Turns out the goldbugs were wrong...

Once again, the doom and gloom guys selling gold to the gullible were wrong. The last few years have really put the lie to the Austrian School types; even our forum was full of predictions about 2009 and on (from 2008 posts) about the upcoming economic woes and collapse that never came true. (If you want to see some interesting (and failed) predictions typical of the debate, check out the "Hyperinflation in the good ol' USA" thread...).

Now the people who bought into that and hedged with gold are finding that it's not exactly turning out the way they were promised... It's a short article, but if Malor were still here, he'd be eating Lopressor like candy after reading it...

Gold bug is never wrong!

IMAGE(http://toys.tfw2005.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/12/2008/02/goldbug_1201846084.jpg)

Why just today I saw a commercial with Dr. Ron Paul predicting (another) financial crisis the likes of which has never been seen and that we should apparently start buying valuable metals!

IMAGE(http://americablog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/glenn-beck-crying.jpg)

Tanglebones wrote:

IMAGE(http://americablog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/glenn-beck-crying.jpg)

He isn't crying. That f*cker made bank of selling that lie to dumb people.

Waitwaitwait...

You're saying that the economic prognostications that said we should all buy gold, coming from a bunch of wags who had stakes in companies that sell gold, turned out to be wrong-headed?

Man, I don't know what to believe anymore!

Where is Malor, anyway?

He's busy fighting the injustices of SJWs boycotting someone as a crime against humanity for denying the target of the boycotts income.

Edwin wrote:

He's busy fighting the injustices of SJWs boycotting someone as a crime against humanity for denying the target of the boycotts income.

I was wondering. I just didn't want to ask in case it was something tragic.

I'm guessing it's not about it being a crime against humanity, and instead is a vicious dislike of being fuzzy about sticking to general principles. To bring it back 'round to the topic, probably why he disliked any printing of additional money to influence the economy--it's the idea that if a practice is dangerous, you never trust yourself to use it as a weapon, whether that's boycotts, fiat currency, or drone strikes.

Please don't turn this into a character assassination thread, even if he's gone. Poor thread has not even reached it's second page of life...

EXTRAJUDICIAL CHARACTER EXECUTION!

In all seriousness, didn't mean it as an attack on character--the opposite, in fact. I felt like there was an honest consistency in his positions across topics that I think makes for a more charitable interpretation than when they are viewed in isolation.

My mother in law was a gold pusher for awhile, she's moved onto silver now. The thing I don't get is why in the face of an economic collapse or sh*t hits the fan type situation, that people think that shiny metal is going to have any kind of value. It seems to me if you were going to stockpile something to survive in a barter economy that canned goods, ammo or toilet paper are all better choices.

Agent 86 wrote:

My mother in law was a gold pusher for awhile, she's moved onto silver now. The thing I don't get is why in the face of an economic collapse or sh*t hits the fan type situation, that people think that shiny metal is going to have any kind of value. It seems to me if you were going to stockpile something to survive in a barter economy that canned goods, ammo or toilet paper are all better choices.

Mostly because every civilization that has had access to them has held them in high value, so the hope is that should civilization collapse and something new rise in its place, they would also value gold just like everyone else has valued gold.

Also add in some protability/storage ease. $1000 in gold is far easier to move around than $1000 in canned goods.

I would think the smart person would be speculating potable water.

You can't drink gold.

Demosthenes wrote:
Agent 86 wrote:

My mother in law was a gold pusher for awhile, she's moved onto silver now. The thing I don't get is why in the face of an economic collapse or sh*t hits the fan type situation, that people think that shiny metal is going to have any kind of value. It seems to me if you were going to stockpile something to survive in a barter economy that canned goods, ammo or toilet paper are all better choices.

Mostly because every civilization that has had access to them has held them in high value, so the hope is that should civilization collapse and something new rise in its place, they would also value gold just like everyone else has valued gold.

Also add in some protability/storage ease. $1000 in gold is far easier to move around than $1000 in canned goods.

Not quite - lots of Meso American civilizations used gold ornamentally, but considered it far less valuable than other metals/minerals.

Reaper81 wrote:

I would think the smart person would be speculating potable water.

You can't drink gold.

IMAGE(http://media.tumblr.com/763daea5a6bb55dd40e1165dab9dd69a/tumblr_inline_mr3ng7j4By1qz4rgp.png)

Reaper81 wrote:

I would think the smart person would be speculating potable water.

You can't drink gold.

I have always mocked the gold hoarders I know by stating that I am hoarding canned cat food and when the end is nigh let's see who has the more usable resource.

Demosthenes wrote:
Agent 86 wrote:

My mother in law was a gold pusher for awhile, she's moved onto silver now. The thing I don't get is why in the face of an economic collapse or sh*t hits the fan type situation, that people think that shiny metal is going to have any kind of value. It seems to me if you were going to stockpile something to survive in a barter economy that canned goods, ammo or toilet paper are all better choices.

Mostly because every civilization that has had access to them has held them in high value, so the hope is that should civilization collapse and something new rise in its place, they would also value gold just like everyone else has valued gold.

Also add in some protability/storage ease. $1000 in gold is far easier to move around than $1000 in canned goods.

Right but the people hoarding are doing so with the idea that their reserve will carry them through some sort of dire scenario. I suppose it could be possible in a time of hyperinflation that gold and silver would have some value. Still as Tanglebones pointed out you can't drink or eat gold so it would still make more sense to me to stock up on things that would carry you through the trouble.

In my mother in law's case, however, we are talking end times, Revelations type doom and gloom. In that kind of scenario I'd say gold wouldn't be worth anything.

I miss Malor, I was wondering what happened to him just the other day.

Agent 86 wrote:
Demosthenes wrote:
Agent 86 wrote:

My mother in law was a gold pusher for awhile, she's moved onto silver now. The thing I don't get is why in the face of an economic collapse or sh*t hits the fan type situation, that people think that shiny metal is going to have any kind of value. It seems to me if you were going to stockpile something to survive in a barter economy that canned goods, ammo or toilet paper are all better choices.

Mostly because every civilization that has had access to them has held them in high value, so the hope is that should civilization collapse and something new rise in its place, they would also value gold just like everyone else has valued gold.

Also add in some protability/storage ease. $1000 in gold is far easier to move around than $1000 in canned goods.

Right but the people hoarding are doing so with the idea that their reserve will carry them through some sort of dire scenario. I suppose it could be possible in a time of hyperinflation that gold and silver would have some value. Still as Tanglebones pointed out you can't drink or eat gold so it would still make more sense to me to stock up on things that would carry you through the trouble.

In my mother in law's case, however, we are talking end times, Revelations type doom and gloom. In that kind of scenario I'd say gold wouldn't be worth anything.

Actually, the Revelations style ending makes me wonder about those people. If you consider yourself so religious and righteous, would you NEED supplies for the End of Days? Aren't you banking on a Rapture?

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

Waitwaitwait...

You're saying that the economic prognostications that said we should all buy gold, coming from a bunch of wags who had stakes in companies that sell gold, turned out to be wrong-headed?

Man, I don't know what to believe anymore!

Next you'll tell me my room full of bitcoin mining computers isn't going to make me a billionaire!

Agent 86 wrote:

In my mother in law's case, however, we are talking end times, Revelations type doom and gloom. In that kind of scenario I'd say gold wouldn't be worth anything.

Somebody should probably tell that to the Vatican.

Wow, gold takes a downturn and the pundits come out of the woodwork.

The Article wrote:

They didn't understand that the price of gold doesn't depend on how much inflation there is, but rather on how much inflation there is relative to interest rates.

It should be clear to anyone with a modicum of economic understanding that the price of gold depends on many factors. Inflation relative to interest rates might be one of them, but it's certainly not a major factor - if it was, why would low inflation or slight deflation (as measured by CPI) versus 0% interest rates in 2008-2009 have caused the massive gold price spike? If anything, the biggest factor of gold prices is the perception of stability.

The belief that gold prices track interest rates is about as dead as Keynesianism.

imbiginjapan wrote:
Agent 86 wrote:

In my mother in law's case, however, we are talking end times, Revelations type doom and gloom. In that kind of scenario I'd say gold wouldn't be worth anything.

Somebody should probably tell that to the Vatican.

What do they care? They're all going up in the Rapture too.

If a true crisis were coming, the metal I would be investing in would be copper jacketed hollow points.

Paleocon wrote:

If a true crisis were coming, the metal I would be investing in would be copper jacketed hollow points.

Which are also in a price slump.

Aetius wrote:
Paleocon wrote:

If a true crisis were coming, the metal I would be investing in would be copper jacketed hollow points.

Which are also in a price slump. :)

Hence my contention that we are nowhere near the existential crisis that some folks seem to think we are in.

Demosthenes wrote:
imbiginjapan wrote:
Agent 86 wrote:

In my mother in law's case, however, we are talking end times, Revelations type doom and gloom. In that kind of scenario I'd say gold wouldn't be worth anything.

Somebody should probably tell that to the Vatican.

What do they care? They're all going up in the Rapture too.

Hint: anyone who believes in the Rapture also has pretty good odds of believing that the Pope is either the Antichrist or has coffee with him on Thursday afternoons. The Rapture is pretty much the exclusive preserve of premillenial dispensationalist American Protestants. As far as they're concerned, Catholics are tools of eeeeeevul.

Dixie_Flatline wrote:

Hint: anyone who believes in the Rapture also has pretty good odds of believing that the Pope is either the Antichrist or has coffee with him on Thursday afternoons.

Ripped from the headlines of crazy Christian media.

exclusive preserve of premillenial dispensationalist American Protestants

That is quite the turn of phrase there

Aetius, I've gone back through some of the old threads, and you've consistently failed in your projections, while the Keynesian and Neoclassical economists turned out to be right. You predicted the 2008 crisis would tank tax receipts and raise the deficit to record levels by 2010. You predicted Congress would never cut spending. You predicted we'd print money to get out of this, leading to an inflationary spiral. Basically, back then, you were predicting utter disaster by today. And that's just one thread's example.

What happened? Tax receipts did go down, not as much as you predicted, but they bounced back. The bailout programs, while not perfect, did their job and didn't bankrupt us. Government deficits have shrunk; we're at the lowest deficit since 2008. "Printing money" (issuing treasury bonds) did not destroy the economy. Congress did reduce spending, even if it used a stupid and brutal method to do it.

The Keynesians have been repeatedly validated since the 80's, to the point of political revivification, while the Chicago School types have failed in every attempt at regulatory and prescriptive changes. The Austrians have been completely blown out of the water (not that they were more than ankle deep to start with).

Anyone can go browse past threads and see who was wrong and right. Far from being dead, the combination of Keynesian and Neoclassical economics (the Neoclassical Synthesis, which adopts Keynesian macroeconomics and Neoclassical microeconomics) is the dominant economic paradigm today, in large part because of the failures of the Chicago School macro policies and the demonstrated success of the recent bailouts and the spending stimulus that was applied to the recession. Time to rethink your economic understanding.

The best thing about predicting the apocalypse is you get to try again and again and again.

I mostly agree with you Ro, but I think it is too soon to declare victory and know the full effects of the last 5-7 years. I think if you look at most hyperinflation or currency collapse examples from the past it is a slow burn that gets worse and worse until a breaking point and then blows up. I am not saying that will happen to the dollar or to the euro for any number of reasons, but we need to wait 15-20 years to look back and see the real results of the programs from the last few years. When we're both old and posting on here in 2030, remember to bring this up.