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Replies: 21 / Views: 1,714 |
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Rest in Peace
United States
2884 Posts |
My first few thoughts to Chrstalk's response to this thread are as follows...Do you purchase all of your investment precious metals at cost? Are you factoring in inflation in your net investment gain? How have precious metals stood up to Stock Market indexed mutual funds over the last 30 years? Your in hand hard assets are only worth what someone is willing to pay at any given time. Are you suggesting the liquidity of such assets allows for the possibility of avoiding capitol gains taxes? If the wealthy banking industry controls the value of gold as you state, much like the stock market is manipulated, are you not still a pawn to the banking industry? If you deposit money into a tax deferred annuity and you are in the 27% tax bracket you realize an immediate 27% "gain" (It costs 73 cents to buy $1.00 of fund) on dollars invested even if it’s to a fixed interest account. This is hard to do with bullion! I don't know how old you are but I took the big hit on my Mutual Fund accounts just like most others. However at this point I have recovered about 85% of my "paper losses" I currently had to take an early retirement due to illness. I am thrilled to have made the investments I made into my Mutual funds. I was able to cash out my supplemental retirement annuities with no penalty due to permanent disability. It’s worked out great since only 22% of my pension is taxable! I love collecting and have made what I feel were good investments in gold coins that have numismatic value. They are largely unaffected by market swings in metals. Good Luck in your investing and I for one would be pleased to see a rally in gold, only I do not believe that is imminent. Sincerely, Mike 
Edited by Mike 04/02/2005 2:59 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
1247 Posts |
I have more faith in metals than I do stock brokers looking for their next BMW payment.
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Rest in Peace
United States
954 Posts |
I have to go along with Longnine on this one. This is especially true after what I read in Coin World, April 4, 2005 issue. Here is my evaluation for what it's worth. Gold and Silver have always been the best inflation fighter around. I always felt that a person should keep 5% of their investment portfolio in precious metals. I don't mean paper metals either I mean the cold hard metal in hand. Right now the U.S. is spending like its never spent before. We are going to have to get the money somewhere. Inflation is just looming around the corner. Other countries are just starting to give up on the U.S. dollar in favor of the Euro. Mexico is talking about minting gold and silver coins again which will kill the circulation of the dollar there. Add to that the thing I have been warning people about has started here. If you will read the article "Cent, Dollar Changes Loom" in the current issue of Coin World you will see something that is scary to me. Congress is giving the authority to the Treasurer to demontize the Susan B. Anthony coin without getting permission from Congress to do so. This means that in a 5 second decision the SBA can be declared invalid for normal montary transactions. A lot of people can lose a lot of money quickly. What all this adds up to is that on a worldwide basis the U.S. dollar is losing creditability. If it keeps losing I would like to have the silver and gold rather than the U.S. dollar in my pocket. This is something that can spread very quickly. catman 
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Rest in Peace
United States
2884 Posts |
Catman, I have not received that issue yet. For some reason the issue that contains the Coin Value's Magazine is always 1 week late. In my earlier response I was in no way saying that some portion of your savings should not be in gold and silver hard assets. I never got involved with buying direct pick stocks. I always invested through mutual fund plans at work that allowed you to chose from multiple areas of investment such as bond market funds,real estate funds,stock indexed funds,international funds,and about 30 other choices. All these funds carried miniscule fee's. The majority of my questions were directed to Chrystalks reply. I'm looking forward to the April 4th issue of Coin World. Thanks for the tip. Mike 
Edited by Mike 04/03/2005 12:05 am
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Valued Member
United States
458 Posts |
Like the others here, I'm a believer in holding the "actual" metals in hand. Gold & Silver and I also like Platinum. Not as an investment mind ya, but as a hedge against inflation. The dollar has been worthless since its was detached from gold in the early 70's. (I can't remember the president now I wanna say Nixon did it). But when you could not convert dollars into gold back then it started the dollars serious tailspin & decline back then. IMHO is has not recovered yet and probably never will. Altho you state gold is tied to our worthless dollars, I respectfully disagree somewhat, since the dollar comes no where near their values of real gold...It might be traded that way, like oil, but if the dollar continues its low value, it will be removed as the "gold" standard if you will--  No disrespect intended sir---I of course could be wrong, I like others took a HUGE loss with my 401 back in late 98-99, early 2000, and have only recovered so far only about half of my papaer losses from that disaster. In fact when the internet bubble Burst, is when I seriuosly stared getting into "bullion" and old gold coins, Saints and Indians in decent grades--
Edited by CiScO 04/02/2005 11:29 pm
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Rest in Peace
United States
954 Posts |
CiScO,
I'm a little confused at your response. We went off the gold standard in 1933 and off the silver standard in 1968..?
catman
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Pillar of the Community
Belgium
2078 Posts |
quote: Originally posted by catman
CiScO,
I'm a little confused at your response. We went off the gold standard in 1933 and off the silver standard in 1968..?
catman
Internationally the USA maintained the Bretton Woods agreement till 1971 That they forbade gold in 1933 internally has nothing to do with the gold standard I think http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system
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Pillar of the Community
 United States
2724 Posts |
quote: Originally posted by catman
CiScO,
I'm a little confused at your response. We went off the gold standard in 1933 and off the silver standard in 1968..?
catman
He is absolutely correct folks. Our coins and currency are backed by the faith in the government.
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Rest in Peace
United States
2884 Posts |
Cisco, Our currency has not been backed by gold reserves since 1933! Silver exceeded the intrinsic value of our coinage in 1965 and completely by 1968. All we have had since then is the U.S Governments backing of our currency. In 1933 President Roosevelt proclaimed that all U.S citizens were banned from private ownership of gold, with a few small exceptions for coins of numismatic value, and $100.00 in aggregate value of certificates and coins per citizen. Later that year another proclamation removed even the $100.00 per person limit! Then in early in 1934 the famous (or now infamous) ban on the production of gold coins was introduced. In the transition year of 1933 the government decided that collectors could hold the 1933 $10.00 gold pieces but entirely banned the holding of 1933 $20.00 pieces. In 1936 the U.S starting building Fort Knox in Kentucky to centrally house U.S. Gold Reserves. In 1954 the laws were relaxed a bit allowing collectors to own pre 1933 gold coins that had collector value. The law allowing unlimited private ownership of gold was passed December 31st 1974 during Richard Nixon’s administration. The introduction of American silver and gold bullion coins for sale to the public by U.S. mints was introduced by The Reagan administration in 1985. Mike 
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Valued Member
United States
458 Posts |
quote: Originally posted by ageka
quote: Originally posted by catman
CiScO,
I'm a little confused at your response. We went off the gold standard in 1933 and off the silver standard in 1968..?
catman
Internationally the USA maintained the Bretton Woods agreement till 1971 That they forbade gold in 1933 internally has nothing to do with the gold standard I think
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system
Execellent, that was exactly my point. The Bretton Woods agreement as I understood it was, foreign governments were able to approach the USA with greenbacks and exchange them for pure gold from Ft. Knox or any other USA gold depository on demand. At the time it became very expensive to continue to do this since the dollar even back then was losing its value in a big way. I recall when I arrived in Germany in 1969 the dollar exchange was 4DM per dollar, boy did that rate drop like a rock. Since ageka states that agreement was terminated in 1971, as I remember, it was President Nixon that did that, and inflation was eating the USA up alive. Back then also if you all recall, he was also negotiating the end of the Vietnam war which if I recall ended in 1972.
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Rest in Peace
United States
2884 Posts |
The Veitnam war ended in April of 1973. My understanding is we went off the gold standard in 1933 because the reserves of gold no longer supported the outstanding F/R notes in circulation, due in part to the redemtion of gold certificates by foreign countries,and the fixing of gold at $35.00 per oz.(the basis for the F/R to hoard gold and ban private ownership) After the "FIX" the value of one ounce of gold exceeded the intrinsic value of the coins. Premiums for redemtion of gold and gold certificates took place much the same as they did in the 1960's for silver and silver certificates(paying a premium far above face value). Please explain the connection to the above post.(I can't tell any more who originated the post directly above this one!)Thanks, Mike
Edited by Mike 04/03/2005 12:18 pm
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Rest in Peace
United States
2884 Posts |
Maybe this article will tie this all together!!! Printed from Goldfinger.com lots of history stuff on that site!!!   Many precious metals firms maintain that because old gold coins are "collectables," they would not be subject to another gold recall. Some firms say that premiums of at least 10 - 15% automatically make coins "collectibles." No current Federal law or Treasury Department regulation or directive supports these statements. The statements that specific types of gold coins are not subject to confiscation are based on an Executive Order that President Roosevelt issued in 1933 prohibiting private ownership of Gold Bullion & Gold Bullion coins. The executive order exempted "gold coins having a recognized special value to collectors [of rare and unusual coins]," but it did not define "special value" or "collector". The evidence suggests that sellers promoting old gold coins propagate this myth because it makes it easier to sell high-priced "old gold" coins. Although Roosevelt's Executive Order required U.S. citizens to turn in their gold coins and gold bullion, foreigners continued to redeem paper dollars for gold until 1971. From the end of World War II to 1971, the United States gold reserves were reduced by more than 50%. It is widely believed that all the gold coins surrendered under Roosevelt's prohibition were refined into .999 fine bullion bars. This is not true. It was to the government's advantage to pay foreign debt holders with (22 karat) gold coins versus (24 karat) bullion bars. With the official price of gold at $35 an ounce, a foreign bank redeeming $70 million paper dollars received 2,000,000 ounces of gold (if the Treasury delivered gold bullion bars of 24 karat). However, when the Treasury delivered gold coins of 22 karat (with a face value of 70 million) it delivered only 1,935,000 ounces of gold, thus retaining 65,000 ounces of Gold in the U.S. reserves. Therefore, it was to the U.S. Treasury Department's advantage to pay out U.S. gold coins instead of bullion bars. The entire prohibition & recall issue revolves around the fact that it was most beneficial (if not very shrewd), to pay U.S. foreign debt with 22 karat Bullion Coins versus 24 karat Bullion Bars. If this required that the Government confiscate [any & all] Bullion coins which are privately owned versus releasing pure Gold for payment of national debt, then confiscation it would be! A widely overlooked fact about the Fixing price of Gold Bullion (1933): Before the "fix" was placed (at $35 per oz.), Gold was trading in the mid $20 range. Any persons holding Gold [bought before the Fix] reaped substantial profits at the time of surrender. And during the middle of the Depression (1933), the next best thing to hold [other than precious metals] was cash!
Edited by Mike 04/03/2005 11:53 am
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Pillar of the Community
Belgium
2078 Posts |
quote:
By 1963, the US gold reserve at Manhattan barely covered liabilities to foreign central banks, and by 1970 the gold coverage hadfallen to 55%, by 1971 22%. Thus, from 1963, had the foreign central banks tried to convert their dollar reserves into gold, the US would have been forced to abandon gold convertibility. As a matter of fact, in response to a massive flight from the dollar persuaded President Richard Nixon to halt gold convertibility on August 15, 1971. quote:
http://www.wealth4freedom.com/truth...s_System.htm
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Rest in Peace
United States
2884 Posts |
Thanks ageka, things are begining to become much clearer to me now. I think your right about most U.S. citizens not knowing what was going on behind the scenes.I'm learning a great deal about what I thought I had a pretty clear picture of before. Wow was I off base! Thanks for the excellent informtion, Mike
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Pillar of the Community
Belgium
2078 Posts |
quote: Originally posted by Mike
Thanks ageka, things are begining to become much clearer to me now. I think your right about most U.S. citizens not knowing what was going on behind the scenes.I'm learning a great deal about what I thought I had a pretty clear picture of before. Wow was I off base! Thanks for the excellent informtion, Mike
I worked 23 years for the US international Co Monsanto My extralegal pension was ( is ? ) in 30 year dollarbonds I have two more years before I can get it without losing 52% to taxes I hope the dollar holds for two more years because the printing presses are surely doing overtime selling those US bonds to Chinese and Japan government buyers
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