2009 FOFOA Compendium

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

2009 FOFOA Compendium 2009 Compendium Table of Contents Time to Warm Up the Printing Press .........................................................................................................4 A Story That Caught My Eye Today .......................................................................................................10 Open The Mint To Gold! .........................................................................................................................12 CBS - Paper Oil .......................................................................................................................................17 On "Hyperinflation" ................................................................................................................................ 20 Looking Ahead ........................................................................................................................................25 Deflation/Inflation/Hyperinflation .......................................................................................................... 30 Fun With Numbers .................................................................................................................................. 36 No Go ......................................................................................................................................................40 Random Musing ......................................................................................................................................47 Rogue Wave Alert ................................................................................................................................... 51 Interesting Times .....................................................................................................................................58 Meet John Williams ................................................................................................................................ 61 Ratios ...................................................................................................................................................... 70 Fiat Guarantees and Real World Barter Deals ........................................................................................ 72 Some Thoughts ........................................................................................................................................73 Gold Price Suppression Explained ..........................................................................................................74 Bankrupt Economics ............................................................................................................................... 76 The Time Is Right For A CHANGE OF EVENTS ................................................................................. 78 1 That Accursed Propensity To Save ..........................................................................................................80 Sell Your Sole, Not Your Gold ................................................................................................................ 83 All Paper is STILL a short position on gold ........................................................................................... 84 Some thoughts from FOA ....................................................................................................................... 94 All the Gold in China .............................................................................................................................. 97 CB Gold Sales = Looting ...................................................................................................................... 100 Mr. Chang's Gold .................................................................................................................................. 101 Hyperinflation by any other name .........................................................................................................103 Martin Armstrong on Goldman Sachs .................................................................................................. 106 Covert Market Operations? ................................................................................................................... 118 MK on China and Gold .........................................................................................................................122 The Judgment of Value ..........................................................................................................................125 Mayday Thoughts ..................................................................................................................................127 Why All Paper Will Burn (In plain English) .........................................................................................129 Worst Case Scenario (12" Remix) .........................................................................................................132 Martin Armstrong Makes The Case for FreeGold ................................................................................ 136 The Underwater Beach Ball Effect ....................................................................................................... 139 Taking Delivery of Physical ..................................................................................................................142 Weimar Reloaded .................................................................................................................................. 145 What Obama Does Not Know .............................................................................................................. 148 Mona Lisa or Ben Franklin? ................................................................................................................. 154 Like an Arab Sheikh ..............................................................................................................................158 The Bermuda Triangle of Currency ...................................................................................................... 161 Dead End ...............................................................................................................................................172 Glossary of Acronyms ...........................................................................................................................177 The Triumvirate of Wealth .................................................................................................................... 178 Gold, Oil and Money in the Free Market ..............................................................................................182 How The Dollar Made It This Far .........................................................................................................192 Call Me Contrarian ................................................................................................................................195 Bondage or Freegold? ........................................................................................................................... 200 The Call of the Century .........................................................................................................................205 Brown's Bottom .....................................................................................................................................213 The Waterfall Effect .............................................................................................................................. 215 FOA to Martin Armstrong - 1999 ......................................................................................................... 222 Confiscation Anatomy - A Different View ............................................................................................225 No Free Lunch ...................................................................................................................................... 229 Dollar Repudiation ................................................................................................................................235 Evolution! ..............................................................................................................................................248 Gresham's Ghost ................................................................................................................................... 257 Shake the Disease ..................................................................................................................................262 A Question on China ............................................................................................................................. 272 Say Goodbye to Wall Street .................................................................................................................. 276 How To Dig a Hole To China ................................................................................................................281 Your Own, Personal, Freegold .............................................................................................................. 284 Fair Value Gold? ................................................................................................................................... 292 Gold is Money - Part 1 ..........................................................................................................................295 Gold is Money - Part 2 ..........................................................................................................................301
Recommended publications
  • Is Paper Money Just Paper Money? Experimentation and Variation in the Paper Monies Issued by the American Colonies from 1690 to 1775
    NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES IS PAPER MONEY JUST PAPER MONEY? EXPERIMENTATION AND VARIATION IN THE PAPER MONIES ISSUED BY THE AMERICAN COLONIES FROM 1690 TO 1775 Farley Grubb Working Paper 17997 http://www.nber.org/papers/w17997 NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 April 2012 Previously circulated as 'Is Paper Money Just Paper Money? Experimentation and Local Variation in the Fiat Paper Monies Issued by the Colonial Governments of British North America, 1690-1775: Part I." A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the Conference on "De-Teleologising History of Money and Its Theory," Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Research–Project 22330102, University of Tokyo, 14-16 February 2012. The author thanks the participants of this conference and Akinobu Kuroda for helpful comments. Tracy McQueen provided editorial assistance. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer- reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications. © 2012 by Farley Grubb. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source. Is Paper Money Just Paper Money? Experimentation and Variation in the Paper Monies Issued by the American Colonies from 1690 to 1775 Farley Grubb NBER Working Paper No. 17997 April 2012, Revised April 2015 JEL No.
    [Show full text]
  • The Satisfaction of Gold Clause Obligations by Legal Tender Paper
    Fordham Law Review Volume 4 Issue 2 Article 6 1935 The Satisfaction of Gold Clause Obligations by Legal Tender Paper Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation The Satisfaction of Gold Clause Obligations by Legal Tender Paper, 4 Fordham L. Rev. 287 (1935). Available at: https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/flr/vol4/iss2/6 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. It has been accepted for inclusion in Fordham Law Review by an authorized editor of FLASH: The Fordham Law Archive of Scholarship and History. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 1935] COMMENTS lishing a crime, a legislature must fix an ascertainable standard of guilt, so that those subject thereto may regulate their conduct in accordance with the act.01 In the recovery acts, however, the filing of the codes Will have established the standard of guilt, and it is recognized that the legislatures may delegate the power to make rules and regulations and provide that violations shall constitute 9 2 a crime. THE SATISFACTION o GOLD CLAUSE OBLIGATIONS BY LEGAL TENDER PAPER. Not until 1867 did anyone seriously litigate1 what Charles Pinckney meant when he successfully urged upon the Constitutional Convention - that the docu- ment it was then formulating confer upon the Congress the power "To coin money" and "regulate the value thereof." 3 During that year and those that have followed, however, the Supreme Court of the United States on four oc- casions4 has been called upon to declare what this government's founders con- templated when they incorporated this provision into the paramount law of the land.5 Confessedly, numerous other powers delegated in terms to the national 91.
    [Show full text]
  • Lawful Money Presentation Speaker Notes
    “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”, Thomas Jefferson 1 2 1. According to the report made pursuant to Public Law 96-389 the present monetary arrangements [i.e. the Federal Reserve Banking System] of the United States are unconstitutional --even anti-constitutional-- from top to bottom. 2. “If what is used as a medium of exchange is fluctuating in its value, it is no better than unjust weights and measures…which are condemned by the Laws of God and man …” Since bank notes, such as the Federal Reserve Notes that we carry around in our pockets, can be inflated or deflated at will they are dishonest. 3. The amount of Federal Reserve Notes in circulation are past the historical point of recovery and thus will ultimately lead to a massive hyperinflation that will “blow-up” the current U.S. monetary system resulting in massive social and economic dislocation. 3 The word Dollar is in fact a standard unit of measurement of money; it is analogous to an “hour” for time, an “ounce” for weight, and an “inch” for length. The Dollar is our Country’s standard unit of measurement for money. • How do you feel when you go to a gas station and pump “15 gallons of gas” into your 12 gallon tank? • Or you went to the lumber yard and purchased an eight foot piece of lumber, and when you got home you discovered that it was actually only 7 ½ feet long? • How would you feel if you went to the grocery store and purchased what you believed were 2 lbs.
    [Show full text]
  • Merging the SEC and CFTC - a Clash of Cultures
    Florida International University College of Law eCollections Faculty Publications Faculty Scholarship 2009 Merging the SEC and CFTC - A Clash of Cultures Jerry W. Markham Florida International University College of Law Follow this and additional works at: https://ecollections.law.fiu.edu/faculty_publications Part of the Banking and Finance Law Commons Recommended Citation Jerry W. Markham, Merging the SEC and CFTC - A Clash of Cultures, 78 U. Cin. L. Rev. 537, 612 (2009). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at eCollections. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of eCollections. For more information, please contact [email protected]. +(,121/,1( Citation: Jerry W. Markham, Merging the SEC and CFTC - A Clash of Cultures, 78 U. Cin. L. Rev. 537 (2009) Provided by: FIU College of Law Content downloaded/printed from HeinOnline Tue May 1 10:36:12 2018 -- Your use of this HeinOnline PDF indicates your acceptance of HeinOnline's Terms and Conditions of the license agreement available at https://heinonline.org/HOL/License -- The search text of this PDF is generated from uncorrected OCR text. -- To obtain permission to use this article beyond the scope of your HeinOnline license, please use: Copyright Information Use QR Code reader to send PDF to your smartphone or tablet device MERGING THE SEC AND CFTC-A CLASH OF CULTURES Jerry W. Markham* I. INTRODUCTION The massive subprime losses at Citigroup, UBS, Bank of America, Wachovia, Washington Mutual, and other banks astounded the financial world. Equally shocking were the failures of Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Bear Steams.
    [Show full text]
  • The Birth of the Continental Dollar, 1775
    NBER WORKING PAPER SERIES THE CONTINENTAL DOLLAR: INITIAL DESIGN, IDEAL PERFORMANCE, AND THE CREDIBILITY OF CONGRESSIONAL COMMITMENT Farley Grubb Working Paper 17276 http://www.nber.org/papers/w17276 NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCH 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138 August 2011 Preliminary versions were presented at Queens University, Kingston, Canada, 2010; University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK, 2010; the National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA, 2011; the annual meeting of the Economic History Association, Boston, MA, 2011; and the University of Delaware, Newark, DE, 2011. The author thanks the participants for their comments. Research assistance by John Bockrath, Jiaxing Jiang, and Zachary Rose, and editorial assistance by Tracy McQueen, are gratefully acknowledged. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer- reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications. © 2011 by Farley Grubb. All rights reserved. Short sections of text, not to exceed two paragraphs, may be quoted without explicit permission provided that full credit, including © notice, is given to the source. The Continental Dollar: Initial Design, Ideal Performance, and the Credibility of Congressional Commitment Farley Grubb NBER Working Paper No. 17276 August 2011, Revised February 2013 JEL No. E42,E52,G12,G18,H11,H56,H6,H71,N11,N21,N41 ABSTRACT An alternative history of the Continental dollar is constructed from original sources and tested against evidence on prices and exchange rates.
    [Show full text]
  • Paper Money and Inflation in Colonial America
    Number 2015-06 ECONOMIC COMMENTARY May 13, 2015 Paper Money and Infl ation in Colonial America Owen F. Humpage Infl ation is often thought to be the result of excessive money creation—too many dollars chasing too few goods. While in principle this is true, in practice there can be a lot of leeway, so long as trust in the monetary authority’s ability to keep things under control remains high. The American colonists’ experience with paper money illustrates how and why this is so and offers lessons for the modern day. Money is a societal invention that reduces the costs of The Usefulness of Money engaging in economic exchange. By so doing, money allows Money reduces the cost of engaging in economic exchange individuals to specialize in what they do best, and specializa- primarily by solving the double-coincidence-of-wants prob- tion—as Adam Smith famously pointed out—increases a lem. Under barter, if you have an item to trade, you must nation’s standard of living. Absent money, we would all fi rst fi nd people who want it and then fi nd one among them have to barter, which is time consuming and wasteful. who has exactly what you desire. That is diffi cult enough, but suppose you needed that specifi c thing today and had If money is to do its job well, it must maintain a stable value nothing to exchange until later. Making things always re- in terms of the goods and services that it buys. Traditional- quires access to the goods necessary for their production ly, monies have kept their purchasing power by being made before the fi nal good is ready, but pure barter requires that of precious metals—notably gold, silver, and copper—that receipts and outlays occur at the same time.
    [Show full text]
  • Greenbacks, Consent, and Unwritten Amendments
    Arkansas Law Review Volume 73 Number 4 Article 1 January 2021 Greenbacks, Consent, and Unwritten Amendments John M. Bickers Northern Kentucky University, Highland Heights Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.uark.edu/alr Part of the Constitutional Law Commons, Jurisprudence Commons, Legal History Commons, and the Supreme Court of the United States Commons Recommended Citation John M. Bickers, Greenbacks, Consent, and Unwritten Amendments, 73 Ark. L. Rev. 669 (2021). Available at: https://scholarworks.uark.edu/alr/vol73/iss4/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ScholarWorks@UARK. It has been accepted for inclusion in Arkansas Law Review by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks@UARK. For more information, please contact [email protected]. GREENBACKS, CONSENT, AND UNWRITTEN AMENDMENTS John M. Bickers* I remember a German farmer expressing as much in a few words as the whole subject requires: “money is money, and paper is paper.”—All the invention of man cannot make them otherwise. The alchymist may cease his labours, and the hunter after the philosopher’s stone go to rest, if paper cannot be metamorphosed into gold and silver, or made to answer the same purpose in all cases.1 INTRODUCTION Every day Americans spend paper money, using it as legal tender. Yet the Constitution makes no mention of this phenomenon. Indeed, it clearly prevents the states from having the authority to make paper money into legal tender, and does not award this power to Congress.2 Yet today, without a formal written amendment to the Constitution, America seems united in accepting this fact to a degree that greatly exceeds our unity in the vast majority of Constitutional questions that might appear.
    [Show full text]
  • Davis S Dissertation 2010.Pdf
    The Trend Towards The Debasement Of American Currency A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at George Mason University By Steven Davis Master of Science Stanford University, 2003 Master of Science University of Durham, 2002 Bachelor of Science University of Pennsylvania, 2001 Director: Dr. Richard Wagner, Professor Department of Economics Fall Semester 2010 George Mason University Fairfax, VA Copyright: 2010 by Steven Davis All Rights Reserved ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Professors Richard Wagner, Robin Hanson, and John Crockett for their insight, feedback, and flexibility in their positions on my dissertation committee. Additional thanks to Professor Wagner for his guidance in helping me customize my academic program here at George Mason. I would also like to thank Mary Jackson for her amazing responsiveness to all of my questions and her constant supply of Krackel candy bars. Thanks to Professor “Doc” Bennett for being a great “RA-employer” and helping me optimize my Scantron-grading technique. Thanks to the Economics Department for greatly assisting my studies by awarding me the Dunn Fellowship, as well as providing a great environment for economic study. Thanks to my Mom and Dad for both their support and their implicit contribution to the Allen Davis game. Finally, thanks to the unknown chef of the great brownies available in the small Enterprise Hall cafeteria. Hopefully, they will one day become a topping at Mr. Yogato or at its successor, Little Yohai. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................... v LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................ vi ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................. viii Chapter 1: Introduction ..................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Hedge Funds: Due Diligence, Red Flags and Legal Liabilities
    Hedge Funds: Due Diligence, Red Flags and Legal Liabilities This Website is Sponsored by: Law Offices of LES GREENBERG 10732 Farragut Drive Culver City, California 90230-4105 Tele. & Fax. (310) 838-8105 [email protected] (http://www.LGEsquire.com) BUSINESS/INVESTMENT LITIGATION/ARBITRATION ==== The following excerpts of articles, arranged mostly in chronological order and derived from the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Reuters, Los Angles Times, Barron's, MarketWatch, Bloomberg, InvestmentNews and other sources, deal with due diligence in hedge fund investing. They describe "red flags." They discuss the hazards of trying to recover funds from failed investments. The sponsor of this website provides additional commentary. "[T]he penalties for financial ignorance have never been so stiff." --- The Ascent of Money (2008) by Niall Ferguson "Boom times are always accompanied by fraud. As the Victorian journalist Walter Bagehot put it: 'All people are most credulous when they are most happy; and when money has been made . there is a happy opportunity for ingenious mendacity.' ... Bagehot observed, loose business practices will always prevail during boom times. During such periods, the gatekeepers of the financial system -- whether bankers, professional investors, accountants, rating agencies or regulators -- should be extra vigilant. They are often just the opposite." (WSJ, 4/17/09, "A Fortune Up in Smoke") Our lengthy website contains an Index of Articles. However, similar topics, e.g., "Bayou," "Madoff," "accountant," may be scattered throughout several articles. To locate all such references, use your Adobe Reader/Acrobat "Search" tool (binocular symbol). Index of Articles: 1. "Hedge Funds Can Be Headache for Broker, As CIBC Case Shows" 2.
    [Show full text]
  • Legal Acts and Omissions That Facilitated the Global Financial Crisis Jennifer S
    Enablers of Exuberance Jennifer S. Taub Sept. 4, 2009 DISCUSSION DRAFT Enablers of Exuberance: Legal Acts and Omissions that Facilitated the Global Financial Crisis Jennifer S. Taub1 I. Introduction This paper explores certain legal acts and omissions that facilitated the over-leveraging and near collapse of the global financial system. These ―Legal Enablers‖ fostered the boom that enriched a class of financial intermediaries who followed a storied tradition of gambling away ―other people‘s money.‖2 These mechanisms also made the pain of the bust disproportionately felt by the middle class and poor while shielding the middlemen who created the problems. These legal Enablers permitted the growth of a shadow banking system, without investment limits, transparency or government oversight. In the shadows grew a variety of highly leveraged private investment pools, undercapitalized conduits of securitized loans and speculation in complex credit derivatives. The rationale for allowing this unregulated, parallel system was that it helped to create innovation and provide liquidity. The conventional wisdom was that any risks associated with a hands-off approach could be managed by the ―invisible hand‖3 of the market. In other words, instead of public police, it relied upon private gatekeepers. A legal framework including legislation, rules and court decisions supported this system. This legal structure depended upon corporate managers, counterparties, ―sophisticated investors‖ and the market generally to prevent irrational conduct. 4 The hands-off approach was premised upon a series of beliefs or expectations. The first was that corporate managers would not sacrifice long-term shareholder value for short-term gains. The second was that trading counterparties would monitor each other closely and discourage excessive risk.
    [Show full text]
  • The Future of Central Banking: a Lesson from United States History
    IMES DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES The Future of Central Banking: A Lesson from United States History Bennett T. McCallum Discussion Paper No. 2010-E-14 INSTITUTE FOR MONETARY AND ECONOMIC STUDIES BANK OF JAPAN 2-1-1 NIHONBASHI-HONGOKUCHO CHUO-KU, TOKYO 103-8660 JAPAN You can download this and other papers at the IMES Web site: http://www.imes.boj.or.jp Do not reprint or reproduce without permission. NOTE: IMES Discussion Paper Series is circulated in order to stimulate discussion and comments. Views expressed in Discussion Paper Series are those of authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Bank of Japan or the Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies. IMES Discussion Paper Series 2010-E-14 July 2010 The Future of Central Banking: A Lesson from United States History Bennett T. McCallum* *Professor, Carnegie Mellon University and National Bureau of Economic Research (E-mail: [email protected]) This paper is being prepared for the 2010 international conference of the Institute for Monetary and Economic Studies of the Bank of Japan, “The Future of Central Banking under Globalization,” to be held May 26-27, 2010, in Tokyo. I am grateful to Marvin Goodfriend for helpful discussions. 1. Introduction In this presentation I will begin by reviewing an important and interesting episode in United States monetary history together with some resulting decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court. This may seem like a strange topic for a conference on the future of central banking, but I believe that it is in fact highly relevant. In developing that position I will be referring to a paper given at the Bank of Japan conference in 2009 by my colleague, Marvin Goodfriend, a paper that promotes an analytical framework for thinking about monetary policy.1 Following this development, I will conclude by briefly outlining some ways of conducting monetary policy that are inspired by metallic standards of the past—thereby illustrating a second type of connection between today’s policy issues and the monetary arrangements of long-past historical experiences.
    [Show full text]
  • US Constitution
    HISTORICAL NOTE HISTORICAL NOTE ON FORMATION OF THE CONSTITUTION In June 1774, the Virginia and Massachusetts assemblies independently proposed an intercolonial meeting of delegates from the several colonies to restore union and harmony between Great Britain and her American Colo- nies. Pursuant to these calls there met in Philadelphia in September of that year the first Continental Congress, composed of delegates from 12 colonies. On October 14, 1774, the assembly adopted what has become to be known as the Declaration and Resolves of the First Continental Congress. In that instrument, addressed to his Majesty and to the people of Great Britain, there was embodied a statement of rights and principles, many of which were later to be incorporated in the Declaration of Independence and the Federal Constitution. 1 This Congress adjourned in October with a recommendation that an- other Congress be held in Philadelphia the following May. Before its succes- sor met, the battle of Lexington had been fought. In Massachusetts the colo- nists had organized their own government in defiance of the royal governor and the Crown. Hence, by general necessity and by common consent, the second Continental Congress assumed control of the ``Twelve United Colo- nies'', soon to become the ``Thirteen United Colonies'' by the cooperation of Georgia. It became a de facto government; it called upon the other colonies to assist in the defense of Massachusetts; it issued bills of credit; it took steps to organize a military force, and appointed George Washington com- mander in chief of the Army. While the declaration of the causes and necessities of taking up arms of July 6, 1775, 2 expressed a ``wish'' to see the union between Great Britain and the colonies ``restored'', sentiment for independence was growing.
    [Show full text]