[e-gold-list] Re: Pecunix security
However, this still leaves an account opened for automated password cracking. Therefore, the system has to lock (for 24 hours) an account for which there are too many consecutive failed log-ins (for example, 10). This means that each PIK must be unique, so that the system can at any time determine to what account each PIK belongs. George, The accounts can only be indentified by the 'password', since I have to enter only 4 characters from the PIK, and there must be other accounts with the same characters in the same places here and there. We have to assume that their system checks to make it impossible that two accounts can have the same 'password', because otherwise that would be a serious security problem. In fact it would be more correct to say that the password is actually the login ID, and the PIK codes are the passwords, but does it really make a difference? The easiest way to make online currencies much more safe is by requiring email confirmation of spends. That can be as simple as just hitting 'Reply' to the notification email they send. A code in the reply email address will tell the server that the transaction is approved. With such system in place the thief need not only have your passwords, he need to control your email as well. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: Finding serious e-gold investors...
Robert is right, why put up a logo of a currency that supplies no clients and does not help us to protote to their clients? It just takes up valuable real estate with no benefits. No more problems there Gordon, simply use Gold-Cart http://gold-cart.com and your problems are over... easy, cost effective. Very good work Sidd. I am already moving over all my business to Pecunix and gold-cart. Now there is no more need to stay in e-gold because it has more users, I can accept payments in most of the DGC's from this one Pecunix account, which has better safety features and no storage costs. My very old and easy to remember *rare* e-gold acc #102468 will be up for sale soon, after I move out the silver and palladium. People who are interested in this very low numbered account can send in their bids via private email. (note: this account has about 20 progeny, so with some luck you have a little income from it too:-) Just one suggestion, Sidd. Shopping card is a nice thing, but not everything has a fixed price and I would like to be able to put up a simple link where people can pay me with *gold*. So, they can choose the amount (and Memo) and pay me from whatever DGC they want, just like in the gold-cart. You can probably get that done with very little modification to the gold-cart system. Well, maybe it's already there and I overlooked it?? Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: trusting e-gold
George: Option to set an automatic 'payment delay' on all payments attempted from an account. You can't have the option to set a delay for payments because if the user would be able to set this option, it would also be possible for the thief to un-set it before he would still the money. Obviously it will be set up in such a way that changes in 'payment delay' will also use the payment delay period before they take effect. The thief can set it 0 , but it will be another 24 hours (or whatever) until he can steal money.. And of course an email will warn you that the payment delay setting has been changed in your account. David: I'd add that, rather than having to deal with multiple accounts, it'd be more straight-forward to allow the user to configure a certain threshhold to differentiate between payment types. That will be much more complicated to implement and also much more difficult to understand and explain to new users. I am looking for a really simple way to prevent theft from my account. A 'payment delay' and 'full email notification' are just two extra fields in the customer database. With these 2 new functions in place I can have a 2 digit password or even give my password to you, and you will not be able to steal from this account. That's what I call safe. Many people have savings accounts and current accounts in the bank, so using 2 e-gold accounts will not be such an alien idea to most users. Taking the idea one step further, I wouldn't object if I could add a second threshhold which requires even further authentication, such as physical mail or a telephone call. I'd be willing to agree to a US$10 charge for each payment authenticated in this fashion. Not a bad idea, but it will mean a lot of extra overhead and much more complicated system. But your willingness to pay $10 for this extra service is telling how people feel about the safety of an e-gold account. Robert: 1) Option to have email notification whenever somebody logs in to my account and whenever a transaction is done. You do have a point there. Of course, there is the issue about privacy. Emails are not exactly secure and I can think of several reasons why someone wouldn't want an email sent out each time. On the other hand there could be a PGP option. Since it will be optional, those who don't want to receive emails each time need not use the new feature. Also the email message can be really short like : There was activity in your account If that is still too unprivate, PGP is a possibility, or even simpler, let the user set the message text he wants to receive. Then the email message could read: Come see what's happening to big Beth! , and you will know that there was activity in your e-gold account, while everybody else who gets to see the message will think it is spam. That would then require that people have PGP installed and it would make things more complicated for normal consumers. Too complicated indeed. Someone said that Pecunix's weakness is the difficulty to set up an account, or somesuch and I have to say that our inhouse kid genius tech improvisario had to look three times at the instructions and then shook his head and said that (L)users will never take to it - his words. Oh sure, it costs them a lot of business, and it is not safer at all. Now you have to keep the password sequences in store on paper or on a computer somewhere, because it is absolutely impossible to remember them. While just full email notification and payment delay can make an account totally safe without the need for such very complicated login procedures. It appears to be the old story were people give up saftety for perceived comfort. And I think if e-gold was more sophisticated and more difficult to use, people would look for easier alternatives. Remember, the majority of the herd is stricty ignorant and often violently argue their right to ignorance ;o) It is not so much they are ignorant. Many are not so tech savvy , and if they don't understand a system they perceive it as unsafe. Some will argue that an e-gold account with a good passphrase is totally safe, but that's not what matters to people, it is their 'perception' of safety or unsafety that convinces them or not. This perception of safety depends to a large extent on how well they feel 'in touch' with the account: are they in control or not. That's where full email notification, that alerts them of every activity in the account, is so important: it makes them feel in control and they can correct if something has gone wrong. 2) Option to set an automatic 'payment delay' on all payments attempted from an account. Actually, you'd be on very thin ice with delaying payments. I think most merchants would be up in arms and vote with their feet. I know that we would. But it is 'optional', and how it would affect you? I use my account with 24 hour p.d. to pay for something on your site today. Once you see the gold
[e-gold-list] Re: trusting e-gold
... And of course an email will warn you that the payment delay setting has been changed in your account. I'm dubious of the benefits of this feature, it seems to me that the LACK of any delay is part of e-gold's charm, but... No problem , I'll use a second account with no delay setting , if I want to use that 'charm'... I am looking for a really simple way to prevent theft from my account. ... Three words: Buy a Mac! :) (I couldn't resist, and JP would have said it anyway!) Or at least get very-good at updating whatever you use, which these days can be automated in most cases. And for heaven's sake, if you're hitting a secure site, *DON'T* use IE! Other browsers abound, go spend five minutes and try one today! A lot of those fake-site URLs don't even load for me in Mozilla... A Mac or whatever doesn't solve the question at all. 98% of the people don't understand anything at all about how computers work and how safe is the passphrase. Their question is not how they can keep their password safe. Their question is: what happens when somebody manages to get into my account? They skip the entire login procedure and want to know what happens when somebody else gets in (no matter how), and the answer to that question will determine how safe they see it to keep larger amounts in the system. They assume an account on the internet CAN be cracked (and they are right), and they want to know 'what if...' They assume somebody can come in their account by mistake of the server... What are the safety mechanism built into e-gold once the 'thief' is already in the account? That's what most of the users want to know before they put money in an account on the internet. And E-gold has to answer : absolutely zero. Not even an email that notifies them if there was activity in the account... Nothing that stops or delays the thief to take the gold somewhere else... Completely nothing.. The gold can simply be taken away to an account with false ID, and cashed out anywhere on the globe.. Nearly impossible to get it back. And a Mac won't change this... So, no safety mechanisms. Then , how can it be a surpise that we see an average balance of less than 3 gram in e-gold ? You can have my passwords for my internet bank, for paypal, for my brokerage account, and there is very little you will be able to do there without me finding out and stopping your eventual attempts to steal. Email notifications and payment delay option would put e-gold in the same safety category. Thiefs can be detected and stopped with it. Forced user confirmation by the customer via a link in an email, like George suggests, would achieve the same, but I am not so in favor of e-gold emails with links in them. It is also time consuming with these confirmation links... Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] trusting e-gold (was Re: Finding serious e-gold investors...)
I do agree that most accounts have a small balance, but that holds true for the amount of money many people have in their wallets, does it not? People appear to be treating e-gold as money, something they use to buy things with - which is what we promote it for in Asia, by the way - not as an investment. Robert, I guess we could indeed say they don't trust it as an investment. But isn't that a little strange considering that gold has been going up against the dollar and several other currencies for quite a while now? I think the problem is no so much with distrust in e-gold as a company , but also a distrust in the internet in general. All the news about viruses and internet scams just scares many people and makes them decide not to hold larger amounts of money in their e-gold account. The recent news about a virus that collects e-gold passwords will not improve this situation. That feeling of unsafety is certainly not helped by the design of the e-gold system itself. You don't need many customers who were careless with their (low ball) password and found their accounts emptied, to get the reputation that e-gold is not safe to keep larger amounts in it. And when somebody finds his account emptied there is nothing he can do since e-gold is non repudiable. E-gold users know that when somebody somehow gains access to their account, their gold is likely to be gone before they can do something. That feels very unsafe, even if you have a good password. All the payment and other systems involving bigger amounts of money that are succesful on the net have systems in place that make it very difficult to steal from an account, even if you have got the password. E-gold lacks in simple email communication between the account and its user, and in safety features to prevent stealing from an account I would like to hold more gold and other metals in my e-gold account, but I'll need the following things to consider it safe: 1) Option to have email notification whenever somebody logs in to my account and whenever a transaction is done. Right now I only receive an email when I change the password or other vital settings. 2) Option to set an automatic 'payment delay' on all payments attempted from an account. What is the use of this? If I set this 'payment delay' to 24 hours, all spends from this account will only effectively happen 24 hours after they are entered on the site. In the meantime they can still be canceled by going back to the account. After 24 hours the gold is really spent into the account of the payee. In combination with the email notification feature this means I will have an email when an unauthorised spend is attempted from my account, and the spend can still be stopped within this 24 hours. This makes it much more difficult for scammers to steal from my account. I will like to use this feature on an account where I keep my larger amounts of metals, and besides that I will use another account without 'payment delay' to use for instant payments when needed (obviously I'll keep less gold in this account and fill it from the other one as necessary) Some people may want to set the 'payment delay' to several days length if they don't check their email every day. This are simple to implement changes that make keeping larger amounts in an e-gold account much safer. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: assignats and Mississippi money
Dear John Law, To review a bit, we've been discussing the concept of e-Land which is a proposed currency circulated electronically which would be backed by land. The land would be held by the company issuing the e-Land currency, it would not be fungible so different parcels of land would have vastly different values, and it would not be available for redeeming the currency itself. It is a proposed design for a currency which the author says he is too lazy to implement, so all these discussions are taking place in the hypothetical. Ok, I'll help you recoup a little bit. The concept I put on the table was somewhat broader: electronic circulation of ownership in all kinds of assets, which will be both an investment generating revenue and a money you can pay with at the same time. E-land is just one of the possible implementations of this idea. But , since you choose to focus on the e-land implementation in particular, no problem, we can follow that line. Discussing a concept hypothetically is what is usually done before something is implemented in real practice. That is nothing new. Electronic circulation of ownership is technically not a problem, it can be done with gold, it can be done with shares, it can be done with shares in an e-land trust. Nobody has disagreed on this point. Your objections based on historical examples like John Law, were proven irrelevant. As somebody else pointed out, the fact that there were scams in a certain line of business (and there have been scams in almost every line of business) does not prove that there is something wrong with the business idea itself. It will be not difficult to find historical examples of casinos that turned out to be scams, but that does not prove anything about TGC. Nearly everyone understands this, Jim. It is the Somebody from New York stole my car, so New Yorkers are thieves type of logical error, better known as 'generalization' In fact every succesful scam is set up behind a good business idea, since that's their only way to succeed. So, actually you prove that e-land is a valid business idea, if John Law was able to set up a succesful scam on it. Next you went to great lengths to say what you *think* about me. Now, this is even less relevant to the concept of e-land. Even if you are right that I am a scammer, it doesn't change a yota to the viability of an e-land concept. If e-land is run by scammers it will probably be a scam, if it is run by honest people it will not be a scam. Who runs the business will determine if it is a scam, not the idea itself, and that's equally true for other businesses like casinos. What made you waste so much time telling your opinion about *me*, we can only guess. I had noticed earlier that you easily gravitate towards saying things about *me*, as if that is going to make your case. So I concluded that you were having 'vomit' sitting ready , and it was better to help it come out. That's why I pushed your buttons , calling you a politician, etc... and we all saw a big truckload of stuff coming out. Of course you are going to say you don't believe it, and that's ok. You are right, it doesn't matter at all what you say about me. At the most it can harm your own reputation, since people will start wondering what it is all about. You sayings can't make me happy or unhappy. It would be rather naive to expect a lot of approval by expressing ideas in favor of money other than gold, on a list that is predominantly pro-gold. Obviously when I point out advantages to paper money here, there is going to be protest, and people with strong 'belief' in gold will protest more strongly. That is no surprise. I post my objections to bad designs like TGC shares, not because I want to keep customers away from them. I have objections because designs like this are easily used for scams, since it completely relies on trust in one single party: the owners themselves. And it is always trust that scammers search to exploit. TGC people may be totally honest, but as everything goes well, the bad design becomes accepted too, and that creates the opportunity for the scammers to use this same design. As more people run into the scams, more calls will be heard for a government to regulate the field. So, I am going to suffer more ridiculous government control in the future, because businesses create careless designs and the customers accept them without much question. People don't do any real due dilligence, they say : oh, *** says these shares are ok, so I'll buy them too , and when things go wrong later on they vote for governments to put their hands in everything. A good design will spread the trust over several independant entities that all have their reputation capital on the line. That will probably not eliminate all scams, but it will make them far less likely as you now need 2, 3 or more different parties all to cooperate into the scam. Audits are just an example of how the trust can be spread. An honest business
[e-gold-list] Re: E-land, nuts, savings
You said what you think about 'me' , which is irrelevant to the points on the table. I've covered the points on the table. I've actually spread you out of the room. You just spread yourself out of the village. Or as somebody else remarks, the longest email ever on this list. And off-topic too, as the moderator gracefully remarks. The topic on this list is *money*, not your opinions about *me*. When you call somebody a thug or a scammer the burden of proof is on you. But I didn't say those things. I said that I think thus and such person is a thug. I said that I think you are a scammer. I have proven what I think. I write what I think, and I think you are a scammer. It is true that I think it. You are lying, Jim. Here are a few quotes from your posts a while back: You are an ignorant savage who knows nothing about the progress of the ages. You are the vicious thug who insists on imposing paper money on these workers, not me. EOQ There is no mention of I *think*... ... Just conveniently forgotten I suppose? So, I will skip all the rest of your pointless mumblings about *I think what I think*,..., since it is all not relevant. You go on addressing me with the name of a past criminal, which is already evidence of slander, I'm addressing my comments to John Law. Hey, if you aren't John Law, then you shouldn't take offense. It is clear enough that you are addressing me with that name, since it is always in reponse to my comments. If you publish unfounded damaging statements about somebody, My statement that I think you are a scammer is founded on my thoughts. It is a perfectly true statement of my thoughts. I am entitled to my thoughts. I am free to express my thoughts. My thoughts are my own. The judge will laugh when you bring up that argument if someone sues you for slander. It just doesn't cook. I think you are a scammer because I think your Turing OCR solution was never adequately demonstrated yet you insisted on being paid for it. That turing decoder program is still available for download at my site, complete with source code, so you can not only verify that it works, you can even see *how* it works. So, you are making judgments without even looking at the simple verifiable facts. And that judgment based on your prejudices against me, you go on spreading in public.. Btw, my pointing out that these old turing numbers were all too easily cracked, was an effort towards preventing scam, quite the opposite of your *thinking* And interestingly, the turing numbers on the e-gold site have been improved since... But they can damage the reputation capital of the person, and that is violent too. How can my thoughts damage your reputation? It is just me over here thinking. I think you are a scammer. How does that affect you? There is difference between thinking something and saying it. You are perfectly aware that you are not making sense here. Otherwise there would be no legal actions taken against slander and libel. Legal actions taken against slander and libel are taken on the basis that what is said isn't true. I've said that I think you are a scammer. It is true that I think it. You forgot your *I think..* more then a couple of times. And even if you systematically package your slander with *I think..* , and repeat it often enough, it will be no longer considered just expressing your *opinion*. That too will be judged as slander.. No that's NOT your business at all. Of course it is. It is every moral person's obligation to tell others when he sees them being scammed that they should avoid being scammed. I believe it is my moral obligation to shoot a thief whether he is robbing me or someone else. E-land doesn't exist yet, so there is no question of you seeing anybody being scammed by it. You claim the right to keep customers away from my business. Then you are already interfering in my business, then you are already regulating like every politician. You *think* it will be a scam without any proof, and that entitles you to keep customers away from me..? Then, according to your own definition above, we have the moral obligation to shoot you as a thief who steals business from me, and even openly admits it. You see it as your business to keep customers away from me, Of course. I think it is my business to keep consumers from being defrauded or stolen from if it is within my power to do so. without any proof against me... I don't need any proof to have thoughts. I am adequately provided with proof for the thoughts I've had. That's probably the most ridiculous argument I have ever seen here. You know perfectly well that you won't need to prove *your thinking*, you'll need to prove the fraud and stealing if you actively set out to keep customers away from someone. Without these proofs you will turn out doing a crime yourself. Criticising ideas, yes. I don't believe your
[e-gold-list] Re: Finding serious e-gold investors...
Also, is the old audit still on the site somewhere? I didn't find it in the site map, and the word audit does not even appear in the User Agreement. With over 1,000,000 accounts and the highest volume/turn-over in terms of transactions, I believe the trust factor among users by far outweighs any audits by now. Well, I have to wonder about this trust when I look at the stats page. Of the 56 funded accounts, almost 50 have less than a gram of gold in them (eq. to less than $12) Only 14000 accounts have more than 10 gram ( $120) Less than 2000 accounts have more than 100 gram. That looks rather disappointing. Perhaps people only buy e-gold when they need some and spend it right away. That would mean they trust it for doing payments, but 96% don't seem to trust it for keeping more than a few bucks worth of gold in it. And it is obviously not because the price of gold has been going down over the last few years. Is it because of the storage cost? Or is 96% of the people financially so impoverished? Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: E-land, nuts, savings
Dear John Law, Jim, whenever somebody does not agree with your views, you start attacking the person. I don't agree that I've attacked anyone. I've said what I think about you, and what I think isn't favorable to you. Jim, that's what I mean. You said what you think about 'me' , which is irrelevant to the points on the table. Publicly saying how unfavorable you think about a person is a criminal offense in all cultured places, including Texas; unless you have proof for what you say. When you call somebody a thug or a scammer the burden of proof is on you. If you go on saying how unfavorable you think about people, without any evidence, it won't be long until somebody sues you in the court and asks payment for damages. I have always solved my own problems, without running to courts, so you can safely continue. You go on addressing me with the name of a past criminal, which is already evidence of slander, but you need not stop it since it tells much more about you than about me. The bird shows his feathers, and it is only indicative on what level you are arguing with others. If you have so much need to put me down with all means possible, then it must be you have put me up very high. I'll take the compliment. Your messages often have an insulting tone. You are free to read other messages instead. That's an argument that doesn't cut. If you publish unfounded damaging statements about somebody, you cannot just get away with saying that he need not read the posts. Others are reading the post.. and that does the damage. If words are not violence, then what are you complaining about? Words are not violence. I don't like the words Robert used to convey the idea that I had used violence on, say, GK. Oh, words will do no physical damage, that's true. But they can damage the reputation capital of the person, and that is violent too. Otherwise there would be no legal actions taken against slander and libel. But don't shoot at the person who brings his views. Words are not guns, either. I thought you could understand a simple metaphor. Sorry. You don't convince anyone with personal attacks and insulting language. Perhaps you are under the misconception that I seek to convince you or someone else. I don't. I write what I think. I am fully self-expressed. If you don't like what I've written, by all means don't read any further. You can write what you think about the ideas and concepts that somebody presents. That's fully part of freedom of speech. But you can't simply write what you think about a person, without backing it up. That's not part of freedom of speech. But I am not attacking any person. TGC is an artificial person. There are persons (unknown) involved. I think you've been rude to them. I have criticised the 'design' of their stock offering. That's perfectly ok. In fact I have been practicising what you preached in your post a few days ago. But you conclude that I was rude to unknown persons. At the same time you are obviously rude to me and others, but you put it away as just saying what you think about me (or them) Jim can just freely say what he thinks about anyone, but others cannot even criticise a design without being 'rude to unknown persons' That's what I call double standards... History is not a good yardstick. I have but one lamp by which to light my path, and that lamp is experience. Patrick Henry. Experience is not history. Patrick Henry means his personal experience, while history is nothing but the 'record' of others' experience in the past. That record can be very incomplete, or even totally false, and it can be out of date. An idea may have failed in the past, it doesn't prove the idea is bad. Thucydides would not have agreed. The future must reflect the past. There are many ways of 'reflecting'. My most respect goes to these people who had the guts to try new implementations of old ideas that had failed in the past, untill they succeeded. They were not only fighting against bad odds, but also against people like you who go on sucking on anyone who dares to try something that has failed before. An idea may have succeeded in the past, it doesn't prove the idea is (still) good. The fact that there is evidence of your approach to e-land not working when it has been implemented by others puts the burden of proof on you. You have shirked that burden, saying that you don't have to demonstrate that your approach is workable. There is no burden of proof on me. I can discuss concepts before they are implemented, and you can either agree or disagree. But once you regress to criticising the person, the burden of proof is unto you as far as these statements go. And I don't have to use e-land. And I am quite willing to tell the world that e-land is designed in the same way that John Law's Banque Royale scam was designed. E-land is not designed yet, so how can you tell the world that it is
[e-gold-list] Re: E-land, nuts, savings
... you were saying? I have strongly held views, I am passionate about the things in which I believe, I don't suffer fools gladly, and my words are not violence. Sticks and stones break bones. Words are not force. Jim, whenever somebody does not agree with your views, you start attacking the person. You have called me a thug, suggested I should be hung from a lamppost, and now you come up saying that I am a scammer. Your messages often have an insulting tone. Other people have received similar treatment. At the same time you wonder why Robert is using violent metaphors for your writing.. Double standards , anyone? If words are not violence, then what are you complaining about? It is ok to have strongly held views and voice them. Give it your best, I am doing the same. Shoot at the arguments on the table as best you can. But don't shoot at the person who brings his views. Maybe that's the way in Texas, but here you are on an international list. You don't convince anyone with personal attacks and insulting language. On the contrary, somebody who attacks the person is basically admitting that his arguments alone are not sufficient to make his case. At least , that's how things are understood in my part of the globe. I have perhaps done more criticising than anyone else here, especially in the TGC case. But I am not attacking any person. Of course, when somebody starts attacking me, I reserve the right to return the favors. I dislike Danny's specific implementation because he offers no design element for redeeming e-land for actual land, which is just like the John Law Banque Royale money fiasco and just like the National Assembly assignat fiasco. When people seem determined to repeat mistakes, those of us who remember history should speak up. History is not a good yardstick. An idea may have failed in the past, it doesn't prove the idea is bad. An idea may have succeeded in the past, it doesn't prove the idea is (still) good. If I am determined to repeat mistakes from the past, that is my business. Those who are willing to participate in the new implementation, it is their business. You can voice your concerns and your objections, that's ok. Criticising the people who try to do better than the fiasco's in the past, that's not ok. Just because in some line of business there were / are scammers, it doesn't mean everybody in that business is a scammer. Very true. I believe I've elsewhere made the comment, to Robert Z for example, that responsibility is individual. Each individual is responsible for his own actions. Then practice what you preach. If somebody sets up e-land, it is his business. If some people agree to use it, it is their business. However, I would not use anything else than gold as the digital currency backing asset for a very simple reason: risk. I think silver and platinum carry similar levels of risk. Even gold carries risk. There is no such thing as a risk free investment. The investor weighs risk/reward to decide his choices. Unlike gold investment, land investment comes with a higher risk. Indeed, and it lacks many of the features of gold. Land investment comes with greater reward too, since it is a productive asset. Whether the features lacking in land make up for the return on your investment, that's something everyone can decide for himself. I see land, e-land as a high risk investment program, with no bad connotation, it's just an investment with a higher risk than gold investment, or savings accounts. Using land, eland, gold, egold as currency, means investing in these assets. It also means understanding the way the investment vehicle is designed. Some designs are better than others. Fine, but as far as I have seen you have not been nearly that critical on the design of TGC shares. You can point to scammers like John Law, but had he set up shop with the same design as TGC you wouldn't even know his name... Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: thieves and scammers
Indeed. And, in not liking it, I shall retain my freedom to criticize it so that others see what's not to like and avoid getting scammed. John Law and his Banque Royale hurt a great many hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen in his day. The National Assembly and their assignats hurt many millions of Frenchmen later, but we can be pleased that many of the National Assembly went to the guillotine for their machinations. Charles Ponzi hurt a great many thousands of Americans in his day. Scammers don't like criticism. I think you are very likely a scammer. Your emails go on describing how somebody fell from his bicycle a hundred years ago, concluding that nobody should try to ride it today.. It is pointless Jim As if a gold based electronic currency leaves no possibility for scams?? And what you think about me, I don't care at all. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] e-wine (was Re: density and other matters - e-land now!)
I still think e-wine (properly storing good reds) would be better. Think about the joy of redemption! :) A bottle or case of wine is exactly the right density, and with proper storage, packaging, and shipping you'd have an amazing product which might start out as a gift-currency and end up as a real currency of sorts. JMR Yes, wine is certainly different from other commodities because it becomes more valuable with age (although only 1% of the wine has that property), while a certain bottle of wine also becomes scarcer with age because it is consumed. The big disadvantage of wine is rather high storage costs, but that is easily offset by the rapidly rising price. A little search on the net brought me to this Cayman based wine fund: www.vintagewinefund.com which seems to have most of the ingredients in place for 'e-wine' You can even personally go pick up a few botlles of your wine in a storage place in Brittain, which saves you the sending costs. And you can also bail in bottles of (good) wine. Now, all they need is jpm's software to run an e-currency on it. Hey jpm You have a huge untapped market with this DGC software of yours.. Perhaps some (not so) crazy Dutch will create 'e-weed' based on the market prices for soft drugs in Holland, and redeemable for the real stuff when you visit Amsterdam. I guess many people would think it cool to own and pay with drugs without risking to go to jail in their country. While in Amsterdam, many people will probably want to redeem some of their 'e-fuck' as well. Aha, since the future delivery of a service has value, this is just as viable a backing for a currency. The basic unit could be a standard one hour 'session' with gorgeous Gloria.. Your wife won't find it in your pockets, just like she needn't know about your e-gold account. And she won't see this strange bill on your creditcard statement at the end of the month either. Good idea, hmmm.. Would 'e-fuck' be accepted? Why not? Online sex sites may see it as the perfect currency for their business. Cool. People like crazy things... And 'e-fuck' rhymes well with 'e-buck' (don't rush for all these domain names, they are probably taken anyway..) Just remember to send me some e-wine if this idea catches on and you sell lots of software, I don't smoke and I am still lucky enough to get sex free of charge :-) Btw, what is the price for this DGC software? Did it also occur to anyone, that e-wine or e-land, since they have a listed and continuously recalculated price for a share in the fund, only need the cooperation of a market maker to make them outexchangeable in gold. The e-wine or e-land is sold for its dollar market value, and these dollars are immediately used to buy e-gold. Simple. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: density and other matters - e-land now!
I think it would be great, as Danny says, to have an e-land currency. Observably, this could be done. Would it be a success? Who knows, but it would be great to have a go. The various points people have made (including me) about why land is not suitable as a Money are all very well. But that's a theory, observation would be the final test! Yes, that's a healthy approach.. When the first pioneers tried to make an airplane fly, everybody around them was predicting that it could never work. Fortunately they did not listen and continued trying despite many failed attempts. It's always the same thing. Negative people will point to the failed attempts and previous problems as proofs that the idea is not good. Positive people will learn from the problems and improve the idea till it works. In that sense I don't agree with the idea of a 'final test' You could try 'e-land' and it may fail, still it will not prove that the idea is bad. If a good idea is introduced before its time has come, it usually fails too, because people are not ready for it. I am sure that when e-gold started out, it was the same thing: people coming up will all kind of realistic and not so realistic objections to the idea. There is nothing wrong with criticising new ideas, in fact it is very necessary to 'sharpen' the idea. But a healthy criticism by a positive person will also be able to see the good things in the idea. Land is a productive asset. Period. The negative person will only focus on the disadvantages and the failures, and even the most remote possibilities like nuclear bombs blowing away your e-land. The possible advantages he will choose to ignore as much as possible. That's what we see in Jim's posts for example. I know perfectly well that many systems of paper money have failed. Does that prove it is a bad idea? No, it doesn't. Just like all the failures and deaths with airplane prototypes did not prove that the idea of a flying machine was bad. Obviously there will be problems to solve before you have a sound 'e-land' But the positive person will not ask Is it possible? , he will ask How I can make it possible? And the laissez-faire person always belongs to this positive people group. The negative person may pretend to be laissez-faire, but his relentless criticising and negativity are already an attempt to stop the idea. A laissez-faire person is not trying to stop anything that is not violating into his territory. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: e-wine, e-land, e-gold
So perhaps after all it would be necessary to structure it like a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust), except in the case of wine it would be a WIT. Participants would own shares of the entire market value of the wine collection, and could redeem a specific bottle by presenting shares with a total value equal to that of the desired bottle. That's exactly how it is to be done. Your heterogenous assets are made homogenous shares in the entire portfolio. Rather simple mathematics. For example, an issuer could have one bottle worth 10g and another worth 30g, and issue 100 shares worth 0.4g a piece. Anyone who presented 25 shares could redeem the 10g bottle, and anyone who presented 75 shares could redeem the 30g bottle. After redemption, the total value of the WIT would drop by the value of the bottle redeemed, but the total number of shares in existence would also drop accordingly and thus the market value of each outstanding share would remain constant. Yes, cheers. And you can add bottles too, if you have demand for more shares. You buy another 2 bottles worth 10g for the portfolio and you can now sell 50 new shares at 0.4g per share. Note that this does not affect the value of the existing shares. You now have 150 shares outstanding and a portfolio worth 60g. Anybody with 75 shares can still go redeem the 30g bottle. Next suppose the market value of the 10g bottles doubles to 20g The value of our portfolio is up to 90g with still 150 shares outstanding. This means each share has gone up in worth to 0.6g To redeem the 30g botlle you need only 50 shares now. As the prices of the different wines in the portfolio fluctuate, the value of a share will change accordingly, and the number of shares needed to redeem a certain bottle will be affected too. After redemption, the total value of the WIT would drop by the value of the bottle redeemed, but the total number of shares in existence would also drop accordingly and thus the market value of each outstanding share would remain constant. Yes, you can add and redeem bottles without changing the value of the shares. But the value of the shares will continuously change according to the market value of your bottles and the number you have of them. If you can calculate a mathematical average, then you can manage the e-wine currency. Note that to pull this off it is necessary to value the heterogenous assets (e.g. wine, land) in terms of a truly homogenous asset (e.g. gold). One might also express the value in terms of something like dollars, though I am not exactly sure just what a dollar is. So I would prefer an actual physical asset like gold or silver as the basis of denomination. But that's just my preference because I like thinking in terms of well-defined physical and logical entities -- certainly that is not a requirement of the system. In actual practice you will use the prices and currency that the wines are bought and priced in, inorder to calculate everything. If you can buy your wines with gold, then use the prices in gram If all the wines are bought with dollars, you need not bother yourself to recalculate them into grams, because it will not change anything. If 50 shares can buy a certain bottle of wine in the portfolio, it will be same if you had calculated it in dollars or gold or euros or whatever. Mathematically you don't strictly need another homogenous asset currency to prize your wines. The homogenous currency can be the e-wine share itself, but then your mathematics become a little more complicated. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: ... and e-weed etc.
Excellent idea, Danny, and you bring up yet another asset class. Weed is a rapidly produced and rapidly perishing asset. As such, it is quite unlike gold, land, and wine. Thus, there could not really be a vault or reserve of constant physically identifiable assets. It would be more like a promise of delivery of future production, much like wheat or orange juice futures. Patrick, it is different indeed. I would call it contract instead of promis. There are three kinds of money possible: commodity money, contract money and promis money. Commodity money is gold, silver coins, etc... It is good but not so practical to carry and transport. Contract money can be paper certificates of deposit, electronic ownership in assets, paper or electronic contract for future delivery of a good or service. There is a known third party (the issuer) to honor the contract with clear cut rules. E-gold belongs to contract money. E-weed would be contract money too. A basic unit could be 1 gram of e-weed, with small quantities redeemable on the spot in Amsterdam and big quantity redeemable upon prior notification x days before delivery for example. A reliable third party has to be there to honor the contract, this will probably be a producer or wholesale dealer in Holland. Such e-weed will be real money and have value depending on the going price in Holland. Promis money is when there is no contract or no known party to honor it. Dollars, Euros,... belong to promis money. Accept them at your own risk. Then there's your other idea for an asset redeemable in Amsterdam. That belongs to yet another asset class -- a pure service (or impure depending on your point of view :-). Contract money if the amount of service is clearly defined and the issuer known and dependable. All of these, e-wine, e-land, e-weed, or e-f**k could be valued in terms of a homogenous asset like gold or dollars and traded accordingly. The total value of the wine, land, weed, etc. could even EXCEED the total amount of actual gold or dollars available for trade and the whole thing could still work. That's it. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: Saving (was Re: e-gold for stocks)
Patrick, - an economy cannot function effectively without using fiat tokens. [Note: A few quotes from your posts might help you to understand how I arrived at certain conclusions.] First of all, in my quotes I talk about 'paper money', not about 'fiat tokens' I have never defended enforcing fiat money, and I also explained different ways how paper money can be created without enforcing it. Stocks is an example of such paper. Secondly, I did not say that an economy cannot function 'effectively' on gold only. I only pointed out that in a paper money system there is more incentive to 'invest' the money. Investing the money means new capital goods are created, which, as Von Mises says, is the foundation of economic progress. Hence a system that stimulates investment, also stimulates economic progress, and that's what I said about a paper economy in these pieces you quoted. [Note: OK, maybe you're not saying the economy cannot function effectively in absolute terms -- you seem to be saying cannot function as effectively as it might.] I am saying it will not progress so quickly. But that does not mean it is not functioning effectively. It is perfectly possible to function 'effectively' at a below full capacity level. For a gold only economy to progress as quickly as a paper money economy, people need to continuously lower the prices (in gold) so that the average consumer has gold available to buy the new stuff. Lowering prices is something that doesn't happen very spontaneously. Another disadvantage if prices continuously go down: existing stocks decline in value, but were produced at the old cost price, causing losses. Likely result: shortages - using gold alone would hamper an economy because people would not invest enough. No, the economy may do ok. And it will also depend what you see as 'enough' investment (and that can vary enormously from person to person. Just ask some of the green boys what they see as 'enough investment') I just pointed out that with paper money people will invest 'more', for obvious reason. In a gold only economy, with a strictly limited supply of money(gold), it is obvious that if more gold goes in vaults there is less gold to serve transaction in the economy. [Note: I have no idea why you attribute this characteristic to gold system only, when the same could be said for fiat tokens.] 'Paper money'.. In a paper money system you can 'save' your money in the bank, that does not mean there is less liquidity in the system, since the bank will 'invest' it in something. If all the paper money was saved in a vault like with gold, then it would be the same. But paper money gives interest, so most people put it in the bank. That is a big difference with gold only Or shorter: A limited money supply system discourages investment and encourages saving. A growing money supply system discourages saving and encourages investment. [Note: Gee, sounds exactly like one of the major points I listed.] Sounds like... - it is important to pump up the money supply to force people to invest. [Note: Oh, excuse me, not force -- just encourage, right? As in I encourage you to invest in order to avoid losing your purchasing power.] Things work the other way round. There is nobody out there that can directly 'pump up the money supply' It is when a person like you and me goes to the bank for a loan, that the money supply increases. Most of the borrowing is done to purchase some new capital goods, thus for investing... (and that is a good thing according to your Von Miser) So, it is the opposite from what you say: In a paper money system people invest when they see opportunity, and that increases the money supply when they borrow for this investment. At the same time this new money will serve as the extra money that people need to buy the products generated by this investment. Yes, the central bank has some power to set interest rates, but then remember that charging interest is a form of discouragement. What the central bank does is discourage new money creation, they can discourage it more by raising interest rates, or they can discourage it less by lowering them. To really 'encourage' money creation they would have to set the effective rates below zero. These are not my points , but what you have made of them.. No blame on you. Oh boy, here we go with the patronizing condescending paternalistic pat on the head. The good old reliable You just don't get it approach. You just don't get it is only one of the 4 possibilities I aknowledged. I did not give any opinion which of the 4 I think is the case. When one is not understood there are four possibilities: 1) One has it wrong 2) One fails to express it clear enough 3) The other simply doesn't get it 4) The other doesn't want to get it. You took the time to condescend but not the time to illuminate. Is it my job to illuminate? What I take time for and
[e-gold-list] Saving (was Re: e-gold for stocks)
Don't worry, I remember your major points: - an economy cannot function effectively without using fiat tokens. - using gold alone would hamper an economy because people would not invest enough. - it is important to pump up the money supply to force people to invest. I think these are false. Patrick, False indeed. These are not my points , but what you have made of them.. No blame on you. When one is not understood there are four possibilities: 1) One has it wrong 2) One fails to express it clear enough 3) The other simply doesn't get it 4) The other doesn't want to get it. Case 1 or 2, I have done what I could. Case 3 or 4, that is none of my business. Re: the purpose of saving This Von Miser seems to agree with me. Only a different use of words. What he calls 'saving', I call 'investing'. These capital goods are not created when people put money in a vault. Capital goods are created when this money is SPENT on capital goods. It is unfortunate he (and other economists) use the word 'saving' in this context. But the capital goods (which are the foundation of civilization, as he says), are only created when money is 'spent' on them. Nobody thinks he is 'saving' when he goes to the shop to buy a computer, or a truck, or whatever tools,... So, this Von Mises is using the word 'saving' , while he is actually singing the blues about 'capital spending', and the benefits it has. The sad result of this wording is that people believe it is good when they 'save' money. It is good when people spend their 'extra money' on new capital goods. Because that lays the foundation for increased future prosperity. It is not so good when people save their 'extra money' in a vault. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: gold four pillars
For example, why not an e-currency backed by real estate? It could be better than gold. No, it could not. Gold has some properties that real estate would always lack. First, gold is fungible. Which means it is the same if you take an ounce or a gram. Real estate is very different. As far as I can see the properties that real estate lacks, are now created by the modern communication systems. Just like the free markets set the value of gold relative to all other things, the same happens with a share in the portfolio of properties that back the 'e-land' currency. The share in the properties is now just as fungible as the gold, even though the properties that back the share are not fungible. With land, you have the location-location-location problem. In other words, the three most important things in selling real estate are location, location, and location. Where the land is makes all the difference. Yes, but that's a knife that cuts on both sides. It can also be argued that if a piece of valuable property is destroyed (e.g. because it becomes radioactive), the remaining properties in good standing have increased in value since now non-radioactive land has become more scarce. So, it becomes just a question of having a sufficiently diversifed portfolio of properties inorder to neutralise the 'location problem' Land therefore lacks fungibility. It also lacks one of the sub-features of fungibility - divisibility. There are such things as quantum units of gold. Atoms of gold are elemental and if you subdivide what is left is not gold. Of course, ownership of less than an atom of gold could be obtained by dividing the ownership, but I don't see how redemption would work out very well in that case. Similarly you can own 0.0001 piece of a share in 'e-land' Btw, you need not divide gold as small as an atom. If you have 1 gram of gold in your e-gold account, you cannot redeem it either. Land on the other hand, stops being nearly as useful as you subdivide into square feet and then square inches. In fact, author Spencer MacCallum has written extensively on the problems of subdivision. It tends to work out poorly. A larger piece of land has many advantages. Which is another argument in favor of e-land. Cutting up a 400oz bar is not practical either. But because larger pieces of land can be more valuable, e-land has the possibility of increasing the average value of its holdings by buying neighbouring pieces. With gold, the average value of the gold does not increase with buying more bars. The conclusion must be that land is better than gold. I think this conclusion is comparing apples to oranges. Apples are crisper and have more tartness. Oranges have lots more Vitamin C and make a different juice. Each has attractions. Saying that apples are better than oranges or land is better than gold reveals your preferences, but these are not likely shared universally. That's very good. As long as not everyone agrees that land is better than gold, I can go on buying land at cheaper prices. Even so, free market money is free market - you don't need anyone's permission to form a land bank and issue money. Go for it. I am too lazy. And it's already happening. The difference between stocks and cash money is getting smaller and smaller. It will not be long until you can pay with stocks , just like you pay with currency or gold today. will be able to pay a yearly 'interest' based on the produce that comes from the land, Obviously, each piece of land will produce differently. City land will collect rents. Country land will collect produce. Ranch land will show an increase in cattle. Of course, the farmers and ranchers will have something to say about the production. Desert land will produce very little, unless people start going for cacti in a big way. Hmm, desert land may become wonderfully productive once solar energy becomes a viable alternative for oil. instead of charging a storage fee for protecting the gold. Gold can be rented out, same as land. Of course, lease rates for gold have been pretty abysmal lately. It will be a problem to rent out gold that you are using as backing for an e-currency. The electronic age is making everything 'liquid' and useable as 'money' That trend seems unstoppable to me. I think the trend is excellent. The lack of fungibility of stocks and bonds and many other things is going to make them less operable as currencies. Round the clock markets (electronic trading platforms), where all these stocks and bonds can be traded instantly, make them as useable a 'currency' as gold or dollars. More competing currencies based on different metals, different types of land, different types of value-instruments would be good. They will all compete and the winner will be much better than whatever is on offer from governments today. I don't see any winner coming out, they will just
[e-gold-list] Re: e-gold for stocks
It is possible for some people to 'save', but then you need other people who spend more than they earn by borrowing or taking away from their 'savings'. ... Danny, I'm sure we could go on discussing glittering tautologies all day long, but I don't remember what point you're trying to make. That's what happens when you are not interested to come to the point, and only arguing to get away from it: you forget what point the other was trying to make. It's ok. If something is understood, it is easily remembered. If something is not easily remembered, it is better to forget it. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: How good is gold?
Note that gold is a Thing - specifically an element, element 79. If humans or conscious thought didn't even exists, gold (and the other elements) would exist. They are objects. In exact contrast, land is a mental construct. Land has no physical component. Land is like a patent or a copyright on a song, it has no physical reality, it is an abstract mental construct. I don't think you have it completely correct here. Land is just as physically real as gold, in fact the land is nothing but a mixture of all the available elements. You can actually mine gold from certain pieces of land, so how can you extract something 'real', physical, from something that is only a 'mental construct'? If real gold could be extracted from 'mental constructs', everybody would be busy 'constructing mentally' :-) I will agree that the land 'ownership' can be a mental construct. But the same can be said about gold ownership, it can be a mental construct too. Before you had people, the gold was there and the land was also there. Before you had governments, gold and land was 'owned' by the one who was in physical control of it. If you had gold in your pocket, that gold was yours. If you lived and worked on a piece of land , that land was yours. The gold could be stolen from your pocket, just like you could loose the control of your land. Next came ownership guaranteed by a third party (can be private or government). You can now 'own' gold or land without being in physical control of it. This is arranged by contract (which is the mental construct you talk about). The ownership has now become abstract, like a copyright indeed. You can own gold, which is in a vault with a certain bank on a certain address, and the bar has an allocation number. You can own land, which has certain coordinates and sizes as to determine its location. The entity that adminsters and upholds the ownership of the gold or land, will usually charge something for this service. Their job is to take care of the physical control of the gold or land. If this entity goes belly-up you likely loose your ownership. E-currency payment systems transfer this 'mental construct' ownership of the gold or land , electronically. Certain points on the 2-D surface of the earth are defined using some sort of latitude/longitude grid, and a depth below that and a height above that is defined, and within those points a government asserts that you have the sole right to do certain things. The bank who holds the e-gold bars in store, has a certain name and address, known location of their vault , containing bars with certain numbers , and within those points the bank asserts that e-gold has the sole right to do certain things with them. Same thing.. So it's important to realize gold is a physical thing (ie, an element) and land is a completely non-physical set of abstract rights granted by a government. This is not necessarily good or bad, it's just important to understand the difference. There is no difference. Whether you own e-gold or e-land, it is contractual ownership in a piece of a physically real asset. The difference is that e-land may be able to pay a dividend , since land is a productive asset. James writes: I think the answer to JP's question is that any kind of stuff, whether it's gold or real estate location-location-locations, will be as good as they are perceived as scarce by those that desire them. If alchemy became easy tomorrow and gold suddenly quit being rare Scarcity is certainly an important factor. But once the stuff can be produced in some way or other, it is the cost of production that becomes crucial to determine the value of something. We may be able to create new acres of land some day, perhaps on the moon or on mars. But I think production of much cheaper gold will be achieved first. Not alchemy, but likely nanotech will do the job. This is perhaps 10 to 50 years away. Did you know there is 9 billion metric tons of gold in the seawater alone? Nanotech could take it out almost free of charge some day... Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: referral links
Friends, Does anyone know of a good software that tracks click-throughs or does other referral tracking, like gauging the effectiveness of banner advertising? Ragnar, Last I saw an open source affiliate tracking software at sourceforge.net You can probably find it by using the search box at their site with keyword affiliate. The free charge download was simple but maybe sufficient for your purposes, and there was also a full fledged commercial package if I remember correctly. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: inflation ( was Re: e-gold for stocks)
snip: long description how banks work in a **paper dollar** system but the fundamental point is that it is *possible* to get liquidity from sources other than reserves, i.e. from selling assets. In a paper money system it is *possible*, yes. But not in fixed money supply 'gold only' economy. So, they are not able to redeem the 8000oz of deposits, no matter how much assets they want to liquidate. There is simply no way out. No one bank will have the world's total gold reserves, rather, it will be distributed between many banks, each with a small proportion of total bank demand deposits. Any withdrawal demand therefore will either transfer those gold reserves where they are demanded, if one bank has the demand, or transfer reserves out of the banks if all the banks have the demand. It doesn't matter whether it is one bank or many banks. It doesn't matter whatever creative ways you propose for the banks to liquidate reserves. If there is only 1000oz of real gold on your planet, then it is impossible for 8000oz of deposits to be withdrawn in real gold. Simply because 7000oz of real gold cannot be created out of thin air by liquidating reserves. That's a reality we cannot avoid. As I said, these banks (or the government in this country) will sooner or later be forced to announce that deposits can no longer be redeemed for real gold, just like the USA did in the 70's Or as you put it so nicely: they will 'suspend withdrawals' pending an orderly wind up. At least something we agree on. This is not a correct treatment of the arguments made. Firstly, the banks have assets of 9 000 oz and 8 000 oz in liabilites, in the example I have offered, but each bank has 550 oz in assets and 500 oz in liabilities. So each bank is capitalised and no bank has more liabilities than the total stock of reserves. Fine, but still they cannot cough up 8000oz of real gold since there is only 1000oz on the planet. They can liquidate some assets or reserves, but once they have collected 1000oz of real gold there is nobody left to pay a single ounce for the rest of their assets. The market value of the capital stock will drop to zero if your try to sell any more assets, effectively bankrupting all banks at once. snip.. story of banks failing one by one.. The increased interest rate acts right away to reduce capital prices and kill investment demand. It also acts to bankrupt the remaining banks since they have made loans at low interest rates before the crisis, and now they have to pay high interest rates to their depositors themselves, causing them to work at a loss. If they made loans at adjustable rates, it will bankrupt the borrowers, leaving the bank with non-performing loans (also causing them to go bankrupt) What we need here is lower interest rates, so that the banks can recover. But to create lower interest rates you need extra money, and that's only if you are able to print it.. It's no longer profitable to develop and construct new capital and to develop land. This reduces demand for all factors and goods, and reduces wages, rents and prices. Uses of capital and labour based on low interest rates and low gold prices are liquidated and resources are allocated to uses based on high interest rates and high gold prices. There is no such thing as 'high gold prices' if gold itself is the medium of exchange. Gold mining firms see this correction developing and increase mining output. Gold consumers find gold more expensive compared to other goods and reduce consumption. The surplus of mining output over consumption increases the stocks of gold for use as bank and non-bank reserves. Aha, now the gold mining firms have to work overtime inorder to bring the available gold supply from 1000oz to 8000oz. That's going to take a while.. And who will pay them, with what? Btw, if you increase the gold supply 8fold, you are likely to see some really good inflation too. Weren't we talking about avoiding inflation? Weak borrowers have defaulted and liquidated, leaving strong and profitable borrowers. Credit quality is improved and risk premiums decline. Reserves move back into the banking system, the interest rate falls, capial prices go up, and investment and lending activity increase. No, people will swear never to put their gold in the bank again, no matter what the interest. But this orderly wind up will never come, and the suspension of withdrawals will be more than just temporary. Why won't a liquidator carry out his professional duties and effect a speedy and effective liquidation of the bank? He can liquidate all banks if he want. At the most he will collect 1000oz of real gold. Next he will be able to give every depositor 1oz of real gold for every 8oz he had on deposit. Meanwhile the entire economy is wrecked. Very 'effective' and 'professional' job he did... If that is your definition of an 'orderly wind up' ? The only way to
[e-gold-list] Re: inflation ( was Re: e-gold for stocks)
Hmmm, you talk about banks offering interest rates, so why the gold would NOT be in the banks? Probably 90% of the gold will be in the bank. If 20% of the 8000oz bank deposits in your example are to be cashed out, there is simply not enough gold on your little planet. So if paying interest is successful in getting 90% of gold in the bank treasuries, why won't offering higher interest rates keep at least some gold? If the bank is known to be in serious trouble, everybody will want to cash out his gold on deposit, no matter what interest rates they promis. In fact, the very high interest rates will be taken as an indication that the bank is in big trouble. One of the banks is rumoured to have made some bad non-performing loans, and likely to go belly-up, et voila, people rush to the bank to get their gold out, probably not just 1600oz, but the entire 8000oz that is on deposit. And there is only 1000oz of coins in your bank... Oh yes, there may be another 1000oz around that had not been deposited in a bank, but the banks can offer whatever high interest rate they want, they are not capable of redeeming 8000oz of deposits. Big problems... This is correct, bank capitlisation is the baliwark against running out of reserves. If the bank is well capitalised, it can liquidate its assets as a discount to replenish reserves as its depositors withdraw as much as they want. Wait a minute. There is only 1000oz of real gold in our country. The bank's customers want to cash out their 8000oz of gold on deposit. The bank can liquidate as much assets as it wants, it can at the most collect 1000oz of real gold since there is only that much available. So, they are not able to redeem the 8000oz of deposits, no matter how much assets they want to liquidate. There is simply no way out. And if the bank is undercapitalised, of course they will run out of reserves because they run out of assets to liquidate! In fact I would say the bank has a duty to not engage in asset fire-sales, and to suspend withdrawals pending an orderly wind up. But no bank will be asked to redeem 8 000 oz in gold because each bank has only 500 oz of deposits. These banks have only 500oz of 'assets' in your example. They have created 8000oz of 'deposits' by makings loans. These 8000oz of deposits can be redeemed by the customers. As I said, these banks (or the government in this country) will sooner or later be forced to announce that deposits can no longer be redeemed for real gold, just like the USA did in the 70's Or as you put it so nicely: they will 'suspend withdrawals' pending an orderly wind up. At least something we agree on. But this orderly wind up will never come, and the suspension of withdrawals will be more than just temporary. The only way to engineer an 'orderly wind up' would be by suspending all further borrowing until all loans are paid back (which could take 30 years or more, depending on what terms the loans were made). Once all loans are paid back, there is again enough gold to redeem all deposits. Staying on a strict gold standard, and allowing for borrowing and interest, simply can't go together. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: e-gold for stocks
It is possible for some people to 'save', but then you need other people who spend more than they earn by borrowing or taking away from their 'savings'. Savings are simply assets that you own now which you can consume or trade in the future. By that definition, it is both possible and desirable for every individual on earth simultaneously to save. We were talking about saving the currency (remember we started with a Bill Gates collecting gold in his vault). That's very different from using this extra money to acquire other assets. Because spending the money on assets keeps the currency in circulation, so we will have no decline in available money supply. In that case our average person produces 500oz worth of goods and assets, and he spends 500oz (100oz of them being spent on assets, which is usually called investing). In that example 'revenue = spending' is back in balance. Investing and saving are two very different things. But many people confuse them for the same thing. There is no zero-sum arithmetical constraint as you describe. As far as currency movement goes, this zero-sum is continuously in play. The survival of the species does not depend on the existence of net debtors. If somebody 'saves' the currency, there are two possibilities: Either somebody else borrows and uses these savings. In that case there is no problem. Or nobody borrows it, and in that case your economy contracts because the effective money supply is declining. If you see no problem that the economy contracts as soon as the average person 'saves' gold in his vault, then you can say that the survival of your economy does not depend on debtors. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: e-gold for stocks
Not true. If the average person produces more than he consumes, it means there is a lot of produce rotting away unsold. What's so good about that? Danny, you are just being contentious. I was talking about saving. Of course you have to SELL what you produce (or keep it for your own use) if you want to save anything. Of course it's bad for a farmer to grow 300 acres of tomatoes he can't sell, just letting them rot in the field. Nothing contentious. It is something I have been pointing out before. For example the average person in your economy produces 500oz worth of goods, but spends only 400oz The simple result is that an average of 100oz worth of goods per person remains unsold, and rotting away if it are undurable goods. In an economy we cannot avoid the law: revenue(income) = spending The 'spending' includes both spending for consumption and spending on new equipments (investing) So, if the average person spends less (with the idea of saving more), the result is that he earns less. It is possible for some people to 'save', but then you need other people who spend more than they earn by borrowing or taking away from their 'savings'. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: inflation ( was Re: e-gold for stocks)
So far so good. But now you have arrived at 8000oz in bank deposits while there is only 1000oz in real gold (coins). These banks will be forced to do the same what the USA did: announce that bank deposits are no longer redeemable for real gold. If people come to cash out 20% of their bank deposits you already need 1600oz of coins and there is only 1000oz of them... And that's what I was saying: as soon as you introduce borrowing and interest rates, you already off the gold standard. No, the interest rate regulates the stock of gold coin/bullion and its distribution between banks and non-banks. The model where the entire gold stock is in the banks is not actually realistic. Hmmm, you talk about banks offering interest rates, so why the gold would NOT be in the banks? Probably 90% of the gold will be in the bank. If 20% of the 8000oz bank deposits in your example are to be cashed out, there is simply not enough gold on your little planet. So in your hypothetical example where 1 600 oz of gold is withdrawn from the banks, before this is half way done, the interest rate would have increased greatly stopping the banks from running out of bullion. Investors would not only be tempted to hold bank deposits paying attractive interest rates, they could also buy discounted capital assets. There is also a question of why there would be an increased demand for non-bank goldholdings. No reason is ever provided. And without a reason, there is no motive, making it counter-factual. The reason can be very simple. One of the banks is rumoured to have made some bad non-performing loans, and likely to go belly-up, et voila, people rush to the bank to get their gold out, probably not just 1600oz, but the entire 8000oz that is on deposit. And there is only 1000oz of coins in your bank... Oh yes, there may be another 1000oz around that had not been deposited in a bank, but the banks can offer whatever high interest rate they want, they are not capable of redeeming 8000oz of deposits. Big problems... As soon as you introduce borrowing in a gold-only economy , you create more ounces on deposit than there is real gold in the system. Hence you are not capable of redeeming the deposits for real gold anymore. As soon as you introduce borrowing, you introduce paper money. In a paper economy you CAN print the extra dollars if everybody comes to cash out his deposits. It may take a few days and force the banks to close temporarily, but they can eventually print them. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: e-gold for stocks
These Bill Gates' may be perfectly satisfied, but alongside them it may be full of people having all kinds of needs but no gold to pay for anything. The gold they need is in Bill's vault , and he is perfectly satisfied, so not spending it. Note that I said all of their money in ANY form. I did not specify gold. Yeah, I see, but we were discussing a 'gold only' economy. I agree that the problem will not so easily occur if other kinds of money are allowed and accepted. In a gold only economy, with a strictly limited supply of money(gold), it is obvious that if more gold goes in vaults there is less gold to serve transaction in the economy. If all the gold in the world ends up in personal vaults and sits there idle in every way for 200 years, everyone else in the world will still find a way to function just fine. They'll trade using whatever they find convenient and suitable. They can start barter trade, but that is far less efficient than using 'money' Lot's of time goes waste with barter, trying to find the person who has what you need and needs what you have at the same time. The whole idea of savings harming the economy is ridiculous. If you save some money instead of buying something with it, it just means you're SATISFIED. It can also mean you are pessimistic, miserly,... Which in this system with strictly fixed money supply actually works to become a self fulfilling prophecy. Um, if people produce more than they consume, then they have funds to see them through a rainy day or retirement, and they have funds to invest so they can earn a reward for putting their savings at risk. That is a very good thing. Not true. If the average person produces more than he consumes, it means there is a lot of produce rotting away unsold. What's so good about that? And investing is not the same as saving. If you invest, you are also spending the money and it remains in circulation. If you save, you just put the gold in a vault, where it does nothing. As a result there is less money to support economic transaction, causing recession. You just want to pump up the money supply so that savings will constantly erode in value, thus forcing people to invest when and where they otherwise might not invest. God forbid the money should just sit there. If you keep money supply fixed, the savings rise in value because advancing technology works deflationary. That actually encourages people to do nothing with their savings. Just let others take the risks, let them develop the technology, and you will reap the benefits because your gold will buy more and better stuff in the future at lower prices. These people who keep the gold in their vault get something for nothing here, they don't do anything, and they are rewarded with increasing purchasing power of the gold they kept in store. The alternative is increasing the money supply , so that prices do not go down because of improving technology. You inflate the currency just enough to offset the deflationary effect of advancing technology. That encourages people to do something with their money, invest it in something useful. If they do just average with the investment, they will catch their fair share of the increased money supply. If they make bad investments, they will not make a profit and not take their share of the new money. If they keep their money in a matress, they will also not catch a piece of the new money. The money they kept in the matress has stayed the same, but because there is more money in circulation now, they are relatively poorer. But why on earth would they deserve a part of the new wealth, as they have not taken any part in creating it? You can say that the second system encourages bad investments. It's true. But it also encourages good investments. We can say that it simply encourages 'investment' , good and bad. And if I look around on this planet, there are still plenty of good investments to be made, plenty of good things to be done, since people are still very needy in large parts of the world. Or shorter: A limited money supply system discourages investment and encourages saving. A growing money supply system discourages saving and encourages investment. And it is investment that has given us better health-care, better cars, a better standard of living. Saving gold in a vault has done nothing to that effect. Thats why a growing money supply is better. Without all you social engineers running things, no doubt the entire world would just grind to a halt. If they decree gold as the only money, yes. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: How good is gold?
If we compare gold with land, point by point: Decay: gold: no land: no Limited supply: gold: limited , although still mining an extra 2% per annum land: obviously limited. Some categories of land are actually getting scarcer (ex. forests) Productive: gold : no land: YES Good analysis, but you omitted the following points: Portable: gold: yes land: no Portable can be seen as an advantage and as a disadvantage. It is because gold is portable that it has storage costs. Land is not portable, so a thief cannot run away with it. Yes, the land can be confiscated, but that's true about gold too. Easy to conceal: gold: yes land: no There is no need to conceal the land. Same as above. Easily divisible: gold: yes land: no With the modern communication techniques: land: yes The gold bars in e-gold's vault are also not chopped into pieces when somebody does a micro payment. With a land back e-currency you can also pay with 1/1000th of a unit/share Useful in certain industrial applications: gold: yes land: no Most factories are built on a piece of land, so land is also useful in industrial production , but in a different way. Very high ratio of value to physical size: gold: yes land: no True, but not any problem if it is just to serve as backing for an e-currency. Conclusion: land is better than gold There is no need for categorical assertions of superiority like this. That's like saying chain saws are better than surgical scalpels. I mean better with the purpose of backing an electronic currency. Land scores equal on points like not-decaying, divisible,... but beats gold because it is a productive asset. Two people have 1oz of gold. Person 1 stores it in a vault. Person 2 buys a piece of forest land with it. He can cut trees from the land every 20 years and sell them for gold on the market. If we wait long enough he will have made back his 1oz of gold, and still own the same piece of land as well. You can talk about property taxes and things like that, but that is government intervention, and will differ from country to country. In a free system the land is a better store of value than gold, hence also a better backing for an e-currency. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: inflation ( was Re: e-gold for stocks)
Now suppose that 19 other banks do the same thing and have the entire gold stock in their vaults. Bank deposits are used as money rather than coins as before. (i.e. the 10 000 oz of deposits act as the medium of payment rather than the 1 000 oz of coin). How does this affect the balance sheets of the participants in the closed economy? The initial stock of wealth was held as 1 000 oz in coin, and 15 000 oz in equity. The new distribution is 8 000 oz in bank depsoits and 8 000 oz in equity. The stock of wealth is the same, the form in which it is held has changed. The value of money is unchanged and bears no relation to the quantity of money. So far so good. But now you have arrived at 8000oz in bank deposits while there is only 1000oz in real gold (coins). These banks will be forced to do the same what the USA did: announce that bank deposits are no longer redeemable for real gold. If people come to cash out 20% of their bank deposits you already need 1600oz of coins and there is only 1000oz of them... I agree that the value of money is unchanged here, but you have already introduced something like the US dollar, no longer backed by real gold, but by the value of the assets in this economy. And that's what I was saying: as soon as you introduce borrowing and interest rates, you already off the gold standard. The monetisation of assets changes the form of wealth from non-monetary to monetary, and so increases the quantity of money. It does not influence the value of money. I agree. The new dollars are created when somebody borrows money, so normally he will have put up some collateral, and that becomes the backing of these new dollars. The quantity of money was increased, but it does not influence the value of money. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: inflation ( was Re: e-gold for stocks)
So the ultimate result is pretty much the same. Without extra money supply the average person would now be able to buy 10 times more shoes for his money, because they have become cheaper. With the extra money supply the average person now has 10 times more money to buy these shoes which are still selling at the same price. In the real world people MUST buy 10 times more shoes because the quality is so low to ensure ongoing consumption, We are talking the same quality shoes. With new technology they can be made 10 times more efficiently. Instead of selling them at the a tenth of the price they are sold at the same price, but the average person has 10 times more money. People do not buy 10 times more shoes with the extra money. They buy one pair of shoes, just like 50 years ago, but now they have money left for a mobile phone, a PC, a mountain bike, a massage,... because the money supply keeps growing and despite everyone earning more, somehow everyone ends up owning less and owing more. The reason for that is that we are all paying the interest on governement debts and interest on bank loans, factored into the price of everything we buy. Every debtor also has a creditor out there, and it is certainly not the government. So, somebody is receiving these interest payments. Everyone owing more, that is not possible. As you pointed out, a gold standard would limit the possible amount of interest to the roughly 2% of new gold mined every year plus the relative amount of productivity gains. So, in fact I would happily deposit my gold with a bank at no interest, because I could assume that if I withdraw it in 5 years I will be able to buy more for it. At the same time the bank can loan my gold out at 2% effective interest, knowing that productivity gains and falling prices will take care of the depositors. The only people that should be unhappy about such an arrangement should be bankers, don't you think? But wasn't it you who criticised 'getting something for nothing' when we talked about interest and islamic banking? If your gold buys more after putting it away for 5 years, aren't you getting something for nothing too? The people who created these productivity gains should reap the full benefit. And a bank can go belly up. Why would you risk giving your gold to them at zero interest? Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: e-gold for stocks
Patrick, Just one item: Inflation isn't the same as rising prices. Not every inflation results in higher prices and higher prices are not always caused by inflation. Right, I'm actually well aware of this Austrian concept, where inflation is simply defined as an increase in the money supply. Any general level of price increase CAUSED by inflation is another story. It seems to have become a widely accepted fact that an increase in money supply is the CAUSE of increasing prices for goods and services. I think these economists have it wrong there. It is increasing prices for goods and services that CAUSE an increase in money supply. For the simple reason that if general prices go up, more money is necessary to facilitate exchange of the same amount of goods and services. And the system is flexible enough to create that extra money. Increasing prices for goods and services have other reasons that have nothing to do with the money supply. For example a drought can cause the prices of wheat to go up, which forces the baker to raise the price of a loaf of bread. This may inspire the dentist to raise his prices as well, and ordinary workers may go on strike for a better pay because their cost of living is going up The idea that an increased supply of money chasing the same number of goods causes the prices to rise, is wrong. Not all the money is continuously chasing goods. People just buy what they need or want and invest or save what is left. If they invest the extra money in new research/technology it may actually causes the general prices to go down, because technology makes things cheaper. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: How good is gold? (was Re: e-gold for stocks)
If you create 'e-land' , an e-currency backed by land ownership, you can transfer pieces of the ownership just like we do with e-gold, but this currency will be able to pay a yearly 'interest' based on the produce that comes from the land, instead of charging a storage fee for protecting the gold. That is already being done, but we don't call it interest and trade is person-to-person only. You might say that two people who complete a deal mail e-gold to shift a bar from left back row to front right row. Outexchanged are possible albeit with three months notice and the land is deeded to trustees for convenience. We call it AIM ;o) It's being done, but not as a payment system like e-gold. It exists as stocks, in the US they are called reit (real estate investment trust) Many of them trade on the stocks exchanges, and they typically pay high dividends, currently ranging between 4 and 10% anually for most of them. Gold is a non-productive asset. That's its big disadvantage. A payment system based on land/real estate, could easily pay a dividend instead of charging a storage fee. George points out that a radioactive dump could come next door. True, but there could also come a golf court with holiday resort next door, raising the value of your land. If the portfolio of land that backs the 'e-land' currency is sufficiently diverse and geographically spread, both the good and the bad things that can happen with land will even each other out.Overall, the average price of land on this planet has been rising faster than the price of gold. Management costs? If these reit's can pay such dividends I conclude that the management costs were easily covered by the produce/rent from the land. Constantly evaluating the property? Why? The market will decide the value of a piece of the property portfolio, just like it does with the reits. Jpm says that land may be confiscated. As far as I know that has been happening with gold too. If we compare gold with land, point by point: Decay: gold: no land: no Limited supply: gold: limited , although still mining an extra 2% per annum land: obviously limited. Some categories of land are actually getting scarcer (ex. forests) Productive: gold : no land: YES Conclusion: land is better than gold Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: e-gold for stocks
The same could be said about dollar bills sitting in a matress in India. As long as they are in the matress, they are not in fact part of the money supply. These dollars could sit in the matress for 20 years and never facilitate any exchange of goods during that period. That is quite true, although there still may be a meaningful distinction to make here. The money in the mattress MAY be spent, but the gold bar in e-gold's vault contractually MUST NOT be spent (apart from the digital grams which represent it). Yes, an important distinction. The gold bar in e-gold's vault is functioning as money, because the electronic grams representing it are going round. The money in the matress is simply dead, and not functioning as money as long as it stays in the matress. So, in a system like this , with a limited money supply (gold), saving becomes counterproductive because it decreases the availabe money supply causing economic decline. How can this problem be solved? It's not a problem even if you take it to the absurd extreme. Assume everybody in the world keeps all of their money in any form sitting idle under a mattress. They do this for 20 years, and nobody spends a thing. Sounds like a disaster, right? Terrible economy, totally stagnant, absolute depression. Not at all! It just means that everybody in the world is perfectly satisfied and has no need of anything. That is not correct. In this absurd extreme case it is not necessarily so that everyone is satisfied by the time all our gold has found its final resting place in some vault. These Bill Gates' may be perfectly satisfied, but alongside them it may be full of people having all kinds of needs but no gold to pay for anything. The gold they need is in Bill's vault , and he is perfectly satisfied, so not spending it. Obviously this is ridiculous and impossible -- in fact, living humans will always have needs and desires that can only be satisfied by trading with other humans. Savings are never saved forever, they are always used for some purpose eventually. It may take 5 years, 10 years, 100 years, or 1000 years, but all savings are eventually spent on something. True. But while this gold is sitting in a vault it does not facilitate any trading. As a result the 'available' money supply in this economy is going up and down with the savings habits of the citizens. If the average citizen saves more, there is less money available for trading purposes. If the next generation inherits papa's vault and blows it on beer and cigarettes, the available money supply rises fast... The whole idea of savings harming the economy is ridiculous. If you save some money instead of buying something with it, it just means you're SATISFIED. It can also mean you are pessimistic, miserly,... Which in this system with strictly fixed money supply actually works to become a self fulfilling prophecy. It doesn't mean you're failing to do your part to help the economy along. Nobody is obligated to buy new clothes, expensive dinners, cable TV, or stereo equipment just because Oh my God -- the GDP numbers are looking terrible! If you don't need or want something, then don't buy it. I agree with this. It is stupid to buy stuff you don't need , just for sake of keeping the economy growing. Don't buy things you don't need. Fine. It would work perfectly if its natural counterpart was understood too: don't earn money you don't need. It is perfectly good if people stop spending when they are satisfied. But if they go on producing and earn money from others, then the situation arises that the others have no gold to buy the produce that was made, although they need the stuff. If only the people who have need , work and earn, then you can logically arrive to the situation where everybody is satisfied. In a closed system, if you have people who spend below their means, then somewhere at the other end of the spectrum you will need people who spend beyond their means. That is inevitable because in a closed system the total amount of spending always equates the total amount of earning (one person's spend is always somebody else's revenue). If you have people who systematically spend less than they earn, then you will need another group who systematically spend more than they earn. The latter is not possible unless they can borrow unlimited. So this economy will come to a halt when the 'spenders' cannot borrow any more. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] inflation ( was Re: e-gold for stocks)
What happens if a Bill Gates there puts 20% of his gold earnings in a vault... So, in a system like this , with a limited money supply (gold), saving becomes counterproductive because it decreases the availabe money supply causing economic decline. How can this problem be solved? This problem is solved by the market. If people, like gates, are putting lots of gold into a vault never to be touched, then as the supply of circulating gold goes down, the interest paid by banks to keep gold on deposit with them goes up, coaxing people who have gold sitting idly in storage to put it with the bank so it can reenter the system. If the interest rate goes up to a high level gates would be stupid to keep the gold in his vault where it earns nothing as opposed to at the bank where he gets a return. This becomes interesting. From what the banks will pay the interest rate? Where it is going to come from? In your example the banks offer an attractive interest rate, say 6%, to seduce people like gates to bring their gold to the bank as deposit. Lets suppose there is a money supply of 1000oz gold in this little country, and the rich people put it in the bank. At the end of the year their accounts will show a balance of 1060oz, but there is only 1000oz of gold available... Hmmm.. problems.. Since you suggest this as a solution for the decreasing money supply question, I suppose the bank can lend the gold it has on deposit to people who want a loan. That's how gates' gold will remain in circulation, isn't it? But then it gets even more interesting. There is 1000oz in gates' vault. He brings it to the bank and deposits it. Somebody borrows the gold and uses it to buy new software from gates. gates deposits the 1000oz in the bank again. Now our bill gates has 2000oz on his account balance. But there is only 1000oz of real gold in the system... Conclusion: as soon as you introduce interest and/or borrowing you are already off the gold standard, you are already inflating. You'll have to do what the USA did: announce that deposits can no longer be redeemed for real gold, since there is not enough gold to do so. We just reinvented the wheel. This also works with dollars. Say someone is hoarding physical cash in a vault, and does not have that cash deposited in a bank where it can be lent out. Then the supply of loanable funds goes down, pushing up interest rates. As interest rates go up, people are motivated to take cash sitting idle in a vault, shoebox, mattress, or whatever, and deposit it at a bank to get the high rates of interest. With dollars it works, because the system creates the extra dollars needed for paying interest, etc... But you cannot create the extra gold to allow for borrowing and interest... at least if you want to be able to redeem the balance in your account for real gold. Such natural market phenomena do a good job of regulating these things without the government magically creating or destroying money. For example, in a system with a more fixed money supply (like gold) if the economy starts to overheat and enter a bubble, the demand for credit pushes up interest rates naturally, curtailing the bubble. A fall in economic activity would reduce the demand for loans, and naturally push down interest rates, helping the economy. This is natural supply and demand pressure that serves to self-regulate booms and busts, and does not need some centralized god like monetary authority to command interest rates and money supplies from on high. That's how a paper money economy functions. But if we want to stick to 'pure gold only' we cannot introduce interest rates and borrowing, so this self-regulating mechanism, which you describe very well here, does not come into play... On the topic of inflation: I'll put it this way. From the year 1900 to the year 2003, vast improvements in efficiency have occurred in the world economy. From mechanized machines to produce all manners of goods, computers to enhance communication and calculation, revolutions in transport, etc. etc. etc. With these great leaps in efficiency, things should be getting a lot cheaper, and prices should be way down. But let's say in the country of Miragistan a gallon of milk that cost $1 in 1900 costs $1 in 2003. A pair of shoes that cost $10 in 1900 costs $10 in 2003. In fact, for all of the things in the CPI basket of goods things cost pretty much the same. Zero percent inflation is declared, even though the Miragistan Central Bank had been pumping out tons of new money over the years. 0% inflation, Yay! What a cause to celebrate. But it's not really 0% if you consider what prices would have been if not for massive growth of the money supply by the central bank. This is an entirely correct analysis. Without printing extra money, the shoes that used to cost $10 would now cost only $1, because we can create them much more efficiently. Instead the money supply was increased 10fold and
[e-gold-list] How good is gold? (was Re: e-gold for stocks)
Yes, this is true , especially in the electronic age. You're probably right there Danny, money multiplies more efficiently with modern communication systemsand ever broader assets and liabilities are able to be included in the multiplying effect :O The modern communication systems change the whole game. Instead of transferring something of value as payment, we can now simply transfer the ownership of something (anything) as payment. That's also what happens in the e-gold system. The gold never moves, but the ownership is transferred. That's a very fundamental step forward in the evolution of payment/money. We can exchange ownership and no longer the stuff itself. I don't see any chance for a move back towards a kind of gold standard. Instead I expect a whole range of tangible assets coming 'online' as money, and gold will be just one of them. For example, why not an e-currency backed by real estate? It could be better than gold. Gold does not decay, but it does also not grow. An ounce of gold today will still be the same ounce of gold in 10 years, in 1000 years,.. So, gold keeps value. But gold is not the only thing that does not decay. A piece of land is in the same category. An acre of land today will still be the same acre of land in ??? years, ... But land does grow stuff, and that's where it beats gold. Every 20 years I can cut big trees on the land and harvest wood, or perhaps every year I can pick apples... The land remains there, but every so often something has grown out of it, that's not the case with gold. The conclusion must be that land is better than gold. If you create 'e-land' , an e-currency backed by land ownership, you can transfer pieces of the ownership just like we do with e-gold, but this currency will be able to pay a yearly 'interest' based on the produce that comes from the land, instead of charging a storage fee for protecting the gold. Similarly I expect to see 'e-stocks', an e-currency backed by stock ownership in a basket of companies The electronic age is making everything 'liquid' and useable as 'money' That trend seems unstoppable to me. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: e-gold for stocks
but does egold expand the gold available? ... All I know is that e-gold claims that if I bail a gold bar into the e-gold system, that gold bar sits in a vault and is not used to make a loan or purchase of any kind. Thus, the gold bar itself no longer functions as money except in the form of the e-gold grams representing it, and therefore there is no increase in the money supply. We come to a very interesting point here. Patrick argues that the gold sitting in a vault to back up the e-gold in circulation is no longer functioning as money (supply), because it is not supposed to ever come out of the vault and be used as a means of exchange in the economy. Instead the e-gold grams whose ownership changes electronically , is functioning as 'money' The same could be said about dollar bills sitting in a matress in India. As long as they are in the matress, they are not in fact part of the money supply. These dollars could sit in the matress for 20 years and never facilitate any exchange of goods during that period. Now if we go back to a 'gold only' economy. What happens if a Bill Gates there puts 20% of his gold earnings in a vault, with the idea of only using it when really necessary. This growing pile of gold could be untouched for the next 30 years, not facilitating any exchange of goods in the economy. Using the same reasoning as above, this gold in the vault is no longer part of the money supply, as long as it remains in Bill's vault. If only gold is used as money in this country, the inevitable result is that the available money supply is going down. Less money available to go round in the economy, will mean less economic activity. , the same money could start going round faster, but there are limits to how fast money can circulate... So, in a system like this , with a limited money supply (gold), saving becomes counterproductive because it decreases the availabe money supply causing economic decline. How can this problem be solved? Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: difference in some shares
I think it was Danny van den Berghe who wrote that dollars are the stock of the USA, in some sense. Well, that stock is way down as expressed in other currenices. And, what does that mean, the stock of the USA? In some sense, it means that the dollars are a promissory note against the taxpayers of the USA. Take a number. It would be more correct to say that the US treasury bonds are a promissory note against the taxpayers of the USA. The US dollar itself is not backed by the taxpayers. It are the people who accept dollars that back it with the stuff they give you for it. In other words, the dollar is worth 'what we give for it' (and that could be nothing) Even if the USA became a tax free nation , the dollar could still circulate just like today. As you say, the 'stock of the USA' is way down against other currencies. Pretty normal if we consider how much the USA is borrowing from abroad. Not to mention a trade deficit that sets records every month.. As Danny pointed out, we could decide to trade Microsoft shares in gold and it would be no different. You could decide to buy some Microsoft shares, and pay someone some e-gold, who would pay dollars to a broker, who would send those shares somewhere. Maybe you'd end up with them. But, it would always be different. Microsoft shares are traded in dollars. You cannot get away from the dollar volatility with Microsoft. You can with the Gold Casino. It makes a big difference. Microsoft trades in dollars, it also trades in Euros on a couple of European stock exchanges, and probably in Yen or other currencies on a few Asian exchanges as well. It doesn't really matter at all in what currency (even gold) a stock trades. The prices in different currencies will simply adjust themselves according to the exchange rates between the different currencies. If Microsoft were to trade in gold, it's price in gold would be equivalent to the price in dollars according to the pog at the moment. The value of a Micosoft share itself, regardless of currency, will depend on what currency it is doing its business in. In case of Microsoft only part of its sales are in dollars, another chunk is Euros, Yens, Yuans,... That means the value of a Microsoft share also depends on the exchange rates of Euro, yen,.., not only on the dollar. The value of a Microsoft share is not related to the price of gold, even if we would be able to trade Microsoft shares for gold. TGC does its business in gold, but the customers of TGC mostly have to buy their gold with dollars, euros, yens,.. That means that the revenues and profits of TGC also depend on the value of the dollar, euro, yen, just like with Microsoft. As a result the value of TGC shares are not really related to the price of gold, although the price of a share is expressed in grams of gold. When you own TGC shares you are not invested in gold, you are invested in a piece of a casino whose customers mostly buy their e-gold with dollars, euros , yen. How much e-gold they can buy (and hence loose in the casino) depends on the purchasing power of their dollars, euros, yens,.. The only real way to be invested in gold is buying gold itself or invest in gold mining companies. When people are moving money out of dollars they will naturally wish to divest themselves of dollar-denominated securities, including stocks or bonds whose prices are set in dollars. Trading in overseas versions of these stocks, such as ADRs or whatever they call 'em, is not much different from trading in the dollar-denominated versions. You certainly cannot get away from the dollaar volatility effects. The dollar volatility effect will depend how much business the company does in dollars. Some Dutch companies (who trade in Euros at the Dutch exchange) are highly dollar sensitive because they do a lot of business with the USA. Their shares typically go up (in Euro terms) when the dollar rises , and decline when the dollar falls. If you do happen to get control of the NASDAQ, please do convert all stock listings to grams of gold. It would be fun. It would be fun, but also irrelevant as long as the companies do their business in dollars, euros, yens and pay people their wages in dollars, euros, yens. That's the really determining factor: what people are paid in. TGC's customers are also earning their living in paper money (with a few exceptions) Danny . --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: e-gold for stocks
I suppose time will tell, but I can almost see people exchanging shares instead of e-gold because at times it's so darn difficult to get e-gold. And I am basing this on experience as well. We were actually offered 2 TGC share as payment for something... I completely agree that this is the way where we are heading. What used to be illiquid assets yesterday, are becoming liquid 'means of exchange' (money) today. Instead of paying with 'money' we will pay with a piece of our home or some of our stocks, bonds, gold,... whatever has value. Computer and information networks make this possible, and it will happen. In fact it is already a reality. People have creditcards against their home equity or aginst their stocks, and when they pay with that card they are in fact paying with their stocks or home. At the end of this year the gold backed ETF is supposed to start trading. It is quite probable that other commodities will follow. That will mean that anybody with a brokerage account can park his assets in stocks, bonds, gold, commodities,... whatever he deems the best store of value at the moment. When he needs to pay something he will be able to pay from this account. 'Money' will not only be backed by gold, but by everything that has value in the economy. The dollar (or euros) will probably not disappear, they will just function as the 'unit' in which the values of the other things are expressed. Just like we can express length in centimeters or inches. The unit of measure has only a practical purpose, it is in fact just symbolic. At that moment 'money' , 'dollars' has become just 'information' The real value is in the real things, and we express their value in a certain number of 'units' Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: e-gold for stocks
Once people start using shares as a means to trade other stuff, we have a fiat economy alongside the e-gold system. Robert there is just one mistake you are making dude ... it is true that things like stocks, bank accounts, 1mdc-like things (derivatives of money), and any and all financial instruments EXPAND THE MONEY SUPPLY. Very few people know this, but it's true. Yes, this is true , especially in the electronic age. In fact , with more and more assets (like houses, stocks,..) coming online as liquidity, we will soon be in a situation where all the value in a country is available as MONEY SUPPLY. In old days it was very difficult to pay with your house or with your stocks without selling them first. With the modern financial instruments and the internet, it becomes very easy. Already in many countries a bank account is linked up with a brokerage account and you have access to a line of credit with your stocks (and perhaps home) as collateral. When such a person pays you he in fact borrows against his assets, which means dollars are created at that moment, and these dollars are destroyed again when the person pays back later on. However, Roebert, this has utterly nothing to do with fiat money. You are just using the wrong term. 'Paper' money would be more accurate, but we are fast moving towards 'electronic' money But YES for sure, things like 1mdcGrams, every company that exists that works with e-gold (TGC would be included in this, same as all the rest), each market maker's existence, people who write private notes and so on in e-gold, PVCSE, DBourse, etc - Robert's right that they do expand the money supply, they multiply it Everywhere something valuable is created, also money is created, because the valuable thing can be used to pay. If you build a home, that home becomes money and adds to the money supply. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it is organic multiplication of a money supply. It is very good because the new liquidity keeps the wheels of the economy well 'greased' A huge advantage over just decreeing one commodity as the 'only' money The practical upshoot is when you say how many say USD are there? there is, simply, no clear answer. I only recently found out that is what M1, M2, M3 .. mean. They are just successively broader measures of money. M1 is just USD bills interesting, but largely meaningless, as almost all money in the US of course is as checking accounts, visa cards, instant transfers etc. M2 i believe is like bills +_ checking accounts (still an almost useless measure). M3 includes literally the value of MSFT shares and all other shares, I think, and other solid credit items. And so on. (There simply IS NO clear factual answer to how many USD are there as there's various ways to measure it.) M1 is the paper bills and coins. M2 is M1 + time deposits , bank accounts, etc... up to a certain amount M3 is M2 + very big (institutional) accounts over a certain amount The value of all shares , etc.. is NOT included in any of the money measures. Every week the variations in each of the money supply numbers is published. You can see their historical changes here: http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h6/hist/h6hist10.txt Many people do not understand how dollars are created (and sometimes destroyed again) Most people think that the governments just print money when they need it and use it to finance their usually stupid plans. That's not how it goes. If the government needs money it has to borrow just like everybody else. Otherwise there would be no government debt anywhere in the world, logically.. New money is created when somebody goes to the bank and takes out a loan. Just a simple example. Person 1 has $1000 in cash. Person 2 and 3 have no money. So, the money supply is $1000. Person1 deposits his $1000 in the bank. Now there is $1000 in his account. The total money supply is now $2000: person 1 has $1000 in his bank account, and the bank has $1000 in bills Both could use their $1000 to pay for something. Person 2 goes to the bank for a loan of $1000. The bank gives him the loan because this person owns a home and is creditworthy. Person 2 goes to person 3 and buys a car with the money. Person 3 also deposits this $1000 in the bank. Now we have two persons with $1000 in their bank account. The money supply has grown to $3000: 2 persons have $1000 in their account and the bank has $1000 in bills (which they could loan out again) $1000 of new money was created when person 2 took out the loan for his car. Now person 2 needs to make money to pay back his debt in the bank. He goes to clean toilets in the home of person 1 and 3 and earns $500 from each of them. They pay him from their bank account. Person 2 uses the money to pay back his loan. Now we have two persons with $500 left in their account, and the bank has still $1000 in bills. The money supply has just dropped to $2000 because person 2 has payed
[e-gold-list] Re: TGC IPO Now Clear!
... They may have changed their mind seeing that the ipo could fail if unsold shares keep depressing the price for too long. I still fail to see how they were failing if shares sold slower than they've actually sold, or why they'd bother to try to manipulate share prices. Sorry, but I cannot explain it any better. ... Prices are stable because there is hardly any trading besides the ipo sales. But the bid/ask spread is very wide (85 / 102), and that is not so great. It means when you want to sell you have to take a rather big loss.. Or wait a bit. This is not a problem, IMO, just a sign of a thinly traded market. A very illiquid market, indeed. It is not a problem if you are not intending to ever sell you shares. ... As for the price stability, that is of course the advantage of the way they did the ipo. But the disadvantage of this system is that if the issue receives little demand it can take years before all the ipo shares are gone, and that means the price cannot go up. Many buyers expressed more interest in a gram-denominated dividend than they did in any particular share price, though. I think the dividend fans are still quite satisfied. Usually people who buy stocks are also interested to see the price of their stock go up. If the company grows then naturally the value of your piece in the cake increases and that reflects in a higher price for the stock. Those who are interested mostly in the dividend, normally prefer bonds over stocks because bonds give a higher return (bonds giving you 6% or more are not hard to find) and guarantee you to pay back the principal when the bond expires. The company may have trouble to pay back and default on the bonds, but then you are likely to be in trouble if you own their shares too. With the normal ipo, there is a limited time period when you can sign up for the shares, and as soon as that period ends the stock can start trading freely up and down. The disadvantage is high volatility during the first days of trading. Mostly due to distortions caused by favored insiders, yes. This has certainly been a refreshing IPO from that point of view. Even without favored insiders you are bound to have price swings when the stock starts trading normally. This is because when the ipo signup period ends it is revealed how many people bid for shares and what prices. If an issue is 5 times overbid, then investors conclude that there is strong demand for the shares and hence the price rises when it starts trading normally. If the same stock issue is not completely taken up, then investors conclude weak demand and they try to get rid of these shares as soon as the market opens. That causes the price swings on the first trading days. Of course not so honest favored insiders can play some games on it, and they do. But with the dbourse style ipo the insiders can play other games. No matter how you organise an ipo, there is always possibilities for insiders to profit from the information they have before others have it. You are not going to avoid that, unless you are in favor of complete (over)regulation of the field. The advantage is that you know beforehand when the stock will start trading normally. I'm not sure you've ever admitted anything about DBourse is normal before (well, normal if insiders didn't buy their own shares, I guess). This is progress! :) With trading normally I mean the trading that happens when the ipo is finished. Now TGC shares are trading normally With the dbourse style ipo you don't have the disadvantage of big price swings at the first trading day, but a new disadvantage is that you don't know when the ipo will end (which may be never) People who buy shares to see them go up, these investors like to know when the ipo will end and the stock can start trading normally. In the end it means you have to choose for the lesser evil. Honestly , I prefer the limited time normal ipo at the cost of less price stability in the beginning. I'd agree, but only if I get to be a favored insider! Quattrone just got off, stockbrokers, so it's safe to have favorites now. I am officially available to fill the role. No, it will depend what type of investor you are. If you buy the stocks for their dividends then you will prefer the price stability that a dbourse style ipo gives. If you buy stocks to sell them at a profit then you don't want to wait for an unknown period of time before the stock can go up. As for favored insiders, I really don't have any problem with it. In nearly every business an insider can profit from his position. A second hand car dealer can pick up a nice car at a very cheap price and keep it for own use. An insider at e-gold can buy his gold at cost price rather than go to a market maker. A pub owner can drink beer at wholesale prices. If you want insider favors on the stock market, just become a middle man. Nobody stops you. NYSE is not a
[e-gold-list] Re: What is TGC Share?
Danny, Did you know that when stocks of share were first introduced, they were redeemable at base/face value? Similar to a partnership where one party wants out, shares could be returned to the company and sold at the base value which was determined through the actual sale value of the company's assets divided by the number of shares outstanding. Coicidentially that is why we use the term of shares outstanding ;o) I didn't know, but I can see the possibility. It probably disappeared for several reasons. Usually a company uses the proceeds of an ipo to invest in buildings , machinery, etc.. If you can redeem the shares that can become very inconvenient as they may need to sell assets inorder to pay back the shares you want to redeem. Very impractical. Secondly, a company that is doing reasonably well will almost always trade above its book value. That is because a company becomes worth more than the sum of its parts, it gains reputation capital, brand name recognition, etc... and all these value is not reflected in the book value of their buildings and machines. When a stock trades above its book value one would be a fool to redeem the shares, you will get more money by just selling them on the stock market. When a stock trades below book value (which does happen) then it is possible for the stockholders to vote on liquidation of the company. If the vote passes, the assets are sold and the book value is realised (hopefully) and distributed equally to the shareholders. So, in fact stocks are still redeemable under the condition that a majority of the shareholders has to agree with the liquidation of the assets. This does happen sometimes. Unfortunately with TGC shares the voting rights are very unclear, so I doubt this possibility is open with TGC shares. Let's assume for the moment that there is 1,000 ounzes of gold in storage at gold-currency.dom and that an online casino goldslots.dom beginns to issue shares that are sold for gold-currency.dom units at 1 ounze per share. 1,000 shares are sold, goldslots.dom outexchanges the 1,000 ounzes to pay some new software it bought. People now hold 1,000oz worth of shares, there are 1,000oz in circulation, do you see where I'm heading here? In theory the number of ounzes in circulation has just doubled. Oh , but the economy continues in this little country and before you know they have built 5000oz worth of houses, are driving around in 3000oz worth of cars, etc... all based on the same 1000oz of gold going round in the system. You cannot avoid that. And soon this country will invent paper (promis) money because the 1000oz are not sufficient to support all the trade in this place, unless everybody would lower his prices (in gold terms). People don't like to lower their prices. A baker who always sold his bread for 0.01oz is not likely to decide to lower the price to 0.005 oz because the economy has grown. Somebody who bought an house for 500oz will not like it if the price of a house drops to 250oz And that is where one of the problems are when an exchange allows only one currency to be used for trade. The inherent problem would be removed, if people could swap 'bearer' shares for anything they want, of course. But hey, that means we just created an infaltionary fiat currency that started out as having a gold base and suddenly there is more paper than gold... That's exactly what happens when the amount of gold becomes insufficient. Other asset classes become monetized and start circulating alongside the gold. People borrow against their home and that becomes new paper money, which is in fact backed by the home. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: TGC IPO Now Clear!
But every single prediction you've made has been completely and totally wrong, Danny. So what? I don't care WHO is right, my only interest is WHAT is right If saying TOTALLY WRONG things works to bring out correct information then I won't hesitate a moment. Just look how many people now speak up that they were behind this or that buy order. I am sure it makes a few TGC stockholders more comfortable to know that. I also got a private message from the person who bought the 35 shares (including the 3 at 98gr) That's good to know. He also thanked me for the criticising I do, he realises it is useful to be prepared for the worst too. As an outsider we have almost no real information about TGC. I am pointing out some not so rosy scenarios and loopholes with this way of issueing and trading stocks. You seem to be the only one who is always pissed off when I do that. Why? Is there any harm to consider the possibility that it might rain tomorrow? No-one will buy a share .. shares sold. Shares will never sell! Shares sell promtply. Shares will never sell out! They sell out in a few months. And now - there will never be any more sales. OK. Your posts on the matter should start off, I'm sorry I was staggeringly wrong last time, but ... I know, I know, they Weren't Predictions. You were Just Saying Something. I don't care about being wrong, so there is no need to say sorry for that. My grandfather told me: If you want to become wiser, be wrong more often But so far I was not proven wrong on anything I said about TGC, I am waiting... Until we have verifiable information about TGC and this ipo, nothing is proven or disproven It appears to me that TGC has done the only thing they could do to save this IPO, by taking away the oversupply of stocks that hung over the market. Amazing! In fact, NOT Jim Ray, but DANNY is actually the Man Behind tgc. He knows. You could be right. Even George Bush could be the man behing tgc. We simply don't know. And if you are really honest , your statements about tgc should also start with It appears to me... The subject should read: It appears that TGC IPO is now clear It is shown on their site, but not verified or verifiable. As I had pointed out, with 150 shares hanging over the market and sales apparently drying up in August, Here's a fantastic new approach --- simply Make Things Up! Totally awesome! Yes, that's a very good approach indeed. Consider all possibilities, even the remote ones. People who refuse to do that are simply austriches, putting their heads in the sand... So when you're completely wrong, you won't really be wrong, and you can go on to something else, and you won't have to start your email I'm sorry I was staggeringly wrong last time, but ... Are you scared of being wrong, or what? What a discourse about being wrong and having to say so when you start your next email. Really, it makes more sense to say sorry when one was right. Think about that. But wait! You've been caight out, making an Actual Factual Statement. You weren't Just Saying: You were actually making a Claim: But everybody can manipulate the price of TGC shares, at least if you own some shares. Yes that's a claim. Just open two accounts. Put in a bid @86 and sell a share to yourself. You have now manipulated the price down to 86 Anyone with shares can do it. So, we can all now watch the price being manipulated. Outstanding. Indeed. Sigh You take your stocks too serious, my friend. The only overall question is why your Agenda -- I'm guessing you had something to do with some online stock market project that totally failed - am I right? So now you're bitter? No, you got it wrong there. I am too lazy for online stock market projects. I'm all for the loyal opposition in your constant stream of endlessly changed stories and ever shifting rationales, can you at least try to make sense?? Sometimes not making sense brings more results. I rather keep myself the freedom to make sense or not make sense whatever I deem more fruitful in a particular situation. People who always try to make sense are simply slaves of ratio, robots.. And what doesn't make sense to you perhaps makes sense to others, so who will be the judge on it? Soon you'll also require me to come out saying sorry when I didn't make sense (to you?) Not with me. I will change and shift whatever story I want to, make sense whenever I want to, say sorry whenever I want to. You are not the person to tell me what to do, when and how. I am not accepting your chains. Nobody is forcing you to read my mails. The other readers on the list are old enough to decide for themselves whether I make sense or not. That is laissez-faire, my friend. You are very defensive about TGC stocks. Other people on the list are more open to different points of view. You only want to see the great honest guys at TGC side of the coin. When I turn that coin you become
[e-gold-list] Re: TGC IPO Now Clear!
So you're saying the new buyers are TGC themselves? How do you know? Why couldn't the new buyers be, say, new buyers?!? Just for the record Gold-Price.net submitted the buy orders for 15 of the shares in TGC IPO (3.75% of the total IPO). With two of those shares being certificate numbers 398 and 399. So you can rule out TGC taking away these shares from the IPO! Oh, perhaps they were clever enough to remove certifcates 250 till 350, or whatever numbers you want. TGC people are probably not idiots. Does it prove anything that you have nrs 398 and 399 I wonder if you bought 15 shares, why do you say that two of those shares have nrs 398 and 399? Don't you have an entire sequence of 15 subsequent numbers? If that is the case you have another indication that they did actually remove some stocks as I suspect. Would you bother to tell us the certificate nrs of the other 13 shares in that buy order of yours? I also happen to personally know the owners of at least 60 other shares! You can view 11 of the shares we have purchased and currently manage on our publicly viewable balance page at Dbourse here: https://www.dbourse.com/viewpublicinfo/?goldprice What evidence do you have to support your claim Danny? Just as much evidence as you have to claim that all shares are sold. None. With such an intransparent stock all we say about it is inevitably speculation and belief, no matter whether we defend the issue or criticise it. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: What is TGC Share?
Has it appeared to anyone that we are essentially turning our gold into paper when we invest in stocks? Just wondering. I know, people will now argue that shares are traded in gold and exchangeable only for gold and that therefore the share 'represent' gold. By the same token, I'd argue that it is essentially a promissary note twice removed from gold. And that makes it paper - digital paper if you will. Yes, Robert, stocks are paper (or digits), even if they trade for gold. Stock are paper money. They are a promis, a promis for a share in the eventual future profits of the company. Conversely it would be quite correct to say that the paper currency is actually the stock of a country. The US dollar is a stock. One could start trading the Microsoft shares for gold tomorrow, but that would not change anything to the nature of Microsoft stocks. Of course, TGC is generating revenue in gold and hence it is able to pay dividends and redeem shares for gold. That is if they are (a) profitable and (b) able to pay their way in gold as well - which they are unlikely to be able to do. I would expect that at least wages are paid in fiat. Yes, and also most of their customer are earning in fiat currencies. How much gold they can buy and use for gambling depends on the purchasing power of their dollar, euros, yens. If the price of gold goes down, 1% percent of their monthly wages will buy more ounces of gold that can be lost in the casino. That's the currency effect I described a while back. That in turn means that gold is being exchanged and as we do not know how much gold TGC keeps in stock and how much is being exchanged into fiat, we have no way of being sure that the shares are in fact redeemable for e-gold, are we? I don't know of any stocks that are redeemable. A company issues shares and receives dollars or e-gold in return. Basically these dollars or gold remain theirs forever unless they decide to buy back their own shares. You cannot go to the company and ask to redeem your shares for whatever was the ipo issue price. If you want your money back to only way is to find somebody else who wants to buy your shares. When a company becomes known to be in trouble, that really becomes a game of passing on the hot coal to any taker. The company has no obligation to buy back shares. But sometimes a company will decide to buy back its own shares on the market, especially when they are trading below fair value. It may well be that if it came to the crunch and TGC would have to buy back their shares (which isn't regulated anywhere and hence there is no garantee that a sale to anyone but a third party is even possible), that they then would inexchange e-gold to honour their promise. And that, makes the shares paper. If the revenue fro the sale of the shares is kept in e-gold, then of course, the shares are not paper. But we have no way of telling, do we? That's why normally companies regularly publish their books and verified by a third party. That provides the shareholders with a reasonably reliable information about what's going on in the company and what value is left in their bank accounts. Investors are willing to pay a premium for shares of companies that are transparent. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: TGC IPO Now Clear!
The TGC IPO shares are now all sold. The secondary market is wide open now. https://www.dbourse.com/guests/ Hmm, let me do my job and rain a little bit on the parade again :-) I just had a little look at the bid/offer book and past trades at Dbourse and it still looks equally unhealthy to me. It appears to me that TGC has done the only thing they could do to save this IPO, by taking away the oversupply of stocks that hung over the market. As I had pointed out, with 150 shares hanging over the market and sales apparently drying up in August, this stock could not go up and was likely to drop when people get inpatient. Now the (over)supply has been removed and the stock can (hopefully) go up, which will give them the chance to sell the shares they removed later on. This is not necessarily a bad thing for the TGC stock holders, but it's not good news either. In October TGC shares seem to have flown out of the window in chuncks of 8, 15 even 32 share blocks.. Looks great! But if there is suddenly such brisk demand for TGC shares, then why do we see only one 'reasonable' bid for 1 share @85 and two very low bids for a share @3 gr or something... Those people who were so 'hungry' to snap up all the remaining TGC shares, I would now expect them to put in bids for 10 or 15 shares @100 or @99.. Where are they? I also see that people who have put in low bids @97 and @98 , as I suggested in September, seem to have got the shares, but why have they stopped bidding @97, @98 or why not @90... if it so easy to sell them @100 or higher?? The stock is again as poorly bid is it was in early September. I know , jpm may rush in again to post a few bids @97, but does that change anything to the fact that this stock remains very poorly bid? It is basically not a sound idea that a company runs the stockmarket for its own stock, unless it is monitored by a third party. It gives conflict of interest, and the company can easily manipulate the transaction history in its own favor. They can put in transactions that never happened to make it look as if there is good market activity. For example, I notice that two orders (32 shares @100 and 3 shares @98) happened exactly in the same second. That looks quite suspicious. But everybody can manipulate the price of TGC shares, at least if you own some shares. It is simple. You create a second account at dbourse. You put in a low order @86 Next you take up this offer from your first account selling the shares to yourself. It costs you nothing. On the books it will look as if TGC shares are trading at 86 Similarly you can make it look as if they sell @150 Such fake orders can make people panic and sell, or urge them to buy this stock that seems going up like mad... So, the prices you see TGC shares trading for are meaningless because you never know if the transaction was real. Not what you call a healthy market system. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: TGC IPO Now Clear!
I just had a little look at the bid/offer book and past trades at Dbourse and it still looks equally unhealthy to me. Small != unhealthy, IMO. They are still small. I meant the bid/offer book doesn't look very good. It doesn't matter if the company is small, if there are more bids than offers it means there is good demand out there and the stock probably set to rise. We see the opposite for TGC. It appears to me that TGC has done the only thing they could do to save this IPO, by taking away the oversupply of stocks that hung over the market. So you're saying the new buyers are TGC themselves? How do you know? Why couldn't the new buyers be, say, new buyers?!? Notice I started with: It appears to me... The shares selling out in a few weeks time would indicate strong demand, but at the same time we don't see any bids in the book, which points to very weak demand. So I smell that something is not right here. The bids we see on their site is most likely correct, because any user would notice if his bid doesn't show up in the screen. Leaves the reported sales for the last month that can have been tampered with. It is not dificult for the TGC people to set up their own account at dbourse and transfer the unsold TGC shares into it (without paying for them). That removes the 100+ block of shares on the offer side and allows the stock price to go up. As I had pointed out, with 150 shares hanging over the market and sales apparently drying up in August, this stock could not go up and was likely to drop when people get inpatient. Didn't happen, did it? Prices have been quite stable, instead. It didn't happen because the 150 shares hanging over the market are gone now. Now the (over)supply has been removed and the stock can (hopefully) go up, which will give them the chance to sell the shares they removed later on. Wait a second, I'm still confused about how you know who bought shares and why they bought them. Any actual evidence this is TGC buying their own shares, or is this just speculation (as I suspect). There's nothing so wrong with speculation as long as it's labelled correctly (apparently that correct-labelling is my function, unless I'm missing something). That's why I said It appears to me... and explaining why.. ... But if there is suddenly such brisk demand for TGC shares, then why do we see only one 'reasonable' bid for 1 share @85 and two very low bids for a share @3 gr or something... The very-low bids are almost certainly shareholders joking-around with their dividends. Chances are, users don't want to tie up their e-gold making bids, but if there were again offers of shares at 90g, I suspect they'd again be snapped-up VERY quickly, whether or not you see any reasonable bids right now. A healthy order book will show more bids than offers. That's why I say the stock is very poorly bid. The argument that people don't want to tie up e-gold doesn't quite convince me. If you are interested to buy TGC shares it is with gold you are not going to need tomorrow. And if you don't trust TGC for keeping your e-gold tied up, then you'll also not bother to buy their shares.. I also suppose you can get your e-gold back when you withdraw your bid? Those people who were so 'hungry' to snap up all the remaining TGC shares, I would now expect them to put in bids for 10 or 15 shares @100 or @99.. Where are they? Maybe they all have shares they bought at 100? Yes, but more than 100 shares sold quickly in blocks of 10 and more would indicate that there are people out there interested to buy TGC at 100. Have they suddenly lost interest now the ipo shares are gone? Normally you would now see bids for at least 20 or 30 shares @100 or @99, that would be congruent with the pace of sales shown for the last weeks. Instead we see one meagre bid for 1 share @85 Sudden demand has picked up all the ipo shares, and now the demand has disappeared. That points to TGC removing the ipo shares from the offer screen I also see that people who have put in low bids @97 and @98 , as I suggested in September, seem to have got the shares, but why have they stopped bidding @97, @98 or why not @90... if it so easy to sell them @100 or higher?? Well, it took *months* to sell 400 shares. I don't think it was particularly easy OR hard. In fact, that's one of the many cool things about this IPO -- the undeniable FACT that prices have remained calm, That's not the point. Putting in low priced orders @97 has worked. Why does nobody continu a profitable strategy? Anybody who has 100 gr of e-gold to invest can put in a low bid @97 , and when he gets filled put it on the offer block @100 for a quick 3% gain. If it sells he can repeat the strategy. That's the kind of activity you see in any active stock. The stock is again as poorly bid is it was in early September. I know , jpm may rush in again to post a few bids @97, but does that change
[e-gold-list] Re: initiatory force vs. retaliatory force
What previous position? You are still welcome to quote me on that 'previous position' This position: On Tuesday, October 7, 2003, at 12:38 PM, Danny Van den Berghe wrote: One can prefer to pay the 10% voluntarily, but then the disadvantage is that some people may cheat. Do you see any mention of enforcing paper money on people here?? What you quote here is not any 'previous position', nothing has been changed. This quote was in response to somebody who brought the example of the caliphate where there was voluntary taxation. If taxation is voluntary then of course it is easy to cheat on the system and not pay your share You stated previously that 10% inflation (or whatever number the state planners decide is best for the general welfare) is great for economic growth. My position was and is that a paper money system alongside a free market has all the advantages that paper money gives (extra liquidity in the system) and all the advantages of gold too because is freely available and if the paper currency system is abused people will flock to gold. It does not enforce anything on anybody, so Jim made false assumptions. Above, you seem to be clearly in favor of inflation (which is nothing but disguised theft of property, and therefore of an individual's life), precisely because a _voluntary_ 10% taxation scheme wouldn't actually work. The inflation is not theft if you are free to exchange your dollars for gold as soon as you receive them. I have pointed that out again and again, I wouldn't know what could possibly be simpler. When you have paper money alongside gold and silver and other stores of value, you have the best of both worlds. Nobody stops you from doing all your business in gold. Nobody stops you from exchanging all your dollars and euros into gold as soon as you can. Nobody forces you to stay in the paper currency and wait with it loosing 10% to inflation every year. So where is the theft? So you clearly understand that the only way to rob an individual of 10% of his hard-earned wealth is through force and/or fraud, and inflation is both. I am not advocating that people should be robbed of 10% of their wealth. You also seem to forget that when 10% extra paper money is added in the circulation, this money ends up in somebody's pockets and it could very well be yours. Even if the new money is wasted by stupid governments and goes to corrupt government contractors in the first stage, these contractors will use the new money again on equipment and materials they need, or blow it in the casino, so somehow the new money spreads in the economy and becomes somebody's new wealth. That is conventiently forgotten when you focus on the 10% theft in form of inflation that eats the value of your money. And here is an important point. Those who just sit on their money are not in a position to take up their fair share of this 10% new paper money, because they are not participating in the economy. But anybody else who is in business will somehow catch a piece of the new money that was added to the liquidity. Anybody who wants to sit on his money is simply an idiot when he stays in fiat currency. He can buy gold to avoid the inflation. Yet you're fine with this, and refer to the action of protecting one's rightful property from thieves as 'cheating'. That is taken out of context. The 'cheating' refers to the easy possibility to cheat in a voluntary taxation system. Your values are inverted, like those of most people who've been brainwashed by the perpetrators of this fraud. Oh, I don't need your stamp of approval. I have explained as best I can. Those with open mind will find a way to understand what is said. Those with closed minds always find ways to misunderstand what is said. I have only found these two kinds of people in my life. It is a waste of time to argue with closed mind person who is only looking for ways to disagree. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: initiatory force vs. retaliatory force
Jim, There is a difference between initiatory force and retaliatory force. Since your paper money was being imposed on the workers, I felt they should have a trial and examine whether they would be better off with you strung up from a lamppost. I suggested nowhere that paper money should be imposed on people. So, your judgement was based on assumptions. Can you quote me where I have said that paper money should be imposed on people? Are you saying that paper money shouldn't be imposed on people? It's a little bit late to start asking questions after you already made the judgement and decided the punishment. Usually these questions are asked before making such a sharp judgements. This position seems vastly different from your previous position. Glad to see you coming to your senses. What previous position? You are still welcome to quote me on that 'previous position' I think advocating the initiation of force, whether it is in the form of taxation or fiat money or debt peonage is a bad thing. I agree. I don't think you know what you are talking about, It is none of your business whether I know what I am talking about or not. You can either answer the things I put on the table or shut up about them, that's all. I also hope that you are not in favor of imposing 'gold only' on the people, because that would mean you risk hanging from the same lamppost you had reserved for me. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: The Myth of Insufficient Gold
Patrick, Danny, in your 9-Oct post you described how In some places it [money] somehow evolved from gold towards paper currency in a rather smooth transition. I would like to hear about those places and times. Probably renaissance Italy is the best example, but again I didn't live in these times, so no guarantee. Wherever paper money has floated alongside gold and solver coins, it seems to me that people had choice. Exactly how rather smooth the transition has been in these historical examples, I don't know. My point is not that it has been done with complete absence of force in the past, my point is that it is technically possible. Because it sure was NOT the United States in 1933. I agree that the US is not a good example. The people who manage a currency (which can be a private group or a government), can simply announce a change in the 'terms of use' effective a certain date in the future. If the currency is operating in a free market, people have the possibility to redeem their currency for gold while they still can, or exchange them for another currency of their choice. But in the United States, the thugs outlawed redeeming currency for gold. Yes, and that's not right. It would be like e-gold announcing a change in the terms of use, stating that their digital units would no longer be redeemable for gold -- RIGHT NOW. Furthermore, e-gold would threaten to put in prison anyone they caught possessing gold. That would be the equivalent of what the USA did. Specifically, if you had a gold certificate you knew would become unredeemable at a specific time, would you really hold onto it past that time? Wouldn't you go ahead and redeem it for gold? And wouldn't the threat of imprisonment be just about the only thing that could prevent you from redeeming it for gold? I would not necessarily redeem if the people who are issuing the paper are suffciently thrustworthy and have a solid reputation. They will also need to outline how they will manage the paper after it is no more redeemable. Accepting paper currency is not really different from accepting a check. You only do it when you trust the person who issues the currency or the check. But besides the possibility I described there are also other methods to introduce paper currency. It is possible to issue paper that is nothing but the promis of a future service. For example public transport companies already issue such paper. Technically this is paper money and there is no reason why people could not use bus or airline tickets to pay for something else. Nobody forces people to accept bus or airline tickets, you cannot redeem them for gold, they may go up or down in value, the bus company can go out of business leaving the paper worthless... Publicly traded stocks can also be paper money. When stocks were still printed on paper it was not so uncommon to see them used as payment. Stocks cannot be redeemed for anything. Technically they represent a fixed part of the company, but often companies have an official book value of zero or even below zero.. Stocks have not seen the daylight by use of force.. Clearly, use of force is not to only way to introduce paper money. And because some paper currencies were enforced in the past, does not mean that paper money is a bad idea. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: The Myth of Insufficient Gold
A money can have value, just based on its widespread acceptance and a sound 'open books' management. What is 'sound open books', please? Robert, It means the people who are managing the currency show the books how many (new) currency they are issuing, and give justification for the interest rates they maintain. Widespread acceptance is a tricky subject because people do 'NOT' really have a choice. If they do not have a choice it means there is no free market. Who decides which is the right amount of additional currency to spend into circulation and why does in an overheated economy get cooled off by raising interest rates, rater than taking money out of the circulation? Money is not added to the circulation by printing it and throwing it out of a helicopter over the people's houses. At least I have never seen that helicopter pass :-( Raising interest rates takes money out of the system because people are more likely to pay off their debts if the rates are high. Similarly low interest rates encourage more borrowing, which means money is added to the system. The macro economic effect would in theory be same, reduced growth with possibly a brief flirt with deflation. Wouldn't that be sound fiscal policy as opposed to playing with interest rates and seeing what happens and how the market reacts? How you will take money out directly? By going round in town, asking everybody to hand in $100, and subsequently burn the paper on the town square? As soon as elected, the new government announced that Venezuelian oil would be sold in EUROs. The generalissimo who staged the coup, reverted to US dollars, the returning government reverted back to EUROs and as soon as they changed their policies and announced that US dollars were just fine, the strikes stopped. Free market? Think again. I have not said we have a free market. What you describe is the politician's tampering with this market. It is not good, and it is this tampering that also disturbes the proper working of the paper money systems. If dollars are freely available in a country, people tend to shun it - especially if the own currency is not being devalued every couple of years. Interestingly, all the countries in which dollars are not overly welcome, have no tax on gold and count gold imports as a major trade. That does suggest that the FREE market has chosen gold, does it not? In these countries , yes. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: thugs and the thuggish thugs who are thugs
It seems that Jim defines thug as an individual who advocates or participates in the initiation of force against others. I think that's a very fair characterization of my position. Ok, then I have a few questions for you. Here is a quote from your message a few days ago: You are the vicious thug who insists on imposing paper money on these workers, not me. I'm not the one who is destroying the value of savings and pensions to the detriment of everyone in the hypothetical economy, you are. I think the workers would be better off if they would string you up from a lamppost for your economic lunacy. EOQ You are suggesting that I should be strung up from a lamppost. How is that for advocating use of force against others? Are you defining yourself as a thug, or what is going on? Secondly. Can you quote me where I have said that paper money should be imposed on people? If not, then I would suggest you take your insulting language back and talk about the arguments on the table, instead of the person who brought them. I think advocating the initiation of force, whether it is in the form of taxation or fiat money or debt peonage is a bad thing. I agree. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: The Myth of Insufficient Gold
Patrick, No. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never harm me. Force and verbiage are two different things. Not everybody will agree that words cannot harm. Just ask the people who sue in court for public slander. But since Jim has agreed with your definition, I have now asked him some questions, so he can answer for himself if he chooses so. At least he could have cared to mention where I advocated use of force against somebody or something... Actually looking through your posts I see quite a bit of laissez-faire attitude. I think our communication difficulties arise from a fundamental disagreement on the nature of fiat systems. The advocates of fiat systems flatly deny that brute force is necessary to float those systems. For example, in a previous post you gave a chronology of how a fiat system evolves, starting with gold and notes for gold, but ultimately culminating with this: And finally the curency was made independant from the gold backing. Indeed, but making it independant from gold backing is not necessarily done by force. It may have been done by force in the past, but that does not mean it is the only way. The people who manage a currency (which can be a private group or a government), can simply announce a change in the 'terms of use' effective a certain date in the future. If the currency is operating in a free market, people have the possibility to redeem their currency for gold while they still can, or exchange them for another currency of their choice. I have always stated that the free market is a conditia sine qua non for the fiat currency system to work. After the change people can still exchange their currency for gold, but not at the old fixed rate, they can do so at a rate that is decided by the free market. This rate can be higher or lower. Needless to say that this operation will only succeed if the currency has sufficient reputation capital , is managed in a sound way, and has gained enough widespread acceptance. What a sweet, passive, neutral way to portray an act of theft, fraud, and extortion. It would not be theft if the people are told up front about the coming change and have possibility to exit the currency before the change in policy. Somebody who had $35 in 1970 could redeem it for one ounce of gold. If we take into account storage costs that person will now have something like 0.8 ounces left Had he invested the $35 conservatively in all 500 stocks of the SP, he could now buy an ounce of gold for it, and he would also have enjoyed dividends over the years, which would probably allow him to buy another half ounce at current prices. The person who stayed in dollars is richer now! And that includes a period of very high inflation during the 70's You might say that the price of gold is far too low today. Okay, but gold producers currently take it out of the ground at an average cost of about $300.. While the historical record does not prove that there could be no noncommodity money on the free market, Austrian economists have argued that money must be a commodity by its nature. Maybe these Austrian economists are wrong. A money can have value, just based on its widespread acceptance and a sound 'open books' management. If the free market accepts the US dollars and prices its commodities in this currency, then by this very acceptance the currency becomes backed by these commodities and by all of them, not only by the gold. It means that you can go to the market and exchange your dollars for these commodities. The users back the currency by offering goods and services in exchange for it. It is based on trust. I accept dollars because I know I can go to the market and exchange them for something else, even for gold if I want. Bad management of the money can break this trust of course, and that's the main disadvantage of the system. But when there is a free market nobody is forced to keep all his wealth in the same currency, and plenty of stores of value are available as well. Note that in the second paragraph, the author states that the introduction of paper money always took the form of a privileged group gaining permission to suspend the redemption of its notes. Or as Danny so blithely puts it: And finally the currency was made independent of its gold backing. Yes, so that means that until this 'gaining permission...' gold (or commodity) backing was imposed (probably by some government). What kind of laissez-faire is that? That's a point that many advocates of hard money seem to miss. Enforcing commodity backed money only, is not laissez-faire. So when Jim discusses a vicious thug who insists on imposing paper money on these workers, he is referring to a paper money system that was originally imposed on the people by force and is now maintained by force. Ok , but that's not me. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a
[e-gold-list] Re: The Myth of Insufficient Gold
Danny wrote: And if your venture capital system is available as well, then I have all possible choices, just in case I doesn't want to carry all the risk. Exactly, if both options exist, it is likely that the VC option would over time largely replace the commercial banking option in all fields practicable, ie. there are likely to still be short-term loans of over a month and under two years. Robert, That sounds much better to me. The market will sort it out and there is no need to make borrowing illegal. In fact if borrowing with interest exists alongside the VC system then both will be competing with each other, and this will force the VC people to fork out a good service if they want to be succesful. By making interest illegal you are giving the VC a monopoly on financing, and that will mean not so good conditions for the person who needs financing. As far as I know the VC option does exist in many Western countries , and quite succesful in some places. But I still don't see how VC would serve the person who needs money to repair his car. And which system will be more succesful if both options are available will not only depend on which system is the best. It will also depend on the risk profile of the average citizen, and that will vary from country to country. Now, can I lend anyone money at 3% per month?:o) Watch out! You may get candidates. And you don't want to burn in hell, do you? :-) The main item that Danny and you seem to ignore that in constructs involving rent, etc. the ownership doesn't change until the item is fully paid for and, possibly the most important item: There is nothing resembling compounding interest. Wait a minute. Things may be different in other countries, but I used to run a shop in Belgium and we routinely sold items(consumer durable goods) with the customer asking for financing from the bank. In the contracts that they signed with the bank it was always clearly stated that the item they bought remained the property of the bank until the loan was completely paid. They were not allowed to sell the item in second hand before the last payment on their loan, that would be considered theft and brought to court. So, the ownership only changes when everything is paid for. This is because the bought item itself is the collateral for the loan. (nearly everyone qualifies for this types loans in Belgium, even the jobless) In fact we could as well say that the interest this person pays is in fact rent he pays to use the item until it becomes his own at the end of the contract. Ah, now I have given you a great business idea how to offer consumer credit in Malaysia without using the word interest. And there is no question about compounding interest, because you only pay rent (interest) on the portion of the item that is not yet paid for. Thanks for an exceptionally civilized discussion. You see it is possible to talk about things without calling each other a thug as soon as there is a disagreement. And with more fruitful results. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: The Myth of Insufficient Gold
Thanks for an exceptionally civilized discussion. You see it is possible to talk about things without calling each other a thug as soon as there is a disagreement. And with more fruitful results. It seems that Jim defines thug as an individual who advocates or participates in the initiation of force against others. Yeah, but isn't publicly calling someone a thug (or any other insulting statement) already a case of initiation of force against a person, and hence the person who utters these words has declared himself a thug by his own definition? At least he could have cared to mention where I advocated use of force against somebody or something... Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: The impressive progress of the Caliphate
No solution is perfect, but ultimately I think the idea of fiat currency is superior, if it is used responsibly. Doesn't bother me if it's not compulsory. Any group of individuals can trade amongst themselves using any combination of goods, services, or notes payable in goods and services that they choose. One of that group could even introduce fiat tokens into that mix and let them compete freely with other media of trade. The rest of the group are free to accept or reject the fiat tokens as they see fit, just as they are free to accept or reject any other goods, services, or notes as they see fit. Yes, that's exactly what I am describing. I am not pro fiat currency as such, it has to come with a free market where you can buy other (and hopefully) better stores of value.. That will force the necessary discipline on the issuers of the paper currency. As soon as you take the free market away it will go badly wrong with the fiat money. The problem with this little hunky dory free market scenario is that the history of fiat tokens is more brutal than this. History seems to suggest that the only way to get a large group of individuals to trade in fiat tokens is to coerce them into doing so by brute force. After the force is applied, the individuals will later rationalize the situation and convince themselves that the whole system is voluntary -- everyone trades in fiat tokens because everyone else does. But one can apply Menger's regression theorem to demonstrate that the true cause of the widespread use of fiat tokens is the original application of brute force many decades before. This may have happened at times, but I don't think it always came like that. In some places it somehow evolved from gold towards paper currency in a rather smooth transition. First paper was issued against the gold because it was safer and more practical to keep in your pocket. Debts and bills of exchange were invented, and fractional reserve system came into being, all probably because of need for more liquidity in a economy that was growing much faster than the supply of new gold (mining). And finally the curency was made independant from the gold backing. Ultimately there will always be taxes to pay in fiat tokens, and everyone who pays taxes will thus be forced to liquidate some real asset in exchange for fiat tokens. Property taxes alone will ensure this -- pay up in fiat tokens or we kick you off your property. Renting doesn't help because the landlord pays the taxes and passes them onto the renters. So it will be fundamentally impossible to refuse fiat tokens altogether unless one is willing to become a homeless vagrant. That is no problem as long as you have free markets where you can exchange the fiat currency for gold and vice versa. Yes there are safe havens such as gold, but issuers of fiat tokens may take steps to depress prices in that market, Which is wonderful news if you have any revenues in fiat currency. It means you can transfer your paper money into gold at a discount. Or in other words these smart issuers of fiat currency are subsidising my gold purchases by depressing the price of gold. Fantastic... I hope they can keep it up... and in any case in a serious crisis they can always issue an outright ban on gold possession, as the US did for about 40 years recently. Aha, but in a gold only economy something similar can happen. There is a serious crisis and the politicians demand a special war tax (to be payed in gold) inorder to solve the crisis. Bad politicians always find ways to steal your money, no matter whether it is paper money or gold. Between these grim and ideal scenarios there are many degrees of freedom, and some of us are opting for more freedom. Yes, and this freedom always comes with a free market, not with a particular type of money. The free market is the more crucial ingredient, not the backing of the currency. I am ready to accept any kind of money, as long as there is a free market where I can exchange it for the stores of value that I prefer... Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: Debt and interest (was Re: The impressive progress of the Caliphate)
Hi Robert, Okay so we are down to borrowing out of need rather than want. The theory goes that rather than borrowing or selling his watch, the farmer goes to the bank and offers a share in his business. The bank here doesn't lend but functions management for venture capital deposits. If the bank consideres the farmer's proposed use of the camel worthwhile, it will invest into the venture, buy the camel and give it to the farmer. This is not a bad idea, but it is not always the best idea. I have no objection to any of the financing techniques that do not involve interest payment and borrowing, like the building society system you mentioned and this venture capital idea, but there are cases where this is not always the best solution. I'll try to explain. Not every investment is that risky that you want to go to a venture capitalist system. This farmer may have a nice profitable business, but because of some calamity he is short on cash and now his camel has died. I can imagine that this farmer does not want to give up a 10% stake in his farm, in exchange for the money he needs, and then pay out a part of his profits forever going forward. Even if the venture capitalists allow him to buy back his stake later on, will it be at a fair price? They could be sharks too and take the 'unfair advantage' by selling him back their stake at double the fair value.. After all, I suppose these venture capitalits are also trying to make a profit, isn't it? Moreover, once the framer has sold a stake in his farm, he will need to keep a complete bookkeeping and perhaps allow these venture capitalists to poke their noses in his business because they will want to control if they receive a correct piece of the profits. Hmmm, a lot of undesirable side effects for this poor farmer who just needed a little loan to buy a new camel.. And what about the person who needs money to repair the roof of his house? Or my neighbour who needs a loan to repair his car? Are the venture capitalist people going to buy a stake in the house or the car? You can invent all kind of solutions for a financing problem, which is good, but once you start forcing less than ideal solutions just inorder to avoid borrowing and interest, then it doesn't make sense to me anymore. The funny thing is, I am not trying to ask you to invest into a venture instead of giving me a loan. Yet, you are defending a system that is rigged against you. I can tell you, if venture capital were the only way to finance a new business, then soon you will find out that this system is also rigged against you. For example. I may have discovered a great business opportunity with almost guaranteed 40% annual return on my money, risk free. It's possible. But I don't have the money to do it. In your system my only choice is to go to the venture capitalist, and he will happily take the 40% profit on the money he brings in. Maybe he will invest 80% in my business and it will mean I do all the work and he disappears with nearly all the profit. I will say this venture capital system is rigged against me. I would rather take all the risk myself and keep more of the profits. If I could go to the bank and simply borrow money at 15% interest anually, more than half of the profit will stay in my hands and much less will go to the bank. My idea is: make all these solutions available: buidling societies, venture capital, loans against interest,... and then people can make their own decisions what is the best solution in their case. And in many cases (like a broken car) taking out a simple loan and pay interest is the best idea. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: The impressive progress of the Caliphate
Hi Robert, What both Jim and you seem to ignore in the argument is the fact that the Caliphate flourished not only because(or in your case, despite) of Gold/Silver currency, but because of (1) NO INTEREST OF ANY KIND OR FORM and (2) low taxes, if any. Well, interestingly Jim first brought up the examples of Byzantine and Italian Renaissance, so I have not been talking about Caliphate. After I pointed out that Byzantine was mostly a rather lousy time of economic decline for everybody except the king and the church, and that the Italian Renaissance blossomed on debt and bills of exchange instead of 'gold only', Byzantine and Italian Renaissance are convenienttly forgotten and now we find ourselves discussing the Caliphate as example of a great properous culture based on gold only. I guess had the great Roman Empire and Italian Renaissance been built on 'gold only', Jim and a few others would be raving about it. Quite amusing. Obviously none of us lived in this period, so we are all relying on what we find in the history books. I will just throw in some observations, which as far as I know are sufficiently documented. 1) In the Roman Empire a slave could accumulate enough money to buy himself free. In the Byzantine Empire many free people could not earn enough gold to pay their taxes and were forced to abandon their land and work on the big estates of the king or church, becoming de facto slaves. Guess in which empire it was better to live. Before you put all the blame on the taxes, let me point out that there were taxes in Roma too. 2) Europe defeated these caliphs as soon as it abandoned the 'gold only' system inspired by the results in renaissance Italy 3) The islamic countries who have more or less continued the system based on these rules of the Caliphate, have all remained very poor, except for those countries who were lucky enough to find oil on their territory. And even in these islamic countries with oil, 95% of the population is still poor despite a continuous influx of wealth from abroad. What to say about the Caliphate? I really don't know much about it. That period seems to have been so culturally interesting that it was barely mentioned in the history lessons. Your point about no interest of any kind or form seems to me a logical extension of their no debt / borrowing principle. How there can be any interest if there is no borrowing? Your argument that people would hoard gold gets somewhat weak when there is no benefit from doing so. Stagnant prices would lead to people investing their gold into items and venture that generate revenue, such as rent, trade and manufacturing. The economy would thrive on the simple concept that hoarding money in any form brings no revenue, while investing does. You seem to assume that investing is always profitable. What you say is true as long as the economy is expanding and investments are likely to be profitable. Then it will indeed be wiser to invest the gold in some business. And in that case the gold will keep floating through the economy. But , in those days major innovations did not come along every year. Also population was not always going up. When a town had all the shops and businesses of these days, there was little or no opportunity for extra investment that would be profitable. The existing businesses made money, and just saved gold if possible so they could restart the business in case of calamity. While the existing businesses (and the king) were saving their nest-egg, obviously less gold was available circulating in the economy causing it to stagnate. The problem solved itself when war came along and forced the king to use some of his gold to pay the soldiers, while also the businesses had to take out their savings to rebuild the shop. At that moment the stored up liquidity was released and you got a new period of economic expansion till the economy ran dry on cash again... It was a continuous cycle: war(destruction) - rebuilding (investment - growth) - saving (stagnation - decline) - war ... In current days there are arguably more investment opportunities, but still it is possible that on a given moment little or no profitable investment opportunities are there and it is wiser to stick to the gold inorder not to loose. In that case hoarding gold is beneficial compared to loosing money in improfitable ventures. That's when the liquidity problems will occur, during an economic downturn. If you don't believe that an economy using a fixed amount of money tends to run dry very quickly, just try to play the classic monopoly game without adding money on every round. Where is the free market when a board agrees to pay a CEO more than the combined profits of his entire tenure? The free market is there because you are not forced to buy stocks in this company. Where indeed is the free market when a private institution prints papers (money?) and uses it to buy other papers (bonds?) and then uses those bonds as
[e-gold-list] Debt and interest (was Re: The impressive progress of the Caliphate)
Well, interestingly Jim first brought up the examples of Byzantine and Italian Renaissance, so I have not been talking about Caliphate. ... Sorry, mea culpa, I was only halfway down the previous thread at the time I jumped in. My argument for the Caliphate might be a bit superficial as well. The point I am trying to make is that interst is robbery. Yes, of course, better we discuss the topic debt and interest, which is still actual. After all it is extremely difficult to judge a culture from a distance of 1000 years away, especially since most people cannot even agree about our current day culture. Some will say the Usa is great, pointing to the man on the moon, Marilyn Monroe and Windows XP (ouch :-). Others will say it is terrible and cite the great depression, 15% of the population below the poverty line in 2003, and George Bush Jr with his war in Iraq... It seems to be more a question of taste. If Jim likes the culture and ideas of Byzantine, then who am I to argue with it? Obviously none of us lived in this period, so we are all relying on what we find in the history books. I will just throw in some observations, which as far as I know are sufficiently documented. ... That is exactly where the problem lies. Our judgements are based on history books which are based on (mostly biased) annecdotes and hearsay. After all, the winners (re-)write history as they see fit. Precisely. These history books seem to be mostly the history of war, full with stories about Iwan the Terrible, Alexander the Great and other Bushes.. At the most these criminals could be mentioned at the end of the history books, for completeness sake. But why give them 70% of the pages? A few, very imprecise criteria I use to judge an ancient culture are: 1) Great works of art and achievements in philosophy they left behind. 2) The amount of freedom that the average citizen enjoyed. On these points the Caliphate doesn't score very high in my eyes, despite some beautiful mosques and courts they built, but hey, even Saddam Hussein had beautiful palaces, so maybe only the second criterion has some relevance... Practical inventions are not necessarily a sign of great wealth and culture, because often misery and poverty stimulate more new ideas in people in their desperate search for solutions. In other words: if you are having very cold every day, you are more likely to search how to make fire. It was a continuous cycle: war(destruction) - rebuilding (investment - growth) - saving (stagnation - decline) - war ... I honestly can't see the social or humanitarian achievement in an economy that thrieves on destruction and rebuilding. While it appears to be human nature, I still think it's pretty sad in this day and age anyone would find it a good thing to kill others in order to destoy things so that they can be rebuilt. Of course it is a sad story, but unfortunately too common a story in these Middle Ages. From what I read about Caliphate it also doesn't look like a place of milk and honey for most citizens. Never ending succesion of internal revolts, division, looting, war,... In fact, i would argue that the lack of interest burdens would allow for (possibly) more gradual development without the need of looting and rebuilding. Don't forget, if prices are stable, then it will take much longer to benefit from investments on a sensible scale. If it takes 20 years of collecting rent to have enough to buy the next house, then there will be demand for centuries to come. Watch out. If it takes 20 or more years of rent to build another house, then the rich may decide not to build more houses because it is not profitable enough. Then what good this will be? That's what usually happens when you tamper with the free market and fix rents and prices and interest rates: you create shortages. The free market is there because you are not forced to buy stocks in this company. What does the free market do, if I didn't know what was going on and lost all my money to some CEO who isn't even being punished for looting my savings? You were not forced to buy stock in a company with such a lack of transparency. Yeah, but the countries functioning along these Islamic principles have not been that succesful. As argued above, there is none. The closest resemblance might well be Malaysia. But as they started to embrace someof the principles only four decades ago, it hard to argue for overwhelming success just yet. No debts and interest in Malaysia??? I have customers there who are paying me with their creditcard.. And if this Caliphate system was so good and beneficial to everyone in the country, then what on earth inspired these countries to give up on it? And if they were forced to give up on it, then why aren't they unanymously scrambling today to put it back in place? I guess the people there know their history better than we do.. What is there that they don't like about this
[e-gold-list] Re: The impressive progress of the Caliphate
You are mentioning the social aspects (or lack thereof?) but don't seem to consider that during the height of the Caliphate people practiced what they preached. This included the Zakyat or the voluntary taxation of wealth where rich merchants and indeed most others who had come into wealth unexpectedly considered it their duty to return some of the wealth to those in need. That actually solved the liquidity problem of an 'only gold' economy. By voluntarily bringing a part of their gold savings back in circulation every year, the economy is prevented from running dry on cash. This can work. A fiat currency that inflates at 10% per year does basically the same thing in a different way. By bringing in 10% fresh money every year, the economy is kept liquid. The savings are debased by 10% , which is not fundamentally different from bringing 10% of your money back in circulation in form of voluntary taxation. One can prefer to pay the 10% voluntarily, but then the disadvantage is that some people may cheat. With a 10% inflation it is sure that everybody with money contributes equally, but there is disadvantage that the system can be abused by printing too much money and causing the currency to collapse. An added advantage of 10% inflation money is that people are stimulated to search for and create good stores of value. This can be a good thing. No solution is perfect, but ultimately I think the idea of fiat currency is superior, if it is used responsibly. With gold money it serves indeed two purposes: means of exchange and storage of value. Fiat money system in fact seperates these two functions. The paper money serves as means of exchange, and besides that you have a free market where you can buy and sell gold, silver and other good stores of value in exchange for your paper currency. As long as these free markets are there besides the paper currency everything is ok. If too much new paper money is printed, the market will respond with rising prices for gold, silver,... This forces a certain discipline on the issuer of the paper currency. In fact the market is not deciding the value of gold and silver, the market is deciding the value of the paper currency. The value of gold and silver is constant. It is the value of the paper money that fluctuates. If the price of gold goes up (in dollar terms) it means that the dollar is loosing value. Having seperated the means of exchange function from the storage of value function, has the advantage that they can be managed seperately. It also means they can be (ab)used seperately. Unfortunately the politicians have proven very lousy managers of paper currency. Again we see the usa print money at 20 - 30% annual rates to finance the war in Iraq (the same old story again). That's why gold is now going up in dollar terms (or more correctly the value of the dollar is declining..). But nobody stops you from buying gold or other stores of value. Just do it before everybody else is doing it.(don't be deceived by the recent drop in pog) That will force the paper currency managers to be more disciplined again, and that's what the free market is supposed to do. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: When e-gold takes off in a big way
In other words, this 'only gold' economy always functions with the brakes on. Yes, the computer industry is certainly functioning with the brakes on, isn't it? My goodness, the amount of computing power you can get for the money is doubling every year, so people tend to postpone buying a computer as long as possible. Yeah, that's a pretty stagnant industry. Yes indeed, the computer industry is working with the brakes on. Fortunately there is still new demand for computers from first time buyers, but otherwise I know a lot of people who tell me that their computer is getting old, but they are waiting to buy till next year when for the same money they will probably get a 5GHz machine instead of the 2.5GHz they saw in the shop lately. (With paper money that looses 5 or 10% of its value every year, there is a strong incentive to use it or invest it in something that doesn't loose value so quickly. So the money moves faster and this economy runs better) Why stop at 10%? Crank it up to 20% and get people hopping like they're jacked up on crystal meth. Too much of good thing becomes a bad thing. If the money looses value too quickly it will not be accepted well because you already loose by the time you reach the next shop to spend it. Or in other words: the money should not loose its value much quicker than the average product looses value on the shelf, otherwise the shopkeeper will be wiser not to sell you his stuff. In that case the money is 'too bad' and it will also hamper the economy. But if the money is so sound that it gains value against almost everything, then the people are rewarded not to use it, and that too hampers the economy. We need something in between. So, a modest erosion of the value of money is ideal, as it is still good enough to be accepted in exchange for goods and services, but not too good so that people are encouraged not to use it. And those who don't want their money to erode at all can always buy gold with it. No problems. Seriously, the success of an economy is not measured by the speed at which people buy lots of extraneous crap. It is measured by gains in wealth and productivity created by mental ingenuity and effort financed by capital invested from people's savings. It is driven by producers and savers, not consumers. Yeah, but production and investment is driven by the consumers. What's the point in producing if nobody will consume it? When you have consumers who are willing to buy whatever new stuff you crank out, only then it makes sense to finance the new product and bring it in the market. So, ultimately new wealth creation is driven by consumption, and this consumption makes the production and investment worthwhile. This has nothing to do with buying useless crap. The world is still full with houses that can be repaired, usefull things that could improve life quality,... It is very unfortunate that so many people believe that the world will become richer if we save more. Yes, an individual becomes richer (in money terms) if he spends less than he earns. That's probably the reason why people easily believe that saving is the way to more wealth. But on macro economic scale things turn upside down: if people save the economy declines. This is not difficult to see. Let's consider two small countries with a population of 5 people. In both countries the 5 people have businesses and jobs, and they buy everything from each other. In country A each of them earns $100 a year and also spends $100 a year. They somehow get the idea that if they spend only $90 next year, they will be able to save $10 If they can do that for several years they will become 'rich'. What happens in the first year? Each of the 5 people spends only $90 in the shops of the others. But at the end of the year each of them discovers that business has dropped by 10% and only $90 was made. They did not succeed to save the $10. They will think it was smart to spent only $90 because otherwise they would now be in debt for $10 The next year they may try again and spend only $80 , hoping to save $10... But again they will discover that business declines. Eventually their economy will settle at survival level, where they cannot cut back on their spending any further. Now look at country B. They too earn $100 a year and spend $100 a year. Here the 5 people are a little more optimistic and they decide to spend an extra $10 on new stuff they don't have yet. They will pay back the extra $10 from the earnings of the following year. So each of them spends $110 At the end of the year they are all in for a pleasant surprise because they find out that business has boomed in their shop and $110 was made. So they are already out of debt at the end of the year, and they have lived richer.. Encouraged by the good economy they increase their spending again the next year and again they will find out that business booms. Eventually they will also have to spend extra $ on new
[e-gold-list] Re: Economic lunacy
An economy where only gold is used as money, would have some problems. We actually have an example of such an economy. Consider the Byzantine empire, from 450 to 1453 AD. The entire economy was based on the gold solidus coin. As a result, Byzantium traded with every country in the known world, and their coins were accepted for payment from China to England. Hmmm. 450 to 1453 AD is not exactly known as a time of great progress. It is better known as the dark middle ages. Everything remained stagnant for 1000 years. Certainly, a few rich people lived well on cheap slave labor during this time in Byzantine, but basically it was a time of slow and continuous decline. When the value of money rises people tend to postpone their (big) purchases, as they know they will pay less for the same good or service in the future. However, deflation can affect wages as well as prices, so it isn't clear that your proposed strategy of avoiding big purchases would work. Yes, in many instances prices would be lower in the future, but wages may also drop, which would mean that postponing doesn't help. Yeah, and that's a wonderful encouragement to the workers if you lower their wages... (With paper money that looses 5 or 10% of its value every year, there is a strong incentive to use it or invest it in something that doesn't loose value so quickly. So the money moves faster and this economy runs better) This claim is drivel. It is utter nonsense. Only a fool seeks 10% annual inflation. I've lived through years of 5 to 10% inflation in the USA, and it was a miserable, awful time. I remember, before we got the Euro, that Italy consistently had inflation rates around 10% Regularly the Lira was devalued against other major currencies. Yet, Italy created Ferrari cars, luxury clothes and shoes, all kinds of beautiful stuff. The modest inflation they got encouraged people to trade their liras for something that keeps value a little longer. It served their economy well. Wages in Italy also rose at 10% or more a year, and people are usually happy and stimulated when their paycheck goes up (even if this 10% extra will only buy the same amount of stuff) But I certainly agree that inflation of 20% or more will be counterproductive. people will tend to accumulate the gold in their accounts because it is not a bad investment. In other words, savings will work as a strategy once again. No, the savings kill the economy. The money that is hoarded does not serve any exchange of goods anymore. I just happen to live in Bulgaria since last year, and this is one of the countries that was part of this Byzantine empire. A great deal of the gold ended up in the churches where it never left anymore. (Just visit any Orthodox church today and you will see the gold on the walls everywhere.) While the gold accumulated in some rich families and mostly in the churches and monasteries, the economy simply ran dry on cash. As result it will not be long until over 90% of the gold is in hands of only 5% of the population, Hmm? Auspicious reasoning from a socialist, but hardly worthy of an economist. _Forbes_ magazine demolished this reasoning about a decade ago. They found that the top 5% of income earners after 20 years tend to be in a lower income group. The bottom 5% of income earners tend to move into a higher income group. Something like 95% of those in the bottom income group move up one or more groups and over 90% of those at the top drop back one or more. So, I think your reasoning is not consistent with the facts. I did not say that the people in the 5% top group never change... There will be liquidity problems Whereas with the central bankers managing things there have been enormous liquidity crises every few years. Do you remember the Asian Contagion? That was a pretty major currency crisis, with all kinds of negative consequences. The Great Depression was caused by an enormous liquidity crisis built on inflationary paper money. Yes, you will have liquidity crises now and then. But with 'only gold' you will have a continuous liquidity crisis. If gold is too scarce to use as money in the economy, silver meets the need. And when both gold and silver are temporarily scarce, people are known to use copper and platinum. That's exactly illustrating my point. Gold becomes too scarce and people start using silver. When silver is also scarce they use copper and platinum. Before you know it you are issuing 'money' with your house or any other tangible asset as backing. But then we are simply back to the paper dollar as a common denominator between the various tangible assets that back it. The main function of 'money' is to facilitate exchange of goods and services. No. Money has two functions. It functions as a medium of exchange. It also functions as a store of value. Cows work great as a medium of exchange, and they are
[e-gold-list] Re: When e-gold takes off in a big way
(1) An individual saves money, i.e. spends less than he earns. (2) The individual seeks a return on his savings, so he invests it with, say, a venture capital firm. (3) An entrepreneur approaches the venture capitalist with a promising business plan. (4) The venture capitalist invests a pile of the savings entrusted to him into the new business. (5) The new business makes a pile of profit, i.e. spends less than it earns. (6) The venture capitalist keeps a hefty chunk of the profit and pays out another hefty chunk to the individuals who have invested their savings with him. (7) Everybody becomes happier than they were before. No enslavement was necessary, only the profit motive. The only problem is that when you have individuals and businesses that spend less than they earn inorder to 'save' or have profits, then you will also need people in the system who spend more than they earn to keep balance. Otherwise this economy will shrink and point(7) will become very questionable. And if you have only a limited supply of money, which is the case with gold, then it is entirely possible for these individuals and businesses who 'save', to collect (nearly) all the gold. At that moment also point (3)(4)(5) and (6) become questionable, because when the consumers have little or no gold left, what further profit is there to be made? The economy comes to a screetching halt unless you introduce credit in the system. Once you introduce credit in the system you are basically reinventing paper money Let me spell something else out for you very simply. The scenario described above is possible regardless of what form of money is being used. You can use fiat paper, gold, silver, seashells, commercial paper, government bonds, or Yap stones and the whole thing still works. True. The only difference is that with fiat paper the value of the savings drops steadily and this functions as a continuous tax on all wealth with the proceeds going to a privileged group. With gold the value of the savings remains essentially constant. Thus, people are rewarded for saving and for making judicious, well-timed investments. The fiat money is not a problem at all, as long as you have free markets. If you don't want the value of your savings to drop, just park them into something that does not decay. You can buy gold, silver, anything... If you don't like the paper money, just buy gold. That's what I call freedom of choice. Nobody forces you to keep your savings in fiat currency. Don't get me wrong. I am quite confident that a few decades from now these dollars and euros will be worth much less than now, if not worthless. But that won't effect the real value of the gold and silver, the stocks and the house I have bought with them... Let me go even further than that. Even when people use gold as money, they can still set up banks which receive gold on deposit and engage in fractional reserve lending to create additional deposit currency -- as long as the bank explicitly spells out the terms of the arrangement in a clear contract with its depositors. Then you are already essentially back to the paper money system we have now. And let me go even further than that. Although I despise the imposition of income and wealth (property) taxes, if a society uses gold as money and imposes taxes to be paid in gold, I would view that as an improvement over requiring taxes to be paid in fiat paper. Given the choice, I would immediately prefer a country with a fiat currency that is inflated at 10% per year and no income taxes over a country with gold backed currency that taxes my income at 10% And as long as my fiat currency can buy gold on the free market, I don't see any meaningful difference between paying taxes in gold or in fiat currency. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: When e-gold takes off in a big way
Yes, exactly. When you have a fixed supply of money (B (gold) and the (B economy grows, then the value of gold increases. (B Hayek made that exact (B point in his 1931 book "Prices and Production:" (B (B (B (BAn economy where only gold is used as money, would have some problems. (B (BBecause there is only a fixed amount of gold(money) to facilitate a growing (Bexchange of goods, obviously the value of gold will have to rise. (BWhen the value of money rises people tend to postpone their (big) purchases, (Bas they know they will pay less for the same good or service in the future. (BIn other words, this 'only gold' economy always functions with the brakes (Bon. (B(With paper money that looses 5 or 10% of its value every year, there is a (Bstrong incentive to use it or invest it in something that doesn't loose (Bvalue so quickly. So the money moves faster and this economy runs better) (B (BAnd in an 'only gold' economy where the value of gold is bound to rise, (Bpeople will tend to accumulate the gold in their accounts because it is not (Ba bad investment. As result it will not be long until over 90% of the gold (Bis in hands of only 5% of the population, and only 10% of the gold will be (Bavailable to facilitate exchange of goods and services. (BThere will be liquidity problems and large parts of the society will go back (Bto barter trade simply because they have not enough gold to pay. (BEven if you throw in some other commodities with a limited supply like (Bsilver, we are likely to end up with the same problem sooner or later. (B (B (BThe main function of 'money' is to facilitate exchange of goods and (Bservices. (BTherefore it is better if the money itself is not too good a store of value. (BIf it looses 10% of its value every year, people know they should use it (Bquickly. (BAs a result they will build houses, buy cars, buy jewelry, invest it in new (Bideas, (BIf the money gains value every year, people will keep it in their pockets (Band the country will function below its possibilities. (B (BPeople are too much focussed on 'money', while the real wealth of a country (Bis in the good and services that are produced. (BIf 'bad money' forces people to do something with it and stimulates them to (Bcreate homes, products,... before the 'paper' becomes worthless, then this (B'bad money' has served a great purpose. (B (BEven if the US dollar becomes completely worthless tomorrow, those houses (Band cars and factories in the US that were built on paper money and debt, (Bwill not be lost, they will still be there and owned by someone... (B (B (B (BRegards (B (BDanny (B (B (B (B (B (B (B (B (B (B (B (B (B--- (BYou are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (BTo unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] (B (BUse e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) (Bvia the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common (Bviruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: When e-gold takes off in a big way
I truly can't explain things any better, so I can show that I agree with you about what gold is good for, but also what is not good for! Most people have a problem thinking that money is something valuable, but it's *just* liquidity. The value is what money stands for. Maybe Danny explained it better! Hi George, It is indeed very important to differentiate between liquidity, currency or means of exchange function, and storage of value function Ideally money serves only the liquidity function, we use it to 'pay' in exchange for something. As such money really is the 'blood' of an economy. And the blood should 'flow' through the system, that's its only function. Just imagine what would happen in the body if each of your organs starts storing (saving) as much blood as it can. You would be very sick and probably die rather quickly. We also don't want the blood to be scarce in the body , because with aneamia the system will not be very vital. Similarly we don't want money (liquidity) to be scarce in the economy. Money as means of exchange should be plentiful to allow the economy to perform optimally. As long as good storages of value are freely available in the system there is no problem at all. You can redeem your money for gold, silver, stocks, bonds, real estate, art,... or whatever you prefer as a means to store your wealth. Those who want to redeem their money in gold can do so by buying it on the free market, so what's the fuss? That's why I agree with you that gold is not very suitable to serve as money. Gold is more ideal as one of the storages of value. And I have always wondered why somebody who just keeps money in his pocket (or in his bank account) should be rewarded with a positive return on his (non)investment. He is not creating any value... On the contrary, goods that he could buy for this money are slowly decaying in the warehouses.. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: dBourse v NYSE
I know for sure is if that dbourse allowed all comers to setup shop in the e-gold marketplace worldwide, It would take about 2 weeks to begin to realize how many people would be scamming in every conceivable way and if that somehow achieved the mass scale of the NYSE in number of players and trades, you would quickly realize that the fraud on Dbourse would make the nyse look good by comparison or at least equal it.. I agree. Given the number of companies that trade on nyse and nasdaq, if Dbourse is equally safe it will have just one scandal every 1 years or so. I don't think that dbourse is safe from fraud in any way, just because their system is a better solution. I am not even convinced it is a better solution. Certainly it is not in any way technically better. I think the trading platform of Dbourse is not better than nyse. Same price orders are handled on a first come first serve base on every major stock exchange in the world. I don't see anything like that on DBourse, at least I don't see any date/time stamp with the outstanding orders. Dbourse is not anything more than an interesting (what if) discussion and a hope of some future potential to become this great new existing outside of the system. The free market potential is absolutely staggering and this is what interests me about it. I would rather call Dbourse a 'game' at this stage. People will put some of their gambling money in it , not more. A completely unregulated exchange will never grow very big because it is the (self)regulation of the exchange that makes enough people consider it safe to put a significant part of their life savings in it. That's the corner stone of the succes of nyse and other big exchanges. Oh, yes, the regulations will fail here and there, they always will. People lock their doors at night, and still it does not eliminate thieves completely. Does that mean it is useless to lock your door at night? I think any comparison between Dbourse and nyse is pretty meaningless at this stage. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: dBourse v NYSE
Given the number of companies that trade on nyse and nasdaq, if Dbourse is equally safe it will have just one scandal every 1 years or so. Well, this assumes the number of companies matters, rather than ethical/governance/board-competence issues. No, it means both matter. Just like more cars on the road gives more chance for accidents... Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: Danny's 130$
A PC program's no good to anyone, no one in a web development context ever means, like, a home PC or a mac or a programmable HP calculator ... Actually in this context a program that runs off of a webserver is completely inefficient. If you were trying to crack somebody's e-gold account automatically, you would probably have a program that runs off your PC... because you don't know how much time it will take. For example.. if you wanted to perform a single e-gold spend at a time, you could do it through a web interface.. but if you had a batch of a 1000 spends to do, you would do those through a PC program. Yes, I think you can do automated attacks on e-gold accounts both ways, directly from a webserver or from a PC connected to the internet. From a PC connected to the net one needs a PC program. The little program I made only cracks the (old) turing numbers, but adding just a few lines of code one could have easily developped it further into a simple program to do automated attacks on e-gold account from any Windows PC connected to the internet. I didn't go that far because cracking the turing numbers was already sufficient to prove my point, and it was no need to spread a full blown e-gold attack software. The e-gold people got the message and improved the turing images. Really that's an argument that cannot be denied: if the old turing numbers where as good as jpm wanted us to believe, then what was the need to change them? By the way Danny, if you have and images of the old e-gold turing numbers saved, I'll be happy to wrap it with a php script so it can run through the web. You would have to make it a command line program instead, that takes the Image url in as an argument and simply prints out the ascii numbers. I wonder if Jay can provide us with a few of the old e-gold turing numbers. The little program complete with Visual Basic source code and about 30 or 40 saved turing images (old version) are still up for download on my site in a zip package: http://www.fourpillars.net/finance/turingdecoder.zip I don't really see much use to put it on the web, but if you want to do it go ahead. The point was in cracking the images into asci text. On what platform (Windows PC, Mac, webserver, webpage) I succeeded to do it is not so important. It is just a technical question to port it to other possible uses. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: Danny's 130$
Danny van den Berghe seems to be a blow hard, and if you've gathered that impression, you are probably correct. There is no doubt that JP May pays reliably on bets he makes. Any thorough search of the e-gold or dgc-chat list archives will reveal that fact. Well, you can ask him why he didn't pay on this lost bet. If you have studied the archive so well, you will have seen that his language was rather 'uncivilized' even before he put up the challenge to crack the turing numbers within one day. You will also have seen that there was no talk about creating a website where you can convert the turing image into asci text. The whole discussion was about automated attacks on e-gold accounts, and my saying that the turing numbers where absolutely useless in that regard, because they are so easy to crack. Here's my proof that Danny is a blowhard. Follow the logic here: Danny writes: That $100 would have been 0.34 ounces back then. Which is $130 at todays rates... JP replies: I am happy to jumble the digits and up the payout to $310, how's that! To which Danny retorts: It is the OUNCES FIGURE that matters to me. 100$ at the moment you lost the bet, was 0.34 ounces. You can see where Danny has refused an offer of $310 to put his Turing cracker on the web. Aha, you did some good editing, carefully ommiting jpm's wrong statement: If the actual DOLLAR FIGURE matters to you (for God's sake!)... That's what I am answering because it is me who sticks to ounces, and jpm who is talking dollars, so he had turned things upside down. Besides that, I did not refuse any payment, I just refuse to do anything extra which was not in the original challenge. We are on the internet here. One can go on playing games and add extras to a lost bet forever, just to avoid paying or loosing. Not with me. That's probably why the images have been improved by now. Naturally, Danny doesn't offer to crack the current Turing number. You don't seem to have read the archives very well. After I cracked the old turing numbers I have said that I am willing to try tackle any new numbers they make, but only for a couple thousand dollars at least, not for $100. And payed up front. I have not been hired for the job so far. And I also made several suggestions how to improve the turing numbers, most of which you find in the new numbers. Cheers Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: another prediction
I understand what you are saying but it is irrelevant to the question of currency effect I brought up. Not that it matters, but ... Only irrelevant because you constantly change what you are saying. No, I have been talking about the same currency effect all the time. Here's something simple for you to follow along... Say a business starts making 50% of the profit from a given customer. But the number of customers increases by 100%. End result, same profit. Yes, that is a possible example. Had the currency effect not decreased the profit per customer by 50%, the results who have doubled. So, just because the currency effect was neutralized by other factors does not mean it does not exist. This is fairly basic. Something like the gold price changing would affect a property like TGC (or indeed -- IG systems generally!!) in many ways. That is obvious, but it doesn't do away with the currency effect, which is part of basic economics, whether you want it or not. And don't forget that it is a knife that cuts both sides. If the price of gold goes down, you will receive more ounces of gold for that same CD you are selling at fixed '$ worth of gold' At the TGC people will easier bet 1 gram stakes if one gram is $12 , than if 1 gram is $120 If 1 gram is only $1 , more people will do 5 or 10 gram bets... Also, again not that it matters, But what I do know is: Somebody who hears about TGC and signs up, goes to a market maker and buys $1000 worth of gold to blow it in the casino. At current price of gold he takes a little less than 3 ounces to TGC. When the price of gold doubles, he will go with only 1.5 ounces. no matter how endlessly you state something, it doesn't make it true Danny! You have no idea at all whether the typical TG player works on a dollar basis, or a weight basis, or what type of player comes in which percentage, etc. That's true. But we have pretty good idea that over 99.9% of people's incomes are denominated in dollars (or yen,..) not in grams of gold. When the price of gold jumps 20% (like it has done over the last 3 months), people's income does not necessarily rise accordingly. When the price of gold falls 20% (like it did earlier in the year), the average person's income is not affected. People only bet a certain % of their budget (=income), a % that has historically fluctuated very little. That's why casinos typically have very stable revenues and profit. This means 99.9% of people have a fix dollar (or yen, euro) amount available for gambling every month. This fixed dollar amount means less gold if the price of gold is higher. The currency effect is inevitable, every economist knows and accepts it, and every international company calculates this effect on its business and tries to hedge this risk. But again -- perhaps I'm explaining this poorly -- let's say your point WAS COMPLETELY CORRECT. (ie, we can magically know this.) It is nothing magical. If a company has a division in Europe, doing a certain amount of business. Their business may go up or down during the quarter, by whatever factors, but when the revenues and profits from this division are brought back to the usa, they are translated from Euro into dollars, so that totally depends on the exchange rate. You still have no clue what the final outcome will be - as there are many other factors. There are a plethora of other factors, many of them difficult to predict. That's why I said: everything else being the same, TGC revenues and profits would decline by 50% in gold terms. Everything else being the same, we put all these other factors temporarily aside, and we talk about currency effect 'pur sang' Also note my use of the word would decline It is just like meteorologists will sometime discuss different factors influencing the weather seperately. They may talk about the general effect of atmospheric pressure on the weather, regardless of all other factors like temperature. They may say : everything else being the same, higher pressures would bring good weather with clear skys, lower pressures would bring clouds and rain. This is simply part of scientific method. When a complicated matter is studied, they will try to set one factor apart so that it can be studied and perhaps quantified. if something spectacular like gold went to $4000 its imposisble to say what would happen -- IG systems themselves might explode in popularity (by 100s of times, not merley 4000/380 times), or indeed they might totally go away! That growth or failure of the # people using IG systems may (or may not!) affect the # of users of (say) TGC. If you don't understand, i can't explain any more - good luck! You are discussing here some of the factors I put aside, when I talk about currency effect. But no matter what happens to the #users in your example here, when they put an order with their market maker for $1000 worth of e-gold, they will get only 0.25 ounces at $4000 gold. That is
[e-gold-list] Re: Danny's $130 !
This turing image does not defeat the automatic attack. All I need is a screen capture of the turing image combined with some OCR software, quite simple. But Danny, it's not quite simple at all! You're simply wrong! I'm sorry! I'll give you $100 right now if you can set up your computer to convert Jay's turing image to ascii text within a day. Go for it! EOQ Note above that the topic was about automated attacks on e-gold accounts. As I said to you at the time, endlessly, I am sorry if you misunderstood, or there was a misunderstanding between us. The whole context was that of something that worked on the web, on servers -- where the imagined hacker would feed it in and get the number. And where everyone can openly try if it works. There was no misundertanding at all. Before you gave this challenge I had been saying that the turing numbers on the e-gold site are worthless, and easy to crack. So, they are not effective in stopping automated attacks on e-gold accounts. You were very insisting that cracking these turing numbers was very difficult, and gave the challenge posted above. Now, you don't do automated attacks by putting it on a webpage where people can go and feed in one of the turing gif images, so it returns asci text. What would be the point? Automated attacks will be done by a little application on my computer. This application will connect to the e-gold login page via the internet, it will take out the turing gif image and convert it into asci text, so that the form can be filled automatically, without human intervention... Once I have created the code for cracking the turing images, the rest is just routine programming... My computer converts turing images into asci text. That is what you asked for in your own words above.. If you expressed poorly, that is not my mistake. I appreciate the brain of your invention is in the code, but there's not much value unless you stick it on the web so everyone can use it. The visual basic program is still available complete with source code. Anybody can see it works, and adding a few lines of code you can start doing automated attacks with it. That's what the discussion was all about.. As is unfortunately often the case, a lot of what you say is simply - bizarre, Danny. (*) it might take you 4 or 5 minutes to make your cool program work on a web page. This is not much time in the typical context of fun bets that happen on the e-gold list. Maybe someone will do it for you. Why not just do it? The challenge asked for setting up a computer to convert turing images into asci text, and that's what I delivered. I am not going to do any extras for $100. I'LL STILL HAPPILY PAY $100 waiting! Sorry, but in February 2002 gold was at $290 an ounce I am also suffering from the same currency effect I have tried to explain you. That $100 would have been 0.34 ounces back then. Which is $130 at todays rates... Cheers Danny If the actual DOLLAR FIGURE matters to you (for God's sake!) I am happy to jumble the digits and up the payout to $310, how's that! I think it would be charming to pay out after so long. It is the OUNCES FIGURE that matters to me. 100$ at the moment you lost the bet, was 0.34 ounces. incidentally you don't need a screen capture, its just a gif that's there already, as a gif. Indeed. Cracking the turing images proved much easier than I thought. No screen capture or OCR software was needed. That's probably why the images have been improved by now. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: another prediction
It's a mystery Danny as to whether you really don't understand what everyone's saying to you, or you're just being funny, or what ?? I understand what you are saying but it is irrelevant to the question of currency effect I brought up. To make BUT ONE EXAMPLE -- BUT ONE -- you tell me, state, what you think will happen to DGCs themselves when the price of gold doubles Will there be twice as many e-gold users, half as many, or unchanged? You see. The number of e-gold users has nothing to do with the effect of a rising or declining gold price on the revenues of TGC. I am talking about currency effect, which happens to be 'basic economics' as I told you before. All the big international companies see this currency effect, which you denied. I even brought you example from the quarterly results of McDonalds. But, what can I do , if you don't see it? And you start talking about the number of e-gold users, whether the people playing on TGC are 'big fish' or 'small potatoes',, but this is all irrelevant to the question. Your usuall thing when you are devastated in an email discussion on a dozen points is to endlessly go on about one of the points, ignoring the rest. Since this is a simple one-point email, you can simply answer it ... I don't see anything devastated. If anything is devastated it must be you, because people that cannot keep to a 'civilised way' to discuss something, and their arguments are only 'hilarious, idiotic, not worth addressing', I think they need a rest at least. And I made only 1 point, so the other 11 points you see devastated are the points you have brought in I can still stand with my original statement, no significant argument has been brought against it: Another overlooked factor is the effect that changes in the price of gold have on TGC business. Did you consider what would happen if the price of gold doubles to $700 an ounce? Most people still think in dollars. Most of them would go to the casino with the same amount in dollars , and that would mean only half that much gold.. So, everything else being the same, TGC revenues and profits would decline by 50% in gold terms. This is a simple statement about currency effect. An effect every company has to deal with. Do you KNOW what will happen, and what is it .. twice as many e-gold users, half as many, or unchanged ? Again is this irrelevant to the question. You are the one who complains that I am doing predictions. And now you are asking me to 'predict' how many e-gold users there will be when the price of gold has doubled. But I will answer it for you. I have no idea when and if the price of gold will ever double. So, I have even less of an idea how many e-gold users there will be at that time. But what I do know is: Somebody who hears about TGC and signs up, goes to a market maker and buys $1000 worth of gold to blow it in the casino. At current price of gold he takes a little less than 3 ounces to TGC. When the price of gold doubles, he will go with only 1.5 ounces. That is currency effect, totally predictable, easy to calculate. That is what I am talking about, from the very beginning. You want to talk about number of e-gold users? Fine to me , but I have nothing to do it. As you know I don't make predictions. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: another prediction
Moreover, I won a bet with jpm here on the list more than a year ago, and the $100 has never been seen. Wait, Danny - are you talking about your program for converting e-gold's gif images to numbers? As I've said to you a dozen times ... Put it up on the web, let people feed in a few images, see if it works, if it does I'll happily pay the $100 Even though you still haven't done it for, what, a YEAR ?!! Excuse me, but I'll copy here the original challenge you gave me in early February 2002 (you can still check the list archives for it): This turing image does not defeat the automatic attack. All I need is a screen capture of the turing image combined with some OCR software, quite simple. But Danny, it's not quite simple at all! You're simply wrong! I'm sorry! I'll give you $100 right now if you can set up your computer to convert Jay's turing image to ascii text within a day. Go for it! EOQ There is not any mention about putting it on the web. You challenge me to set up MY computer to convert ... I did set up MY computer by the next day, and posted the little visual basic program I had made for it here on the list complete with source code. A few others have tried and seen that it worked. Cracking the turing numbers was easy. At that point I had fulfilled the challenge. Not surprisingly e-gold has put in better versions of the turing numbers not long after. Afterwards you complained that it had to work on your Mac, and it should be on a webpage. We call that changing the challenge after the bet is lost Do you really think I will spend another 6 hours of work to put it on the web for you and get the $100? Unrealistic. I charge more than $15 an hour, sorry... And then maybe you will change the challenge again... Ah no. I simply concluded that either you cannot admit a lost bet, or perhaps $100 is a lot of money for you. So, I just decided to 'put in your soup' once in a while, I don't need this $100 from you. I'LL STILL HAPPILY PAY Is there something unclear about this??!! No, it is very clear. You changed the challenge after I won the bet. Your words are there: I have to set up my computer... I did that and showed others how they could do it too. $100 waiting! Sorry, but in February 2002 gold was at $290 an ounce. I am also suffering from the same currency effect I have tried to explain you. That $100 would have been 0.34 ounces back then. Which is $130 at todays rates... Cheers Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: Why I am in love with the gold casino.
So, if gold is at $380, the average customer will bring in about 1 ounce. If gold is at $4000, the average customer will bring 0.1 ounce If gold goes to $40, then the average customer will come with 10 ounces. I think you are thinking in terms of dollars. If gold goes to $4,000/ ounce, bread will cost ~$35.00/loaf. People are still going to buy the loaf of bread. The bread (gold) has not changed value, the fait has and people adjust. No, I am just saying most people (and most customers of TGC) are thinking in dollars (or yen, ..) Not just 'thinking', more importantly they are 'earning' in dollars, yen, ... And the price of bread has not a strong correlation with the price of gold. The price of gold declined by 20% , from $385/oz to $320/oz between February and April this year. Did the price of bread also go down by 20% in the USA? Don' think so. Did people wages decline by 20% over this three month period? Don't think so. Now gold is back up to $385/oz. Did the price of bread rise by 20% since April. Did people's wages go up by 20%? Obviously not. Everyone is willing to spend XX percent of their money on gambling (could be zero). No matter how it is denominated, they will budget say 1% for fun money and spend it. Yes, that's correct. Historically people have spend a certain % of their income on gambling. This % is pretty stable over long period of time. It has been observed that people tend to gamble a little higher % of their income during times of recession. 99.9% of people earn their living in dollars (or yen). 1% of this income buys less gold at $390/oz than it buys at $320/oz So, the average customer will come loose less gold at TGC if the price of gold is higher, because he spends a fixed% of his income which is denominated in $ or Yen,.. That's what I have been trying to point out. Any customer who came to TGC with $1000 worth of e-gold back in April came with 3.125 ounces. The same customer who comes to TGC with $1000 worth of e-gold now, comes with only 2.63 ounces, about 20% less. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: Why I am in love with the gold casino.
You can put it in your 'predictions' file, most people have it in the 'basic economics' file. This is so silly it is not even worth addressing. We are used to that kind of statements from you. Note: It usually means jpm agrees, for people who are new on the board. If the Euro goes down 10% the economy there might be relatively down, or up, and that might mean that people buy relatively more, or less, burgers. Currency movements have little to do with the economic performance. The Euro is up more than 20% against the dollar over the last couple of years, yet the economy in the US has been growing faster. The movements of the currencies are the result of 'capital flows', not because people buy more or less hamburgers. And in fact ... in reality, it's very simply well known in international fast food chains that the profit from a region does NOT go with the exchange rate. If the yen's down 20% McDonalds take from Japan doesn't go down 20%. The people at McDonalds and nearly every US company with branches abroad just happen to disagree with you. They all reported better than expected results last quarter citing the higher Euro as an important reason for it. It makes the portion of revenues and profits from Europ relatively bigger in dollar terms. http://www.mcdonalds.com/corporate/press/financial/2003/07292003/index.html Revenues rose 11% (5% in constant currencies) to an all-time high for the quarter... EOQ Constant currencies means when they take out the effect of the higher Euro. So, their revenues were up 11% , but 6% of that rise was the result of currency movements. A little further you find a more clear explanation, which is exactly what I tried to explain here for TGC case: Impact of Foreign Currencies on Reported Results While changing foreign currencies affect reported results, McDonald's lessens exposures, where practical, by financing in local currencies, hedging certain foreign-denominated cash flows and by purchasing goods and services in local currencies. Foreign currency translation had a positive impact on the growth rates of consolidated revenue, operating income and earnings per share for the quarter and six months, primarily due to the stronger Euro and British Pound. EOQ So, the McDonalds people agree with me that currency movement affects their results. And they have no problem at all to calculate pretty exactly how much of their revenu and profit growth is due to the currency changes. Jpm lives in a different universe, where currency movements have no effect. Sure, it's interesting to toss around ideas, but it is absurdist to think you have a Knowable System all worked out. Regarding TGC, it has, in fact, grown continually the last few years -- ie, grown continually during gold price increases, which is exactly opposite your mathematical-obviousity prediction, anyway, Danny - good grief. We are all interested to know where you get the growth numbers for TGC, which show you that their growth is the same regardless of gold price. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: another prediction
So, everything else being the same, I just don't take anyone seriously who makes this statement. Ceteris parebus is the way economists say it, so as not to get accused of being weasels. Latin-speaking weasels, they are. All other things are not ever equal. Everything else is not the same. Of course all these other things are not equal. But it is easy enough to take out the effect of changing currency and then have a look at all these other things that are not equal. That's what every inernational company does in its result caclulations. But I doubt they will gamble 10 times more if gold goes to $4000 by the year 2005 for example. But, really, like all your predictions, you have no way of knowing. It is easy to know. All we do is look at what happened in the past when currency changed. When gold doubled in price in 1979, do you think people doubled their dollar amount of gambling, doubled the dollar amount of hamburgers to eat, just to make sure that revenues in gold terms stay the same? Obviously not. I think instead you should place a bet with JP May. Bet him that when the price hits $700 per ounce the Gold Casino sees the same dollar volume and lower gold volume, per customer, as when it was $375. Where you will get TGC numbers to decide the bet? Moreover, I won a bet with jpm here on the list more than a year ago, and the $100 has never been seen. Since then he always calls my post 'hilarious' when he agress with it. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: Why I am in love with the gold casino.
So, in gold terms their revenues will have downward pressure when the gold price rises. Danny classic, another prediction! someone make a note! It's not a prediction, it's a simple mathematical deduction. I remember it was you who told here that the average customer on a casino is worth about $400 If you spend more to catch your average customer the casino will loose money and go out of business. So, if gold is at $380, the average customer will bring in about 1 ounce. If gold is at $4000, the average customer will bring 0.1 ounce If gold goes to $40, then the average customer will come with 10 ounces. Just suppose gold is at $40 tomorrow. Instead of 1 gram bets, many people will do 10 gram bets, because in their mind is the same amount of dollars. The TGC revenues in gold terms would rise dramatically if the price of gold drops so low. Too difficult for jpm? Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: another prediction
By the way, Danny is completely wrong here. When people see $4000 per ounce gold, they will understand that the US dollar is worth less (worthless) and they will be less inclined to hold onto dollars. They will also be trying very hard to forget their troubles. Forget all your troubles, forget all your cares And go to the GOLD Casino... In bad economic times people gamble more. You overlooked my original statement: So, everything else being the same, TGC revenues and profits would decline by 50% in gold terms. (That was in the example of a doubling of the pog.) With everything else being the same , I mean that people don't increase or decrease their gambling and without lot of other factors that can come into play. We cannot discuss three things at the same time. It is indeed well known that people tend to gamble more in times of recession. But I doubt they will gamble 10 times more if gold goes to $4000 by the year 2005 for example. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: Why I am in love with the gold casino.
It's not a prediction, it's a simple mathematical deduction. hilarious... at any event, let's put it in the predictions file. You can put it in your 'predictions' file, most people have it in the 'basic economics' file. What I am describing is just the same like what any company experiences when they do business with a foreign country. They are affected by changes in the foreign currency, just like TGC is affected by changes in the value of the dollar (or yen, yuan, ..) against gold. Basic economics , dear jpm. It raises an interesting question -- how are IG systems affected by moves in the gold price? Just in the same way like McDonalds is affected by a decline of the euro against the dollar. If the euro declines 10% against the dollar, the people in Europe are not going to eat any less hamburgers for it, but when McDonalds comes out with their quarterly numbers you will see that revenues and profits from Europe are 10% less in dollar terms. If the Euro has gone up 10%, their revenues and profits from Europe will be 10% more in dollar terms. Companies based in e-gold country are facing the same phenomenon. They are selling to people who earn their incomes mostly in dollars, yens,... Those who offer goods and services for e-gold, more than 90% state their prices in xxx $ worth of e-gold So, when the price of gold doubles, the amount of gold that flows in the system in exchange for goods and services simply halves. Example: a website hosted by cyberica. Let's say they ask $38 a year. At current gold rates I pay them 0.1 ounce If next year the pog has doubled, I will only pay 0.05 ounce for the same webhosting. So, their revenues in gold terms are cut in half if the same amount of business is done. TGC functions under the same economics. Will there be an effect along the lines of Danny's discussion that peple will say hmm, I had $10,000 of egold, but now I have $15,000 - I really only want $10,000 so I better sell some? If the price plummets will people just get sick of it and sell bars? There is always a buyer for every seller. So, yes there are people who decide now to sell some gold because it has gone up. And there are other people who just start buying now because it is going up.. They are always in equal numbers. If the price plummets some people just sell, and others wait till the price plummets to buy at that lower price. Then too, the buyers and sellers are equal in number. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: Don't Worry, America...!
Good idea... but is that what the customers prefer? I agree it's a good idea to re-educate customers, but... GoldNow would much prefer to sell grams of e-gold, but our research shows that customers prefer USD worth. As well, I'd actually prefer to deal in EUR rather than USD. Graham, The situation in Europe shows how difficult it is for people to change the 'currency in their mind' Even though we have Euro bills since more than two years, a vast majority of people are still thinking in their old local currencies. They are in the shop and in their mind they are calculating how many Belgian francs is this 3.50 bottle of wine. It is said that most older people will never really make the step to think in Euro. The young people that grow up with Euro, they will think in Euro. We cannot hope that a significant number of people will start thinking in grams of gold , until the paper currencies have dissapeared for at least one generation... Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: Why I am in love with the gold casino.
The reason *I* am in love with The Gold Casino is that on the 1st of every month I get my dividends. I own 40 shares --- and the shares have been trading for three months now. In fact on the 1st of NEXT month it says the divdend increasesm, so they say. Hence, on the 1st of every month I now get about 25 GRAMS of gold. With the new gold price over $12 a gram - that's enough to live on monthly in some third world countries. There seems to be no question that within a couple years, the orignal tranche of 200 shares will sell, and there will be a reasonably active market in the shares. Hmm, I see the TGC stocks trade down at 90. This person who put in a low bid at 90 got his 5 shares rather quickly. That in itself is not such a problem, but one would expect to see more bids coming in at 90 if there is any demand out there. Why pay 100 if somebody succesfully bought at 90 by putting in a low bid? Those who are looking to buy TGC shares have nothing to loose by putting in bids at 95, 90 , even 85. Where are they? Has demand completely dried up already? I also don't see how you can ever have anything like a reasonably active market with only 400 shares trading. Cheers, Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: Why I am in love with the gold casino.
Hmm, I see the TGC stocks trade down at 90. This person who put in a low bid at 90 got his 5 shares rather quickly. I think you mean sold. I wish I had pounced on one, actually, but I was too slow. No, no , I remember jpm mentioned here a few weeks ago that someone had put in a bid for 5 shares at 90, not an offer. And he was wondering if it is an arbitrage technique or what... I answered the question that this is normal in every stock that people put in bids below the current price, in an attempt to snap up shares at cheaper prices. I don't see how you could have pounced on one, as it was a 'bid' for 5 shares. If you want to buy at 90 , you can also put in your own bids at 90.. And that's what I would expect to see if there are people out there who want to buy TGC shares. The number of 'bids' you see is an indication how much demand there is for the stock. The number of offers you see is an indication how much supply there is. Pretty simple. When I looked yesterday there were no reasonable bids at all (only two bids at very low 2 or 4 grams). That is an indication that demand is very weak. Well, we have a bid for 2 shares now :-) And this person who put in a bid for 5 at 90, got filled amazingly quickly, within one week or so. That's not exactly what I want to see with stocks I own... Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: 2 at 97
That in itself is not such a problem, but one would expect to see more bids coming in at 90 if there is any demand out there. (You mean supply out there. Bids are demand, and offers are supply.) Seems like you have it upside down. Yes, bids are demand. That's why I would expect to see more bids coming in if there is any demand out there. The supply out there is reflected in the offers. No shortage on that side, as far as I saw yesterday. Why pay 100 if somebody succesfully bought at 90 by putting in a low bid? Those who are looking to buy TGC shares have nothing to loose by putting in bids at 95, 90 , even 85. An outstanding idea, Danny! I'm putting in a bid for 2 at 97 immediately! Perhaps that will tempt some sales... Why do you bid 97? The other person got them at 90 pretty easily... But this is indeed the kind of activity one would want to see in a healthy market. Those who are interested to buy TGC shares, what are they waiting for to put in their bids at low prices? That's what I am doing in the stock market all the time, put in low bids and then hope somebody sells his shares to me at that price. This person bidding 90 got away with it. Now he could offer his shares at 99 and make a 10% profit as soon as they are taken up. That's what I call doing business. Where are they? Has demand completely dried up already? Perhaps you don't understand how bids and offers work - it can be confusing in thin markets. It looks like every single time there's been an offer under 100, it has been, as you say above, snapped up. Yes, but here we got the opposite case. Somebody put in a bid below 100 and got the shares dropped in his lap pretty quickly. All bids being filled is very different from all offers being snapped up... I also don't see how you can ever have anything like a reasonably active market with only 400 shares trading. Since you've been wrong with every prediction so far, that doesn't seem to be much of a problem! :) I wouldn't know what predictions I have done, so how they could be wrong is a mystery for me. I have always been interested in stock markets, so I am interested what happens with this 'experiment'. All I have done so far is point out what I see lacking in this stock issue. Just like now I point out that there seems to be no demand for TGC shares, as there are no reasonable bids to be seen. Apparently you agree and have filled the gap already by bidding for 2. It's something that every daytrader could have explained: don't buy a stock that is poorly bid. Once the stock shows a lot of bids and fewer offers, that's when it will look good to buy. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: Why I am in love with the gold casino.
Hmm, I see the TGC stocks trade down at 90. Anyone who bought shares in TGC at the start can offer their TGC shares for 89.2 grams and still break even. This is based on a 9% increase in the gold price ($345 to $380) and the 1.8% return from dividends so far. True, but somebody who just kept his gold in his e-gold account is up 8.7% in dollar terms, so breaking even doesn't look so great. Another overlooked factor is the effect that changes in the price of gold have on TGC business. Did you consider what would happen if the price of gold doubles to $700 an ounce? Most people still think in dollars. Most of them would go to the casino with the same amount in dollars , and that would mean only half that much gold.. So, everything else being the same, TGC revenues and profits would decline by 50% in gold terms. A rising price of gold is not such great news for TGC Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: Why I am in love with the gold casino.
Most people still think in dollars. Most of them would go to the casino with the same amount in dollars , and that would mean only half that much gold.. I think TGC forces them all -- better than I ever could -- to slowly start thinking in terms of grams instead of dollars when it comes to e-gold. Yes, I agree that they help people think in grams. But we cannot take away the fact that most people still earn their living in dollars (or Euros,...) So, if the price of gold doubles, it does not mean that people's 'budget for gambling' also doubles. Suppose the price of gold goes to $4000 an ounce. Somebody who is now spending $100 a month in TGC, will not suddenly go up to $1000 a month because the POG has done x10 So, in gold terms their revenues will have downward pressure when the gold price rises. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: Can cheater control the e-gold
As soon as you get a batchnumber ending in 9 , you quickly have the program enter a bet into the batchgame with a pretty good chance that the batchnumber will end in 0 if it is fast enough... And I'm sure they do this at times when the volume of e-gold spends is lowest. It would still be a small gamble for them that they might lose their stake if someone somewhere happens to make a spend at exactly the wrong moment. I don't know exactly how many e-gold spends are done on an average day for the moment, but it can't be too difficult to calculate how many seconds of time you have to be reasonably certain of the gamble.. We have 86400 seconds in a day. Even with 10 spends a day it would mean you have more than a few seconds between spends during the slowest period of the day. Although I bought the batch game script, I am not going to run it on my site for exactly this reason. It is too easy to corner this game. So, probably the seller of the script will not object that I change the game into something 'safer' Regards Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: Can cheater control the e-gold transaction batch?
We have just received the report from our customer. I seems that cheater can control the e-gold tranasction batch number. Below is the copy of the history he sent to me. The cheater can make all batch game that end with 0 to get money. Please tell me more about that. Probably not too hard to cheat on this game. Basically all you need to do is create a little program that does automatic microspends into any other account of your own. As soon as you get a batchnumber ending in 9 , you quickly have the program enter a bet into the batchgame with a pretty good chance that the batchnumber will end in 0 if it is fast enough... Cheers Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: Surging gold threatens to dim dollar's luster
Currency analysts worry that as the price of gold rises, so too will investors' antipathy toward U.S. assets. Trust the 'experts' to find someone to blame for what is essentially the result of catastrophic US policies ever since the underhanded coup d'etat. It is common strategy of the politicians to point to one of the consequences as the cause for a problem. As a result most people cannot see the real causes of the problems. It is a clever stategy to mask the fact that the politicians themselves are direct cause of most of the problems in this world. So, now they will try to blame gold for the coming meltdown in dollar and stocks. It is like somebody who would explain he is drinking too much because he is drunk. Actually, that's exactly how a friend of mine describes the current state of the US economy: The USA drinks too much because it is drunk. For quite a while their car has been on a straight road without any trees, and downhill.. So no big accidents have happened, and they also do not notice that the tank is empty. It's not so sure they will end up crashing in a tree that lines the street. More likely the car will just stop in the middle of the road as soon as it goes flat or uphill. Then they will open the bonnet of the car to see what's wrong, and scold the Japanese for making bad cars. Having no choice but walk home, they will sober up eventually.. And probably loose a couple of pounds as well. We are now in line three of this story. The rising interest rates of late are an indication that the road is turning uphill.. Watch the news. Rather than gold being responsible for investors shunning US assets, it is them shunning US assets being responsible for the increase in the gold price. Exactly, but once Joe Sixpack has accepted the wrong explanation by the politicians, it will be very difficult to make him see this simple truth. I had an interesting discussion with some political strategists from Asian think tanks recently. They compare the current American policies to the last attempt of the Roman empire to stay in charge, and believe that given half a chance, America will self-destruct from internal rott. Yes, it's inevitable. A system, country, empire grows and rises, only to become the victim of its own succes when the day turns into night again. Can you say 'Dawn of the Asian Century'? The peak of civilisation has always tended to move in Westward direction. From Babylon and Egypt it went to Greece. From ancient Greece it went to Rome... From Europe it moved to the USA. Now it will move on to Asia. Regards Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: intriguing ..
https://www.dbourse.com/guests/ notice someone put in a bid for 5 at 90. is that some sort of arbitrage technique pre-dividend I don't know about? In almost every stock you have people that try to make money by putting in low bids. For example Microsoft may sell at $27 , but you will always see low bids at $23, $20 or even $15... Just see the order book for any of the stocks trading on Island, and you will see what I mean. They just hope that somebody panics with the stock and sells at the first price he can get, which could be this bid at 90. Then this opportunist will put them up for sale at 99 and hope to make the quick 10% profit. Has nothing to do with pre-dividend. It just means you now have a marketmaker at DBourse (not me..:-) Ciao Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: Betting program
Beginning from last night I have some problems with tens of emails (each over 100 KB) that are returned to me, so some regular emails (like those from this list) may bounce (during the night because I can't clear my mail-box). Hi George, It is a new virus that has spread very fast over the last few days. I use JBmail to remove this crap before downloading it from the server. It is very useful to remove unwanted mails if you don't have a fast connection: http://jbmail.pc-utils.com/ You can use it as freeware for as long as you want, but maybe somebody can convince this guy to accept e-gold donations.. Regards Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: buy TGC shares immediately
Maybe 0.1g is a bit low, but 1g shares at just above $11 a chop, might liven up the market. We actually swapped a share account a few weeks ago when someone urgently wanted to buy some gold and the client has been desperately trying to sell them. Yes, 4 shares would be a little more liquid already. But anything less than 10 shares will always be an extremely illiquid investment. In a very illiquid market it is always a problem when you want to sell your share(s), like your client experienced. With only 400 shares around, it is very difficult to sell them without taking a rather big loss. In a more liquid market environment this would have meant that the price would have dropped more towards the 90g mark, or a 10% loss. That's what you would probably see if the stock was trading more actively: that it is going down already. Because it cannot go up as long as unsold ipo shares are hanging over the market. Of course, the way things are, it is unlikely that there will ever be volatility of any sort in the shares because between JPM and two other big shots, have of the liquidity is in effect not in the market. Sales have been slow as well, as you point out, so thinks are not looking too well. Normal IPO, you have something like a one or two month period during which you can sign up for the shares. After that period the IPO is closed and the shares can start trading normally. An ipo is only considered a success if there are more bids than shares offered. Here we have only 60% of the shares taken up so far, which would be considered a disastrous offering in the normal ipo world. With a low 0.6 bid ratio a stock will start going down as soon as it trades freely, because it exposes that there is only weak demand for the shares at the given price. Now JPM and others will argue about the incredible dividend et al, but the only way to make 'real' money was really to buy the shares when gold was at 342 and dump them on some hapless poor geezer when the market went above 362. That's more return in 6 weeks than the dividend will amount to in a year. As long as the TGC stock cannot go up it is more like a fixed investment, comparable to bonds. But there are plenty of bonds offering higher than 6% annual dividends... And these are liquid bonds which are easily sold if you want to invest the money in something else, no problems there... And the fact that these TGC shares pay the dividend in gold doesn't mean much. We can easily hedge any stock against the movement of the gold price, many investors are doing that. You can own Microsoft shares and they will behave as if they are trading in grams of gold and paying their dividends in gold. Todays financial instruments offer you all this flexibility. Regards, Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: buy TGC shares immediately
If it becomes clear that it might take a few years for all the stocks to sell (if ever), TGC shares have only been available for 2 months and more than half of them are sold. If I remember correctly they announced that more than half of the shares where already sold in the first month. So it looks like demand is drying up pretty quickly. Perhaps some people waited a month to see whether dividends are really paid, before they jumped in. But now, where are the next investors going to come from? 6% annualy, in what turns out to be a very illiquid investment, is not exactly something that will make headlines.. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: R: Stealing Trademarked Words
And if a site that has e-gold in the domain name but has nothing to do with DGC and the domain name actually means 'electronic gold-something' then that can not possibly seen as an infringement on the e-gold trademark, or? Hi, I see two possible ways to consider e-gold-casino The first interpretation is that it is the bringing together of 'e-gold' and 'casino' In that case it is clear that the e-gold trade mark is being used. The second interpretation is to see it as 'gold-casino' with the prefix 'e-' added to it. 'Gold' is a plain English word and the word 'gold-casino' can simply mean a casino where gold is used to place bets. You could also have 'diamond-casino' ... '-casino' Putting the prefix 'e-' in front of it only signifies that it is 'electronic' It will depend whether the court accepts 'gold-casino' as a valid word, inorder to avoid violation of e-gold's trade mark. It might be sufficient to point out that there are several 'gold-casinos' in existence already. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: The example TGC is setting. (was: Re: The truth)
Even if full disclosure was given, 7.2% per annum is not exactly breath taking. Well, these days, looking at things like US banks, it's not all that bad... This is what my bank offered for CD's a month ago. (No typos) CD (Minimum $1,000 for 2 years): 1.45% CD (Minimum $10,000 for 2 years): 1.50% CD (Minimum $100,000 for 2 years): 1.50% Not really a fair comparison. The CD is a 'risk free' investment, meaning that your principal will be paid back to you at the end of the period. So, the value of the CD cannot go down. While stocks always carry a risk premium because they can fall in value and you may have to wait many years to see it trade back at the price you bought (if ever) Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] goldhedge idea (was Re: The example TGC is setting. (was: Re: The truth))
Not really a fair comparison. The CD is a 'risk free' investment, meaning that your principal will be paid back to you at the end of the period. So, the value of the CD cannot go down. On the contrary. The CD is paying between one and two percent, but in normal times that's not even going to keep up with inflation. Grams (which TGC's paying 7.2% on) don't inflate. While the share-price may or may-not be enough of a risk-premium for TGC shares to be a good buy vs a CD; CDs aren't exactly risk-free either. JMR That's why I put risk free in quotes, because obviously you always have the risk that your currency goes down. But the opposite can also happen , that gold goes down in $ terms. Leaving the currency risk aside, with the CD you have exactly your principal amount back at the end of the period, while with stocks you don't know how much $ or Grams of gold you will get for them in 1 or 2 years from now... And you could also hedge your dollars. I recently saw this new goldhedge.com site, and I wondered why they are not offering the opposite service as well. They offer you a fixed US$ amount for your gold, but I think there would be at least equal interest for a service that offers a fixed amount Grams of gold for your $. That would be a very useful service for the market makers, because now they are taking risk when they accept a big order for e-gold at a certain rate, as the price of gold can easily go up by the time they get the check for the order. Because goldhedge is using futures position to deliver their service, they could as easily offer fixed amount of gold for $ service. (and why not the same services for silver, platinum and palladium ?) That would open a lot of possibilities. Let's say you can do a $ investment that will give you a 20% return by the end of the year. Interesting, but your fear is that the dollar will drop in the meantime, which could erase your profits. I know I will have $ coming in by year end , and I could go to goldhedge to fix the amount of gold I will get for these $ at near today's rates... If the dollar drops in the meantime it is no problem because I have hedged them against a fixed amount of gold... Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: have?
The whole bulk of internet commerce is online gaming, Just a minute , but online brokerages and other sites around trading and stock markets make up a far bigger piece of internet commerce. huh? I'm guessing you have some interests in the world of trading, so trading probably seems like a big thing, but perhaps surprisingly trading of stocks (whether online or in bricks mortar) is only a niche market in the world Danny. Who trades stocks? Only a niche of people. Yes, I have been involved in stock trading since the mid eighties, so I know more about it than about casinos:-) You seem to be in the opposite position, so I looked up some numbers for you. Over half of the US households own stocks. While there are of course bigger industries like automobiles, most people do not buy their car over the net, while internet stock trading is a major chunk of all the stock trading that is being done. The casino and gambling industry turns out to be about 1/10th the size of the investment services industry. http://biz.yahoo.com/p/_servic-casino.html http://biz.yahoo.com/p/brokerconameu.html (The casinos have a 33 billion$ market cap, while financial services are 290 billion$) Market cap means how much money you would need to buy all the shares at their current price. Online stock trading is really only etrade, its the only company of any size (over a few thousand employees) in the field, they barely make 100m a year and their sales are a fraction (a quarter? a tenth?) of say amazon's. Etrade is only one of many online brokers. Actually Ameritrade is bigger. And most brick and mortar brokers have large online trading departments as well. Etrade sales were $2 billion last year, their profit $100 million. FYI, Amazon made $4billion in sales last year (and lost $150 million on it) (I was just reading that one of the (lesser-known, no big deal) companies that supplies online gaming software, in total JUST their clients (ie the few casinos who hapen to use that particular type of software), has paid out 5 billion ... http://au.altavista.com/r?ck_sm=3c878af7rpos=3rpge=1ref=3eb00020080uid=2 6630f9fc884957ar=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cryptologic.com%2Finvestor%2Fpdf%2Fcry00y r.pdf ) Of the 10 billion dollar [ -- some years ago -- ] online casino industry, Online casinos mostly don't publish numbers. This figure is the guestimate by some of the opponents of online gambling, who are crying loud that it should be stopped or regulated. Very unlikely that these would-be-regulators are not exagerating the number... A fantastic story, but you can look up for yourself the reports by the big-5 accounting firms, check out their methodology and see what you think. Or, use common sense and ask what most happens on the internet Cryptologic.com They claim to one of the bigger players in online gaming software. Reading a little further on their site I learned the following: Quote: Poker is the Internet's latest big growth market, accounting for just 5% of the $3.5 billion online gaming industry today and promises considerable upside potential. EOQ So they estimate the online gaming industry at $3.5 billion in 2003, not the $10 billion you mention. Furthermore I learn that casino games is only 30% of this total, which means the total turnover of the online casinos is about $1billion annualy. That seems more realistic already. (the rest of these $3.5 billion is taken by online betting and lotteries) You can also learn in their annual reports that the big land based casinos are starting to expand into the online business. They expect that only the very big players will be able to survive in the coming years. Cryptologic.com also mentions the 'alternative payments' they are now supporting in their softwares, so I guess it won't be long until TGC has to compete with the really big boys. What that could mean for TGC shares, I leave that to your own judgement. I have already said enough about it. I think everybody who is in these TGC shares would do well to have a look at their investors' site: www.cryptologic.com/investors/index.html It not only gives you a good idea how much information a company usually provides to its public shareholders, but you also learn a lot about the prospects for the online gaming industry. Reading some of their quarterly and annual reports gives you lot of background information. Dare I ask, but maybe jpm cannot answer the question: is TGC built on cryptologic software? They mention the launch of their multi player poker game was 6 months ago, so that made me think Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: exchange surchage woes
I want to obtain 1000 EUR in euro notes, paid for with US dollars. oanda.com says that 1 Euro = 1.1345 USD I checked a few currency exchange sites, all of whom said that there was no commission or fee charged. ordercurrency.com 1000 Euro = 1294.13 USD 14% exchange surcharge This will be rates for having notes delivered to you in a safe manner (or you go pick them up somewhere). Cannot compare that to rates set for just changing currencies in electronic form. What would be cost if there were e-gold notes, and you would order them from any of the e-gold axchange providers? If you exchange Euros into $ without having notes delivered to you, the cost is less than 1%. For bigger amounts (over $1) the costs will be even less, usually 4 or 5 pips, wich means you buy 1 Euro for 1.1347 US$ and you can sell them for 1.1342 US$ Now you can compare with e-gold exchange fees.. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: The example TGC is setting. (was: Re: The truth)
At 8:31 PM +0300 7/10/03, Danny Van den Berghe wrote: ... If the only revenue of holding TGC shares would be the 7.2% dividend and possible but not necessarily probable increase in share price, then I would consider a bad investment simply because the returns are too low. Even if full disclosure was given, 7.2% per annum is not exactly breath taking. Well, these days, looking at things like US banks, it's not all that bad... That was Robert's saying... Well, let's take a look at TGC's example...They've been around since Feb. 2000 (I'll admit, I knew in late 1999 they were coming!). They've given away ten+ thousand dollars worth of fun stuff (see their news- room page, and then hit more stories at the bottom). They have a large player base (most of their players are NOT getting this list!) and they have a reputation because it's July 2003. True. But also consider that a casino would not gain anything by not paying its customers. They know perfectly well that when $100 is spent into the casino's account, at least $90 of it never leaves the casino again because the player will inevitably loose it in the games. Only once in a while somebody will cash out some 'gains'. So why the casino would take away the $100 at once when their games can do it slowly and legally? The stock offering is a totally different ball game. Could they be like the eBay crook who had a good reputation but then took off? Sure! But as I've said before, I think DBourse is about making a point, and not just about making a profit, so I'd be surprised if they ran off... I would be surprised too if they ran off. Because there are much cleaner ways to get away with it. If we get more stock offerings of this nature, it is much more likely the secret management just lowers or slashes the dividend, citing lower income or losses in the business (which nobody can verify). They don't need to run away. And you cannot say they are scammers because the numbers are not published, so they may be honest (but maybe not). Because they cannot be proven to be a scam they can just continue their website business and continu pocketing all the profits themselves. The money they have raised in the ipo stays in their pockets, and the public shareholders see their stock price go down to zero as hope dwindles to ever see a dividend. Perfect setup for a scam isn't it? Only needs some patience. As scammers become aware of this opportunity, you could see more and more fraudulent stock offers being done in this completely laissez-faire arena. And before you know it the honest entrepreneurs will start giving management names and audited numbers, just to differentiate themselves from the fraudulent stock offers. That's what happened 300 years ago, and now we are here just reinventing the wheel. If they ARE crooks, they're very good, very-subtle crooks. Most of the crooks 'round these parts, for example, don't give away tens of thousands of bucks worth of stuff/gold-comps and spend years to make a scam that seems believable to people like JP May -- crooks are not that patient! I agree , most crooks are not patient and will take off as soon as they can collect a few thousand $. But some crooks are very patient. Some can wait for 10 years, just continuing their scam in an honest fashion as long as more money is coming in. In any case, as many people hold a sizeable portion of their life savings in stocks, it is only understandeable that they demand some guarantee against the worst case scenarios. Management names and reliable numbers do just that. In absence of any guarantee these TGC shares cannot be considered a serious investment. Lottery ticket is a better description, notwithstanding the good reputation of TGC so far. There is a famous saying in stock market circles: A great company is not always a great investment Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: TGC and the Davidson reputation test
But what happens in an unregulated environment when the unregulated non-regulators pass away? The answer is we don't know. The solution is to keep applying the Davidson reputation test. The problem with this Davidson test is that it only says something about the past trustworthiness of the past management. It gives no any guarantee for tomorrow. By the time your test starts ringing bells it will probably be too late to get out, because this is a very illiquid stock with only 400 shares trading. The moment some clear warning sign would appear, you will see lots of sell orders but no takers, and there is also no market maker here. The stock market (self) regulation is just an attempt to guarantee reasonable honest management in the future. It is not fool proof for sure, but it works better than nothing. But what do you want? Even more regulation to make it fool proof? btw,the CEO of Worldcom just landed behind bars for a 7 year sentence or something. The books of Enron showed clear cut 'gymnastics' to keep the thing in balance, more than a year before the collapse. Plenty of 'make-up'... But if people negate such things, they needn't blame Wall Street. Would public investors have fared better if Enron shares had been 'TGC style'? Definitely not. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: have?
I also played in TGC a few years ago, but it is so boring that I quickly gave up on it. Yes, certainly, this is just a private opinion of course, merely in passing Is it forbidden on this list to express one's personal experience with e-gold or services that use e-gold? I thought that was exactly one of the purposes. If you can't stand that, I guess you bought a few TGC shares too many to be comfortable with.. The whole bulk of internet commerce is online gaming, Just a minute , but online brokerages and other sites around trading and stock markets make up a far bigger piece of internet commerce. Etrade alone has about 2 billion$ in sales a year, they have 2.5 billion$ of cash in the bank, and that's just one of the online brokerages. (http://biz.yahoo.com/p/e/et.html if you don't believe me) (and I don't have any shares in etrade, just in case you are searching for an agenda again...) Electronic and online games are more likely to be rigged too. Yes, of course - who can really argue with that statement? Electronic and online games are more likely to be rigged too -- who can argue with that? Why was it said - well, it's a true statement - right? Is it not allowed to mention that, when I am talking why I prefer a real casino over an online one? My dear friend, you are talking about laissez-faire, free markets and free speech.. non-regulation.. And now you are going to tell me what I can say on this list and what not.. And you go on trying to push me to express an opinion about TGC.. What happened to your 'laissez-faire' ?? And you don't see the contradiction between your words and your behaviour... Get real please. Any Sunday afternoon programmer (like me), knows how easy it is to tweak the odds where you want to. Just a few extra lines of code, and that King you need will have a little less chance to come up, or maybe a little more chance if it is a new customer and you want to make him happy on his first visit. Just too easy. Does every online casino this? Probably not. Are there online casinos who do this? Most certainly. Of the 10 billion dollar online casino industry, Online casinos mostly don't publish numbers. This figure is the guestimate by some of the opponents of online gambling, who are crying loud that it should be stopped or regulated. Very unlikely that these would-be-regulators are not exagerating the number... Don't look at him - he as just saying Electronic and online games are more likely to be rigged too. And who can argue with that sentence? Then why are you trying? Danny can't quite decide, or clearly state, whether his position is that... Indeed, that's what I have been saying all the time: I can't decide because there is NO information. At least something we agree about. Does that mean I should 'believe' something? Just relax. My criticising TGC shares has already done more than your touting them... If some people on this list have decided not to buy TGC shares because of my ramblings here, it is not me that is to be blamed, but DBourse's response (or lack of response) to these questions that have come up. Cheers. Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
[e-gold-list] Re: TGCdbourse: The sordid story continues.
(*) Microsoft shares -- the Board sits around and decides on a whim what dividend should be paid to each share of each type of share that month or year (*) TGC shares - the Board (management? Jim Ray? whatever - who knows) sits around and decides on a whim what dividend should be paid to each share of each type of share that month or year MInd you, that's just me. I have a high capacity to abstract things out into encompassing sets - to me it seems obvious that a TGC shares and a MSFT share is the same thing with (spectacularly) different specific conditions. It's just how you look at it.. But from here it looks like the dividend is the only 'similarity' between Microsoft shares and TGC shares... In my capacity to abstract things into encompssing sets TGC shares and Microsoft shares are obviously different things with only one similarity: the dividend. That boeing airplane flying over and the fish swimming in my pond both have a 'tail' But does that mean they are 'the same thing with (spectacularly) different specific conditions'? Danny --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Use e-gold's Secure Randomized Keyboard (SRK) when accessing your e-gold account(s) via the web and shopping cart interfaces to help thwart keystroke loggers and common viruses.
