$100 Trillion Zimbabwe's

Anyone have an opinion as to whether $30 USD for one UNC $100 Trillion dollar Zimbabwe note will look cheap in a few years.

Current prices on ebay seem kinda high for me. I think these are pretty volatile but wonder if they will go higher.

I have a vested interest. I bought a bundle of 100 $100 trillions 14 months ago for $297, and I'm selling them for 10 times that today on eBay. Am buying an ounce of silver with each sold.

Just wondered if I should hold onto a few for future years or should I take the money and run at today's prices..

(Also bought 100 $50 trillion for 90 bucks and some 10 trillions for pennies, wish I had bought more).

Opinions appreciated please as to whether these have room to increase in price or not.
Thanks

 

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I would hold back half the stack. I wish I had bought a few more of them, just buying a few at the time. I can never see these bringing huge money, as they are mainly desired for the novelty factor of 100 trillion dollars, (dollars being very important). So, if I could trade them for more than an ounce of silver, I think I would at least half.

 

Take the money and run. They may find 1000 more crates of 'em in the back room of a Rhodesian Walmart. And remember, the whole point of buying PM's is to preserve the purchasing power of your liquid assets.

I believe: if a $1.50 loaf of bread "costs" a silver dime today, after hyperinflation comes, it will still buy a loaf of bread. Paper dollars won't.

 

"after hyperinflation comes"

In my learned Keynesian educated opinion, it isn't coming at all. What do I do with that? I sincerely believe DEflation is still the clearer and more present danger.

 

We should all hope for hyperinflation over deflation. Both are bad, but deflation eats away at your economic core. Look at Japan.

 

Inflation has to come. And alot of it. Inflation benefits debtors. Who is the biggest debtor you know? That's right, nuclear armed Uncle Sugar. When nobody buys are debt, we monetize it, and when we can no longer monetize enough of it to stay afloat, get ready...

 

The old saying was, "...inflation destroys households, deflation destroys commerce," and by a small margin, I consider deflation the greater threat to our country.

 

I've never seen deflation destroy a currency and economy. I can give you legions of examples where inflation has. Deflation tends to occur after periods of commodity inflation - or historically before fiat currency.

 

Thanks for the interesting perspectives. I'm of the view that the interventionists are too powerful a vested interest in the US to allow for either major inflation or deflation to ever happen. At worst, they'll just change the measurements to have the figures show whatever they want it to be.

We all know about the replacement methodology for inflation, what once used to measure filet Mignon now measures flank stake, the price of the second is the same as the price the first used to be, so no inflation. Hey Presto, we all believe that, don't we.

On my specific question, I'm going to sell 75% of my Zimbie's if I can and put the cash aside for either $15-$16 silver, which my friends at JP Morgan are kindly arranging for me, or for a crash in the Zimbies back to below $6 each, in which case I'll buy a few hundred more and wait for the next up cycle.

I've never had a stock 10 bag in my very nearly 50 years on this earth, but I did check exact dates, my $2.60 each investment in $100 Zimbie trillions has 11 bagged since Aug 26th last year when I bought them.

I'll drink to that. Wondering what the next Zimbie type opportunity might be.
Have a great evening all.

 

Then you're just not old enough. Precious metals backed currency can reasonably be said to have caused the Great Depression of the late 20's and 30's. And fiat currencies can reasonably be said to have saved the economic world, absent extreme malfeasance in money supply management of a type never seen or even approached in this country. You need to keep perspective and avoid "the confusion of the illions" fallacy. A single Zimbabwe $100 trillion note represents 10x the number of dollars in the U.S.' entire M2 money supply, even in this post-QE era, and even including all types of M2 in existence worldwide - cash, coin, and electronic.

 

You're talking about "kachwas."

 

When I google Kachwa, I get a real turtle, and a cartoon turtle, and a town/district in Uttar Pradesh, India/Pakistan. What's this have to do with deflation?

 

Are you trying to type "kwacha"? They're Zambian and Malawian, not Zimbabwean.

(And little lambs eat ivy.)

 

You are right. But then again, I stopped collecting African coins when the natives got their independence and Queen Elizabeth stopped appearing on their coinage.

 

As I said, the advent of fiat currency removed one of the largest problems related to currency deflation - shortage of specie. And again, deflation usually is felt because of a commodity valuation problem - property, metal, etc. Japan's deflation was due to property value overvaluation (inflation disguised as deflation).

Depression era deflation was due to constriction of money supply by the Fed - as well as some natural deflation as the economy slowed. The economy was poor but the dollar survived intact. The same cannot be said of hyperinflated economies. An 1880 Dollar is a dollar. A 40 year old Peso is not a peso. Or a Weimar Mark. Or a Greek Drachma. These are currencies that were absolved of all value due to inflation - became absolutely worthless. Deflation creates economic drag but I cannot think of a single fatality of a currency or economy due to it. And most deflation issues are caused because something has become overvalued - contraction due to maladjusted expansion.

The US faces little economic worry due to deflation. Inflation however is not only underreported currently, but it is ipso facto the only pending problem that fits current facts - enormous debt that is unsustainable, that can only be addressed by devaluing that debt. Inflation helps debtors, and the US government is the worlds largest debtor.

 

Lemme guess. You're an "Austrian Fool" economics believer, right? Completely discredited school of thought. Not even a committed supply sider like Friedman bought into Austrian School economics. There are at least two other ways out of our debt other than monetization and inflation - a confiscatory income tax marginal rate on high personal earners, and unrepentant commitment to real economic growth. Along with some monetization thrown in, the three together are more than capable of dealing with your scary boogeyman of sovereign debt.

All that is required is the political will to tell BOTH the über-wealthy AND the tree huggers to suck it up. Of course, doing that asks Hollywood to get over themselves twice over, so....

By the way, we don't need to guess what the impact of some fairly strict commitment to real economic growth looks like - it looks like China. Yes, it surely does create its own share of asset bubbles, but it sure does (re?)build a middle class nicely.

The US economy is in CONSTANT IMMINENT threat of rapid deflation. Why? Contraction of bank lending. All personal and commercial lending creates new money, it really does! When the economy at large chooses reduced debt, the money supply actually CONTRACTS. That's why we NEEDED QE(fill in blank). Without it, our money supply for the relatively few creditworthy remaining entities would have frozen solid and withered away. That's what Austrian Fools seem to forget - the Fed only "creates" less than 9% of new money. Commercial banks create over 91% of it.

Until and unless we would ever create a banking system in which a loan to "company xyz" REDUCES the bank balances of all depositors, we need a Fed to keep liquidity in the economy by expanding and contracting the money supply through the Open Market Committee in normal times, and Quantitative Easing in extraordinary ones.

MEC2 assumes the allegedly unlimited creditworthiness of the US is based on its ability to print money. That's just icing on the cake. It's REAL creditworthiness comes from its ability to TAX! We just seem to have forgotten tax rates can go UP too.

 

Why waste money on a tuition at Harvard or Wharton University when I can get a great economics class right here.

This is more educational then watching the talking heads on the network channels.

 

For bonniview -- are you aware that you can take online courses for FREE at many prestigious schools (including Yale and M.I.T.)?

There's no academic credit, but for professionals, the knowledge will presumably boost your career and chances for advancement, as well as provide the personal satisfaction of learning. HUNDREDS of schools offer this service.

There is no doubt a database somewhere listing all the schools and the types of courses available.

Here's a brief summary from Yale's special website, oyc.yale.edu

Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. The aim of the project is to expand access to educational materials for all who wish to learn.

• All lectures were recorded in the Yale College classroom and are available in video, audio, and text transcript formats
• Registration is not required
• No course credit, degree, or certificate is available through the Open Yale Courses website.

 

That's very nice of you to say, and flattering to read, but while I did not attend either Penn or Harvard, I did attend a so-called "Pennsylvania Ivy" institution that included among its economics faculty at that time (1973-1977) a then-future Prime Minister of Turkey, a then-future Pennsylvania Secretary of Banking, one of the world's then-premier China economics experts, and the world's premier expert on John Maynard Keynes' A General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, and my classmates included among them the then-future Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mary Schapiro. We learnt berry goodly lotsa stuff.

Apropos of Doug's post, most of Stanford's catalog is also available, gratis for now, on the iTunes Store.

 

If you want to read the writings of perhaps the most utterly incorrect writer on what he believes, incorrectly, is economic analysis, look up Michigan coin dealer Patrick Heller. His firm is Liberty Coins of Lansing. He somehow thinks being a CPA, and coin dealer / bullion hawker, makes him qualified as an economics forecaster .... NOT! But if bullion stacking is your thing, he's pretty good. He is honest (honest has never implied correct), works on some pretty narrow fully disclosed upfront buy-sell spreads, and as far as I know, nobody has ever accused him of bait and switch.