romans holiday

I was just about to listen to him on Goldseek radio. http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index....st&p=154942

Gold could consolidate to a 3 digit price yet. All good for the long term imo.

Here she goes... gold going through 1090, silver 16.00

Yes, I imagine silver will be doing a lot of switching in the future... up, down... up, down... Now in dollars [trading account] waiting to switch to silver....

Let's see if this one holds.

Could get interesting for silver here.

Even so, you'd have to agree that it is quite a limit to your options not to be able to [forget about want here] hold onto dollars for more than a few months. I have been pressured to buy bullion recently at GM... right when the price is declining. I certainly will not be sending any more funds to GM.

Yes, this is one drawback [though you can open more than one account with other bank accounts... bit messy I know]. But I think the fact you can't sit on the softer currencies of your choice at GM is a much bigger pain in the ass... well, for the majority anyway.

I highly recommend BullionVault. There is no time limit to holding currencies... they were surprised to hear about the development at GM [i think GM will lose quite a bit of business due to the regulation]. The other thing is they actively promote trading... which of course is a big money spinner for them [0.8% per transaction]. The spreads are narrower due to an inhouse market board they use. I'll use BV to trade silver against the dollar.

Well, I think their purchases are pretty much correlated with customer purchases, so I don't see that as a reason why they wouldn't want there customers holding cash for an extended period. I did have my suspicions, and it pretty much threw me off balance, trading wise, but hey, them's the rules so have moved on to other avenues. That said, I'll continue to use GM to store bullion and trade the ratio.

So did the Harvard prof have the foresight to make the killer trade? I agree with you that there are better trades out there [i like silver]... Personally, I think trading gold is a waste of time.... but I will accumulate it, that is, take profits from other trades in the accumulation of gold ounces....which makes sense with the liquidity pyramid in mind.

I believe it has something to do with GM being based in Jersey, British Channel Islands. I think it was caught up in the recent international moves to further regulate outlying areas where it was thought tax evasion and money laundering was taking place. That's the official story as far as I know, others might be able to fill you in on more detail. I thought it was odd at the time, and it did seem like a change in "terms and conditions". I am now using BV to hold dollar funds.

You can sell anytime. But the problem is that at GM they have a new rule whereby you can not sit on cash for more than three months. This new rule/ regulation put me under pressure to sell dollars and buy bullion. I think GM is still good for those who want to buy and hold... but for those wanting to transfer between bullion and cash from time to time, BV is the better option.

You self-contrarian you.... I'm fully locked in on GM now, even though like yourself I think there's a very good chance of lower prices. I will make sure to be a bottom of the barrel scrapper on BV.... with silver. Looking for a price around 15.50.

But not against gold right? The liquidity pyramid suggests everything erodes in value against gold.... some things more than others depending on the tier. It is all relative; in this pyramid, currencies can appreciate against assets while also depreciating at the same time against gold [for the sake of argument, assume gold isn't in a bubble here]. fwiw, I don't think major currencies will hyper-inflate but remain valuable, even increase in value against assets. But I think these currencies could also depreciate against gold. If you held major currencies [i prefer dollars] you could end up with a double purchase on assets. If you owned gold, you could end up with a quadruple purchase on assets.

Housing markets, equity markets, peripheral currencies. Also, if we continue to see chronic instability between currencies in the centre and on the periphery this does not bode well for a stable global economy. It is also interesting to see how gold has appreciated against currencies during this period of instability. If, for the sake of argument, you decided to price assets and currencies in gold, then this tends to show a hyper-deflation. Exter's inverse liquidity triangle is interesting in this regard. In a hyper-deflation, in which currencies could also be caught up, a price-centric approach is problematic. Prices would become deceptive, as a measure of inflation/deflation, due to the fact that the currency itself is moving. For example, a currency depreciates against other major ones putting upward pressure on prices, but then demand destruction may in turn put downward pressure on prices. Conceivably, the two could cancel eachother out.. even though we have deflation here. The well-known ratios of gold to assets and currencies would then be a better measure than prices.

The problem is value, a very contingent thing, is eroding from both assets and currencies today [i've referred to this as hyper-deflation], jeopardizing the global economy. If the process is not arrested [and I think gold/ a new Bretton Woods can play a role here] then, as you suggest, we may be looking at tanks and bombs. Personally, I think governments are a bit more inventive than that.

Yes, but we are looking at systemic uncertainty here. How certain can you be of collecting on your insurance if there is systemic failure in institutions [not to mention what it is denominated in]; that the capital is simply not there to cover liabilities.... hmmm the CDS debacle comes to mind.... and Katrina. I think globalization will need to be rebooted, recapitalized on gold and a new Bretton Woods. No certainties but.

Well, skepticism is a view which is critical of rationalism. In philosophy, this is perfectly valid... philosophical thought is much bigger than modern theory which springs from Cartesian rationalism. Ideas are interesting things, and I certainly wouldn't want to be too attached to my own. I hold them as provisionally true... a useful fiction until they are falsified by real events. I started a thread on this here: http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index.php?showtopic=7019

Insurance? I don't think gold is insurance. I think it is in the process of monetization... capital will got to gold as the strongest currency. If the global economy became unstable enough, there is a very good chance that this would be formalized in a new world currency, to which increasingly unstable currencies are pegged... but I am going over old ground here.

Not at all. I have posted a lot of theoretical stuff on why gold will perform well.... looking for links.... http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index....t=0&start=0 http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index.php?showtopic=8203 http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index....t=0&start=0

There are so many factors, complexities... not too mention swans.. that it remains irreducibly uncertain. Given the dominance of uncertainty, investors will not be sure how to value assets... and currencies for that matter... this is the prime reason capital will continue to flow, in the aggregate, into gold and out of other currencies and assets. As a skeptic myself, I am quite comfortable with uncertainty. Bye bye rationalism.... with all its silly certainties

I just see gold as a hedge against uncertainty. As long as investors/ CBs remain uncertain about the economy, trade and currencies, gold will continue to perform well. Also, I see even Sarkozy has been talking about a new Bretton Woods lately.

I think the tendency is for people to be either far too bullish or far too bearish on gold. I like the idea of a middle way, a golden mean of sorts, where gold slowly stengthens in the aggregate on the fundamentals while reversing/ consolidating at times on market dynamics.