nicejim

I remember having an argument with a friend at university years ago. He was insisting that an ad hominem is an argument "against the man"... the idea of discrediting the person.

I think your uni friend was right, but the idea is that by discrediting the man you are hoping people will consider his argument to be of no merit, irrespective of whether it does lack merit or contain poor logic. I've never heard of "ad hominem" being used for that other meaning.

No, they are just two uncorrelated statements.

Maybe, but so are the Wikipedia examples. It wouldn't be a logical fallacy if it made sense:

"Candidate Jane's proposal about zoning is ridiculous. She was caught cheating on her taxes in 2003."

interesting

 

http://www.safehaven.com/article/17395/gol...t-hope-for-most

I looked at that, wondered what was so interesting, moved on and THEN noticed the tiny bar on the right.

Yep, interesting.

Igglepiggle, doesn't your bolded part of the definition describe my sentence to a tee? The attempt to persuade is there, the link to the characteristic is there and the supposed invalidation of the premise on the grounds of that link is plain to see.

I think the important point about AAK's post is that the attempt to persuade is not, for the most part, in the context of the original premise. To me, this shows it is criticism rather than an ad hominem attack. The part which can be considered to be relevant to the original premise was also discarded as an ad hom, so AAK's assertions there didn't get refuted and IRS's position didn't get explained. So throwing out "ad hom" instead of responding makes nobody better off and shows that AAK has raised a very good point.

the green craps are ad homs.

No, an ad hominem is a logical fallacy. What AAK wrote is valid criticism of your style. An ad hominem would be more like this...

"Your posts never seem to invite discussion, therefore markets pre-date government."

I've never seen you use the term "ad hom" correctly. If you ignore criticism on the grounds that it is criticism then you'll never improve.

...

"I told them that I have ordered a halt to all oil explorations so part of this wealth is left for our sons and successors God willing," he said.

...

I wonder if he's thinking of this:

"My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel."

-- Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum

Are you thinking of ANOTHER?

Don't like any of them. My favourites are still the French franc notes form the 1980's. The head on the front is in reverse on the back, and there is a work of art. And bare breasts.

Mexican Libertads have bare breasts...IN 3D!!!

better than gold and silver?

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Genuine-Rare-Undated...=item20b1ae22ee

 

I dont think so....

I sold one a while back for £150, now they go for about £50. That was almost exactly 1 year ago. Gold is up 45% in GBP Y-o-Y.

A 100.00000kg gold coin is fine, but if you want to buy a bag of chips with it you'd better hope the chippy has a 99.9999627kg coin for change!

Rothschild's investment trust thinks there's money to be made in selling gold. It bought a stake in BullionVault.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbys...llionVault.html

Judging by the chart, they're probably right.

http://www.google.co.uk/finance?chdnp=1&am...:RCP&ntsp=0

Low interest rates may not be enough to enable mortgagees to hold off repossession. They are teetering on the edge.

“Claims that households have begun to step up the rate at which they are paying back their mortgages do not look well founded."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/persona...-mortgages.html

Related:

"Debt worries are forcing mothers back to work even when they would rather stay at home"

"many families are not fully prepared for the impact of surviving on a reduced income"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/persona...ck-to-work.html

I've got a browser add-on which is a gold price ticker. Unfortunately it's near my clock. All this time gold's been between 1200 and now 1259, I keep glancing in that direction and thinking "that can't be the time".

Roll on 1260!

Edit: ooops, it's here!

I think these are fantastic value.

 

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...%3D1&_rdc=1

 

A historical coin made by the royal mint as a proof coin to a high standard, come boxed, in a capsule, including postage, all for less than spot on this occasion....

 

Why are they so cheap?

Unless there was also a proof in cupro-nickel, this is a steal...

1977 proof jubilee crown, £6.99 and free delivery. 9 available.

The first edit in the listing is from 2006, maybe the price never got updated. I'm too cautious to go for it.

Edit:

Yes, there was a cupro-nickel proof:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/1977-PROOF-CROWN-QUE...b#ht_2569wt_754

"THIS 1977 CROWN HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM A ROYAL MINT PROOF SET AND IS IN GREAT PROOF CONDITION. SUPPLIED IN A NEW CAPSULE. THIS COIN IS THE CUPRO-NICKEL VERSION."

So you need to check whether Silver relates to the Jubilee or the fabric of the coin. The price could reflect people's unwillingness to check so many listing details to find the occasional treasure.

My word!

I don't suppose you could tap approximity for a graph in Yen could you?

You can select Yen charts here

http://www.kitco.com/gold_currency/charts.htm?USD

A bit of bluegrass

From:

From:

Geoffrey Howe was right not to sell in 1980. The country's gold reserves are not for speculating; it is there for emergencies, for example 1940.

I know, but the commentary on this is concerned only with the amount Brown "lost" (and gross, not net). Personally I don't consider it a loss if something goes up in price after I sell it. I appreciate they can't make allegations about Brown using the gold sale to buy himself a retirement job at JP Morgan, but there should be more discussion on what the gold is actually for.

Explain why you sold Britain's gold, Gordon Brown told

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/persona...Brown-told.html

Naturally, the Torygraph isn't concerned about the "loss" Geoffrey Howe incurred by not selling in 1980.

bought some more today.

I loaded up on cider :-(

For the price of a bottle of wine you can buy a lovely 1 0z coin

where do you get ounces for £2.49?

My gold is for AFTER the crisis. It is a store of wealth which, unlike shotgun cartridges or cigarettes will not decay. It is immutable and has been around since it was formed in a distant sun.

 

Gold is not for spending during a crisis; it is a store of wealth enabling those who own it to pick up the pieces after the storm has passed. You can spend / swap/ barter your ciggies and whisky to survive - frankly you do what you have to, but the gold- that's for AFTER.

This is close to my view of the case for gold in the nightmare scenario, but I'd add that it allows a large amount of wealth to be easily transported. If you decide you have to get out of Dodge in a hurry then what would you want to take with you? A shotgun and cartridges would be near the top of the list, but gold would be way ahead of barter currencies such as bottles of whiskey and aspirin. When you get where you're going then you can swap a sovereign for 10 bottles of whiskey at current rates, and people will know you have gold. They'll also know you have whiskey!

AAK's posts on this subject do not make me want to ignore him.

Personally, I think this means Everbank never purchased metal on behalf of their customers, and are terrified of some kind of default in the COMEX.

They provide both Allocated and Unallocated accounts. The Unallocated service charges no storage fee so whether the "metal" is stored in a vault or a filing cabinet is anyone's guess. I'm not the libellous sort, so I'll say Vault.

The relevant section of the Ts&Cs doesn't appear to differentiate between Un- and Allocated accounts, but storage is charged on the Allocated accounts. This might mean that the Allocated metal is stored in a more expensive filing cabinet, or a more expensive vault. I'd be mightily peeved if Allocated metal was liquidated to limit my losses, unless the metal was being eaten by a hyperevolved strain of bacteria.

Interesting that they don't seem to have the intelligence to change the time of the smack down or release it in small amounts throughout the day. Even I noticed the smack down today and I don't know very much about this topic at all. My question is: why are they so thick?

They don't need to hide their activities because nobody can touch them. And they don't do it outside NY hours because they like to spend the evenings sacrificing bab...err...playing golf.

£800 is expensive if you don't own the coin you buy.

-=-

http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/content.aspx?...xtDocId=1404903

3. Her Majesty may from time to time by proclamation made with the advice of Her Privy Council—

(e) call in coins of any date or denomination, or coins made before a date specified in the proclamation

-=-

The CGT and "recognisability" advantages of British coins suddenly don't sound so compelling :-(

Yes, I have some silver bars and coins also. It gives Perhaps it is inappropriate to discuss the trading of silver on this thread. Perhaps I should confine my thoughts to a trading silver thread.

This thread is for watching silver only. No discussion except for the occasional Ooh and Aah as the charts surprise and confound us.

I suspect many supposed gold bugs here are in fact silver bugs.

I started buying scrap British silver coins recently after deciding that not enough of my metal is in the house. Grabbing a handful of those beauties and knowing you have about £60 in your fist would turn anyone into a silver bug :-)

It feels like...real money!

What it says to me is that Heraeus can spot a fake a mile off and won't sell one to you. There's nothing here about the 400oz bars, and nothing for which the only explanation is orchestration by TPTB.

http://www.greenenergyinvestors.com/index....st&p=158631

You can't eat gold and long-term we all need to generate some kind of income from our investments. With that in mind, the charts of houses or land priced in gold are a great help in deciding when to sell. The Dow-priced-in-gold chart is less helpful though because, whereas the yield from a house or a field is pretty much static (if you're living in your own house and growing your own food at least), the yield from equities is quite volatile. You don't benefit from gold doubling if yields are cut in two so I decided to see how it's played out historically.

Here's the chart and data:

https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0As...lE&hl=en_GB

On 9th March last year the historic yield was 4.2% and gold was about $930, which would give an income of $39/oz, which is well above average. Dividends were expected to take a hit, and the ETF "IVV" actually paid 3.18% in the last year if you bought at the low. That's $29.57/oz, which is good but not great.

Does '98-'09 look like '61-'76?

Just noticed that payments to shareholders rose about 50% in real terms from 1961 to 2007. Payments to Chief Executives rose about 1000% relative to average workers in 3 decades.