Even with all the Cypriot bullshit, you'd think stuff like Korean tensions would keep it afloat.
Is it really as simple as running from the hen house, as the trader suggests?
QuoteGold Settles Down 9.3%, Lowest Since February 2011
Gold plummeted more than 9 percent on Monday, and was down more $140 per ounce, as investors ditched the precious metal en masse in search for better returns in other assets.
Gold's drop triggered a broad based commodity sell-off and was mirrored by a 10 percent plunge in silver. Platinum and palladium also fell sharply.
Bullion's harrowing sell-off caught many veteran investors by surprise. In percentage terms, it has fallen 13 percent over the past two days.
There has been no drastic changes in gold's supply/demand picture in the last week although numerous factors have kept gold from rising while investments like U.S. stocks took off.
While last week's news that the Central bank of Cyprus might sell gold reserves to finance its European Union bank bailout did trigger a rush for the exits when bullion slid below the pivotal $1,500 an ounce threshold, few saw it likely to usher in a round of other official disposals.
"The pressure from proposed sale of Cyprus gold is one of the factors, and once one of them start they all run from the hen house,'' said Robert Richardson, senior account executive and trading officer at Canadian broker-dealer W.D. Latimer Co. Ltd.
The big question is whether the gold bull market is over after 12 years of consecutive yearly gains. Gold has now halved its rally since the 2008 economic crisis, leaving the metal $550 below its record high of $1,920.30 set in September 2011.
Weaker-than-expected Chinese economic data earlier on Monday simply gave investors another excuse to slash holdings as U.S. equities and other key industrial commodities including oil and copper fell. But Monday's selloff in the Dow Jones industrial stock average comes days after stock indexes hit record highs.
Recent signs that Fed officials appeared to be nearing a decision to start winding down their bond purchases to end stimulus contributed to the negative tone for gold, even though inflation has failed to materialize as feared during its rounds of post-financial crisis quantitative easing.
The yellow metal has been a traditional hedge against inflation and safe haven in times of economic turmoil.
Gold dropped as low as $1,355.80 an ounce before recovering slightly to $1,369, still down 7.4 percent.
U.S. gold futures settled down $140.30 at $1,361.10 per ounce at the lowest level since Feb. 11, 2011. The drop was the largest fall in dollars on record and the biggest percent decrease since March 17,1980.
Gold ETF Outflow, Cyprus
Investors cut exposure to gold, with total holdings at the world's major bullion gold-backed exchange-traded-funds falling to their lowest since early 2012.
Investors have been dumping gold for the past three weeks.
Even escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula and Japan's aggressive monetary stimulus have failed to burnish its safe-haven appeal.
"We are entering a phase of additional long liquidation by ETF investors and short-selling from hedge funds, which will continue in the foreseeable future,'' Saxo Bank senior manager Ole Hansen said.
Among other precious metals, silver was down 8.6 percent to $23 an ounce. Spot palladium dropped 4.7 percent to $667.72, while platinum was down 4.7 percent at $1,415 per ounce.
It's worthless and its value has been propped up artificially by crazy people, now the bubble is deflating, as tag-along investors realize that hyperinflation worries are for retards and crazy people can't keep a valueless commodity valuable forever?
I cashed in my high school class ring last year because it meant nothing to me and I forgot I even had it until I dug it out of a box in the basement. Ka-ching.
I wouldn't call the Chinese "crazy people". They've been sucking it up like it's been going out of style for quite some time.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 15, 2013, 10:04:55 PM
I wouldn't call the Chinese "crazy people". They've been sucking it up like it's been going out of style for quite some time.
They're probably building empty apartment complexes in Sinkiiang out of it.
Quote from: derspiess on April 15, 2013, 10:03:45 PM
I cashed in my high school class ring last year because it meant nothing to me and I forgot I even had it until I dug it out of a box in the basement. Ka-ching.
LOL, I remember when I got my high school class ring. Never wore it; it was promptly turned over to the girlfriend the day I got it. :lol:
Ah, the protocols of high school.
I think college class rings are pretty lame, I can't imagine an adult wearing a high school class ring in public.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on April 15, 2013, 10:16:36 PM
I think college class rings are pretty lame, I can't imagine an adult wearing a high school class ring in public.
No shit. Like Seedy it was just something for my girlfriend to wear. So silly.
I just can't tell mom I sold it. She'd probably cry-- it was a big deal to her back when I got the ring.
It doesn't trade like a hedge anymore. This is not crazy people and preppers. The market seems to be using gold as an indicator and stocks are following. Partly because a lot of the selloff was from margin calls, and when those come in, you have to sell whatever you have. Gold is a pure speculation vehicle. Not money. Not vault-fodder. It's no different now than corn futures or transportation etfs.
How is transportation a speculative play?
I never bought a school ring. It was 70 bucks, and I wasn't going to waste cash on that.
I don't think I've ever owned any gold at all, unless electronic equipment has some gold in it.
We should've nationalized it years ago and used it for our transmission wires.
Here's a fun fact:
Quote from: wikipediaVirtually all of the gold that mankind has discovered is considered to have been deposited later by meteorites which contained the element,[4][5][6][7][8] with the asteroid that formed Vredefort crater being implicated in the formation of the largest gold mining region on earth – Witwatersrand basin.[9][10][11][12]
That's really neat. I'd always known that most of the gold on Earth (just like most of the lead, uranium, and all heavier materials) is in the core, but I assumed that gold in the crust was from geological sources. Now we know the real reason now why gold went so high--Tim was buying it because it came from OUTER SPACE, but I guess he ran out of money.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 15, 2013, 11:38:24 PM
How is transportation a speculative play?
If there's a riot in Barcelona, or Merkel has gas---anything like that can tank it. It's all on headlines now.
Hopefully this will mean an end to all those "we buy your scrap gold" adverts.
Quote from: Brazen on April 16, 2013, 04:21:35 AM
Hopefully this will mean an end to all those "we buy your scrap gold" adverts.
:hug:
I have a gold coin, Napoleon 1906.
Not directly related, but it always amuses me how the supporters of gold standard criticise modern money as having no intrinsic value and only being based on a consensus.
As if gold was any different.
Quote from: Martinus on April 16, 2013, 07:59:53 AM
Not directly related, but it always amuses me how the supporters of gold standard criticise modern money as having no intrinsic value and only being based on a consensus.
As if gold was any different.
By that standard nothing has an intrinsic value. :hmm:
Quote from: mongers on April 16, 2013, 08:52:19 AM
Quote from: Martinus on April 16, 2013, 07:59:53 AM
Not directly related, but it always amuses me how the supporters of gold standard criticise modern money as having no intrinsic value and only being based on a consensus.
As if gold was any different.
By that standard nothing has an intrinsic value. :hmm:
Some things, like food or raw materials, though, are closer to real value than precious metals.
And really, you missed my point completely, as I was showing that the gold standard nuts' insistence on gold having intrinsic value (as opposed to paper money) is laughable. I was not advocating returning to barter economy.
Quote from: mongers on April 16, 2013, 08:52:19 AM
Quote from: Martinus on April 16, 2013, 07:59:53 AM
Not directly related, but it always amuses me how the supporters of gold standard criticise modern money as having no intrinsic value and only being based on a consensus.
As if gold was any different.
By that standard nothing has an intrinsic value. :hmm:
Yes, that's half his point. Picked & agreed upon standard is all that matter, not what the standard is.
Quote from: Martinus on April 16, 2013, 09:05:47 AM
Quote from: mongers on April 16, 2013, 08:52:19 AM
Quote from: Martinus on April 16, 2013, 07:59:53 AM
Not directly related, but it always amuses me how the supporters of gold standard criticise modern money as having no intrinsic value and only being based on a consensus.
As if gold was any different.
By that standard nothing has an intrinsic value. :hmm:
Some things, like food or raw materials, though, are closer to real value than precious metals.
And really, you missed my point completely, as I was showing that the gold standard nuts' insistence on gold having intrinsic value (as opposed to paper money) is laughable. I was not advocating returning to barter economy.
So...the potato standard? :hmm:
Quote from: mongers on April 16, 2013, 08:52:19 AM
Quote from: Martinus on April 16, 2013, 07:59:53 AM
Not directly related, but it always amuses me how the supporters of gold standard criticise modern money as having no intrinsic value and only being based on a consensus.
As if gold was any different.
By that standard nothing has an intrinsic value. :hmm:
Yep. Value is a subjective concept, and socially constructed.
Quote from: Warspite on April 16, 2013, 10:09:51 AM
Yep. Value is a subjective concept, and socially constructed.
If that was true we could just socially construct everybody as a millionaire. I was under the impression value was a result of demand for something and how much of it was around. Now the demand is obviously socially constructed but the value is not subjective unless the supply of it is also subjective.
Quote from: Valmy on April 16, 2013, 11:09:42 AM
Quote from: Warspite on April 16, 2013, 10:09:51 AM
Yep. Value is a subjective concept, and socially constructed.
If that was true we could just socially construct everybody as a millionaire. I was under the impression value was a result of demand for something and how much of it was around. Now the demand is obviously socially constructed but the value is not subjective unless the supply of it is also subjective.
Err, I would say it's exactly the opposite. Demand is natural since people need to eat
Quote from: Martinus on April 16, 2013, 09:05:47 AM
Some things, like food or raw materials, though, are closer to real value than precious metals.
And really, you missed my point completely, as I was showing that the gold standard nuts' insistence on gold having intrinsic value (as opposed to paper money) is laughable. I was not advocating returning to barter economy.
THat is not what they claim. If they did that would indeed be laughable. Gold is a commodity so it has a price and they want money (also a commodity) based on this price. They want this because they view paper money and fiat money as a dangerous because of the arbitrary power governments have over it, governments cannot as easily control the amount of gold laying around. Historically paper money was a loser but perhaps we are more sophisticated now, watching central banks buying up bonds maybe not...or maybe that is the exact right thing to do. I do not claim to be some sort of monetary expert but I have certainly never heard anybody say that gold, or anything else, has value separate from its supply.
Quote from: Martinus on April 16, 2013, 11:15:01 AM
Quote from: Valmy on April 16, 2013, 11:09:42 AM
Quote from: Warspite on April 16, 2013, 10:09:51 AM
Yep. Value is a subjective concept, and socially constructed.
If that was true we could just socially construct everybody as a millionaire. I was under the impression value was a result of demand for something and how much of it was around. Now the demand is obviously socially constructed but the value is not subjective unless the supply of it is also subjective.
Err, I would say it's exactly the opposite. Demand is natural since people need to eat
Hmmm...didn't you just say that demand for gold was based on consensus?
It has non-monetary industrial uses too.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on April 16, 2013, 11:38:37 AM
It has non-monetary industrial uses too.
True which would be sorta a chink in the armor for using it as money. The primary strength of gold was always that it was useless for anything other than money.
Quote from: Valmy on April 16, 2013, 11:40:20 AM
The primary strength of gold was always that it was useless for anything other than money.
:huh:
Gold is a very strong metal and conducts heat and electricity better than almost anything else.
Quote from: derspiess on April 16, 2013, 11:48:11 AM
Quote from: Valmy on April 16, 2013, 11:40:20 AM
The primary strength of gold was always that it was useless for anything other than money.
:huh:
Gold is a very strong metal and conducts heat and electricity better than almost anything else.
The ability for it to conduct electricity and heat was not really a factor back when the Spanish were shipping it over to pay for their wars in the Netherlands. You notice I used the past tense there. But hey enlighten me, maybe I am wrong on that one.
Quote from: Valmy on April 16, 2013, 11:54:01 AM
Quote from: derspiess on April 16, 2013, 11:48:11 AM
Quote from: Valmy on April 16, 2013, 11:40:20 AM
The primary strength of gold was always that it was useless for anything other than money.
:huh:
Gold is a very strong metal and conducts heat and electricity better than almost anything else.
The ability for it to conduct electricity and heat was not really a factor back when the Spanish were shipping it over to pay for their wars in the Netherlands. You notice I used the past tense there. But hey enlighten me, maybe I am wrong on that one.
http://geology.com/minerals/gold/uses-of-gold.shtml
Re: the OP and the title.
Right now, I'd say nothing is up with gold. It seems pretty down, tbh.
Quote from: derspiess on April 16, 2013, 11:59:22 AM
Quote from: Valmy on April 16, 2013, 11:54:01 AM
Quote from: derspiess on April 16, 2013, 11:48:11 AM
Quote from: Valmy on April 16, 2013, 11:40:20 AM
The primary strength of gold was always that it was useless for anything other than money.
:huh:
Gold is a very strong metal and conducts heat and electricity better than almost anything else.
The ability for it to conduct electricity and heat was not really a factor back when the Spanish were shipping it over to pay for their wars in the Netherlands. You notice I used the past tense there. But hey enlighten me, maybe I am wrong on that one.
http://geology.com/minerals/gold/uses-of-gold.shtml
The main reason gold is valuable is that it is both beautiful and rare, and very easily worked - so perfect for making valuable jewelry out of. That established its value, and its use in coins etc. comes from that.
While its ease of working and electricy-conducting capabilities have some modern, practical application, if it looked like shit it would never have been particularly valuable in the first place, and its modern industrial uses would never have made it worth anything close to what it is worth now.
I guess that goes to what I was saying. That the reason it was good as money is because we didn't need it for anything else. Needing it for industrial uses when it is being used as money serves to make those industries pay an outrageous price so it is counterproductive. Before we did not have a problem like this. Iron would have been a poor metal for money for that reason (well that and it rusts and is ugly and so forth).
Quote from: Valmy on April 16, 2013, 02:43:46 PM
I guess that goes to what I was saying. That the reason it was good as money is because we didn't need it for anything else. Needing it for industrial uses when it is being used as money serves to make those industries pay an outrageous price so it is counterproductive. Before we did not have a problem like this. Iron would have been a poor metal for money for that reason (well that and it rusts and is ugly and so forth).
But iron bars have been used as a form of currency/store of value.
Quote from: Valmy on April 16, 2013, 02:43:46 PM
I guess that goes to what I was saying. That the reason it was good as money is because we didn't need it for anything else. Needing it for industrial uses when it is being used as money serves to make those industries pay an outrageous price so it is counterproductive. Before we did not have a problem like this. Iron would have been a poor metal for money for that reason (well that and it rusts and is ugly and so forth).
Then there is my favorite currency:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rai_stones
Don't spend it all in one place. :D
Quote from: mongers on April 16, 2013, 02:48:48 PM
But iron bars have been used as a form of currency/store of value.
I guess I missed where I said they didn't. Cows were also used for this purpose. But they would be a poor form of money, you do not want people hoarding cows and iron we sorta need that stuff for commodities.
Quote from: Valmy on April 16, 2013, 02:43:46 PM
I guess that goes to what I was saying. That the reason it was good as money is because we didn't need it for anything else. Needing it for industrial uses when it is being used as money serves to make those industries pay an outrageous price so it is counterproductive. Before we did not have a problem like this. Iron would have been a poor metal for money for that reason (well that and it rusts and is ugly and so forth).
Well, it had no practical value until modern times it is true, but had (and has) a very high decorative value, in the form of rings, crowns, etc.
As a fiat money, you cannot beat the Rai Stones. They really are completely useless. :D
Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2013, 02:57:13 PM
Well, it had no practical value until modern times it is true, but had (and has) a very high decorative value, in the form of rings, crowns, etc.
Yeah but having those things be valuable only increased their prestige value ;)
QuoteAs a fiat money, you cannot beat the Rai Stones. They really are completely useless. :D
The 4 ton stone industry would suffer!
Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2013, 02:41:24 PM
The main reason gold is valuable is that it is both beautiful and rare, and very easily worked - so perfect for making valuable jewelry out of. That established its value, and its use in coins etc. comes from that.
And doesn't rust/deteriorate.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on April 16, 2013, 03:06:58 PM
Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2013, 02:41:24 PM
The main reason gold is valuable is that it is both beautiful and rare, and very easily worked - so perfect for making valuable jewelry out of. That established its value, and its use in coins etc. comes from that.
And doesn't rust/deteriorate.
Good point.
Also, non-allergenic, making it even better suited for jewelry (though I doubt many Bronze Age chieftains cared about that aspect. ;) ).
FWIW, I read that factoring in the production and support costs in the gold market, a price per ounce below 1300 or so will start to put profitability pressures on mining operations. Not that they will necessarily quit mining below that, but they might limit selling product at the same levels. So just from a commodity perspective, there is some marginal floor built in.
Industrial uses for gold exist but they are a small portion of overall demand. That does make gold different from other commodities that are produced primarily for industrial use. And not different in a good way - different in the sense that it is far more dependent on fashion (jewelry) and speculation.
Except that the jewelry market is kind of predictable. Indians will always buy for wedding and special occasions, and Chinese buy for New Year. But when the price goes up, they compensate by buying less. So jewelry demand sort of looks like your standard downsloping demand curve.
Which means the only thing that can sustain a a gold bull market is speculative interest. The sound in the market is the just the popping of speculative bubble.
I feel sorry for the poor schlubs who have invested heavily in gold as a "hedge against inflation."
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 16, 2013, 05:32:16 PM
I feel sorry for the poor schlubs who have invested heavily in gold as a "hedge against inflation."
Those rules don't apply anymore.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 16, 2013, 05:32:16 PM
I feel sorry for the poor schlubs who have invested heavily in gold as a "hedge against inflation."
You're a better man than I am. I am not sorry for them at all, since those people tend to be the nuttiest of the libertardian nutters.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 16, 2013, 05:32:16 PM
I feel sorry for the poor schlubs who have invested heavily in gold as a "hedge against inflation."
I imagine lots were elderly people who got taken advantage of by vulgar conmen adverts. I've sympathy for them. But more anger for the, I imagine quite often cynical, bastards who did the selling - and media who perhaps should've known better.
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 16, 2013, 05:52:57 PM
and media who perhaps should've known better.
:lol:
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 16, 2013, 05:52:57 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 16, 2013, 05:32:16 PM
I feel sorry for the poor schlubs who have invested heavily in gold as a "hedge against inflation."
I imagine lots were elderly people who got taken advantage of by vulgar conmen adverts. I've sympathy for them. But more anger for the, I imagine quite often cynical, bastards who did the selling - and media who perhaps should've known better.
I don't know how it is in UK, but in US there are all kinds of get-rich-quick adverts being aired. Gold hyping is just one of many. You can't protect people with faulty bullshit detector from themselves.
Quote from: sbr on April 16, 2013, 05:59:13 PM
Quote from: Sheilbh on April 16, 2013, 05:52:57 PM
and media who perhaps should've known better.
:lol:
:yes: If you depend on the media for sound financial advice, you may as well buy a $39.95 book that tells you how to earn $50,000 a month by trading stocks with no risk.
In the UK the adverts I saw were very much about playing on the fears of the elderly so they should protect their pension by investing it in gold, or the 'sell your scrap gold' type. I always thought they were disgraceful (same with the payday loans) and sometimes verging on misleading.
No-one's said anything about protecting them, but feeling sympathy.
It's one of the things I hate about this crisis, that there are so many pawn shops and payday loans everywhere <_< :(
I've seen lots of those roadside signs offering cash for gold in the last couple years. A few years ago it was cash for homes. So yeah.
Don't see the issue with "sell your gold" ads.
Quote from: DGuller on April 16, 2013, 05:45:30 PM
You're a better man than I am. I am not sorry for them at all, since those people tend to be the nuttiest of the libertardian nutters.
The two people I know personally who bought gold are lefties.
How long should I wait before buying some gold?
Quote from: Jacob on April 16, 2013, 06:41:38 PM
How long should I wait before buying some gold?
Screw the gold, you'll get better returns for MREs and ammunition after the pandemic/apocalypse/zombiepocalypse/nuclear exchange wasteland of the future.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 16, 2013, 06:44:50 PM
Screw the gold, you'll get better returns for MREs and ammunition after the pandemic/apocalypse/zombiepocalypse/nuclear exchange wasteland of the future.
That may be true, but I want a purse of gold coins or some gold bars or something... even if I'm not allowed to bury them in the backyard.
FOOD INSURANCE
Quote from: Jacob on April 16, 2013, 06:48:20 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 16, 2013, 06:44:50 PM
Screw the gold, you'll get better returns for MREs and ammunition after the pandemic/apocalypse/zombiepocalypse/nuclear exchange wasteland of the future.
That may be true, but I want a purse of gold coins or some gold bars or something... even if I'm not allowed to bury them in the backyard.
Rogues will steal your bag of gold.
Quote from: Jacob on April 16, 2013, 06:48:20 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 16, 2013, 06:44:50 PM
Screw the gold, you'll get better returns for MREs and ammunition after the pandemic/apocalypse/zombiepocalypse/nuclear exchange wasteland of the future.
That may be true, but I want a purse of gold coins or some gold bars or something... even if I'm not allowed to bury them in the backyard.
With enough ammunition, you won't have to worry about doing that; you'll be able to take somebody else's.
Xiacob has some nunchucks.
I used to have nunchaku. Used to be pretty good with 'em.
Ed will hire his own private army of Xenians.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 16, 2013, 06:57:41 PM
I used to have nunchaku. Used to be pretty good with 'em.
(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv153%2Flemur68%2Fdoug-ghost-world-20070918035252904-.jpg&hash=8b139cb8b9aaa76b6a715f3e74099874f09b4cbf)
You won't be laughing after my "two dragons roaring out to sea" have made noticeable impact craters in Teh Forehead.
Quote from: derspiess on April 16, 2013, 07:02:05 PM
Ed will hire his own private army of Xenians.
White trash cannon fodder.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 16, 2013, 06:35:37 PM
Quote from: DGuller on April 16, 2013, 05:45:30 PM
You're a better man than I am. I am not sorry for them at all, since those people tend to be the nuttiest of the libertardian nutters.
The two people I know personally who bought gold are lefties.
Well, they deserve it for acting like the nuttiest of the libertardian nutters.
Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2013, 02:57:13 PM
Quote from: Valmy on April 16, 2013, 02:43:46 PM
I guess that goes to what I was saying. That the reason it was good as money is because we didn't need it for anything else. Needing it for industrial uses when it is being used as money serves to make those industries pay an outrageous price so it is counterproductive. Before we did not have a problem like this. Iron would have been a poor metal for money for that reason (well that and it rusts and is ugly and so forth).
Well, it had no practical value until modern times it is true, but had (and has) a very high decorative value, in the form of rings, crowns, etc.
Someone may've mentioned this already, but gold does deserve credit for being extremely chemically neutral, so that it could persist as a store of value better than, say, potatoes. This in addition to its easy workability does make it ideal for a physical currency in a pre-paper, paper-poor, and generally filthy society.
In a land where most money is on computers, it's pretty dumb.
Quote from: MadImmortalMan on April 16, 2013, 03:06:58 PM
Quote from: Malthus on April 16, 2013, 02:41:24 PM
The main reason gold is valuable is that it is both beautiful and rare, and very easily worked - so perfect for making valuable jewelry out of. That established its value, and its use in coins etc. comes from that.
And doesn't rust/deteriorate.
OK, I guess someone did mention it already. :P
Quote from: DGuller on April 16, 2013, 05:45:30 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 16, 2013, 05:32:16 PM
I feel sorry for the poor schlubs who have invested heavily in gold as a "hedge against inflation."
You're a better man than I am. I am not sorry for them at all, since those people tend to be the nuttiest of the libertardian nutters.
Yi has a soft spot for anarcho-reactionaries? Don't buy it. Just doesn't fit his character. :P
I wonder how much the Bitcoin saga played into the fall of the gold price. It could be that watching one useless and baseless currency soar and crash made a critical mass of people realize that gold is not that different.
I think this talk about a speculative bubble popping is a little premature. Gold's at like 1,300 an ounce, right?
Quote from: Ed Anger on April 16, 2013, 06:54:54 PM
Xiacob has some nunchucks.
I have never owned nunchucks, nor nuns... but I have owned Chuck Taylors, several pairs in fact.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 16, 2013, 07:37:33 PM
In a land where most money is on computers, it's pretty dumb.
I dunno...when the money on the computers disappear--and it will--portable wealth comes in handy.
Look at Ed; all his rubies and sapphires are stashed away and hidden in his AD&D dice bags.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 16, 2013, 08:03:08 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 16, 2013, 07:37:33 PM
In a land where most money is on computers, it's pretty dumb.
I dunno...when the money on the computers disappear--and it will--portable wealth comes in handy.
Look at Ed; all his rubies and sapphires are stashed away and hidden in his AD&D dice bags.
Guarded by kobolds.
Fuck kobolds. What'd they have, like 18 hit points?
Some githyanki, now we're talking.
Maybe there's a LOT of kobolds.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 16, 2013, 08:10:16 PM
Fuck kobolds. What'd they have, like 18 hit points?
Some githyanki, now we're talking.
Ugh. The Fiend Folio?
I know I spent much more time looking at goddess-boobies in Deities & Demigods.
Quote from: fahdiz on April 16, 2013, 08:10:48 PM
Maybe there's a LOT of kobolds.
And when I put on my robe and wizard hat, they become unstoppable.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 16, 2013, 08:10:16 PM
Fuck kobolds. What'd they have, like 18 hit points?
Some githyanki, now we're talking.
I think it's more like 1-4. We're talking about the wizard slaughtering them with his dagger.
Quote from: Tonitrus on April 16, 2013, 08:13:18 PM
I know I spent much more time looking at goddess-boobies in Deities & Demigods.
Well, yeah.
But kids these days, they don't appreciate the sheer amount of readily available pornography today.
Try hitting puberty in the early 80s, and all you've got is the SI Swimsuit issue, scrambled cable channels, and
Deities & Demigods.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 16, 2013, 08:21:42 PM
Try hitting puberty in the early 80s, and all you've got is the SI Swimsuit issue, scrambled cable channels, and Deities & Demigods.
And Heavy Metal. And National Geographic.
Nat Geo did nothing for me; I wasn't into ethnic babes back then.
And I wasn't allowed to buy Heavy Metal. :(
Heavy Metal :wub:
I remember the day I found my dad's porn stash. Angels sang.
Quote from: Ed Anger on April 16, 2013, 08:30:16 PM
I remember the day I found my dad's porn stash. Angels sang.
Fucker. My Dad never had a porn stash.
I had to make do with a copy of
Playboy from 1982 we found in a ditch. Smelled like kerosene.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 16, 2013, 08:26:49 PM
And I wasn't allowed to buy Heavy Metal. :(
:weep:
How about Vamperilla? Sometimes I could squeeze one out to Vamperilla if I focused like a madman.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 16, 2013, 08:40:58 PM
Quote from: Ed Anger on April 16, 2013, 08:30:16 PM
I remember the day I found my dad's porn stash. Angels sang.
Fucker. My Dad never had a porn stash.
I had to make do with a copy of Playboy from 1982 we found in a ditch. Smelled like kerosene.
Playboy, Oui, Penthouse and hustler.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 16, 2013, 08:41:35 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on April 16, 2013, 08:26:49 PM
And I wasn't allowed to buy Heavy Metal. :(
:weep:
How about Vamperilla? Sometimes I could squeeze one out to Vamperilla if I focused like a madman.
:lol: I had reruns of
Wonder Woman in my head to work with.
I'm
the cautionary tale to overly protective parents, man.
I'm what happens when you send your kid out of the room during the Kenickie-Rizzo make out scene in
Grease because it's "dirty".
Let that be a lesson to you parents out there.
Quote from: fahdiz on April 16, 2013, 08:27:39 PM
Heavy Metal :wub:
In Denmark I got the Milo Manara comics out of the local library when I was ten.
Good stuff :)
Quote from: Jacob on April 16, 2013, 10:57:43 PM
Quote from: fahdiz on April 16, 2013, 08:27:39 PM
Heavy Metal :wub:
In Denmark I got the Milo Manara comics out of the local library when I was ten.
Good stuff :)
Very.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-16/gold-bears-scarce-in-india-as-selloff-lures-shoppers-to-bazaars.html (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-16/gold-bears-scarce-in-india-as-selloff-lures-shoppers-to-bazaars.html)
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/gold-price-drop-excessive-ubs-says-LXeRwx7LSAGEsRx9t6pH4A.html (http://www.bloomberg.com/video/gold-price-drop-excessive-ubs-says-LXeRwx7LSAGEsRx9t6pH4A.html)
My dad had Playboy at his office. Each month when the new one came in he took the old out of the magazine holder and brought it home for my brother and I. He might be a shit who can't understand emotions, but he understood what a 13 year old needed to read...
This is the deal with gold :nerd:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/04/17/goldbugs_in_westeros_house_tyrell_is_richer_than_house_lannister.html
Quote
Don't Believe the Hype—House Tyrell Is Richer Than House Lannister
By Matthew Yglesias
Posted Wednesday, April 17, 2013, at 3:40 PM
As you watch members of House Lannister and House Tyrell scheme for control over King's Landing here's something to keep in mind. The Westeroi conventional wisdom that that the Lannisters are the richest house in the Seven Kingdoms is dead wrong. House Tyrell is number one in all the ways that count.
To see why, just consider this observation from Warren Buffett in last year's letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders:
Today the world's gold stock is about 170,000 metric tons. If all of this gold were melded together, it would form a cube of about 68 feet per side. (Picture it fitting comfortably within a baseball infield.) At $1,750 per ounce – gold's price as I write this – its value would be $9.6 trillion. Call this cube pile A.
Let's now create a pile B costing an equal amount. For that, we could buy all U.S. cropland (400 million acres with output of about $200 billion annually), plus 16 Exxon Mobils (the world's most profitable company, one earning more than $40 billion annually). After these purchases, we would have about $1 trillion left over for walking-around money (no sense feeling strapped after this buying binge). Can you imagine an investor with $9.6 trillion selecting pile A over pile B?
Today all that gold would be worth only about $7 trillion so we can just say would you rather have a 68 cubic feet of gold, or all the cropland in the United States plus thirteen ExxonMobiles. The answer is, obviously, that you take the farms and the oil.
And in Westeros, the Lannisters have the cube of gold and the Tyrells with the rich farmland of the Reach have the real resources. You can't eat gold. You can't feed it to your horse either. Gold doesn't keep you warm during those lengthy winters. Gold is useful primarily because it's a convenient medium of exchange (who wants to carry all that wheat around) and a durable store of value (keeping a whole bunch of horses alive and healthy is itself a resource intensive process). So people with claims over valuable real resources will often end up accumulating gold. But though the Lannisters have more gold than anyone else, that's not how they got their gold. They just own gold mines.
Now don't get me wrong, you'd rather own gold mines than not own them. But the ability to pull shiny metal out of the ground is trivial compared to the power of a well-fed army. Imagine a scenario in which the Westerlands are out of food, and the Reach is out of gold. The Tyrells and their bannermen will need to curtail their consumption of luxury goods until they can manage to sell food for gold, but the austerity will be survivable if a bit unpleasant. The Lannisters, by contrast, are going to find that if they try to trade a whole big pile of gold for a whole big pile of food that the price of food will skyrocket. The illusion of Lannister wealthy is based on the idea that we can take the marginal price of an ounce of gold, then multiply that by the total quantity of the Lannister gold supply, and then conclude that the Lannisters are hyper-wealthy. In reality, any effort to mobilize all that metallic wealth will lead to inflation rather than the ability to mobilize vast quantities of real resources.
You can see this historically from the Spanish conquest of the New World and the ensuing influx of newly mined "treasure." This appeared to give the Habsburg dynasty a decisive wealth edge vis-à-vis its European rivals, but the Habsburgs' struggles with France led to the inflationary "price revolution" and ultimately the victory of a French state built on the control of real resources—productive agricultural land and a large population. My guess is that by the time the Song of Fire and Ice is concluded we'll see something similar. Real resources—not shiny gold—are the true test of wealth and the real source of power.
The Slate article is dead wrong. Westeros is a pre-modern economy with fairly sophisticated commercial institutions and well-established domestic and international trade routes. The ability to maintain an army in the field depends on the ability to pay them in money, and in a pre-modern economy, gold is money sine qua non. Food can always be imported. And while pre-modern soldiers demand to be fed, they don't take well to payment entirely in kind. The Spanish Habsburg example actually disproves the case; Spain was able to set itself up as the dominant power in Europe for a century and a half despite (comparatively) limited domestic resources because it could pay professional troops with New World silver. Another example would be Periclean Athens. In both cases the strategy failed only because of over-extension.
In the modern world, the analysis is quite different and Yglesias' conclusions follows, because developed modern economies have successfully monetized their real resources.
To put it more simply: in the pre-modern era, the guy with gold can pay for the army to take property of the guy who has land. ;)
If you have gold, the people who actually grow food on the land will come to you to sell it. If all you have is title to land, you have to wring the food out of them somehow, which is more difficult. It often involved scattering one's army to "forage" (meaning, to steal) - which is why the premodern farmer's natural inclination at the approach of soldiers, including "their own", was to hide everything. A leader with gold to spend on supplies (a rare thing!) could keep his army concentrated, making it much more effective. This was Wellington's secret in Spain (and France).
Gold in the hand is worth more than (theoretical) food on the land.
from what I've been hearing it's the paper-gold-value that's been going down while the demand for real gold is going up.