“I wonder, though, just how far we have really come in the past 200-odd years. To give modernity its due, the dollar has cut a swath in the world. There’s no greater success story in the long history of money than the common greenback. Of no intrinsic value, collateralized by nothing, it passes from hand to trusting hand the world over. More than half of the $923 billion’s worth of currency in circulation is in the possession of foreigners.”

“In ancient times, the solidus circulated far and wide. But it was a tangible thing, a gold coin struck by the Byzantine Empire. Between Waterloo and the Great Depression, the pound sterling ruled the roost. But it was convertible into gold—slip your bank notes through a teller’s window and the Bank of England would return the appropriate number of gold sovereigns. The dollar is faith-based. There’s nothing behind it but Congress.”

“So our Martian would be mystified and our honored dead distressed. And we, the living? We are none too pleased ourselves. At least, however, being alive, we can begin to set things right. The thing to do, I say, is to restore the nets to the tennis courts of money and finance. Collateralize the dollar—make it exchangeable into something of genuine value. Get the Fed out of the price-fixing business. Replace Ben Bernanke with a latter-day Thomson Hankey. Find—cultivate—battalions of latter-day Hellmans and set them to running free-market banks. There’s one more thing: Return to the statute books Section 19 of the 1792 Coinage Act, but substitute life behind bars for the death penalty. It’s the 21st century, you know.”

http://tinyurl.com/ygl3ger

all traders are a bit sick you know.

Nothing surprises. A 50% crash in Gold is always possible. Jury is out and I ain’t no ideologue. Watch the tape and watching for another big impulsive round of selling, if that comes than I really doubt the whole China-India put thing.

I like your take on Gold Will. You understand it from a different angle because you trade it like I do. Incidentally Gold sold hard today because it reached the end of a critical 3rd wave up pattern in two corresponding time frames, something which makes for a powerful end indicator. My mentor alerted me to this reality when it hit its high in the futures yesterday morning very early at 1227 and pennies on the spot. He issued a severe weather warning at that point and I am still looking for a handy pistol to stick into my mouth since I failed to heed that warning. But it was my own hubris that I didn’t at the very least hedge.

We will have more selling to come since this was a big,impulsive wave down and for those interested I will post where this down wave projects to end. Incidentally the 3 wave trading I do is based in human psychology and is the most incredibly uncanny thing I have ever witnessed. perhaps in my life. Facinating and deadly accurate.

night all,BB

http://www.transitionbouldercounty.org/

(I read recently that the University of Colorado is strongly considering banning plastic bottles–that would set them apart from all other universities.)

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/12/outspoken-us-climate-scientist.html

The reason the Zimbabwe citizens were forced to mine gold for food was that the ‘dollar system’ was still operative and gold retained value with that ‘dollar system’.

I’ll agree with the first two, but that last bit is one of the lies of Econ 101. Money only represents a store of value if the system under which that money was operative is functioning when the holder of the store of value decides it is time to redeem the ticket. Money is a PERCEIVED store of value. The same can be said for gold.