Does an increase in the number of jobless increase the value of the currency? It's almost like saying that the value of funny money used in board games is linked to the unemployment rate. It's counterfeit. It's garbage. The fed is printing money with no backing at all. Get your head around it. That expression, "It's just paper" is becoming true.

If anything the fact that unemployment is so high gives the govt. even more incentive to hold interest rates really low, and print even more of the crap.

We could always start a similar thread for gold

I am an amateur technical analyst. My models show GLD to be overbought in the short term.
FYI
just my 2 cents

Another record for gold this morning....$1069

Just saw the Inflation Indexed Gold Chart. Gold needs to hit $2500 to match 1980.
And anyone expecting inflation wage adjustments are dreaming. The stuff will just disappear.

Before any more of the value of our savings disappears, I hope to buy metals, but not PM's. Steel, aluminum, copper, bronze, and others, all for shop and home construction use. I have some silver, and I see the dollar collapsing, but I think we need to FIRST emphasize meeting our individual needs for the immediate to long term future before jumping into PM's.

Unless one has addressed all their basic needs, I see no reason to buy PM's. In order to get food, water, and shelter, one has to convert whatever investments they have FIRST into coin of the realm, then into goods, THEN spend some time making those goods work for them. Why bother with all that? Why not do your speculating with alternative energy for your own use, food production, insulation, and similiar things? You know for a fact you will USE those things. You DON'T know for a fact what will happen to your investments and your ability to change them into useful stuff.

Not a question of either this or that, but rather, one of priorities. IMHO. I wonder how many who advocate buying PM's have all the rest of their ducks in a row? I don't, and I've been working at it a very long time.

I bought some silver at $13.25, which is now at $17.80 or so, but in retrospect, it would have been better spent on fertilizer, ag lime, seed, tires, car repairs, machine parts, and who knows how many other things. I suspect that buying PM's is a "feel good" move, which is a lot easier to accomplish than the hard thinking and hard work of real preps. It was for me.

Exactly right. And btw, copper/silver and the CRB/BDI's are
saying that gold is out of step.

I'd say in the long term the dollar is toast and gold is king, but the dollar is pretty embedded in our thinking (especially Americans), and it will take a while for the change to happen. By it's nature as a reserve currency it's a lot like gold in many people's minds. This will change but it will take some time to do so.

I'm afraid it doesn't make any difference what Americans think about the dollar vs gold. What matters is what the Chinese, Japanese, Saudis , Russians think, and how long they are going to continue to finance the US deficit, sending the USA tangible stuff for green pieces of paper. Once they stop buying treasuries and the dollar loses its reserve status, the average American's standard of living will drop, the US will be forced to consume a lot less and produce a lot more. External events will dictate what happens, the importance of the mindset and opinion of America will decline in tandem with its economic clout.

Most of these companies are located in oil-exporting, non-dollar countries Mexico and Canada.
http://www.thestreet.com/p/rmoney/etf/10518699.html

Gold is posh now
Harrods sells gold bars, coins as prices rally

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/harrods-sells-gold-bars-coins-as-prices-rally-2009-10-16

Gold just spiked. Up to 1080 now. Dollar AND gold rising. The folks at Tickerforum are very worried about this since it doesn't make sense according to normal fundamentals.

http://tickerforum.org/cgi-ticker/akcs- ... 18#1596710

1085.23

Whats up with that? Somebody has their knickers in a knot. Hope it isn't a friendly neighborhood bombing run.

It makes perfect sense. Govts and central banks are eschewing fiat and accumulating gold. The dollar appears to be rising, when really other currencies are not seen as an appropriate counterweight against the dollar.

I'm assuming many on Tickerforums are reliant on technical analysis, that analyzes current conditions based on historic precedents. We are in uncharted territory, and looking at maps drawn up in the past, under radically different circumstances is just kind of dumb.

Long term dollar trend is still down. I think the TF guys are worried about why there is appearing to be a disconnect now to how the dollar/gold swings look to be going. They are diverging from norms.

If you spend any time over there, and i do, they most assuredly know we are in uncharted waters. While there are some chart geeks over there, most a repretty good at seeing what is going on despite the present disconnects of market realities.