On Fri, 2009-01-30 at 14:33 -0800, Jim Devine wrote: > Laurent GUERBY wrote: > > In the internet age you can practically move away from fiat currency if > > you want too: buy and sell gold/whatever ETF and keep the strict minimum > > of fiat currency on your regular account (including the right amount > > the day you pay your taxes). One click per day. > > > > So the government is no longer practically imposing a fiat currency > > system on someone who doesn't believe in it. > > one problem is that each "click" likely involves some sort of > brokerage fee.
Yes there's some cause but it's not much relative to the fee you pay in fine when using credit/debit card (and may be inflation). > Another is that the price of gold in terms of fiat > money changes a lot from day to day, so that you may want to "click > back" to fiat money and find that you're suffering from an unwanted > and even unaffordable capital loss in terms of what goods and services > you an buy. Gold is currently a speculative commodity and thus holding > it involves risk. Currently the volatility of about everything against fiat money is indeed very high and there are many bubble-like values around. But if you look at someone "self sufficient" with housing and a large enough land area, the USD market value of this "stable" basket of goods would also have a big volatility. > Why would one not believe in fiat money? is the US government (the > issuer of much of the stuff) about to go broke, fall apart in a civil > war, and/or be replaced by a congress of workers' soviets? If civil war only physical gold and armed guards will do it, not gold ETFs :). About belief, I don't know the why, but the argument that the government is "forcing" you was true a decade ago but it's no longer true now thanks to the internet. Laurent _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
