Have the teabaggers been duped?

[ARealConservative]

explain why I am wrong.

precious metals never needed a govenrment to back them to be worth something. fiat money is completely tied to the government that prints them. If the government bellies up, the money has no value. Not less value, no value.

 

[Goshin]

a quick google search...

But what about gold as a store of value. It is difficult to mine so it can't be created out of thin air, as being the case with paper fiat currencies. It is durable. It can't be debased, as the actual gold content can be determined. Even with all that going for it, there really isn't much in the way of intrinsic value, other than the small amount used in industry and for jewelry. The value of gold is really set by supply and demand. Traders riding trends have a big say in how high or low gold can go.

Is Gold Another Fiat Currency?

Historically, gold has tended to hold its value even in very hard economic times.

Things would have to be around TEOTWAWKI level for gold to lose all value... you know, the point where the only things of value are things you can eat, wear, drive or shoot.

 

[Missed AB]

Historically, gold has tended to hold its value even in very hard economic times.

Things would have to be around TEOTWAWKI level for gold to lose value... you know, the point where the only things of value are things you can eat, wear, drive or shoot.

If you can explain how gold valuation is made, then you will understand my point. That it is based on the value we give it. There is no intrinsic value to gold. The price of an ounce of gold does change by the minute both up and down. Again gold carries the valuation it does because of the value we give it.

If gold is NOT a fiat currency, if tomorrow if gold drops 100 dollars an ounce, what does that mean?

EDIT:

You are aware that from Aug 08 to about march 09 gold decreased in value by about 20 percent? Those were hard times, and it lost value...

 

[ARealConservative]

Historically, gold has tended to hold its value even in very hard economic times.

Things would have to be around TEOTWAWKI level for gold to lose all value... you know, the point where the only things of value are things you can eat, wear, drive or shoot.

more importantly, the definition of fiat means "by authoratative decree"

paper money is fiat because the only reason it has the value it has is a government and their monopoly of force says we have to treat it with the value they say it has. It's value is given by government decree, not by people actually believing it has that value.

legal tender laws make it fiat.

 

[Goshin]

If you can explain how gold valuation is made, then you will understand my point. That it is based on the value we give it. There is no intrinsic value to gold. The price of an ounce of gold does change by the minute both up and down. Again gold carries the valuation it does because of the value we give it.

If gold is NOT a fiat currency, if tomorrow if gold drops 100 dollars an ounce, what does that mean?

EDIT:

You are aware that from Aug 08 to about march 09 gold decreased in value by about 20 percent? Those were hard times, and it lost value...

It is a commodity. It's value is based on what people will pay for it... like the value of most raw materials and goods and services.

Paper money is fiat money, because its value is dependent on government fiat. Without gov't backing, it is simply high-quality paper that has already been written on. If the gov't vanished tomorrow, gold would still retain some value.

 

[Missed AB]

more importantly, the definition of fiat means "by authoratative decree"

paper money is fiat because the only reason it has the value it has is a government and their monopoly of force says we have to treat it with the value they say it has. It's value is given by government decree, not by people actually believing it has that value.

legal tender laws make it fiat.

I am not about to get into a semantic debate here... The core theory of fiat currency is not that it is government backed rather it is backed only by the government and not by a metal. You can have a gold coin, it is not called fiat because of the gold. You can have a gold note which is not considered fiat because it can be traded in for gold. The note or the coin only have value because of the gold that they are backed by.

My point if I was not clear enough before, gold only has value because we give it value. The US note only has value because we give it value. The EU only has value because we give it value. There is nothing special about gold. It has an arbritary price and no intrinsic value... just like the US note.

 

[ARealConservative]

I am not about to get into a semantic debate here... The core theory of fiat currency is not that it is government backed rather it is backed only by the government and not by a metal. You can have a gold coin, it is not called fiat because of the gold. You can have a gold note which is not considered fiat because it can be traded in for gold. The note or the coin only have value because of the gold that they are backed by.

My point if I was not clear enough before, gold only has value because we give it value. The US note only has value because we give it value. The EU only has value because we give it value. There is nothing special about gold. It has an arbritary price and no intrinsic value... just like the US note.

there is nothing to debate.

all things have value when you get down to it.. That isn't the issue. Fiat means government decree. a gold coin's value was never based on government decree. a piece of paper with a government words is valued based on what the government says the value is.

You can argue that notes backed by gold are fiat of course, but not an actual coin made of gold.

 

[Missed AB]

It is a commodity. It's value is based on what people will pay for it... like the value of most raw materials and goods and services.

Paper money is fiat money, because its value is dependent on government fiat. Without gov't backing, it is simply high-quality paper that has already been written on. If the gov't vanished tomorrow, gold would still retain some value.

Is money not a commodity?

You can exchange your money for the currencies of countries that no longer exist! Talk about a hole in a theory.

Soviet Union. West German mark. Burma currency. Hawaii. US confederate currency. Currency of New York... All of these still hold value without a government to back. Go to ebay and buy the currency of your liking. That is because we assign value to these items. We assign value to all things. We give gold it's value. I'm sure an authentic roman fiat coin would be worth a "pretty penny", and the country of Rome has gone the way of the dinosaur.

The government may set the face value of the currency in the country, but we set what it's worth... just like the price of an ounce of gold.

 

[Goshin]

Is money not a commodity?

You can exchange your money for the currencies of countries that no longer exist! Talk about a hole in a theory.

Soviet Union. West German mark. Burma currency. Hawaii. US confederate currency. Currency of New York... All of these still hold value without a government to back. Go to ebay and buy the currency of your liking. That is because we assign value to these items. We assign value to all things. We give gold it's value. I'm sure an authentic roman fiat coin would be worth a "pretty penny", and the country of Rome has gone the way of the dinosaur.

The government may set the face value of the currency in the country, but we set what it's worth... just like the price of an ounce of gold.

I lost track, was there some point to all this?

 

[Missed AB]

there is nothing to debate.

all things have value when you get down to it.. That isn't the issue. Fiat means government decree. a gold coin's value was never based on government decree. a piece of paper with a government words is valued based on what the government says the value is.

You can argue that notes backed by gold are fiat of course, but not an actual coin made of gold.

What Does Fiat Money Mean?
Currency that a government has declared to be legal tender, despite the fact that it has no intrinsic value and is not backed by reserves. Historically, most currencies were based on physical commodities such as gold or silver, but fiat money is based solely on faith.

Investopedia explains Fiat Money
Most of the world's paper money is fiat money. Because fiat money is not linked to physical reserves, it risks becoming worthless due to hyperinflation. If people lose faith in a nation's paper currency, the money will no longer hold any value.

Fiat money” is likewise defined as, “inconvertible paper money made legal tender by a government decree.” Inconvertible to, for example, gold or silver.
Fiat Currency

It is the backing of the metal which gives the money the value as I have said in the posts prior. I fully understand this. The issue which I stated originally when you said it was the most ignorant statement you have ever read is that the value of the gold is also arbitrary with no intrinsic value. Backing you money with faith, or something else with no intrinsic value makes no real difference. Why gold? Why not diamonds, or lead, or copper, or nickel, or water, or baseball cards, or land...

You are substituting the faith that gold has value for the faith in the government. The price of gold is set daily by market makers and computers.... It may seem odd, but gold holds no absolute value. Hence, the reason I suggested it is a fiat currency. Maybe you disagree with my thought process, but clearly it is not the most ignorant statement you have ever read, or however you phrased it.

 

[Missed AB]

I lost track, was there some point to all this?

you wrote: Without gov't backing, it is simply high-quality paper that has already been written on.

I showed you that what you wrote is not true.

 

[Goshin]

you wrote: Without gov't backing, it is simply high-quality paper that has already been written on.

I showed you that what you wrote is not true.

Not exactly.

There's a certain amount of collector value in things like old coins and old bills, and bills from defunct governments.

That doesn't mean you can't have hyperinflation, like in Germany when it took a wheelbarrow full of Deuschemarks to buy a loaf of bread, or more recently in Argentina.

A century ago, you could buy a cow with $20, or with a one-ounce gold coin.

Today, you can still buy a cow with a one-ounce gold coin. Try buying a cow with a $20 paper bill.

The fact remains that the value of gold remains relatively stable historically, compared to the value of fiat money... semantics aside.

 

[Onion Eater]

In my economic quiz, I have the following question:

Which of these quotations about gold do you agree with?

a) "Gold has provided a return of almost 17.9% in seven months, or an annualized return of over 30% – on something real, of intrinsic value, and which has been used as a store of value for 5,000 years… Gold is history's oldest and most stable currency… Since your dollars have no intrinsic value, they are subject to currency market fluctuations."

b) "Gold is mostly used in the manufacture of electronic devices. But, after being mined, the metal must be refined, the devices manufactured, shipped across the Pacific ocean, distributed to consumer electronics stores and finally sold to consumers. This takes considerable time, making gold one of the most volatile commodities. Its value plunges up and down as investors try to predict years into the future how many electronic devices will be needed."

c) "Gold bullion has only recently served as money; certainly not throughout the last 5000 years. For most of that time, cattle were money. Gold coins were certificates for cows in a rancher's herd but only the mint, not merchants, accepted bullion – and the mint did not pay anywhere close to a full cow for a coin bearing the mark of a defunct cattle ranch. This is theoretically identical to how, thousands of years later, banknotes were certificates for gold coins in a bank's vault. In the context of the cow standard, gold coins became fiat money when they began circulating without any cattle backing just as, in the context of the gold standard, dollars became fiat money when they began circulating without any gold backing."

a, b and c represent the Austrian, mainstream and Axiomatic positions, respectively.

I have more about the history of gold in my Critique of Stephen Zarlenga on the Origin of Money

 

[Missed AB]

In my economic quiz, I have the following question:

Which of these quotations about gold do you agree with?

a) "Gold has provided a return of almost 17.9% in seven months, or an annualized return of over 30% – on something real, of intrinsic value, and which has been used as a store of value for 5,000 years… Gold is history's oldest and most stable currency… Since your dollars have no intrinsic value, they are subject to currency market fluctuations."

b) "Gold is mostly used in the manufacture of electronic devices. But, after being mined, the metal must be refined, the devices manufactured, shipped across the Pacific ocean, distributed to consumer electronics stores and finally sold to consumers. This takes considerable time, making gold one of the most volatile commodities. Its value plunges up and down as investors try to predict years into the future how many electronic devices will be needed."

c) "Gold bullion has only recently served as money; certainly not throughout the last 5000 years. For most of that time, cattle were money. Gold coins were certificates for cows in a rancher's herd but only the mint, not merchants, accepted bullion – and the mint did not pay anywhere close to a full cow for a coin bearing the mark of a defunct cattle ranch. This is theoretically identical to how, thousands of years later, banknotes were certificates for gold coins in a bank's vault. In the context of the cow standard, gold coins became fiat money when they began circulating without any cattle backing just as, in the context of the gold standard, dollars became fiat money when they began circulating without any gold backing."

a, b and c represent the Austrian, mainstream and Axiomatic positions, respectively.

I have more about the history of gold in my Critique of Stephen Zarlenga on the Origin of Money

I do not mean to be rude here, but you are annoying. I have no doubt in your intelligence, but you come across as an infomercial. Your post provided no purpose other than to promote yourself and added nothing to the conversation. You clearly have opinions and intelligence to back up your thoughts, but you don't respond or add to any of the previous post conversations. You give us a multiple choice quiz with 3 answers that does nothing to provide information on why the answers represent their respective grouping. provide links to your websites to talk up how great you are, assuming anyone really cares. The discussion had nothing to do with the different theories. You are a narcissist. You take posts which have nothing to do with you, and turn it into all about you.

Please understand I am not trying to be rude. I would like to understand more of your theory, but if you are not willing to play in my sand-box, then why should I play in yours?

The current discussion centered around if you agree or disagree with my position that gold is similar to fiat currency in that the only reason gold has value is because we give value to the gold. Similarly, fiat currencies only have value, because we give worth to that currency.

 

[Missed AB]

The fact remains that the value of gold remains relatively stable historically, compared to the value of fiat money... semantics aside.

All semantics aside, my point was not that "paper money" is worth more or less than "gold". My point was not that paper is a better store of value than gold. My point was that paper like gold only has value because we give value to it. There is nothing special about gold other than hour historic tie to it for it's "worth".

That worth comes from us giving it value. There is no intrinsic value for gold. There are very minimal industrial uses for gold. The price of gold today is based on speculation and that stable price of gold changes daily regardless of dollar strength or weakness.

Not exactly.

There's a certain amount of collector value in things like old coins and old bills, and bills from defunct governments.

There is a certain amount of collector value in things like gold, gold coins, gold bullion... if the above is true, then this should also be true, and clearly you can see the value of gold is inflated by things such as feelings. If the price is subject to emotions, how is it any different then fiat currency, when we already agreed that government backing does not need to be the only way to provide value to the paper's worth.

That doesn't mean you can't have hyperinflation, like in Germany when it took a wheelbarrow full of Deuschemarks to buy a loaf of bread, or more recently in Argentina.

A century ago, you could buy a cow with $20, or with a one-ounce gold coin.

Today, you can still buy a cow with a one-ounce gold coin. Try buying a cow with a $20 paper bill.

Go on ebay and search for 20 dollar bill, and I'm sure you can find some intersting results... The value is subjective on all of the items... paper money, gold, cattle...

In 1980-82 gold dropped in price from about 880/ounce to 280/ounce. The MSRP in USD did was for the most part steady. So yes if you lived in the world of gold currency, and came to my store, you would be required to haul in 3 times as much gold with you to buy things in 82 than in 1980. This monetary exchange would be similar to an anualized inflation rate of nearly 50% for 3 years in a row.

 

[Onion Eater]

The current discussion centered around if you agree or disagree with my position that gold is similar to fiat currency in that the only reason gold has value is because we give value to the gold. Similarly, fiat currencies only have value, because we give worth to that currency.

WRONG!!!

The current discussion is about whether the teabaggers have been duped. Stop hi-jacking my threads, you narcissistic little c***!

If you need to stroke your ego by seeing a discussion of your position, then start your own damned thread.

I personally do not support a return to the gold standard and have outlined some of my reasoning in Gold Does Not Have Intrinsic Value, a summary of a debate I had in 2008.

However, the point of this thread is not to promote my personal beliefs but to investigate whether or not the teabaggers have been duped.

And, clearly, they have been. The typical blue-collar, high-school-educated teabagger believes that he is promoting a return to the gold standard while his leaders, like Ron Paul, are actually working to push Zarlenga's American Monetary Act through Congress.

If there's anything worse than a secret Federal Reserve, it's Congress controlling it.

I agree. And I believe that everybody on Debate Politics, regardless of their views on the relative merits of a gold standard or the Federal Reserve, can agree that the teabagger's actual plan, having the Treasury print whatever money Congress asks for, is far worse than either a gold standard or the Federal Reserve.

That is how the Continental Congress operated and the expression "not worth a Continental" is still used over two centuries later to denote things that are worthless.

A lesson we should never forget!

 

[Missed AB]

WRONG!!!

The current discussion is about whether the teabaggers have been duped. Stop hi-jacking my threads, you narcissistic little c***!

If you need to stroke your ego by seeing a discussion of your position, then start your own damned thread.

You have referenced t-bagging, stroking, and C0< !< in 3 sentences. I retract my statement regarding your intelligence. Enjoy talking to your self.

Good bye.

PS

You are wrong on your view of supply vs demand

 

[Missed AB]

By the way, the tea party has no central leadership. They profess what are traditionally considered right leaning policies. Each individual canidate has their own agenda and political platform with no individual person to answer to. To say people were "duped" shows a profound lack of understanding and quite frankly plain ignorance in how the grass-roots party is organized without any central leadership.

To put it in mathematical formula for you to better understand this information.

TP = G(C + CA) / -CL

Key:
G = Grassroots
TP= Tea party
C = conserverative
CA = Canidate
CL = Central Leadership

 

[ReverendHellh0und]

By the way, the tea party has no central leadership. They profess what are traditionally considered right leaning policies. Each individual canidate has their own agenda and political platform. To say people were "duped" shows a profound lack of understanding in how the grass-roots party is organized without any central leadership.

To put it in mathematical formula for you to better understand this information.

TP = G(C + CA) / -CL

Key:
G = Grassroots
TP= Tea party
C = conserverative
CA = Canidate
CL = Central Leadership

I disagree, we are far more libertarian than conservative.

 

[Missed AB]

I disagree, we are far more libertarian than conservative.

Maybe I'm mistaken then, but isn't libertarian generally right leaning?

My point was that the there is no central leadership. So how can one be duped by a party when the party does not have the ability to produce policy such as the republican/democrats can. One can be duped by the individual, but not the party.

 

[phattonez]

I disagree, we are far more libertarian than conservative.

What's the tea party position on social security and welfare?

 

[ARealConservative]

What's the tea party position on social security and welfare?

there is no unified position. It's a bottom up group and they would be split heavily on these types of issues.

Overall, I would say they lean pragmatticaly towards privatization for younger people while making sure those that depend on these things don't suffer.

 

[phattonez]

there is no unified position. It's a bottom up group and they would be split heavily on these types of issues.

Overall, I would say they lean pragmatticaly towards privatization for younger people while making sure those that depend on these things don't suffer.

But if they are in favor of cutting taxes and against debts, then isn't the only logical conclusion then that they would at least want to severely roll back these entitlement programs since they are the big expenditures in the federal budget?