NO POLITICS PLEASE!! - Question On Gold Values

Discussion in 'Bullion Investing' started by Randy Abercrombie, Sep 12, 2020.

  1. GoldBug999

    GoldBug999 Well-Known Member

    I'm late to this party!

    Although it's six of one and half a dozen of another, I look at the value of the dollar as decreasing, thus making gold cost more in dollars.

    Gold and other metals have been used as money for millenia. When money is debased (reduction of gold, silver or copper content in coins), the debased coins are not worth as much as the original coins' face value.

    With regard to the lack of inflation in many products, I see that there is often a decrease in quality instead of an increase in price. For example: an increase of plastic content in products reducing durability, lower quality metal in hand tools, fasteners, etc., and lower quality of mass-produced food.

    Anyway - great topic and comments!
     
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  3. slackaction1

    slackaction1 Supporter! Supporter

    I like this discussion being (w/o education) listening to educated people state their views and different from one another and maybe its jus me but I felt while READING some Hate coming out of you educate people.. oh yeah it was heated..
     
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  4. -jeffB

    -jeffB Greshams LEO Supporter

    Not seeing it at all. Exasperation and frustration, sure. Hate? Nah.
     
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  5. -jeffB

    -jeffB Greshams LEO Supporter

    Sure, but that shows up as "increased productivity" (I really wanted an additional level of sneer quotes around "productivity"). Consumers around the world are demonstrating that they care less about quality than they do about price.

    We just had to replace a 30-plus-year-old microwave oven. The new one has more power than the old one, does a much better job of heating evenly, is more efficient, and is easier to use. It also cost maybe a third as much as the old one, in nominal (not inflation-adjusted) dollars.

    Part of that is leaps and bounds in electronics technology. Part of it is "improvements" in manufacturing, distribution, and retail logistics. Yeah, it cost us less. But it also contributed a lot less to the welfare of everyone who worked to produce it and get it to us. And I'm quite sure it won't last 30 years.
     
  6. GoldFinger1969

    GoldFinger1969 Well-Known Member

    Not from me.....anybody is free to disagree with me on opinions, I'm wrong lots of times. :D

    But when I see Conspiracy Talk and financial illiteracy being passed off as FACT, I take exception (not saying anybody here did that, but maybe they quoted someone who did). These things can be verified if someone is willing to do the research.

    I see this nonsense all the time. When the markets are going up, everyone is giddy and they're a genius. When it declines, it's the fault of short-sellers, Big Bad Banks, and Evil Hedge Funds working for Darth Sidious. :D
     
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  7. Mr.Q

    Mr.Q Well-Known Member

    Ancient dinosaur crap can fetch a few gold nuggets. Like gold it's hard to find, duh! Just a bit of humor people to lighten your load. Oh come on, smile... Be safe
     
  8. desertgem

    desertgem Senior Errer Collecktor

    Sorry , another educated one. In the Astronomy Nov.,2020 there is an article ( other good ones also, worth the money) , There is an article of the scientific side of Gold,
    titled "GOLD from the STARS". Current total brought up from the earth is about 183,000 tons. A Lot, except that 1.6 Quadrillion tons is in the core . Six times more Platinum in the core than gold. Jim
     
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  9. -jeffB

    -jeffB Greshams LEO Supporter

    In one sense, we're closer to that gold and platinum than we are to India.

    In a more practical sense, it's less accessible than a far-off asteroid. We've landed on asteroids, and we're in the process of bringing back samples from one. We have no ideas at all on how to mine anything from Earth's core. (Actually, I take that back. If you're very patient, eventually the Sun will expand into a red giant, and boil away Earth in its entirety. Just wait far enough away with a big sheet of something like tungsten, condense the vapors, and separate them...)
     
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  10. midas1

    midas1 Exalted Member

    "I wonder what a 55 double die is worth once there is no USA currency ?"

    There will be currency for the foreseeable future.
     
  11. LA_Geezer

    LA_Geezer Well-Known Member

    I'm not going to crunch the numbers, but about the only thing I can think of that has not seen a rather large increase in cost to the consumers is gasoline. That will change in the next couple of years, just watch.

    My pension has not changed, I get the same amount as I did 17 years ago when it was begun. In that time, though, a gallon of milk, not the cheap stuff, has gone from $2 to $6 in rough terms; meat prices have risen just as much.
     
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  12. -jeffB

    -jeffB Greshams LEO Supporter

    Wow. Around here, milk has been as high as $4.50 in that time, and (in the last year or two) as low as $1.50. Currently around $3. Meat -- I can't remember the last time I bought beef, but boneless chicken breasts are $2 a pound, after spending a good bit of time above $3.

    17 years is a very long time to go without a cost of living adjustment. I'm quite sure prices have gone up more than 50% over that period.
     
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  13. Kentucky

    Kentucky Supporter! Supporter

    Drink more beer.
     
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  14. midas1

    midas1 Exalted Member

    Here's another conundrum, at times a case of beer less expensive than a case of soda.
     
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  15. LA_Geezer

    LA_Geezer Well-Known Member

    There was a time when the local premium dairy sold a whole milk product that was $3.99, it is close to $7.00 today. You can still get cheap milk at places like Walmart, but if your standards for food quality are as high as they might be for your coin collecting, then you would be able to tell the difference between these two products immediately. (I had a person once tell me that the best steak she ever had was at Applebee's—that's one of those cheap meat restaurants if you don't have one where you are.)

    My wife shops the sales, and we pore over the weekly circulars when they arrive every week. Even at Walmart a ground beef product is usually around $6 per pound, though. It used to average about $2. If you read the circulars, you have to learn how to read their deceptions. One can assume if the grade of beef is not specified that what is for sale is just verging on select, the lowest grade that's fit for human consumption. When the sale is for Choice or Prime grades this is usually in big letters. If you ever served in the military, you would know exactly what this low grade of meat tastes like. More power to you if you can tolerate its flavor.

    Oh, @Kentucky , I don't know about where you are, but a 6-pack of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale used to cost me $4.98 at Walmart, now it's $9.97. How's that for inflation?

    I think it was John Arbuckle who said, "You get what you pay for." He brought us this pearl of wisdom long before the American Dollar started sliding as fast as the Italian Lire.
     
  16. Kentucky

    Kentucky Supporter! Supporter

    I had a room mate who was a beer snob (although we were on graduate school teaching assistants pay level) and would only drink PBR (Pabst Blue Ribbon - A Premium Beer At A Popular Price). One day I noticed in the fridge that we had five different brands of beer. I suggested he take a taste test in numbered cups of the five brands. The upshot was that he couldn't tell what any of them were, and when asked to pick his favorite, it was Burgie, which was the cheapest you could buy. He continued to drink PBR... The only one I could tell the difference in was Miller, it tastes wattery to me.
     
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  17. -jeffB

    -jeffB Greshams LEO Supporter

    Thus the old comparison to canoe-bound romance.
     
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  18. GoldFinger1969

    GoldFinger1969 Well-Known Member

    We've had many from that magazine and others speak about this at our annual Space Expo !
     
  19. GoldFinger1969

    GoldFinger1969 Well-Known Member

    Most private sector pension plans are NOT indexed for inflation; but many/most public ones are.
     
  20. slackaction1

    slackaction1 Supporter! Supporter

    Is that the same as COLA ? Adjustments made yearly to pension (
     
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  21. LA_Geezer

    LA_Geezer Well-Known Member

    A little off topic, but as my health forbids me from imbibing real beer on a regular basis, the new fad of 0% beer got me interested. Unfortunately, though, research on the topic resulted in discovering that only ONE of the top 10 zero alcohol beers is sold in my area. I would have to drive 70 miles to New Orleans to find some of the others.

    There are two brands of zero alcohol beer being advertised on TV in my area, and Walmart stocks both of them. I bought some of each. In a taste test, my wife poured equal amounts of each of these brands into two frozen beer mugs. I had no knowledge of which was which, but as the two were carried into the dining room from the kitchen, the visual differences in color and the size and stoutness of the head were immediate clues that I was not being tricked into drinking one or the other but not both. I tried the paler looking of the two first; it had a bitterness to it that belied its lighter color. Its head had already gone, but I was able to guess what it was without much thought. Then onto the other one with a slightly deeper golden color and a head that one would expect from the best of the draught beers.

    The second one was sweet by comparison, but had much more of a sense that I was actually drinking a real beer—except for the slight dizziness I get whenever I drink the one real beer I allow myself per month. There was a difference in price between the two, this second one costing about 33¢ per bottle more than the other. The first is available only in 12-packs in cans, while the second is in 6-packs either glass or cans.

    I haven't had a Miller High Life real beer in at least 30 years, Kentucky, but back then I thought it was superior to the Bud and Miller light varieties that the people I knew preferred.

    One can learn a lot about beer from Howard Hillman's book. I learned of the book while watching Tom Snyder's old late night talk show on NBC in the early eighties. Although out of print, Amazon has a few copies available.

    https://www.amazon.com/Gourmet-Guide-Beer-Howard-Hillman/dp/0816018626
     
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