The biggest scam in history, an enlightening presentation on the debt ceiling and money creation

Came across this today and I only knew about 50% of this, it is eye opening to see exactely how all of this works and that it is not just happening in the US. Have a view. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFDe5kUUyT0

Interesting, and a very good explanation of how it works, but IMO not quite correct. I haven’t finished watching it (I will) but it seems to be one of those ‘gold bug’ videos. The narrator describes gold as ‘real value’ but it really isn’t. Paper currency is (or should be) secured on real value - that is, the collective economic output of the nation. [EDIT: sorry, he does get to that point at 11:00!] If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t be able to exchange it for goods and services. Gold has no intrinsic value, except to some specialised industries, principally technology and luxury goods. In a country where such things are not in demand, gold is no more intrinsically valuable than sand.

Some theorists suggest that paper currency has value principally as a means of paying taxes, although personally I’m not convinced: you can avoid paying taxes by simply not working, or working extralegally, and in countries where this happens on a grand scale the currency still works properly, even though other aspects of the economy get messed up.

I was fascinated to learn that the Federal Reserve is a private company with stockholders to whom dividends are payable. I wonder if that’s true in other countries.

I think the important point is that fiat currency is today being produced in quantities which far exceed short-term national output. The majority of its value is predicated almost entirely on future income, which is of course completely unpredictable. . Credit is a useful tool - I view it as the closest thing we’ve got to time travel, because it allows you to borrow cash today from your future self - but it’s been completely abused by modern governments. I guess this happens because a nebulous thing like ‘aggregate economic activity’ is hard to measure. Gold and silver is at least visible and finite, even though it’s as meaningless as paper money.

And that’s “rob you and me”. Grief, don’t economists even learn basic grammar in school?

[quote=“finley”]Interesting, and a very good explanation of how it works, but IMO not quite correct. I haven’t finished watching it (I will) but it seems to be one of those ‘gold bug’ videos. The narrator describes gold as ‘real value’ but it really isn’t. Paper currency is (or should be) secured on real value - that is, the collective economic output of the nation. [EDIT: sorry, he does get to that point at 11:00!] If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t be able to exchange it for goods and services. Gold has no intrinsic value, except to some specialised industries, principally technology and luxury goods. In a country where such things are not in demand, gold is no more intrinsically valuable than sand.

Some theorists suggest that paper currency has value principally as a means of paying taxes, although personally I’m not convinced: you can avoid paying taxes by simply not working, or working extralegally, and in countries where this happens on a grand scale the currency still works properly, even though other aspects of the economy get messed up.

I was fascinated to learn that the Federal Reserve is a private company with stockholders to whom dividends are payable. I wonder if that’s true in other countries.

I think the important point is that fiat currency is today being produced in quantities which far exceed short-term national output. The majority of its value is predicated almost entirely on future income, which is of course completely unpredictable. . Credit is a useful tool - I view it as the closest thing we’ve got to time travel, because it allows you to borrow cash today from your future self - but it’s been completely abused by modern governments. I guess this happens because a nebulous thing like ‘aggregate economic activity’ is hard to measure. Gold and silver is at least visible and finite, even though it’s as meaningless as paper money.

And that’s “rob you and me”. Grief, don’t economists even learn basic grammar in school?[/quote]

Well I think this is just one episode of many in a series, but this is the most interesting one. There is only one mention of gold, so it is not one of those “gold bug” videos, I was also skepitcal at first, but after watching the whole thing it is quite an eye opener. I do think the gold and silver standard should be returned, this fiat currency nonesense is eventually going to come tumbling down, as they say, the best thing about precious metals is that you can’t just go and print more, their is a limited supply. However, like any market, the gold and silver markets can be massively manipulated.

Neither gold or fiat currency has real value, it only has value because you and I believe it does, but again the difference is that gold can’t just be printed anytime, anywhere.

Like you, I was facsinated to learn that the federal reserve has stockholders and they are earning a dividend! Hmmm, I wonder how many world leaders hold the shares? China? Russia? I wonder…

Burning, burning, all is burning, says Buddha.
Cursed is he who trusts in man, says Jeremiah.
Your gold and silver will rot and burn you in the end, says James.

None of these prophets had heard of fiat currency. What would they have made of that?

Most of modern society is a scam on the verge of collapse. Sell now. Put your money in, um… never mind.

It’s quite a well made gold bug video, I have to give him credit for that at least, but in the end that’s all it really is. Don’t forget, that guys whole purpose is to sell you gold and silver. He’s capitalizing on the fact that the general public doesn’t know anything about the banking system so the things he’s talking about sound alarming and get a rise out of people. They aren’t true at all, but the way he presents them is effective. He really knows his audience that’s for sure, that was a clever sales pitch. A very incorrect one, but clever none the less. I can think of one gold bug on this forum who will watch this video as if it’s porn. :laughing:

Brent’s up to his usual tactics I see. How’s the paper business lately Brent. Dandy I’m sure.

You don’t have to listen to Brent or me. If Brent wants to deny how fiat dollars are created and the history of it, that’s up to him. He neither wants to describe why there is such a disparity between rich and poor. He’d rather deny it’s happening or suggest that it’s the poor people’s fault that they don’t buy stocks or options (paper).

Just do your own due diligence and don’t take anyone’s word for it. Just find what makes sense to you.

a few short decades of fiat doesn’t quite paper over millennia of precious metals IMHO.

That video is touching on some work from a while back, which was put into a book called Secrets of the Federal Reserve.

America is sinking

DP

There’s no tactics, and how small minded of you to think that anybody who disagrees with you has some type of agenda. So I suppose 90% of the world are as you call them, paper traders with an agenda right? Couldn’t the 90% that thinks you’re out to lunch just simply be more informed and less indoctrinated then you? :unamused:

I don’t make a single dollar on Gold going up or down. I’m completely unbiased and as it happens, educated on the subject. You on the other hand have no education in Economics and stand to make money if gold goes up and will lose your retirement fund if it goes down. There’s no mystery that if I’m right about gold it would dramatically and directly affect your life in a very personal way ( of which I would not like to see by the way. I have nothing against you and would not like to see you hurt by what I think might happen in the gold market ) But really, who’s the biased one? :astonished:

As for the rest, I’m a very strong advocate for income equality, redistribution of wealth, and improving income mobility.

Yeah that’s a great line of reasoning. :thumbsup: What worked in the past is certainly better than what works today in the modern world. We could apply that nugget of brilliance to so many things couldn’t we? I mean seriously, this whole business of “modern medicine” is so stupid. Who needs MRI’s, chemotherapy, antibiotics, modern surgical techniques, etc… Everybody knows that what worked for 1000 years is simply to drill a hole in a persons head and drain the bad blood. Duh…

And surprisingly, it’s not actually true. I’m just reading “Debt” at the moment, by David Graeber. Fascinating book. Across different times and cultures, money has taken many different forms and been used for many different purposes. Fiat money and virtual currencies have been used before. Out of all the many possibilities, gold (traded as bullion) is almost an aberration. Apparently, it was used mainly for international settlement between cultures that just happened to value gold as a commodity.

It’s on sale at Eslite for 499. I think you’d both enjoy reading it.

You do! People who disagree with you, you are biased towards.

I don’t make a single dollar on Gold going up or down. I’m completely unbiased and as it happens.

Well if you were, then you might trade gold. There has been a lot of fiat made out of it. To ignore the volatility in the gold ETF market, would be to ignore a massive amount of “profit”.

Yes. By a government.

According to professor Bentgolf. :laughing:

You seem fixated on this whole retirement idea. As if buying gold in your book should be the equivalent and equal to a retirement package.

What? You mean you actually admit that you might be wrong? That there’s an element of doubt in your own philosophy, or “education”?

I’m biased against fixed forms of currency. I don’t claim that there is a be all and end all of currency forms. I happen to mention precious metals as they have been an integral part of currency since…well as far as anyone can remember or there is record of. There’s a litany of fiat currencies going back many years too for that matter, albeit not too many which have stood the test of time.

Obviously. There is no better way to redistribute wealth than a government controlled form of fiat currency. It’s being redistributed very efficiently indeed. This has been shown most recently in the vast wealth gaps in modern societies all over the world.

Yeah that’s a great line of reasoning. :thumbsup: What worked in the past is certainly better than what works today in the modern world. We could apply that nugget of brilliance to so many things couldn’t we? I mean seriously, this whole business of “modern medicine” is so stupid. Who needs MRI’s, chemotherapy, antibiotics, modern surgical techniques, etc… Everybody knows that what worked for 1000 years is simply to drill a hole in a persons head and drain the bad blood. Duh…[/quote]

This comparison doesn’t work at all. Science has never been limited by government writ, backed by central banks and enforced by taxation. There was never just mumbo jumbo and then all of a sudden science fact, which was only provided by central powers and printed on pieces of paper. I don’t know how you can compare currencies to science. Economics has only ever been a social science at best. Fiat has nothing to do with matters of the body and it’s physical wellbeing.

First Bitcoin ATM.
Yeah baby!

I trade volatility for a living, but not all volatility is created equal. Gold markets don’t have nearly the premiums to cover the inherent risk. There are far better places to capture the risk premium then the gold and silver markets. I’ll let you bugs fight it out :laughing:

Well please correct me if I’ve made a false assumption about your background in Economics. I certainly don’t know any educated Economists who think we can mine 3000 tonnes of gold with shovels but hey if you are the first one please let me know and we can talk more.

The government educated me? So everything people learn at University comes from the government? You’ve never been to University have you?

That’s not me, it’s you. People like you don’t sell gold when the price is good. Your plan is to hang on to it into your retirement years. I’m the one that said you should buy and sell gold when the prices dictate those decisions. If you only buy and never sell, you’re bound to be left holding the bag when the smart money comes and goes.

Would you like me to quote mine myself where I said at least a dozen times in this thread that gold is a 50/50 speculative gamble? If you have a 50% chance of being right, do you happen to know what percent chance you have of being wrong? I’ll give you a few days to work that one out :slight_smile:

Yup, but not anymore, not for your entire lifetime. You were born in a world that doesn’t give a shit about gold, so I find it fascinating that you cling to it so ferociously. Maybe in one of your past lives gold was important, but not in this reality. Gold dropped 40% and the world didn’t even flinch…

Quite an interesting article, made more so that the person confessing is Andrew Huszar, a Fed official responsible for the wall street bailouts which have eroded the great American economy through endless bouts of Q.E. In this article Andrew quite bravely apologizes for his actions to the taxpayers of the U.S.A.

Andrew Huszar: Confessions of a Quantitative Easer