Comments about ‘The Midas touch? Utah Monetary Summit and the gold standard’

Gold is the only real currency of value we have in this world. The dollar has just as much value as a Monopoly dollar does because it isn't backed by gold which was the intention for us using bills in the first place. Since Nixon got rid of the Gold Standard the dollar has been worthless.

When I see people in Utah being PAID in gold I'll believe you have something.

And when people think about it truthfully, gold is just like paper fiat money - it's has value because we all agree it does.

Gold - you can't eat it, put it in your car, it's doesn't keep you warm and you can't plant it. Very valuable but useless unless you're an electronics manufacturer or impressing someone.

If you were alone on earth what would you use gold for? It has value only because we all agree it does and we'll trade usefull things for it.

Go back to trading chickens and wheat. Why do people ignore the real bartering systems that have sprung up?

Five ways to spot an asset bubble:

1. elevator operators (for traditionalists only)

2. billboards on State Street

3. guy you work with says "yeah, my mom is selling that."

4. special state law exempting it from capital gains tax

5. newspaper articles talking about "alternative currencies"

"restoration of a de facto gold standard What countries are currently on the gold standard? Why did we and they go off? If this is such a good idea, what other countries are pursuing the same?

"Since the U.S. broke the dollar's link to gold in 1971, median household income has barely risen" So the absence of the gold standard is the issue? Nothing to do with manufacturing jobs or off shoring? How are emerging markets (e.g. China) advancing their incomes without a gold standard? Are the two coincident but not related?

"by trading price stability for its mere appearance, we have given the middle class the appearance of progress without its substance." See above.

"years ago central bankers and bureaucrats decided they were better equipped to determine the value of our money than the free market under the time-tested gold standard." So economies were stable and all was right under the gold standard? The bubbles and busts I studied did not occur? Why did EVERY advanced country leave the gold standard?

"affirms the essential right of all people to use the money of their choice" Is that what the constitution says?

The only value gold holds is in the minds of conservatives.
We are never going back to the "gold standard" it would be disastrous to do so. Get over it. The fact that the guv thinks this is a good thing and wasted his time in passing this shows how out of touch with reality he really is.

Going to a gold standard now would be suicide for this country. The only real way to fix our monetary system now is to nationalize the federal reserve and issue our money supply debt free by the U.S. Treasury.

The elements that make a debt bearing bond good also make a debt free dollar good as well.

Gold has a long, long history of holding value. Much has been said to malign the gold standard and the value of gold coinage, most of by those who benefit most from paper money. You have to ask yourself, "who benefits?" The history of paper money and fractional banking has been one of consistent economic turmoil. Even the era of the so-called gold standard of the 19th century was riddled with examples of fractional banking gone out of control. On so many occasions when government should have held banks accountable for inflating the money supply through the practice of fractional reserve banking, they instead suspended their obligation to pay out in specie.

Again, who benefits from paper money inflation? Is it any wonder that all nations have given in to the temptation? Is there any wonder why the gap between rich and poor has widened during the era of inflationary paper money? Is it any wonder that war is made easier?

@Twin Lights: you need to think a little harder why countries went off the gold standard. Maybe it's the same reason so many stop living by the 10 commandments: they get in the way of their fun.

The gold standard is really nothing other than price fixing. Defining a dollar to be worth x-ounces of gold and expecting magic stability is no different than defining a dollar to be worth x-pounds of wheat, x-gallons of gas, or x-cans of Coke.

Attach the value of the dollar to the value of an ounce of gold, and suddenly the price of a loaf of bread swings wildly as the market continually reasses the value of gold. Why would that be a good thing?

There is a reason why virtually all mainstream economists reject gold-standard talk.

First step is to re-instate gold as currency.

2nd step, is to then allow and issue mining permits in protected areas of the State.

Ya - I can follow the money trail - I know who's behind this....
comapnies like Rio Tinto [Kennecott]

that and the daily droning of Glenn Beck.

once again, follow the money trail and see who's behind it.....

Re: LDS Liberal - 9:01 a.m
comapnies like Rio Tinto [Kennecott]


Reply: You got that right. Good job. Welcome Utah to the ones that fills your law makers pockets full of cash and let's you rot. Kennecott Utah Copper today announced a $15 million donation to support the new Utah Museum of Natural History (UMNH) at the University of Utah. When the Museum building opens in 2011 in The University's Research Park, it will be named The Rio Tinto Center. Rio Tinto is the parent company to Utah companies Kennecott Utah Copper, Kennecott Land Company and Kennecott Exploration. The donation continues Kennecott's 30 year support of the Museum and represents the largest single corporate donation in the University's history. The donation includes copper mined from Kennecott's Bingham Canyon Mine. The Rio Tinto Center will be built to LEED building standards and adorned with about 42,000 feet of copper on the building's exterior. Inside the building, sustainable development activities will educate people about Utah's rich mining and natural history. As the museum's founding sustainability partner, Rio Tinto and Kennecott will collaborate with the UMNH to create the sustainability trailhead that will guide visitors through the museum's galleries.

Re: Screwdriver | 4:24 p.m. Oct. 5, 2011
Casa Grande, AZ
When I see people in Utah being PAID in gold I'll believe you have something.

And when people think about it truthfully, gold is just like paper fiat money - it's has value because we all agree it does.

Gold - you can't eat it, put it in your car, it's doesn't keep you warm and you can't plant it. Very valuable but useless unless you're an electronics manufacturer or impressing someone.

If you were alone on earth what would you use gold for? It has value only because we all agree it does and we'll trade usefull things for it.

Go back to trading chickens and wheat. Why do people ignore the real bartering systems that have sprung up?.


Reply: You hit the nail right on its head, good job. While reading the posts above, it appears that Marxism is alive and well here in Utah. Holy Cow!. Who knew tea sipping terrorist Utah Tea Party could be so toxic?. Where did they get their education at?.

sigh....

The rest of the world to the American GOP, "Please leave the 17th century and join us in the 21st."

So why isn't there a push for all these corpratists conservatives to make contracts with thier employees in gold?

Well, the dollar is falling in value and gold is rising. It's a bad time to contract with me to work for 2 ounces of gold a month. Great time to pay me in falling dollars and convince me to buy 1 once of gold with it.

Let's hear the next brillant conservative idea.

I have to say I REALLY WOULD like to pay Doctors in chickens though....

DN hides these truths, Utah's plays its games again here. Pulling the wool over its resident's eyes again, making them to blind to see, what's really going on. Heres the way I see it. Seeing that Utah stuffs "welfare pups" from illegal's into Public Schools, overloading the system, and refuses to get back to Home Schooling, acts more like a "Blue State, then a Red State", and pulls this hogwash. "The bill also requires the state's Revenue and Taxation Interim Committee to study the possibility of establishing an alternative form of legal tender and to prepare recommended legislation for Utah's 2012 General Session. The Utah bill's accompanying fiscal note projects a loss of Educational Fund revenue of $250,000 in Fiscal Year 2012 and $550,000 in 2013 depending on the amount of capital gains claimed by persons exchanging gold or silver coins." From the ACLU team at the Hinckley Institute of Politics, founded in 1965, focuses on fostering an appreciation and understanding of politics came up with the U.S. Constitution's language that "No State shall make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts," in Article 1, Section 10."

MY truthful views.

Earl,

Thanks. I will try to think a little harder. I do have some more questions.

So countries abandoned the gold standard because they wanted to be free to bad things - no other reasons, right?

This means nearly every economist is livid about this and is loudly calling for a return to the gold standard, right?

And throughout the world business leaders and common folks are calling for a return to the gold standard, right?

If you have time, please also answer the questions from my earlier post.

Thanks.

In Germany we have a proverb, which I will try to translate: Only those who never have worked, have never made a mistake. Sometimes we are in a hurry, sometimes we are lacking in concentration and that's how mistakes make their way. Around the time of Jesus, during the days of the Second Temple, according to Acts 2:5, there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men, from every nation under heaven. Similar situations existed in other well-traveled areas of the ancient Near East where dozens of types of money, weight standards, and currency systems came together. For this reason a network of independent money changers evolved. They provided a critical service, especially in Jerusalem, where visiting Jews needed to change their local money into silver coins from Tyre in order to pay their statutory annual half-shekel dues to the Jerusalem Temple. At one point the money changers were so ubiquitous, and apparently rowdy in conducting their business, that they brought some unwanted attention onto themselves: And Jesus entered the Temple and cast out all those who were buying and selling in the Temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers. UTAH wants this there?. "TUFF."

One thing is certain: paper money and a national bank don't work.

There needs to be money that is exchangeable for something of fixed value. Gold and silver have kept their value much better than paper fiat currency. Still there are other kinds of backing for money, such as property. Everything fluctuates in value, sometimes wildly. There are problems in the fluctuations of supply and demand for the backing commodity at times. Gold and silver have not led to constant inflation which is almost what we have with paper money.

If the gold is based on current value then I agree a problem perhaps does exist with current uncertainties.

The thing that bothers me most about the article is the idea of making gold transactions "electronically". That would be wide open to deceits.

Finally there must be a reliable and trustworthy source of gold coinage and it must be kept at a certain, verifiable, fineness and weight. Coins have historically been clipped, debased and become worn and thin with useage over time.

I am glad that we are talking about sound money, though. Barter is another option that should not be legally discouraged or burdened with regulations etc.

Once we get through converting our economy to a currency that is made of malleable, heavy and easily faked material, we're going to have to figure out how many of these new coins equal one chinese yuan. And how to get trillions of these coins over to china to pay them, and what happens when the chinese melt them down and sell them to us as electronics or jewelry or somethng. Or, we could barter as suggested. No one's been had in the exchange of beans for cows, have they?

I wonder why the libs are so against going back to the gold standard. I thought they didn't like Nixon. One thing is for certain...When we experience hyper-inflation because of quantitative easing (printing paper money), Those that have gold or silver will be better off than the libs who are making all of the snarky remarks about those foolish paper money deniers. Worthless fiat paper money used by banker barons and money changers is at the root of much of the worlds problems.
George Soros will become exponencially richer when the dollar goes bust, But he's a good guy to the left.

@KM. Going back to a gold standard now would be suicide. Even if you got the smartest guys in a room to determine what the value of gold should be going forward, it would still cause a whole lot of problems.

A better solution would be to nationalize the federal reserve. We should take the right to create money out of private hands and put it where it belongs, the people. There is no sound reason why a country should not create its own money supply debt free and interest free.

Dennis Kucinich actually wrote a bill that would change our monetary system for the better but of course it didn't see the light of day.