[e-gold-list] Re: small point about e-gold velocity
This just seemed like a really good opourtunity to remind everyone of http://groups.yahoo.com/group/goldenagents and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/goldenagents/files/Anonmoney.txt for those that want to move e-gold in privacy, even when your out of the system its nice to get even further out ;) In fact it seems so far out that the expected heavy use just does not seem to be happening much :\ of course it could be happening even further out that I can't see it in which case its working best! Never assume that money velocity can be measured, some of it just can not be seen. MS seems to work pretty well, has anyone ever had a bad experience? cya, Andrew... snip Here's an interesting thing. It is NOT TRUE that the e-gold server tracks ALL use, spends, of e-gold Erich's MS server now does a LOT of spending of e-gold that e-gold knows nothing about and never will -- in fact, I have often used it as a privacy measure so that Jim can't look up my spends! (Just joking Jim! :)) If A says to B "I want to be paid in e-gold, but I don't want e-gold to know about it", A then simply opens an MS account, and gets paid from one MS account to another. snip --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] Re: A recipe for stagflation
Vincent Youngs wrote:
David,
Thank you for explaining some tricky foreign exchange issues. My
questions and comments are below.
~ Vincent
as are my replies
David Hillary wrote:
gold for money fixes the nominal exchange rate with other economies to
the price of gold, in terms of their currencies. If inflation fears are
ignighted in a large open economy, the price of gold will rise, as will
the nominal exchange rate of the SOE. This exchange rate movement has
almost nothing to do with the factors that equilibriate international
trade and finance for the SOE. Thus the appreciation of the nominal
exchange rate leads to downward pressure on domestic prices (deflation).
Thus the real effective exchange rate is arbitrarily jacked up,
exporters and import competitors go broke, deflation drives the real
interest rate in the SOE sharply upward, asset prices crash and a
recession is likely to occur.
But if inflation is occuring in the other countries, wouldn't it be likely
that the other countries' inflation for prices of products the SOE exports
might match their inflation for the price of gold, thus causing the SOE
exporters to receive the same amount of gold in exchange for their exports
as before? I can see your point if the price of gold rises speculatively
out of proportion to other products, but speculative rises in gold's price
don't seem to last all that long.
If (USD) inflation fears and inflation are ignighted, say between March
and May 2001, the price level in the USA might rise say 4%. But if this
inflation is expected to persist, the price of gold will rise a hell of
a lot more than 4%! Perhaps 30%. Thus the real price of gold in terms of
US perchasing power has increased by more than one quarter, as has the
real effective exchange rate of the gold for money SOE. Like the stock
market, the price of gold is determined by *expected* events, the
outlook for the future, which can change drastically in a matter of
months given a few political events, a few statistics, a few
bankruptcies and a speech by the Fed chairman. The price level, however
takes a few years (at least) to adjust to an economic shock when the
nominal exchange rate is fixed, requiring a price level adjustment. The
cause of this difference is price rigidities particularly in the labour
market, property rental market and supply contracts. (By contrast stock
and commodity prices are perfectly flexible.)
Yes, deflation and inflation, when the nominal interest rate is fixed at
the world interest rate or a large economy currency interest rate, has
very large effects on asset prices. If the demand for fixed assets is
expected to grow in nominal terms by 5% p.a. along with inflation and
replacement costs, and the nominal interest rate is 5%, the that is the
same as a zero discount rate with price stability. An asset expected to
last 20 years will be worth 20 times the current annual hire. If the
interest rate stays at 5% but price stability is expected, the asset
falls to 13.09 years hire. If the price level is expected to fall 5%
p.a., the asset falls to 9.08 years hire. I guarantee that the property
market will crash in Ireland when the inflation ends and the deflation
starts and the nominal interest rate is about the same. Inflation and
deflation have consequences.
What do you mean by "annual hire"? How do you arrive at these figures of
20, 13.09, and 9.08 years hire?
annual hire is just the 'rental' value of the building, which is the
'rent' of the property less the ground rent of the land.
The figures are calculates as follows:
P=sum{n=1 to 20):(((H1*(1+g)^(n-1))/((1+d)^(n-1)))
where P is the market price of the asset, n is the year, H1 is the Hire
vaue in year 1, g is the Hire growth rate, and d is the discound rate.
This simplifies to
P=sum{n=1 to 20):(H1*((1+g)/(1+d))^(n-1))
where d=g=0.05 the answer is simply:
P=sum{n=1 to 20):(H1)
=20
Where d=0.05 and g=0 the answer is:
P=sum{n=1 to 20):(H1*(1/1.05)^(n-1))
=13.09
where d=0.05 and g=-0.05 the answer is
P=sum{n=1 to 20):(H1*(0.95/1.05)^(n-1))
=9.08
The easiest way to calculate these values is to use a spreadsheet.
The
inflation and deflation in a SOE that used gold would be significant and
arbitrary, and cause asset prices in the SOE to be highly volitile.
No.
If the price of gold in terms of other currencies rises and falls
substantially, as it does now, a gold economy will suffer appreciations
and depreciations of its exchange rate which will force price level
adjustments to occur. Price level adjustments will inflate or deflate
asset prices.
The asset prices themselves might be volatile, but at any given point in
time, wouldn't the amount of goods that the asset can be traded for still
be the same, because the prices of the goods also rises and falls along
with the asset prices?
The asset prices, in terms of gold will be volitile. The price
[e-gold-list] Re: e-gold web site
Viking, Thanks for taking the time to comment. Ultimately, if e-gold decides to redesign their site, I think they should get a group of 5-10 newbies and videotape them trying to use it. In the meantime, I've created an informal survey--if you want to express your preference for either e-gold.com's current site design or the mockup (http://www.openknowledge.org/egold/), please go to the following site and answer the survey question: http://tools.arsdigita.com/voxpopuli/ViewPoll?poll_id=3061 (Obviously, the survey isn't scientific, and has a number of actual/potential flaws--self selection bias, potential spoofing, possibly improper wording, etc--so take the results with a big grain of salt.) Does your server have the same user load that the e-gold server does? Good point--I don't know the server load of my hosting company, nor e-gold's, but I doubt my hosting company has comparable volume. As I said, my test was _not_ scientific. However, 28 seconds is almost 3 times what usability research suggests is an optimal maximum. The relative comparison may not be fair, but the absolute number is valid I think. Wwireless cellular PDA users access different versions of the internet. There isn't a PDA that I know of that can display a site optimized for desktop computers. The largest resolution I have seen is 320*240, while most desktops have a resolution of 800*600 with some at 640*480 and some at 1024*768 and higher. You may be correct--maybe PDA users wouldn't try to access e-gold's current site. Perhaps it would be useful for e-gold to to set up a survey to ask visitors: 1. How fast is your internet access? 2. Which browser are you using? 3. What OS/hardware are you using to access e-gold? Has this been done before? http://talk.e-gold.com http://www.mail-archive.com/e-gold-list@talk.e-gold.com http://use.e-gold.com Thanks! I didn't know these links existed. Perhaps this information could go into the FAQ. e-gold could also improve navigation by making more of the website's functionality and information available from the main page. I've done this in the mockup by including links of interest to each of e-gold's constituencies--everyone, beginners, merchants, developers. IMO, that end's up cluttering the page. Well, one man's clutter is another man's invaluable navigational aid...: While increasing the number of links in the navbars may increase the visual clutter, I think they reduce the complexity of using the website by making it possible to get to the most used parts of the websites in one or two clicks, without having to drill down into the website. As for the additional content (news, pricing info), e-gold is far from saturating the potential market, and a large fraction of the visitors to e-gold will be newbies. They're going to most want to know a) what e-gold is b) how much it costs c) how to get it. If it doesn't significantly increase download speed, nor decrease experienced users usability, why not reduce the effort new users must expend by putting this information on the front page? Experienced e-gold users probably aren't going to look at the rest of the page--they're just going to look at the navbar links at the top of the page, and ignore the rest. (Or use http://use.egold.com). So do I. However, e-gold actually figured out how to do it properly. I have never had a problem with lagging frames on the e-gold site. I swear I found a page that framed an outside link. But I can't find it now, so I apologize for suggesting that e-gold's site exhibited this behavior. I would also include a discussion of market maker fees, and wire transfer and money order fees because the user will have to pay these fees to use e-gold, even if the fees aren't charged by e-gold itself. All the market maker's are completely indepedent of e-gold and able to change their fee structures at any time. Money orders have differing costs depending on where they are bought. Wire transfer/money order fees, and MM markup significantly raise the cost of using e-gold for small transactions. For example, to buy $20 of e-gold from flatrategold.com, it costs $7.50 in MM markup, plus another $3.00 for the money order. (Plus a lot of hassle relative to credit cards.) That's a 53% charge, which isn't included in e-gold's comparison of the costs of using e-gold vs. credit cards.(Though maybe I'm missing something again. Also, I don't mean to pick on flatrategold.com--they just happen to be the company I bought gold from--it's probably a comparable experience buying from most of the other market makers.) Of course, you could reduce the transaction cost by buying a lot of e-gold. But e-gold's still quite new, and people are going to be wary of it. Most people are going to want to test the system with a small amount of money before trusting it with a large amount of money. It would be nice if e-gold provided more information upfront about the total costs of
[e-gold-list] Re: e-gold web site
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: A bold attempt Chris, but I think it looks horrible! jpm, Thanks for taking the time to respond. I would be grateful if you would expand a little more specifically. What platform are you using to look at the site? Netscape? IE? Are style sheets turned on? Mac/Linux/Windows? I tested the site under Netscape 4.72 on Linux/Windows, Internet Explorer 5.0 on Windows 98, and Lynx--I don't have access to a Mac at the moment, so it may look bad on that platform. I would also appreciate description of any specific annoyances that you may have--color scheme, layout, font choice, etc. Thanks again for any information you may wish to provide, Chris -- Use e-gold? Send me two cents: http://2cw.org/257121[EMAIL PROTECTED] Read the _Wall Street Performer Protocol_: http://www.openknowledge.org/writing/open-source/scb/ --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] Re: e-gold web site
Cosmetically site presentation is very subjective and you are never going to find a site design that everyone likes. I beliebe that the presentation is really catered for by the market makers who seem to me to be the 'front end' of the market place. It is, or should be, the market makers who sell the service, answer the questions, discuss and promote e-gold. e-gold simply sits there and reaps the reward. they do not need to promte their site and do not regard that sort of thing as important as is done by others opn their behalf. The security of the site is more important i think than how cosmetic it is. The only thing I would say is that it could be a bit easier to wander around in and find things. Cosmetically i don't give a stuff what it looks like. chuck = Original Message From [EMAIL PROTECTED] = Viking, Thanks for taking the time to comment. Ultimately, if e-gold decides to redesign their site, I think they should get a group of 5-10 newbies and videotape them trying to use it. In the meantime, I've created an informal survey--if you want to express your preference for either e-gold.com's current site design or the mockup (http://www.openknowledge.org/egold/), A bold attempt Chris, but I think it looks horrible! I think this fuss about e-gold web site is somewhat misplaced ... it looks fine, the illustration is professional, etc. The secondary pages are a bit of a jumble .. but so what? No user in the history of the web has ever clicked on a secondary page :) Leave design to professional designers. (And they're expensive. I'm sure the boys at e-gold will spend money on that when profits make it possible.) please go to the following site and answer the survey question: http://tools.arsdigita.com/voxpopuli/ViewPoll?poll_id=3061 --- "A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul." -- George Bernard Shaw --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Powered by http://www.telstra.com --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
