Metals Skyrocketing This Morning

SDcoinguy asks the question 'Buy or Sell?'

My answer is if you NEED the cash for something else, sell, in my case, numismatics. Silver, for instance, is quite a bit over the long term trend line, that is, it appears to be overpriced currently.

Many years ago, I was buying scrap silver coin when the Hunt Brothers tried to corner the market. I did not know that they were attempting to manipulate the market, I just saw the silver price rising. I sold silver too late, made a small profit and have never have been really interested in the metals markets since. And that is in a country (Australia), that has a huge export market in mineral products.

The moral of this experience is that unless you understand the workings of this type of market, (which I do not), then don't speculate. Invest in a area in which most of us in the CCF understand at least a little. Invest in numismatics, you will never loose, if that is your lifetime interest.

Long long time ago there was a gold standard and all countries only printed as money as gold they had. In the 1970's the gold standard was dropped. At that time all currencies were free floating and their price was directly proportional to the demand of the currency. US made sure the demand for US dollars was high by entering into pacts with middle-eastern countries to make sure oil is traded only in US dollars. Every country in the world had to buy dollars in order to buy oil and that kept the demand for dollar high and the buying power of dollar also high. A lot of countries started buying dollars and US dollars became world's reserve currency. Even China's policy to hoard US dollars and buy US treasury bonds have hugely contributed to the demand of the dollar. With the raise of Euro, raise of US trade deficits, US economic woes et all the world lost it's trust in the US dollar and naturally gold and silver became safer instruments to hold as reserve currencies. There are rumors that there might be a new gold standard that might be introduced.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/zoellic...d-price.html
http://money.cnn.com/2010/11/10/new...ld_standard/

Unless we get into touch with a bunch of friendly aliens and start using Unobtainium or Vulcan dollars as a standard currency, the world needs a stable reserve currency or international monetary mechanism that stabilizes the way countries trade with each other.

Enough with all the economics, history and aliens. What should we do now? In my humble opinion, DIVERSIFY! Don't put all your eggs in the same basket. Hold your money in cash, stocks, bullion and land. If one of them were to fail you got it covered with others.

yeah we have a better chance of the aliens landing and teaching us how to teleport from one place to another using nothing but our minds than us ever going back on the Gold standard

Going back to 100% gold standard will be a disaster with everyone rushing to hoard gold. Gold being a component of the new monetary policy is more achievable IMHO and should be done over a period of time.

I agree.

The gold standard will never happen again. It cannot happen again because it is mathematically and logistically impossible, given the size of the economy today.

However, hard currency is not a myth. A commodity backed standard that included gold as a component is feasible.

More accurately, it is an enablement device for government and major banking irresponsibility. Remember, the Federal Reserve is a quasi-public organization with alleged congressional oversight, but the truth is that the major banks usually call the shots.

sel691,speaking of Oz mineral resources,what has happened to the opal exports? I go to quite a few mineral and gem shows and even 2 years ago there was a lot of great Australian Opal around. The last couple of shows I was lucky to see a dozen decent pieces and very few great Lightning Ridge or Mintabe pieces. Any idea what is going on in the opal mining areas?