[e-gold-list] 7-11 Internet payment cards
Are there any market makers who accept the 7-11 / Amex Internet payment cards in payment for e-gold? I read the FAQ on these cards, but it is not clear to me from the FAQ whether these cards are hard money or soft money. http://www.7-eleven.com/about/news/news_internetcardfaq.html -- Vincent --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] Gold Lease Rates
Looks like gold lease rates are up again. Why are the rates that Kitco derives from market data so different from the ones provided by the London Bullion market? http://www.kitco.com/market/LFrate.html ~ Vincent --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] seeking historical data
Does anybody know where I could find historical daily quotes of the gold lease rate going back several years? Preferably as ascii data, not in chart form. Another type of historical data I'd like to find would be the premium for silver bullion coins vs. silver rounds, as this is supposed to be a leading indicator for the price of silver according to this article I recently read. I'd like to test that assertion by checking it out on historical data. http://www.the-moneychanger.com/money/1000swap.htm ~ Vincent --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] Re: Yada yada yada
If all of the gold currencies are compatible with each other, they all have access to the total market. If they are not compatible, as is the case today, and each try to build their own global market, none of them will be as successful because the market will be fragmented. looks to me like there is some oportunity here for some young prodigy to create a system that integrates all the gold currencies. Khurram Khan Some young prodigy is already doing just that. His name is Ian Grigg, and his company is named Systemics, and the thing that will integrate all the disparate currencies are Systemics' Ricardo Issuance Server, and Ricardo Exchange Server. http://www.systemics.com All currencies will be easily convertible into all other currencies, via trading exchanges (Richardo Exchange Server). There is no need to worry about how many currencies there are, nor to try to organize the different currency issuers into a common system. There is nobody even close to providing a solution as good as Systemics', and once Systemics' system gains critical mass (which it will - I give 99% odds on that), all the different currency issuers will set up Ricardo Issuance Servers, and then setting up Ricardo Exchange Servers for trading these currencies with other currencies will be easy. ~ Vincent Youngs --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] Re: Hansa Dollars
Actually, I overlooked point c. in the contract. I guess there will be a
percentage premium charged by Hansa bank when purchasing Hansa
dollars.
~ Vincent
conditions_purchase= *
{
a) All Purchase requests must be accompanied by a WebFunds account
number. Purchase requests should be delivered by secure means,
and insecure information may be rejected. Purchases must be
accepted and authorised in advance by the Bank, before funds are
sent, as per b) below.
b) Issuance of Hansa Bank US dollars will be on strict payment
of equivalent amount of dollars, and applicable fees, using one
of the following methods:
1. transfer from bearer's USD account held with Hansa Bank,
at no additional charge
2. cheque written on bearer's USD account held with any retail
bank in Anguilla, at nominal charge, and within 24 business hours,
3. Wire or SWIFT to Hansa Bank's trading account,
bearer to pay all incurred fees, bearer to provide full and
acceptable identification details, and transaction to occur
within 24 business hours of clear and settled funds being
made available within Hansa Bank's trading account.
4. any other method suitable to banking probity as acceptable
to the Hansa Bank and its Anguillan authorities, and as
agreed by the Bank and bearer.
c) Purchase will attract a percentage fee that changes from time
to time and is published on the Contract Publication Page.
d) Purchase limits will be set from time to time as published on
the Contract Publication Page. Third-party market makers are
encouraged to deal in lesser amounts.
}
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[e-gold-list] Re: Hansa Dollars
Perhaps you could trade Hansa dollars vs. e-gold (I am not certain just
how much of the Systemics Trader actually works). But I don't think that
would really solve your problem. It would just relocate the problem: how are
you going to get Hansa dollars? You would now need a market trading dollars
(the ones you have) for Hansa dollars. Does anyone have them? Is anyone
selling them? Is buying them any easier or cheaper than buying e-gold?
CCS
I have to admit I had not considered the possiblity of obtaining Hansa
dollars to be a problem. I figured it would be like a normal bank where just
anybody could open an account. After checking out Hansa bank, I see
that isn't the case. They have stringent requirements to open an account.
However, Hansa dollars should be obtainable from market makers for a flat
service charge. The ricardian contract for Hansa dollars specifies the ways
that Hansa dollars will be obtainable:
conditions_purchase= *
{
a) All Purchase requests must be accompanied by a WebFunds account
number. Purchase requests should be delivered by secure means,
and insecure information may be rejected. Purchases must be
accepted and authorised in advance by the Bank, before funds are
sent, as per b) below.
b) Issuance of Hansa Bank US dollars will be on strict payment
of equivalent amount of dollars, and applicable fees, using one
of the following methods:
1. transfer from bearer's USD account held with Hansa Bank,
at no additional charge
2. cheque written on bearer's USD account held with any retail
bank in Anguilla, at nominal charge, and within 24 business hours,
3. Wire or SWIFT to Hansa Bank's trading account,
bearer to pay all incurred fees, bearer to provide full and
acceptable identification details, and transaction to occur
within 24 business hours of clear and settled funds being
made available within Hansa Bank's trading account.
4. any other method suitable to banking probity as acceptable
to the Hansa Bank and its Anguillan authorities, and as
agreed by the Bank and bearer.
c) Purchase will attract a percentage fee that changes from time
to time and is published on the Contract Publication Page.
d) Purchase limits will be set from time to time as published on
the Contract Publication Page. Third-party market makers are
encouraged to deal in lesser amounts.
}
From the contract, it is clear that the best thing a market maker could do
is open an account with Hansa bank, which would enable them to buy
Hansa dollars for an equivalent amount of U.S. dollars without even paying
any service charge. Surely some market makers will be able to meet
Hansa Bank's qualifications to open an account. So long as there are a
few such market makers, competition between them will most likely bring
the cost of purchasing Hansa dollars down to a flat service charge without
any percentage premium.
~ Vincent
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[e-gold-list] Re: Hansa Dollars
I doubt that the market maker fees for Hansa-dollars would go down, as you envisage, below those for e-gold. The reason, in both cases, is the same: the risk taken by the market makers in selling hard money (Hansa-dollars or e-gold) for soft money. The crooks would prey on the Hansa-dollar market makers too. CCS Market makers charge an extra risk premium when you buy with soft money, but when you buy with hard money they do not charge the risk premium. That would apply to Hansa dollars also. There are two factors that will cause Hansa dollars to have a much narrower bid/ask spread as quoted by market makers, than e-gold. 1. No volatility risk in the price. The volatility in the price of gold is a risk that is factored into the e-gold premium. Market makers expose themselves to risk when they hold a gold inventory, and a higher premium is necessary to make that risk profitable. The risk can be hedged somewhat in the futures markets, but the hedging induces its own costs. There is no volatility risk and no hedging cost for dealing in Hansa dollars. 2. Much narrower bid/ask spread set by issuer. Omnipay sets the outside bid/ask spread for e-gold, with the bid at spot gold, and the ask at spot plus a hefty premium. Omnipay's bid/ask spread is pretty wide. Market makers narrow that spread by buying from existing e-gold holders instead of buying from omnipay. Hansa Bank will most certainly set a much narrower bid/ask spread for Hansabux than omnipay sets for e-gold, (with the bid being $1 to redeem, and the ask being $1 plus whatever percentage premium they charge, which can't be too high or they won't get many customers.) ~ Vincent --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] Re: e-gold flaws Previously: PECUNIX INCORPORATED Share Offer
You can get GSR's e-gold account frozen the same way you can get any other account frozen -- get a court order. When dealing with ANY third-party, like GSR or E-Gold, you have to trust the third-party. GSR created the e-gold system, and the only way to challenge them is through the courts. Let's say that e-gold and GSR were separate, and you had a problem with E-Gold LTD. If this occurred, you would need to go to the courts. With any type of business set-up, like E-Gold / Omnipay, you're going to find certain alliances which you're going to have little control over. This isn't a problem. Indeed, it's an asset in most cases. Look at the alliance between GoldMoney and FideliTrade. You're not going to get GoldMoney to freeze FideliTrade's account under any circumstances. This would be a serious breech of trust, and would have to be resolved in the courts. This is very poor policy to have no dispute resolution mechanism in place other than the court system. Here is a very good report on B2B dispute resolution that makes it clear why, for an online business to earn trust, it should establish a dispute resolution mechanism that makes the court system the absolute last resort. http://www.nmm.com/documents/wired_conflict.pdf ~ Vincent --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] Re: Exchange development
For anybody interested in exchange development, I've been doing a little research. Here are a few links that may or may not be of some minimal value. Here is an article about hiring open source programmers to do a job at a fraction of the cost. This would most likely be the cheapest way to get exchange software developed (though the result would be open source). http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47_STO43930,00.html Here is an article about banking system software that has been released as open source. Might be useful for an exchange. http://www.sdtimes.com/news/025/story13.htm Here is an article about B2B exchanges. There are many categories of exchanges discussed, but one category is "many to many" Nasdaq style exchanges, as well as the current vendors offering software for B2B exchanges of that type. Perhaps one of these vendors' many to many type exchange software could be adapted for an e-gold exchange. http://www.nmm.com/documents/B2BExch.pdf Here is another article about B2B exchanges, even less directly relevant to an e-gold exchange, but of interest is the predictions about the proliferation and consolidation of exchanges, and the lowering of transaction fees as a result of competition between exchanges and increase in trading volume. That would apply to competing e-gold exchanges also. The first exchange can charge high transaction fees, but when there are a few competing exchanges, the transaction fees will come down. http://www.nmm.com/documents/B2B_White_Paper_no_photo.pdf ~ Vincent --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] Re: A recipe for stagflation
If (USD) inflation fears and inflation are ignighted, say between March
and May 2001, the price level in the USA might rise say 4%. But if this
inflation is expected to persist, the price of gold will rise a hell of
a lot more than 4%! Perhaps 30%. Thus the real price of gold in terms of
US perchasing power has increased by more than one quarter, as has the
real effective exchange rate of the gold for money SOE. Like the stock
market, the price of gold is determined by *expected* events, the
outlook for the future, which can change drastically in a matter of
months given a few political events, a few statistics, a few
bankruptcies and a speech by the Fed chairman. The price level, however
takes a few years (at least) to adjust to an economic shock when the
nominal exchange rate is fixed, requiring a price level adjustment. The
cause of this difference is price rigidities particularly in the labour
market, property rental market and supply contracts. (By contrast stock
and commodity prices are perfectly flexible.)
This is a good point you make about price rigidities in labour markets,
rental markets and supply contracts. If the price rigidities in these
markets were loosened, the purchasing power of gold in these other markets
would be less volatile. These price rigidities are mostly the result of
State interference with a free market.
Yes, deflation and inflation, when the nominal interest rate is fixed at
the world interest rate or a large economy currency interest rate, has
very large effects on asset prices. If the demand for fixed assets is
expected to grow in nominal terms by 5% p.a. along with inflation and
replacement costs, and the nominal interest rate is 5%, the that is the
same as a zero discount rate with price stability. An asset expected to
last 20 years will be worth 20 times the current annual hire. If the
interest rate stays at 5% but price stability is expected, the asset
falls to 13.09 years hire. If the price level is expected to fall 5%
p.a., the asset falls to 9.08 years hire. I guarantee that the property
market will crash in Ireland when the inflation ends and the deflation
starts and the nominal interest rate is about the same. Inflation and
deflation have consequences.
What do you mean by "annual hire"? How do you arrive at these figures of
20, 13.09, and 9.08 years hire?
annual hire is just the 'rental' value of the building, which is the
'rent' of the property less the ground rent of the land.
The figures are calculates as follows:
P=sum{n=1 to 20):(((H1*(1+g)^(n-1))/((1+d)^(n-1)))
where P is the market price of the asset, n is the year, H1 is the Hire
vaue in year 1, g is the Hire growth rate, and d is the discound rate.
This simplifies to
P=sum{n=1 to 20):(H1*((1+g)/(1+d))^(n-1))
where d=g=0.05 the answer is simply:
P=sum{n=1 to 20):(H1)
=20
Where d=0.05 and g=0 the answer is:
P=sum{n=1 to 20):(H1*(1/1.05)^(n-1))
=13.09
where d=0.05 and g=-0.05 the answer is
P=sum{n=1 to 20):(H1*(0.95/1.05)^(n-1))
=9.08
The easiest way to calculate these values is to use a spreadsheet.
Thank you for explaining the method of calculation of asset values. The
discount rate is the interest rate, I assume. Interest rates are higher
for higher risk investments. If the price of gold denominated assets is
seen as volatile, then lenders will charge a higher interest rate to
compensate themselves for the risk of default. The higher interest rate
should lower the price of the assets, and the volatility in their price as
well. You suggested that a high property tax would stabilize property
prices. The higher interest that lenders would charge achieves the same
thing by a free market mechanism without the use of State coercion.
Its less costly to change the clocks and time one hour than it is to
reschedule every activity by an hour. The nominal exchange rate is the
clock, the activities scheduled are the prices in the domestic economy.
Changing one commodity price is much less than changing the price of
every good, service, wage and property rental. However, nominal exchange
rate volitility has its own cost.
Is it really lest costly? The enforced time change is a big disruption to
a lot of people and businesses that have no need to synchronize their
working hours with the availability of sunlight. Why should the State be
involved in the setting of clocks at all? If time standards were left to
a free market, a standard would evolve without State coercion that would
work at least as well as the State's solution, but probably much better.
The same applies to money. The coercive State should get out of the money
business altogether and leave it to the free market. In any case, unless
the use of e-gold is prevented coercively, e-gold or a variant will
replace all fiat money. In the absense of coercion, Gresham's law is
reversed. Good money will drive out bad.
~ Vincent
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[e-gold-list] Exchange development
I haven't done any kind of research into how to create an exchange, but I came across some info that could be useful to somebody who wants to. This article about software completion bonds for open source software gives a suggestion for hwo to create the bond trading exchange. http://www.openknowledge.org/writing/open-source/scb/ Quote: Technically, there are several software platforms which could be used to create the market. I'm biased toward the ArsDigita Community System. It's an open source (GPL) toolkit designed and maintained by the 250+ software engineers at ArsDigita. Extensive documentation is freely available online, and several universities (MIT, Stanford, Caltech, Carnegie Mellon, among others) train students to build web sites using the ACS. ArsDigita also offers free 1 - 3 week training courses almost every month, at one of number of locations in the U.S. and internationally. Although ACS "Classic" (the primary version supported by ArsDigita) is built on top of the proprietary Oracle database, it has been ported to PostgreSQL by the OpenACS team. Finally, the ACS has already been used to create a working bond market, (www.muniversal.com), a web site for municipal bond traders. End Quote Here is arsdigita's case study about the muniversal exchange: http://www.arsdigita.com/customers/casestudies/muniversal090700.adp Ideally, the exchange should allow trading not just of e-gold vs. dollars, but should allow trading of the various e-metals, standard reserve's currency, goldmoney's gold grams, and perhaps a few major fiat currencies besides dollars. The exchange should probably be located offshore in some country that doesn't regulate exchanges, so as not to have to deal with the CFTC. One thing that occured to me is that if an exchange allows trading the various gold based currencies against each other, it will defeat artificial obstacles that the issuers set up against redemption. For instance, standard reserve charges a 1.5% fee to convert their currency to e-gold, but nothing to convert from e-gold to their currency. If their currency were traded against e-gold on an exchange, it would trade at a discount to e-gold. Nobody would transfer directly to or from standard reserve's website, they would use the exchange. If somebody wanted to convert from e-gold to standard reserve, they could find somebody else who wants to convert from standard reserve to e-gold. Buyer and seller could meet in the middle, with the standard reserve converting to e-gold with a .75% discount instead of 1.5%, and the person moving e-gold into standard reserve getting .75% more than if they transfered their e-gold directly to standard reserve. Bypassing artificial barriers to redemption will keep all of these organizations more honest. ~ Vincent http://two-cents-worth.com/?263239[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] need an e-gold central exchange
Hello, I just joined this list a couple of days ago, so apologies in advance if I repeat something that has already been discussed. I'm pretty new to e-gold (haven't even got any gold in my account yet). There is an idea that has just occured to me for how to narrow the bid/ask spread for e-gold. There needs to be a central exchange which works like a stock exchange, where all market maker bids and asks are represented in the same place. As it is now, if I want to find the best bid and ask, I have to do hours or even days of research. This is like buying stocks in the days before stock exchanges existed. The stock exchange, by representing all bids and asks in the same place, makes price discovery much more efficient, improves liquidity, and narrows the spread. To narrow the spread even further, users should be able to have orders represented directly on the exchange, just as the Island ECN does for stocks. Thus, if one user wants to buy e-gold and another wants to sell, they can make their own markets and bypass the market makers entirely, just as the Island ECN allows individual users to buy and sell stock directly to each other without a market maker getting between. The market makers would always be there with the outside spread for when there weren't enough small buyers or sellers in the inside spread. Users could have an account with a broker in order to have access to the exchange, just like with stocks. The user would have to fund the account with cash, just like stock broker accounts are funded. The cash account could have banking services associated with it. Thus, users would have accounts with both e- gold and cash, and converting between e-gold and cash would be cheap and easy because of the narrow spread that the exchange would generate. ~ Vincent http://two-cents-worth.com/?263239[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[e-gold-list] Electronic E-Gold Exchange Suggestion
SPREAD In the stock and futures markets, there are many factors that affect the width of the bid / ask spread, but the two biggest factors are volume and risk (or volatility). One way to think of it is that the spread is determined by risk per turnover period, turnover period being the length of time it takes a market maker to turnover their inventory. Volatility increases the risk per turnover period, and so market makers widen the spread to protect themselves. High volume reduces the length of time per turnover period, so the risk per turnover period is reduced, so market makers can narrow their spread during a time of high volume. How would an e-gold exchange affect this equation? It would drastically reduce the turnover period, thus reducing risk per turnover period, thus allowing market makers to make a narrower spread. Also by allowing non-professional users to make their own markets, it would bypass market makers in many cases making the spread zero. For others who would like to be amateur market makers, it would eliminate the barrier to entry and allow amateurs to compete with the pros with minimal start up costs. The vastly increased competition between professional and amateur market makers would drive the spread to become very narrow. ADVANTAGE OF BEING FIRST The nature of an exchange like this is that dominance in the field will be self-reinforcing once it is established: similar to the way that the eBay.com auction site's dominance is self-reinforcing. After eBay, many others tried to imitate them, but buyers go to eBay because that is where the sellers are, and sellers go to eBay because that is where the buyers are. Competitive exchanges may spring up, and people may perform arbitrage between them, but whoever is first has a huge advantage. The market will prefer to have only one place to go to find price information, so it will be a major uphill battle for any competitor once the initial exchange has popular acceptance. PROFITS The exchange could charge commission on each trade. The exchange could recognize professional market makers by giving them a lower commission. Banking service fees could be charged on the cash accounts when they are used for such things as writing checks or drawn on with a debit card. Large account holders and commercial accounts could be given special discounts on the banking fees as well as the commissions. WHAT IT WOULD DO FOR E-GOLD It should be obvious. Standard Reserve has been touting the benefits of their combined account, trying to sell it to large commercial customers. An exchange with broker accounts such as I described would essentially have all the benefits that standard reserve has been touting with regards to convenience, but it would also offer an extremely narrow spread for changing e-gold and $$ back and forth. WHO WILL DO IT? Standard Reserve may presently in the best position to create such an exchange, because they already have combined $$ / SR accounts. However, I haven't heard anything about them about creating an exchange. Anybody could do it at this stage of the game, with sufficient venture capital. I'd prefer to see it done with a 100% gold backed currency, rather than SR. Another issue is that it might have to be registered with the CFTC if it is done in the U.S. and comply with all their regulations. An offshore server might be a regulation free place to create an exchange, although the broker accounts might not be able to offer as much banking convenience from an offshore server. ~ Vincent Youngs http://two-cents-worth.com/?263239[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- You are currently subscribed to e-gold-list as: archive@jab.org To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
