"The dollar is unstable, so we should all trade it for gold, cryptocurrency, and currency advocated by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South America."
Its really hard to take this stuff seriously.
"The dollar is unstable, so we should all trade it for gold, cryptocurrency, and currency advocated by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South America."
Its really hard to take this stuff seriously.
Beer Baron said:AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:There is a concerted effort to badmouth any options to the dollar.
Okay, I'll bite.
What are you considering options to the US Dollar that are supposedly being badmouthed?
This is usually the point where you guys get cross wise with me. You are presenting this all like it's my plan and idea. It's not. See BRICs. Pretty much every country on the planet is sick of US fiscal policy except for the people that benefit from it. I'm just providing you with a different point of view based on easily knowable things (BRICs, etc.)
The analogy has a flaw too, because one small misplaced railroad spike and the entire train becomes a giant pile of rubble along with everyone else on it. Your train analogy reminds me of the Grateful Dead Casey Jones song. Enjoy the ride, we all know how that one turned out.
Sadly as an individual I have few options. Together we'd have more options, but that seems impossible. I'm just hoping I or my children can survive the collapse of the economy which is all but guaranteed now. It isn't a matter of IF anymore, only WHEN. Heck together we might avert the crisis all together, but I don't see this country every working together to resolve common issues ever again.
SV reX said:"The dollar is unstable, so we should all trade it for gold, cryptocurrency, and currency advocated by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South America."
Its really hard to take this stuff seriously.
Are you trying to convince me or yourself? The majority of the world just resides in the countries you listed. Did you convince them, because that is what matters? Do you know any wealthy Indian families? I do. They do it by doing everything you say is wrong. They hoard generational wealth in families by going against everything this thread advises.
The long play would be to trade your dollars for hard assets like land, homes, etc.
67% of BRICS as a function of GDP is China so we're pretty much just talking about switching the world reserve currency from the US to China.
In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :
BRICs isn't an alternative currency to the USD. That's an acronym of four nations that sometimes trade with each other. They each have their own fiat currencies. Their respective currencies are so relatively insignificant to international trade that they don't even have their own line item in that list of currencies held in international reserves.
BRICs is sort of the equivalent of "US-Mexico-Canada".
Except it's not even that. Because the US, Mexico, and Canada are close allies who have an active trading agreement. Those four nations don't. Nor are they even allies. Russia, India, and China are active rivals who legitimately war game and prepare for potential kinetic wars with each other.
China and India are more likely to go to war with each other than either one is to go to war with the United States, let alone for the US to go to war with any of our economic allies who are so numerous that they can't be contained in a single acronym.
aircooled said:Beer Baron said:AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:There is a concerted effort to badmouth any options to the dollar.
Okay, I'll bite.
What are you considering options to the US Dollar that are supposedly being badmouthed?......
He's talking about BRICS.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/what-is-brics-currency-could-one-be-adopted-2023-08-23/
But when you think of a "train" to jump on: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, just screams "stability", doesn't it.
It's hard to understand why it's just a shock that ANY country, let alone the BRICS, want to bad mouth the US Dollar. Money is power, right? Heck, I'm sure Great Britian wants to get the Pound to be the currency of choice, again.
But stability is the key part. Regardless of all of the dumb things that happens in the US WRT making money, the fact is that this is still a very stable economy and economic system. China is really trying to break that, or at least create a better alternative- and we will see where that goes. Russia, on the other hand, can't figure that out at all- so instead of offering a better economic alternative, we see what they do to their neighbors. The BIA of BRICS are far more economic potentials right now than risks.
As for crypto- that's a joke. Currency needs to be stable, and all I see of crypto is massive speculation beyond what investors can gamble on. And it's more a pyramid scheme than a real economic alternative. When a hamburger value one day becomes a car the next, and then a banana the week following- that's hardly a currency to run anything by.
Maybe I'm seeing things wrong, but right now, the leading currency are the US dollar and the Euro, and since the Yuan is tied to the dollar more than not, it's a US dollar in a different name.
One final thing, if we are so afraid of fiat currency, why is it the US dollar the one that is the most scared of? The Euro is the same basis, as is the Pound, the Yen, and the Rupee. All of which are part of huge economies in the world. As pointed out, all they really do is make it considerably more convenient to trade labor for goods. And because they are all tied together on a pretty stable world market, they do it collectively quite well.
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:The long play would be to trade your dollars for hard assets like land, homes, etc.
Yes! Exactly! If you want to maintain and grow wealth, you invest in assets and businesses.
If you want to trade in goods, you use currency.
You don't buy a loaf of bread with the rights to 1 cm^2 of land.
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:This is usually the point where you guys get cross wise with me. You are presenting this all like it's my plan and idea. It's not. See BRICs. Pretty much every country on the planet is sick of US fiscal policy except for the people that benefit from it. I'm just providing you with a different point of view based on easily knowable things (BRICs, etc.)
The analogy has a flaw too, because one small misplaced railroad spike and the entire train becomes a giant pile of rubble along with everyone else on it. Your train analogy reminds me of the Grateful Dead Casey Jones song. Enjoy the ride, we all know how that one turned out.
Sadly as an individual I have few options. Together we'd have more options, but that seems impossible. I'm just hoping I or my children can survive the collapse of the economy which is all but guaranteed now. It isn't a matter of IF anymore, only WHEN. Heck together we might avert the crisis all together, but I don't see this country every working together to resolve common issues ever again.
So of any of the BRICS, which one of them is an alternative that every other country in the world wants? You think that Argentina wants to be controlled by a system like China?
Yes, the US fiscal policy as well as the economy we run has lots and lots of flaws. But does India or China actually offer a better alternative? Seeing China abandon many of their African projects does not really make them appear a good option, as I see it.
In reply to AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) :
My dollars are fine, thank you. I need no convincing.
I've been hearing the Chicken Little scenarios my entire life. "OMG, the US economy is gonna collapse!" I've lived through multiple serious downturns, and they've ALL recovered.
Im doing fine. I have plenty enough to retire on, and my 5 kids and their families will have enough too. All done by very traditional means.
Im not buying what you are selling.
AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:...The analogy has a flaw too, because one small misplaced railroad spike and the entire train becomes a giant pile of rubble along with everyone else on it. Your train analogy reminds me of the Grateful Dead Casey Jones song. Enjoy the ride, we all know how that one turned out....
I think you are correct that the analogy is flawed (none are perfect) in the aspect since a train can be easily derailed (you should have said it is a good analogy for your case), while the economic systems massive intertia is not so easily derailed, and the massive inertia is very similar of a speeding train, the point of the analogy.
Maybe an loaded ocean going supertanker is a better analogy to the point (extremely hard to stop / turn those), but I do think the train is more relatable to most as I suspect many think the drag of the water will quickly slow a tanker.... well, no so quickly, more like in like 5 miles!
aircooled said:Beer Baron said:AnthonyGS (Forum Supporter) said:There is a concerted effort to badmouth any options to the dollar.
Okay, I'll bite.
What are you considering options to the US Dollar that are supposedly being badmouthed?......
He's talking about BRICS.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/what-is-brics-currency-could-one-be-adopted-2023-08-23/
But when you think of a "train" to jump on: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, just screams "stability", doesn't it.
Lol. Even in this article...
In July, India's foreign minister said, "there is no idea of a BRICS currency". Its foreign secretary said before departing for the summit that boosting trade in national currencies would be discussed.
I.e., "Not only no, but hell no."
The only idea mentioned in the article that seems potentially tenable would be a shared South-American currency for intra-continental trade. Even that would probably be a bad idea. Like the Eurozone, but with a dozen Greece's in it.
aircooled said:I used this analogy as a modification to something someone here once told me (about why to buy a house):
The financial / investment / monetary system is a giant freight train, moving along the tracks, with massive amounts of intertia, with it's engineer fully committed to it's path.
You can yell at the wind about how it's "wrong" or it "doesn't make sense" or it "unfair", and the wind and the train won't care and certainly won't change it's path because of your bleating.
Or,
You can get on the F'n train.
Except in the case of the housing market, train ticket costs are now in quarter-million-dollar increments and you could be kicked off and lose your luggage if the ticket pricing structure changes too close to the time you bought one...best case scenario, you end up disastrously overpaying for a train ticket and perpetuating the ever-escalating cruel absurdity onto future passengers. Makes me want to plant dynamite on the tracks.
I just had to yell that at the wind...
In reply to GameboyRMH :
We've been through this.
In reply to SV reX :
We've been through this entire thread before. It just has a different sticker on it.
Appleseed said:In reply to SV reX :
We've been through this entire thread before. It just has a different sticker on it.
I'll try to create that for you: (this is a reference to the AI thread BTW, this of course is the AI output of the above prompt)
Appleseed said:In reply to SV reX :
We've been through this entire thread before. It just has a different sticker on it.
Broke people always have a reason why they are broke, and it's always someone else's fault.
In reply to Steve_Jones :
You are probably referring to that guy, but I'm referring to the other guy. But we're both right.
All that being said, who here has the money to make a gold balloon like Mythbusters lead balloon?
Noddaz said:All that being said, who here has the money to make a gold balloon like Mythbusters lead balloon?
So their lead balloon weigh 11kg.
Lead has a density of 11.3 g/cm^3. Gold has a density of 19.3 g/cm^3. For the same volume, you would need approximately 18.8 kg of gold.
Current prices of gold are ~$65,000/kg.
It would cost approximately $1,222,000 just in gold to construct such a balloon.
Beer Baron said:Noddaz said:All that being said, who here has the money to make a gold balloon like Mythbusters lead balloon?
So their lead balloon weigh 11kg.
Lead has a density of 11.3 g/cm^3. Gold has a density of 19.3 g/cm^3. For the same volume, you would need approximately 18.8 kg of gold.
Current prices of gold are ~$65,000/kg.
It would cost approximately $1,222,000 just in gold to construct such a balloon.
BUT.... in theory you can stretch gold out thinner than lead.
But #2- since gold is that much more dense, assuming the thickness is the same, you would considerably more volume of helium to make it lift, making the cost of the balloon much, much more expensive.
Not even in theory! We have made gold foils as thin as one atom thick before to act as particle detectors.
In reply to GIRTHQUAKE :
The "in theory" part is that it would hold together under a little pressure. I don't know if it would. For the super thin layer, it falls apart looking at it.
Okay... so what we *really* need to compare is the tensile strength of the two materials.
Gold has a tensile strength of 120 MPa, and lead is 12-17 MPa.
So conservatively, you could get away with gold foil 1/6 the thickness (rounding up Lead to 20 MPa).
Which means that you'd probably only need about $205,000 worth of gold.
...
I believe they determined the lead balloon was capable of lifting an additional 30kg, so there's margin there, too.
In reply to Beer Baron :
Well, at least I learnt something from this thread. Not that I will ever need to know the tensile strength of gold (or lead tbh) but on those quiz nights I never attend, I am set.
I think the Baron has done an excellent job of providing the relevant values so I'll focus on the methodology.
Taping two dimensional sheets of material together is inefficient because:
- The surface area to volume ratio is higher than necessary
- Loads are not evenly distributed
- Much wear is imposed during construction
I think we should create a two piece spherical mold, line the inside with dielectric grease, and then electroplate gold to the inside of the grease lining.
At that point we can separate the two mold pieces and remove the grease either chemically or thermally to produce a seamless, nearly perfectly spherical gold balloon with a highly consistent wall thickness.
Thoughts?
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