Will Greece Default on it's debt?

Would you agree that gold is a one world currency?

A gram of gold is the same weight everywhere.

 

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This retired physicist can´t resist saying:

No, not on the moon, for example. What you wanted to say is:
"A gram of gold is the same mass everywhere."

Gram is a unit for mass. Weight refers to the force of gravity on a mass.

 

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I stand corrected...it might even weigh slightly more or less on top of Mount Everest.

 

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What do you mean one world currency? What does the word currency mean? How is it related to money?


Oh, as an aside, do you or BillyT think Federal Reserve promissory notes are in any way related to Debt? Joe says not at all. You can actually print yourself to prosperity (that or fake it with an Alien invasion - blowing your stuff up is apparently another path to Keynesian paradise).

 

I know that some precious metal advocates define money and currency differently...but I dont.

Currency is whatever is used as a medium of exchange.

A 'world currency' is whatever is used as a medium of exchange between nations.

Federal Reserve dollars are sometimes created out of nothing to pay for debt bought from the treasury.

So in that sense, a portion of the money supply is related to debt yes.

My ancestors in Germany lived in a society where clown prince Krugman would have felt right at home.

The Weimar republic (1923) tried to print their way out of debt...with disastrous results that wiped out an entire nation's wealth.

Later on, the Nazis were hailed as economic heros for their massive stimulus program...called WWII.

 

I think joe is correct. These notes do not mature or promiss to pay anything. Only cost they caused the government (other than their production costs) is the government, like everyone else you may need to pay, must accept them at face value for payment of your debt.

I.e. when paying your taxes, you get to act like the government - pay with pieces of paper having no interensic worth.

It is strange, but nearly every year someone is so up set about their tax bill that the go to the IRS with basket of coins, many pennies often, for clerk to count - They are the only people who pay with real value items and they are lossing on the deal as both the penny and the nickel are worth more than $0.01 & $0.05 respectively.

 

Is gold a one world currency?

Hmmmmm..... I think everyone in the world would accept gold as payment one way or another, but that doesn't really make it a 'One World Currency' in the sense that it's no different than other precious metals or commodities. Is it?

I mean, you could use Platinum too, to make a payment on some goods.

Gold obviously has a lot of pluses to it - the main ones being its precious and doesn't corrupt. It is being used as a currency now - all Central Banks hold gold. Greece was just asked to give up their substantial gold reserved to pay for their debts. Which is why a Goldie was put in as their PM last year. To get their gold transferred to Germany.

 

The downside is it's more worthless than wheat. We should probably base our currency on wheat.

 

The US government worked out an arrangement (1973-75) to have OPEC use the US dollar for oil transactions...called the petrodollar system, in exchange for military protection.

This was a real sweetheart deal, because it meant all those US dollars would eventually have to return to the US in exchange for US goods.

Or US treasury bonds!

http://www.financialsense.com/contr...ng-for-the-collapse-of-the-petrodollar-system

But this is changing, as India and possibly China might circumvent the new embargo by trading GOLD for Iranian oil.

See the report here:
http://rt.com/news/iran-india-gold-oil-543/

 

Rice as often been used as a currency...esp in feudal Japan and colonial South Carolina.

Its easily stored and divisible.

 

I agree, except we shouldn't have one currency. If you were to use Wheat as a 'money', then you'd presumably need to convert it into a currency - which could in theory be gold. But then one wonders, what is what? Is gold the money or the wheat?

I don't mind having lots of different currencies.

As of right now I'd say the biggest value adder to the USD is our military. China now buys more oil from KSA than we do. And KSA has to bribe and brainwash it's cattle farm into subservience. We need to devalue our currency. Which is NOT going to make KSA happy. So, for how long before the USA military needs to step in and ensure the petrodollar system remaines permanently in place (you did see Libya go down a couple months back).

The careers of the Gods only know how many politicians rides on their being able to bribe the public - hence the need for the statuesque :shrug:
It will come to an end, the Bankers saw to that - and for that, maybe we should thank them?

 

I doubt gold will be paying for significant fraction of Iran´s oil exports, but barter already is. Also I think article is way wrong with idea China only gets 13% of Iran´s oil. From several different sources I have read it is more like 40%.

I think India mainly supplies grains and tea for oil. Tea is the most common drink in Iran. Much of the water must be boilded anyway. China is building two large oil refineries in Iran and getting paid in oil. Currently Iran must import almost all of its refined product (gasoline etc).

It is some what like Brazil was until recently - exporting low value crude and importing higher value refined product. Brazil now has several new refineries - one is the twin of one in Venezuela. Both were designed in Brazil and Hugo help fund their construction - Venezuela owns 40% of the production of the Brazilian one and Brazil owns 40% of the one in Venezuela. Refineries were built in politcally stable US so it can refine more gasoline than it can use - refined product is still a major US export, but the demand for it may soon be dropping as refineries are being built elsewhere now.

Probably the long tem effect of US policy towards Iran will be to make Iran less dependent on US refineries - Just like the long term effect of US´s Iraq war was to give Iran the control of southern shiiti Iraq, which several wars failed to give them when Saddam was in charge of Iraq. Several years ago in only half jesting post, I suggested that because US foreign policy is so self defeating in the long run, the US should contract the British to run the US foreign policy - they did that quite well for more than 100 years. (In part because their foreign dipolmats are not those who gave the most to election campaigns, but professionals.)

 

See, in my mind this is a knock-on effect of running a successful economy and then banking on that success (pun not intended) to switch over to a central bank and fiat currency. Now the common person is so divorced from their own money they can't tell up from down. The economy is intimately connected with society, foreign policy - even our own morality. I am sure that 125 years ago people understood these connections and felt them and used that feeling somewhat sensibly when choosing who to and not to elect. If they didn't they felt the consequences soon enough - through the economy. Via their money. Now a days we're insulated from our choices. We have war, yet most of the public are insulated from it. In the past interest rates would have skyrocketed and this would have acted as a check on warmongering. Not now. Instead we sleep walk to closer and closer to the cliff. Even these morons running the economy are clueless (as evidenced by the GFC). The general public as well as the so-called elites have climbed so far up their own rectum we see fellow Citizens given the highest accolades (such as the Nobel prize) just for 'promising' change (what ever the F%ck 'change' is supposed to be no one bothered to find out). Economists call for faked alien invasions to 'turn the economy around' or suggest the tsunami in Japan will be 'great for the Japanese economy'. What was immoral (stealing) is rebranded and now moral (income tax). Steve Jobs is the Villain while Obama is the Hero. We live in bizarro world where up is down and left is right.

It is my opinion that we can carry on like this for some time to come (see North Korea). But, things will continue to get worse, not better, for the vast majority of the public - and I often say, we're not Japanese, when shit hits the fan in the US, don't expect to walk away smelling like a rose. Which is why I predict, we'll see more war. Many politicians/Farmers in both China and the US would like nothing more than to line up the expanding lower class as cannon fodder. Krugman-fanboys won't call for an Alien invasion, but an Islamic, Russian, Chinese, etc... one will do just fine.

 

Greek town develops bartering system without euro

As Greece wonders whether its debt crisis will eventually spell its exit from the euro, one town in the centre of the country, Volos, has formed an alternative local currency.

It works through a bartering system or exchange of goods.

The BBC's Mark Lowen reports.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-17686384