Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

Copies of the blockchain will still exist, so the problem is as meaningful or meaningless as any other commodity or asset, depending on the point of view. Gold in certain dire situations can also be worthless (you can't eat it, divide it easily, no one knows actually if it's real so who confirms that it is etc)

It's not that savvy of a question, just seems so, to be honest.

America flat lined yesterday.

Invest in brass and lead.

Guest wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 11:06 am America flat lined yesterday.

Invest in brass and lead.

Not clear. The dangers of the ability to create false realities which some have come to believe in intensely is seemingly recognized as being dangerous and risen the issue to the crisis level. The federal regeneracy is still scheduled for the 20th. The obstructionist leadership in the senate is switched over for the moment, allowing some chance of solving problems. The conservative movement is apt to break up in a fight between the Trump followers, their establishment and the true conservatives. By instigating, Trump has discredited himself, and may be conceding territory in that conflict.

It is not hard for a blue to detect a pulse. If you used to be a big fan of Trump, then there may be more truth in your statement.

Cool Breeze wrote: Thu Jan 07, 2021 11:22 pm Copies of the blockchain will still exist, so the problem is as meaningful or meaningless as any other commodity or asset, depending on the point of view. Gold in certain dire situations can also be worthless (you can't eat it, divide it easily, no one knows actually if it's real so who confirms that it is etc)

It's not that savvy of a question, just seems so, to be honest.

This is strictly amateur hour and displays a fundamental misunderstanding of blockchain. The value of Bitcoin is both its medium of exchange (like gold), and ability to complete transactions. So it acts like a combination of gold and clearing house, complete with ledger.

In this way John is completely correct, the value of Bitcoin depends on a functioning internet where the distributed ledgers can be seen by anyone. So you can print a certificate of your Bitcoin and that's fine, but you can't complete any transactions if the internet is down. In a WWIII scenario I doubt international connections to our enemies would be maintained. That fact and not knowing its current intrinsic value keeps me from investing in it.

Your concept of gold is also amateur hour. Man has had the ability to determine if a chunk of metal is gold for thousands of years (Archimedes). And today there are electronic devices that can do it. The world would have to devolve into Mad Max mayhem and for a very long time before gold is "worthless". Short of that it's one of the best stores of value.

Now if John really believes we are in a deflationary period then you should all move assets into cash, US dollars - not gold, not houses, not stonks, nor bonds. If you think that's absurd then you don't believe we're in deflation.

Japan really was and may still be in deflation. That's where you think your currency will buy more tomorrow than today, so you keep it in the bank and have no incentive to spend it. Their houses drop in value (though not land), ours do not. Their population is declining, ours is not. If Americans are putting any money into savings it's due to fear, not because they think it will have more purchasing power tomorrow. American's are foolish spendthrifts and this can be proven by the astronomical growth of companies like Nike who sell stupid useless sports apparel.

** 08-Jan-2021 World View: Deflation

Burner Prime wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 12:48 pm > Now if John really believes we are in a deflationary period then
> you should all move assets into cash, US dollars - not gold, not
> houses, not stocks, nor bonds. If you think that's absurd then you
> don't believe we're in deflation.

> Japan really was and may still be in deflation. That's where you
> think your currency will buy more tomorrow than today, so you keep
> it in the bank and have no incentive to spend it. Their houses
> drop in value (though not land), ours do not. Their population is
> declining, ours is not. If Americans are putting any money into
> savings it's due to fear, not because they think it will have more
> purchasing power tomorrow. American's are foolish spendthrifts and
> this can be proven by the astronomical growth of companies like
> Nike who sell stupid useless sports apparel.

Inflation is a delusional fantasy in the current era that everyone
wants because it will wipe out their debt.

We are definitely in a deflationary period, and I've been telling
people for years to stay in cash unless you really know what you're
doing, and unless you think you're clever enough to get out of stocks
just before the crash. A lot of people have made a lot of money on
paper in the stock market, but until they sell they've made no money.

And then there's Higgie, who goes short and has lost everything a
couple of times since joining the forum in the 2000s, but he's always
risen from the dead and prospered. Still, everything he does is
highly anxiety-provoking just to watch.

The long-trend value of gold is around $500, so I expect it to crash as
well, and to overshoot down to something like $200, where it was in 2000.

Bitcoin has no intrinsic value, and I expect it to crash to zero, or
perhaps a very small amount for sentimental purposes.

There are a lot of problems with cash, particularly counterfeiting,
which is why people look for stores of value, such as gold, real
estate, art, diamonds or collectibles. Of course such things can't be
used in transactions, so maybe there's a way to create a
cryptocurrency that can be used as a non-counterfeitable dollar, and
could be used for transactions locally without the internet.

The advantage of gold is that it has thousands of years of history, so a lot is know about gold scams and what has been done to get around them, such as exchange warehouse chain of custody and gold coins minted by governments that have standard weights and are too small to be practical to counterfeit with a tungsten plug inside for gold outside the chain of custody (though I suppose be wary of the Chinese on that one). The bimetallic standard addressed the divisibility problem, but we no longer have that. Though I would feel comfortable putting money in silver at today's relatively high gold silver ratio.

One issue with cash, which was discussed here years ago, is trying to determine what a dollar is. The closest thing I could come to finding something that is a pure dollar was a zero percent certificate of indebtedness issued by the US Treasury when they redeem bonds or bills in a Treasury Direct account. But that's an electronic dollar. Physical Federal Reserve notes might also be considered to be close to pure dollars, the problem there being they are liabilities of the Fed and there is now junk on the asset side of their balance sheet.

I agree with the comment about bitcoin. Unless the market decides it is a store of value that is superior to gold and other "things", which I doubt, its value would be as a substitute for electronic currency. In the absence of an electronic transaction system, "things" are going to be a superior store of value. The concern I have with physical Federal Reserve Notes is the electronic junk on the other side of the balance sheet. To date, that's been ignored by the market, even when there was loads of MBS there. I guess it becomes a political question as to what will be done with that in a crisis.

I bought Navigator's book. It's been worth much more than I paid for it. I appreciate it.
The proceeds help John and that's a very good investment as well.
I see the best future investment as getting the best gear and situated to live the next 20 years in self sufficiency. After that, it depends. I've got small coins and other barterable items of necessity or desire(alcohol,tobacco).
I've done the PM coins etc for a decade and rarely does anyone know what they are seeing. It's too long now from them being a part of our lives. Especially gold. I'm sure there will be a goldman available somewhere, but traveling to him could be inaccessible. Pre-64 or sterling silverware might be best for barter. Maybe even our copper nickel coinage for it's metal value. EMT make Bitcoin a historic bubble, South Sea and Tulips...?

** 08-Jan-2021 World View: Non-counterfeitable dollar cryptocurrency

John wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 1:17 pm > There are a lot of problems with cash, particularly
> counterfeiting, which is why people look for stores of value, such
> as gold, real estate, art, diamonds or collectibles. Of course
> such things can't be used in transactions, so maybe there's a way
> to create a cryptocurrency that can be used as a
> non-counterfeitable dollar, and could be used for transactions
> locally without the internet.

Higgenbotham wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 2:20 pm > One issue with cash, which was discussed here years ago, is trying
> to determine what a dollar is. The closest thing I could come to
> finding something that is a pure dollar was a zero percent
> certificate of indebtedness issued by the US Treasury when they
> redeem bonds or bills in a Treasury Direct account. But that's an
> electronic dollar. Physical Federal Reserve notes might also be
> considered to be close to pure dollars, the problem there being
> they are liabilities of the Fed and there is now junk on the asset
> side of their balance sheet.

So, continuing with my sudden inspiration about a cryptocurrency that
can be used locally as a non-counterfeitable dollar:

You would have an app on your phone which "contains" digital cash.
You would only use this app locally, communicating with another app on
another person's phone using Bluetooth.

If you want to add money to your app, you would have to find an ATM
machine that dispenses this cash to an app. This would be the same as
dispensing actual dollars. That means that, unlike bitcoin, the Fed
determines how much money is in circulation in these apps. There may
even be a way to simulate paper money serial numbers.

So if I have this app on my phone, and you have this app on your
phone, then we can hook up via Bluetooth and I can tell my app to send
$9.58 to your app to pay for a bag of carrots that I'm buying from
you.

If you lose your phone, you would lose your money -- same as real
cash.

Anyone can write an app. So before my app could send cash to your
app, the two apps would do some handshaking that would include a bunch
of cryptographic tests that allow each app to verify that the other
app is valid.

An additional problem is that someone could simply copy the entire
storage area from one mobile phone to another, thereby doubling his
money supply. Solving this would require some kind of writable
hardware chip that goes in the phone and goes with the app. This is
perhaps the most difficult technical problem to solve, requiring
advanced chip technology.

I think that this app-chip is technically feasible, and it would solve
a lot of problems.

** 08-Jan-2021 World View: Biden vs Trump supporters

I just watched Biden's press conference. I couldn't believe my ears.
This so-called unifier has massive vitriolic hatred for Trump and
Trump supporters oozing out of his pores. He's obsessed with this
hatred. And this has nothing to do with Trump, because he has always
called Tea Partiers "teabaggers" and "terrorists."

The Democrats are desperate to totally destroy Trump once and for
all, but Trump supporters interviewed on CNN and MSNBC say that
Trump is the only politician that speaks to them. There are 75
million of those people. Even if the Democrats bury Trump
in the ground, those 75 million Trump supporters will not forget
Biden's vitriolic hatred.

Biden appears to be purposely inciting violence, probably because he
believes that he will benefit politically from violence. Expect more
violence between Trump supporters and antifa-blm. It's going to be
bloody. (But to answer the next question: No, it won't be a civil
war.)

Burner Prime wrote: Fri Jan 08, 2021 12:48 pm

Cool Breeze wrote: Thu Jan 07, 2021 11:22 pm Copies of the blockchain will still exist, so the problem is as meaningful or meaningless as any other commodity or asset, depending on the point of view. Gold in certain dire situations can also be worthless (you can't eat it, divide it easily, no one knows actually if it's real so who confirms that it is etc)

It's not that savvy of a question, just seems so, to be honest.

This is strictly amateur hour and displays a fundamental misunderstanding of blockchain. The value of Bitcoin is both its medium of exchange (like gold), and ability to complete transactions. So it acts like a combination of gold and clearing house, complete with ledger.

In this way John is completely correct, the value of Bitcoin depends on a functioning internet where the distributed ledgers can be seen by anyone. So you can print a certificate of your Bitcoin and that's fine, but you can't complete any transactions if the internet is down. In a WWIII scenario I doubt international connections to our enemies would be maintained. That fact and not knowing its current intrinsic value keeps me from investing in it.

Your concept of gold is also amateur hour. Man has had the ability to determine if a chunk of metal is gold for thousands of years (Archimedes). And today there are electronic devices that can do it. The world would have to devolve into Mad Max mayhem and for a very long time before gold is "worthless". Short of that it's one of the best stores of value.

Now if John really believes we are in a deflationary period then you should all move assets into cash, US dollars - not gold, not houses, not stonks, nor bonds. If you think that's absurd then you don't believe we're in deflation.

Japan really was and may still be in deflation. That's where you think your currency will buy more tomorrow than today, so you keep it in the bank and have no incentive to spend it. Their houses drop in value (though not land), ours do not. Their population is declining, ours is not. If Americans are putting any money into savings it's due to fear, not because they think it will have more purchasing power tomorrow. American's are foolish spendthrifts and this can be proven by the astronomical growth of companies like Nike who sell stupid useless sports apparel.

It's not amateur hour, otherwise, you are adding to it. It was a short statement of what's going on since I'm not going to write a tome on why you aren't realistic and are remarkably biased in your views (on this issue). That's why I'm not snarky and uppity here, as you seem to be, and I'm curious why. In any case, first dealing with John's most recent post:

We have that, it's called bitcoin right now. The point is that the currency of the future is trust and in a trustless system, you don't need it. Paradoxically it solves the situation. Clearly, none of you understand that as being far more valuable than anything anyone has dreamed of, and is a form of hard money never seen before - a knock against a corrupt fiat and Central Banking world.

BTC or other cryptos (another topic) are hamstrung by hindrances to the network, yes, but they aren't definitively forsaken by any means. That's the point here. If that kind of cataclysm comes down, you aren't paying attention, there are just as many practical issues with gold. In some cases there could be more, including storage. But you take all of these for granted because you want to be a goldbug supreme. Let me tell you, I am not anti-gold at all; I owe some physical. But I am a realist and not emotional about this topic.

Deflation will reign until inflation does. It's that simple and that's what macro guys are trying to figure out. Maybe, as Martin Armstrong thinks, deflation will reign UNTIL the shift to the new world/center of power in the Far East ... could be. I don't know. He says that starts in 2037 after the final peak and fall of the "West" in 2032. It is true, and quite obvious at this point, that with M1 increasing (as MA states) people still have to spend it. I agree, they aren't as Burner states and it's because of fear among other things (which is why some buy gold and others who know that BTC is a better option buy it).

There are all sorts of probabilities. I think I'm one of the few besides loony Bobby here that thinks there is a % probability, that is not zero, that degradation and meaningful war do not really take place. I'm sure I'll get yelled at and ad hominem'd but at least it'll show how close minded some can be here. So I'm ok with it.