

Luckily, we're nowhere near a point where you'll need a closet full of gold bullion or have to figure out how many chickens equal a roll of toilet paper.

Says you. Some would argue that.

Price of TP in chickens depends on how long ago you had Mexican food.

[Cory Wolfe]

http://economics.abo...ue_of_money.htm

So to answer your question, money has value because people believe that they will be able to exchange their money for goods and services in the future. This belief will persist so long as people do not fear future inflation. To avoid inflation, the government must ensure that the money supply does not increase too quickly.

believe.. sounds like religion...

wikipedia

Belief is the psychological state in which an individual holds a proposition or premise to be true.

when this cannot be proven, it is a statement of faith, no?

silver and gold have industrial uses, as well as aesthetic uses. this proves it's worth something.

you guys can laugh at me all you want, down rate me. but what i'm saying, you cannot dismiss as a falsehood.

....

and just in the past few days, didn't bernanke said a little inflation won't hurt? ...what has the price of commodites done, like gold and silver... hit new highs

a gallon of gas on the market before taxes is ~1/11 an ounce of silver. this has to be a new low, but we still think $2.50 is pretty damn expensive from 5 years ago.

And why, exactly, is religion being brought up at all?

[Intrepidation]

And why, exactly, is religion being brought up at all?

Because loki's logic for this sort of thing is further disconnected from reality than the width of the galaxy.

[Drew Dowdell]

So Loki. If I write a check for $10 and another for $100, does the $100 check have to be 10 times the size of the $10 check?

[balthazar]

blackviper8891 ~ >>"And why, exactly, is religion being brought up at all?"<<

'belief' and 'faith' do not always mean 'religion'. And he did say "like a religion".

No specific religion or icon thereof was mentioned.

Breathe in, breathe out.

[loki]

So Loki. If I write a check for $10 and another for $100, does the $100 check have to be 10 times the size of the $10 check?

no, cause the check is just a piece of paper redeemable for money. a legal IOU... before '30's (when fdr confiscated all the gold) paper money was checks, one could take it to someplace, i'm guessing the FED, or a treasury bank, to trade the bill for a coin.

my mom has a $5 silver certificate. back then it would have bought ~5 ounces cause they made silver dollars (or actually dimes, quarters, or half dollar) of 90% silver. now a days on the market i'm pretty sure it's just a much fancier $5 bill, which will buy ~1/4 ounce of silver. silver hasn't changed in what it is, or how it's used. the social collapse of not enforcing the legal tender law has made it just another piece of paper that will loose it's widely accepted value instead of actually enforcing the contract of the bill when it was made.

[Cory Wolfe]

blackviper8891 ~ >>"And why, exactly, is religion being brought up at all?"<<

'belief' and 'faith' do not always mean 'religion'. And he did say "like a religion".

No specific religion or icon thereof was mentioned.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Yes... And, I'm wondering why it was brought up in the first place. I'm aware of the rhetoric. I don't see the relevance behind the comparison and what point he's trying to make.

[Drew Dowdell]

no, cause the check is just a piece of paper redeemable for money. a legal IOU... before '30's (when fdr confiscated all the gold) paper money was checks, one could take it to someplace, i'm guessing the FED, or a treasury bank, to trade the bill for a coin.

my mom has a $5 silver certificate. back then it would have bought ~5 ounces cause they made silver dollars (or actually dimes, quarters, or half dollar) of 90% silver. now a days on the market i'm pretty sure it's just a much fancier $5 bill, which will buy ~1/4 ounce of silver. silver hasn't changed in what it is, or how it's used. the social collapse of not enforcing the legal tender law has made it just another piece of paper that will loose it's widely accepted value instead of actually enforcing the contract of the bill when it was made.

Currency is just pre-printed checks... that's all it is.

[Croc]

If anything is an idiotic waste of time, it's trying to explain how currency anything works to Loki

Fixed.

[loki]

Currency is just pre-printed checks... that's all it is.

not all, you speak of federal reserve notes. the currency is actually the quarters nickels dimes and pennies. those are minted by the treasury by law under the congress. that's the official currency, and only the nickels are worth near face value.

http://inflation.us/coins/

1946-2010 Nickel face value=$0.05, actual metal value=$0.0575423 ~115.08% over face value

a nickel is the only currently made and used coin that holds it's value, everything else is worth ~20% of it's value at best, other than a penny which is ~50%.

if you hate the idea of a "gold standard" why do we still have coins and not paper notes for change?

[SAmadei]

not all, you speak of federal reserve notes. the currency is actually the quarters nickels dimes and pennies. those are minted by the treasury by law under the congress. that's the official currency, and only the nickels are worth near face value.

Wait, you're trying to say that paper money is not official currency?

if you hate the idea of a "gold standard" why do we still have coins and not paper notes for change?

Nobody here is arguing for or against a gold standard. The Gold standard in the US hasn't existed in nearly 80 years... it's impact could only be discussed in the theoretical.

We have coins because they are durable. Anytime that the coin's value is anywhere near face value is due to its base metal rising in value AFTER its coined. Nobody could have predicted how important copper would become in the last 40 years... and thats why wheat pennies are worth more as scrap than they are as collectibles.

We use paper bills because at some point, coins get heavy. Paper bills max out at $100 so that larger movements of money are electronic and leave an audit trail for the government to follow... also because counterfeiting measures need to keep the cost of making fakes above face value. That's why there are no more $50000 bills anymore.

If we wanted to, we could use plastic bottle caps as currency... assuming it can be made to deter counterfeiting.

[loki]

Wait, you're trying to say that paper money is not official currency?

not legally. and besides, the federal reserve might be psuedo government, it's still run privately. they control monetary policy, not the congress.

Nobody here is arguing for or against a gold standard. The Gold standard in the US hasn't existed in nearly 80 years... it's impact could only be discussed in the theoretical.

We have coins because they are durable. Anytime that the coin's value is anywhere near face value is due to its base metal rising in value AFTER its coined. Nobody could have predicted how important copper would become in the last 40 years... and thats why wheat pennies are worth more as scrap than they are as collectibles.

We use paper bills because at some point, coins get heavy. Paper bills max out at $100 so that larger movements of money are electronic and leave an audit trail for the government to follow... also because counterfeiting measures need to keep the cost of making fakes above face value. That's why there are no more $50000 bills anymore.

If we wanted to, we could use plastic bottle caps as currency... assuming it can be made to deter counterfeiting.

discussed, it can be shown that from ~1800 to 1912 the dollar increased it's buying power by ~6% is what i've seen. since then it's lost greater than 95% of it.

2nd point. maybe that's why coins were only 90% silver or ~90% gold, one to add durability, and 2 to make them being minted worth just slightly more than the equivalent amount of base metal

we use paper, cause coins lost their value, because of paper. 2 silver dollars should roughly equal 50 FRN dollars on the market today, how many people spend more than that every day, or every other day? 2 ounces would not be cumbersome. 1 once of gold could pay for most bills in a month for even some people paying on a mortgage.

~38 ounces would pay for a corvette, if you had to pay for it in $100 bills , going by the rough estimate of $100 bill weighing ~1gram, it would take just over 1 lb of bills to pay for a $50K corvette. so it wouldn't even take 2 lbs of gold to buy that same corvette. so, how much more cumbersome are coins to bills? not really that much, almost 2 times, but not quite.

"also because counterfeiting measures need to keep the cost of making fakes above face value"... it costs the same to make a $1 bill as a $100 bill for the FED. why shouldn't it cost the same for counterfeiters? if it was a , say gold, it would cost the same to obtain the material, but it would take lots of skill to copy the design, which supposedly was done only once, i saw a show about it, the Omega counterfeiter, so good it's actually prized to be a collectible since the mints didn't make them and he was never caught. counterfeiting used to be considered so bad it was the death penalty for doing it, we've lost that sense of justice.

Edited September 26, 2010 by loki

[A Horse With No Name]

Because loki's logic for this sort of thing is further disconnected from reality than the width of the galaxy.

What did Sagan say about Billions and Billions...it seems to ring true here....

[SAmadei]

not legally. and besides, the federal reserve might be psuedo government, it's still run privately. they control monetary policy, not the congress.

discussed, it can be shown that from ~1800 to 1912 the dollar increased it's buying power by ~6% is what i've seen. since then it's lost greater than 95% of it.

2nd point. maybe that's why coins were only 90% silver or ~90% gold, one to add durability, and 2 to make them being minted worth just slightly more than the equivalent amount of base metal

we use paper, cause coins lost their value, because of paper. 2 silver dollars should roughly equal 50 FRN dollars on the market today, how many people spend more than that every day, or every other day? 2 ounces would not be cumbersome. 1 once of gold could pay for most bills in a month for even some people paying on a mortgage.

~38 ounces would pay for a corvette, if you had to pay for it in $100 bills , going by the rough estimate of $100 bill weighing ~1gram, it would take just over 1 lb of bills to pay for a $50K corvette. so it wouldn't even take 2 lbs of gold to buy that same corvette. so, how much more cumbersome are coins to bills? not really that much, almost 2 times, but not quite.

Well, then it sounds like you better run out and convert all your money to gold. Then you're no longer at the whim of the US currency policy anymore... you're just at the whim of the worldwide gold supply... if more is found, you lose value... in less is found, you're in luck!

But one of the things you are overlooking here is that for EVERY transaction, you're going to need to assay that gold to determine its purity and quantity. People don't do that for free.

"also because counterfeiting measures need to keep the cost of making fakes above face value"... it costs the same to make a $1 bill as a $100 bill for the FED. why shouldn't it cost the same for counterfeiters?

No, it does NOT cost the same for the fed to print $1 and $100s. Thats why the $100 bill gets overhauled twice in 15 years... and the $1 has not been overhauled in 50 years.

Sure, as technology gets cheaper, there is a trickle down effect... to prevent $1 bills from being bleached and made into poor quality $5, $10 or $20 bills. And sometimes, the counterfeiters will harness a technology that makes it worth printing a particular type of bill. Thats why it seems like 1 bill or another will suddenly become a target for counterfeiters... the cost of making counterfeits falls below face value and they make a ton of them.

if it was a , say gold, it would cost the same to obtain the material, but it would take lots of skill to copy the design, which supposedly was done only once, i saw a show about it, the Omega counterfeiter, so good it's actually prized to be a collectible since the mints didn't make them and he was never caught. counterfeiting used to be considered so bad it was the death penalty for doing it, we've lost that sense of justice.

There were people trying to counterfeit gold... they were called alchemists.

Counterfeiting is considered a form of treason by some, so during a time of war, I could see us still trying to invoke the death penalty... but it would have to have caused a major disaster.

Don't worry... counterfeiting is still serious business. I have an acquaintance who is on something like 20 years probation with the Feds because he had a print out of a scan of a $10 bill he used to test a scanner/printer. He got pulled over for a traffic stop and had it in the car... and the police turned it over to the Secret Service. It wasn't cut out, two sided, or color. He spent months in jail and his defense cost a fortune.

[Blake Noble]

SAmadei's post, I think, can draw this to a close. Well said, sir.