Peak Oil News and Message Boards

vtsnowedin wrote:You and I would never know how much gold was actually in the vaults or if it was real or gold plated lead bricks.
I don't think you can peg a currency to one rare substance. It has to be a composite of all the useful things in the GDP of a country. A dollar is worth exactly what you can buy from a willing seller for a dollar. $49 / barrel oil. $30K automobiles, A root canal and crown for $800, $3.50/lb hamburger. etc.etc.

Sorry, but completely wrong IMO.

First, there are audits. Aside from the conspiracy theory rhetoric, why shouldn't objective periodic audits, done by multiple groups if needed, not count/verify the gold bars? (You can weigh the bars. You can use density testing. The idea that you couldn't tell doesn't wash. I prefer to use gold bullion coins to avoid the cost and delay of requiring assay, for example, but they could make US Eagles from the bars if bars concern you.

Since when is the piece of paper or the electronic blip that is a dollar representative of much of ANYTHING, much less of "all the useful things of the GDP of a country?" Is Australia's dollar more representative of natural resources than the US dollar? I don't think so.

As long as the public can have confidence in a currency and will ACCEPT it in exchange for goods and services, it will serve just fine. With currency in the US being something like 99%+ electronic blips instead of paper (per a quick Google search), we could use Beanie Babies as currency IF you could get the public to have consistent long term confidence in them.

...

The objection to using Gold as a currency from liberals I've heard is that an economy MUST have inflation to work. Liberals supporting the government depreciating everyone's money as a matter of course -- why am I not surprised? At least that has more logic to it than a currency must be object X instead of object Y.

I would say post Collapse the one current recognized asset that will be worthwhile is Land . New worthwhile assets will be survival skills and social skills within a community

Outcast_Searcher wrote:The objection to using Gold as a currency from liberals I've heard is that an economy MUST have inflation to work. Liberals supporting the government depreciating everyone's money as a matter of course -- why am I not surprised? At least that has more logic to it than a currency must be object X instead of object Y.

Your certainly entitled to disagree with me as I claim no expertise or revelations from god. But I am not a liberal especially when it comes to money and taxation. I don't agree that inflation is necessary to keep an economy running and think that the requirement of growth is only valid when you have a growing population. With a stable population last years crops , production, and sales would be just as good this year as they were last.

onlooker wrote:I would say post Collapse the one current recognized asset that will be worthwhile is Land . New worthwhile assets will be survival skills and social skills within a community

Why would a still producing oil or gas well or a hydro dam not have value?
In Doomer porn the currency is 22 long rifle ammunition and a ladies evening can be had for a can of spam.

vtsnowedin wrote:

onlooker wrote:I would say post Collapse the one current recognized asset that will be worthwhile is Land . New worthwhile assets will be survival skills and social skills within a community

Why would a still producing oil or gas well or a hydro dam not have value?

The point is the oil or gas wells will have ceased operation or do you presume to believe that the FF industry will still be functioning post collapse when that finally happens? Remember not downturn or Depression but Collapse

onlooker wrote:

vtsnowedin wrote:

onlooker wrote:I would say post Collapse the one current recognized asset that will be worthwhile is Land . New worthwhile assets will be survival skills and social skills within a community

Why would a still producing oil or gas well or a hydro dam not have value?

The point is the oil or gas wells will have ceased operation or do you presume to believe that the FF industry will still be functioning post collapse when that finally happens? Remember not downturn or Depression but Collapse

I suppose we will have to get into the hair splitting differences between a great Depression and Collapse.
But no even in a full collapse of the economy and government I expect that oil wells etc. will still have value but probably under different ownership which took it by force. The war lord that controls the refinery will treat the well owners as vassals and use the fuel produced to dominate the surviving population. Your cell phone on the other hand might be useful as a mirror as you stitch up your wounds with a dull needle.

Obviously, you have great faith in the EROEI being able to remain viable. I do not

No, I/we were talking about the list of the 5 biggest capitalization on the Dow and that they represented 24% of the top 50 capitalization.

IMHO real assets are worth real value. Food of course and all things necessary to produce and distribute same. Building materials and their sources and distribution is a real assert. MS Word? Facebook clicks? No.

onlooker wrote:Obviously, you have great faith in the EROEI being able to remain viable. I do not

While off shore and perhaps even new fracted wells on land might become un economic (ERoEI or otherwise) the existing production and stripper wells on land will continue on their individual decline curves regardless of politics or events on the surface. Each well has it's own shut off date where it takes more then a barrel of fuel to pump up the next barrel. Those dates will come as they will collapse or not.

Well here we are again. The Trump rally continues to make us wealthy.

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/03/us-stock ... -tech.html

Dow jumps 130 points, hits all-time high as second half of year begins.

U.S. equities kicked off the second half of the year on the right foot, closing mostly higher on Monday as bank stocks climbed.

The Dow Jones industrial average notched a record high before closing about 130 points higher, with Goldman Sachs contributing the most gains. The S&P 500 rose 0.23 percent, with financials and energy leading advancers. The Nasdaq composite lagged, trading 0.5 percent lower.

"You're still seeing money coming out of tech and into financials," said Marc Chaikin, CEO of Chaikin Analytics. "The rally in financials has real legs."

Shares of Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo and Citgroup all rose in early trade. The big bank stocks are coming off a strong week, with the SPDR S&P Bank exchange-traded fund (KBE) surging 3.82 percent after positive results from the Federal Reserve's annual stress test.

On another forum I read concerns that the Shiller SP-500 Cape Index is way, way to high.

From a quick search it seems that compared to historic data the index is high and showing a bubble in stock prices. However, a number of investors went to some length to try as down play the index and to say why a bubble is unlikely to burst now. A more negative report (1st July) has this

With the Shiller CAPE index having surpassed the 30x for the first time since September 2001, its creator, Nobel Laureate and Yale School of Management Economics Professor Robert Shiller is warning investors that they should be cautious about investing in such an “unusual” market.

https://etfdailynews.com/2017/07/01/robert-shiller-warns-sp-500-cape-ratio-is-at-concerning-levels-ivv/

Should we be worried by a stock price bubble, with the current values well over 21 000?

I consider a lot of stocks overvalued. Facebook, Tesla, and Amazon lead that particular pack for me. But there are also undervalued stocks as well. I leave the worry for the doomers. If the Legion of Doom feels they can time a market downturn there is money to be made on Inverse ETF's.

Cog wrote:I consider a lot of stocks overvalued. Facebook, Tesla, and Amazon lead that particular pack for me. But there are also undervalued stocks as well. I leave the worry for the doomers. If the Legion of Doom feels they can time a market downturn there is money to be made on Inverse ETF's.

Since the Legion of Doom is more or less constantly negative, timing is going to be a BIG problem for them.

After all, the markets spend more time rising than falling over the long run. If the legion of doom put their money where their mouth is re the stock market, I don't see how they would have any money, as their collective long term market shorts would bankrupt them during any extended market rise, like we've seen pretty much constantly for the past 8+ years.

Newfie wrote:IMHO real assets are worth real value. Food of course and all things necessary to produce and distribute same.

IMHO there is both a short and a long-term strategy in prepping. Those who apply a long-term strategy of overvaluing food are the kinds who quit their white-collar jobs and start some boutique organic farm and lose their shirts only to return to white-collar life when the sky doesn't fall soon enough.

What I've noticed is that those who have hunkered down by now and continue to hunker down never had white-collar earning potential or they're retirement age or they are so ideologically focused that they don't mind the sacrifice.

Even if you're upset over the dollar and fiat currency, the more dollars you make (through a BAU job) is what facilitates you to convert it to things like precious metals. But to sort of boycott any and all means of making money on the basis of it seeming "insane" is to look a gift horse in the mouth. You take advantage of the opportunities that are available to you (short-term) and then put that money into things that will become more important on the downslope (long-term).

Agreed asg70.

Not a swinging Johnson out there knows how this plays out. I think the term "Make hay while the sun shines" is appropriate.

I am not a doomer, as my disclaimer, but I understand that things change economically all the time. Have an exit strategy and work it.

News flash. Most of us here are still doomers. Just because we don't believe in doom tomorrow doesn't make us cornies. That's just perma-doomer strawmanning.