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ARCHIVED DISCUSSION FROM 7/2/2006
All times are U.S. Mountain Time

(Yesterday's Discussion.)

GOLD FINGER (7/2/06; 22:46:08MT - usagold.com msg#: 145728)
Good as GOLD!

In my town when I drove up to the crappy fast food restaurant to get some Taco-bell, I realized I only had 100's on me and they did not take credit like some have started. I guess taco bell still likes all the pennies and change bs. In any event when I pulled up to get my crap I showed them the 100 and said that's all I had.

The young man looked at it and then whet to the register and found plenty of 20's for me. Mostly I was wondering if he would be able to figure it ok since he did not speak English! Oh, I was wrong, money talks~!

I usually never carry bills and coins are just as messy and smelly. CHARGE IT and pay it off and get the free sky miles!!
Good as gold??
ha-ha

Sundeck (7/2/06; 22:09:19MT - usagold.com msg#: 145727)
Reluctance to accept US bank notes. And the fate of small change
@melda laure #145724 and MK et al.,

melda laure, it is interesting that you should mention reluctance on the part of merchants to accept $100 notes.

I had this experience while visiting the US last year (Anaheim, CA)...although I think it was a $50 note, if my memory is correct. The small-time florist was very wary about me offering to pay with a brand-spanking new note...still smelling of the printing press. He got out a sellection of coloured pens and tested several on the surface of the note. Eventually he accepted it, after I had offered him several alternative forms of payment (credit cards).

I wonder just how prevalent this sort of thing is? Is counterfeiting that much of a problem, or are people just unfamiliar with the "new" notes?
..............

In Austalia, we did away with our 1c and 2c coins several years ago. (They were created in 1966, when the currency was decimalised.) We have also done-away with $1 and $2 notes a long time ago; replacing them with coins. The 5c coin is now the smallest token in circulation, although all accounting/sales/invoicing/pricing is still down to single cent units. (What would retailers do without the infamous $29.99 price-label, instead of $30.00!!...although you would think that $29.95 would be just as effective...)

Needless to say, you can't buy a heck of a lot with a 5c coin anymore...not even useful in coin-operated machines, as most will not accept them.

:-)

GOLD FINGER (7/2/06; 21:25:57MT - usagold.com msg#: 145726)
Do...doodooo
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE2/doodoo.html
A friend sent me this link and I thought I would share it.

Armageddon (7/2/06; 21:11:42MT - usagold.com msg#: 145725)
Collector value of Pennies, Nickels, Dimes, etc
Hmm. Maybe I should start collecting rolls of pennies, nickels, dimes, etc. If hyperinflation sets in and the value of commodities skyrocket then most people would sell their pennies, and nickels for the "melt" value. However, once the hyperinflation ends perhaps the penny and nickel will be worth something to coin collectors since most would have been melted down and destroyed. Currently, I see rolls of old cents and nickels selling for way over the numerical value of the coin on websites that cater to coin collectors.

Good Idea?


melda laure (7/2/06; 20:36:27MT - usagold.com msg#: 145724)
As they ditch the penny, it is time to bring back the half gallon note ($500)
Another interesting social behaviour to monitor is the decreasing reluctance of merchants to accept the $100 note. It is quite useless as there is no way to hand it back to the next customer as change (customers asking for cash back on an ATM transaction usually want smaller bills). It is still enough money to be too much money to lose if the bill is fake, and yet 20$ (or $80 for that matter) of victuals is hardly a full basket anymore. And it is just a bit silly to hand over forty or more $20 notes to purchase a small appliance.


melda laure (7/2/06; 20:28:43MT - usagold.com msg#: 145723)
What this country needs is a good ten cent dollar.
Yes, the dollar bill is quite a nuisance. It is much too filthy and bulky to have in one's pocketses in any quantity to be useful for purchases greater than a snack. A $5 coin and a $10 coin would be handy. A new dollar coin in "dime" sizes would be the practical action. Given silver prices, we're there now.

Wont happen.- that would mean admitting failure.

MK (7/2/06; 19:33:53MT - usagold.com msg#: 145722)
Chris Powell. . .
The fact of the matter is that more and more of us are stacking one dollar bills in the drawer the way we used to throw change in the jar. The penny, nickel, dime and quarter are all the new "penny." That is the degree of inflation we are experiencing that the government will never admit.

MK (7/2/06; 19:18:59MT - usagold.com msg#: 145721)
Armageddon. . . Inflationary or Deflationary Depression
Let me say that we must understand the concept of "bias" in order to proceed to a rational projection of the future. The "bias" of a gold standard economy is toward "deflation." The "bias" of a fiat money economy is toward "inflation." Therefore, the likelihood is that we will experience an inflationary depression along the lines of what the Pacific rim experienced in the late 1990s and the United States in the 1970s. Among those I have read, Ravi Batra makes the best case under the circumstances. I would direct you there.

Boilermaker (7/2/06; 18:34:50MT - usagold.com msg#: 145720)
Bin Laden Speaks Twice
I have an uneasy feeling that Bin Laden's two recent press releases (Thursday and Saturday) may be the trigger for some mischief to be visited on our (US) July 4th 230th birthday party. Hope I'm wrong. I've got a box full of fireworks to celebrate the event. Further, I continue to believe that the US will come to grips with its sad state of financial/economic affairs once the people learn what's been happening during the past century of fiat finagling.

God bless us goldgugs in our unending battle for truth in money.

Goldilox (7/2/06; 17:51:42MT - usagold.com msg#: 145719)
The Penny as Inflationary measure
@ Chris Powell

snip:

"A penny bought a loaf of bread in early America, but it's a loafer of a coin in an age of inflation and affluence, slowly sliding into monetary obsolescence."

Now that a loaf of bread (nutritional bread, not pulp) costs about $2.49, we get another great indicator of FED manufactured inflation. It's ironic that we look forward to a penny being worth much more than the paper dollar!

The only "inflation fighting" the FED does is managing the evolution of hyperbolic inflation, stretching out their legalized theft over a few more generations.

The outcome is predetermined by the mathematical function itself, as the FIAT dollar has no choice but to asymptotically approach ZERO along it's value axis.

Armageddon (7/2/06; 12:47:11MT - usagold.com msg#: 145718)
Inflationary or Deflationary Depression?
I just finished listening to the lastest Jim Puplava/Financial News Hour audio clip with a discussion with gold experts. All of them predicted an inflationary recession/depression if it happens. They also predicted a dollar freefall if the dollar goes below the 80 level on the dollar index (I assume it is the same one displayed on the top of this gold board forum which is around 85.XX now).

It would seem with Helicopter Ben at the Fed and a fiat dollar not tried to gold anymore an inflationary situation is much more likely than a deflationary one. Any other comments/ideas out there?

Chris Powell (7/2/06; 12:12:10MT - usagold.com msg#: 145717)
Pennies soon may be a thing of the past -- nickels too
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060702/ap_on_re_us/poor_penny
By Jeff Donn
Associated Press
Sunday, July 2, 2006

PLYMOUTH, Massachusetts -- In this village settled by thrifty Pilgrims, you can still buy penny candy for a penny, but tourist Alan Ferguson doubts he'll be able to dig any 1-cent pieces out of his pockets.

He rarely carries pennies because "they take up a lot of room for how much value they have." Instead, like so many other Americans, he dumps his pennies into a bucket back home in Sarasota, Fla.

Pity the poor penny!

It packs so little value that merry kids chuck pennies into the fountain near the candy store, just to watch them splash and sink. Stray pennies turn up everywhere: in streets, cars, sofas, beaches, even landfills with the rest of the garbage.

A penny bought a loaf of bread in early America, but it's a loafer of a coin in an age of inflation and affluence, slowly sliding into monetary obsolescence.

For the first time, the U.S. Mint has said pennies are costing more than 1 cent to make this year, thanks to higher metal prices.

"The penny is going to disappear soon unless something changes in the economics of commodities," says Robert Hoge, an expert on North American coins at The American Numismatic Society.

That very idea of spending 1.2 cents to put 1 cent into play strikes many people as "faintly ridiculous," says Jeff Gore, of Elkton, Md., founder of a little group called Citizens for Retiring the Penny.

And yet, while its profile of Abe Lincoln marks time in the bottom of drawers and ashtrays, the penny somehow carries a reassuring symbolism that Americans hesitate to forsake.

"It's part of their past, so they want to keep it in their future," says Dave Harper, editor of Numismatic News.

Gallup polling has shown that two-thirds of Americans want to keep the penny coin. There's even a pro-penny lobby called Americans for Common Cents.

The Mint's announcement is a milestone, though, because coins have historically cost less to produce than the face value paid by receiving banks. They are moneymakers for the government.

U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe of Arizona wants to keep it that way. But when he asked Congress to phase out the penny five years ago he failed; he intends to try again this year. If he fails again, he joked recently, he may open a business melting down pennies to resell the metal.

The idea of a penniless society began to gain currency in 1989 with a bill in Congress to round off purchases to the nearest nickel. It was dropped, but the General Accounting Office in a 1996 report unceremoniously acknowledged that some people consider the penny a "nuisance coin."

In 2002 Gallup polling found that 58 percent of Americans stash pennies in piggy banks, jars, drawers and the like, instead of spending them like other coins. Some people eventually redeem them at banks or coin-counting machines, but 2 percent admit to just plain throwing pennies out.

"Today it's a joke. It's outlived its usefulness," says Tony Terranova, a New York City coin dealer who paid $437,000 for a 1792 penny prototype in what is believed to be the denomination's highest auction price.

"Most people find them annoying when they get them in change," he adds. "I've seen people get pennies in change and actually throw them on the floor."

Not Edmond Knowles of Flomaton, Alabama.

No, he hoarded pennies for nearly four decades as a hobby. He ended up with more than 1.3 million of them -- 4.5 tons -- in several drums in his garage. His bank refused to take them all at once, but he finally found a coin-counting company, Coinstar, that wanted the publicity.

In the biggest known penny cash-in ever, they sent an armored truck last year, loaded his pennies, and then watched helplessly as it sank into the mud in his yard. They needed a tow truck to redeem it. "I still got a few ruts in the yard," says Knowles.

His years of collecting brought him about $1 a day -- $13,084.59 in all.

A penny saved was a penny earned for Knowles, but he took another lesson from the experience too: "I don't save pennies anymore. It's too big a problem getting rid of them."

Another problem: deciding what to make the penny from. Copper, bronze, and zinc have been used, even steel in 1943 when copper was desperately needed for the World War II effort. In 1982 zinc replaced most of the penny's copper to save money, but rising zinc prices are now bedeviling the penny again.

"I'm very surprised they haven't gone to plastic," muses Bill Johnson, a wheat-penny collector who owns the Plimoth Candy Co. (It uses an old spelling of Plymouth.)

Even in his shop where a penny still buys a Tootsie Roll, he leaves a few pennies scattered on top of the cash register for customers like Lindsay Taylor, of Westwood, who is buying $1.78 worth of candy.

She is carrying no pennies because her sons have taken them for their old-fashioned piggy banks, which automatically flip coins inside. Her 2-year-old, she says, "just loves pushing the button."

Others have their own reasons for valuing the humble coin, which borrowed its colloquial name from British currency. The "cent" — meaning 1 percent of a dollar — has been struck every year except 1815, when the United States ran out of British-made penny blanks in the wake of the War of 1812.

"It's part of the fabric of American culture," says David Early, a spokesman for the government's Lincoln Bicentennial Commission.

The penny took on the profile of President Lincoln, beloved as the Union's savior during the Civil War, on the centennial of his birth in 1909. The first ones carried ears of wheat on the tails side, but the Lincoln memorial has replaced those. Four new tails designs with themes from Lincoln's life are planned for 2009, with a fifth permanent one afterward to summarize his legacy.

This redesign, the first major one since 1959, has heartened penny lovers.

Those who want to keep the penny coin include small merchants who prefer cash transactions, contractors who help supply pennies, and consumer advocates who fear the rounding up of purchases.

"We think the penny is important as a hedge to inflation," says director Mark Weller of Americans for Common Cents. "Any time you have more accurate pricing, consumers benefit."

Joining with the lobby, the wireless network Virgin Mobile USA recently launched a save-the-penny campaign. Its penny truck will travel cross-country to gather pennies for charity.

Scores of charities esteem the penny, which many Americans donate without a second thought. Like shouts in a playground, pennies can multiply quickly.

"People don't like carrying them around, so we dump them into the nearest bowl," says Teddy Gross, who founded the Penny Harvest charity drive in New York City schools. "By the end of any given year most Americans have got a stash of capital that is practically useless, but it's within easy reach of a young person."

Last year his children raked in 55 million pennies, which had to be redeemed with help from the Brink's security company. They also bagged about 200,000 spare nickels.

By the way, the Mint says nickels are also costing more to produce than they're worth. Pity the poor nickel?

Chris Powell (7/2/06; 11:45:30MT - usagold.com msg#: 145716)
No wonder they invented central banking; it's a lot easier
http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113~7244~3341450,00.html
Prospector Rescued from Yukon River

By Tim Mowry
Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner
Saturday, July 1, 2006

A Fairbanks man and his dog were rescued Wednesday
after spending two days holed up in a cabin along the
Yukon River eating fried dough and rhubarb after his
boat sank while he was prospecting for gold.

Myron Chamblee, 42, was picked up by helicopter
Wednesday night at a National Park Service cabin on
Washington Creek, which flows into the Yukon River
about 100 miles upstream of Circle in the
Yukon-Charley Rivers National Park and Preserve.

Chamblee signaled a passing airplane from Everts Air
Service earlier in the day with aerial flares and the
pilot notified Alaska State Troopers.

"I knew I was in the flight path between Eagle and
Circle," said Chamblee, who carried six aerial flares
in a survival pack. "That was part of the plan if I
ran into any trouble."

Accompanied by his 7-year-old husky mix, Scooby-Doo,
Chamblee arrived at Washington Creek from Circle on
June 20 in a 20-foot flat-bottom riverboat to scout a
possible gold mining spot he had been told about.

After parking his boat at a Park Service cabin near
the mouth of the creek, Chamblee spent two days hiking
15 miles up the creek in a pair of hip waders to reach
his prospecting spot, which he said is located outside
park boundaries.

It started raining almost as soon as he got there but
he was able to take refuge in a well-stocked trapper's
cabin he knew about, said Chamblee, who owns a cabin
in Circle and is familiar with the section of the
Yukon River between Circle and Eagle.

It rained for the next three days and the water in the
creek came up about two feet, he said. Chamblee had
intended to spend only one day prospecting at the
cabin, but he ended up staying there for three days
waiting for the water to drop.

It took two days for him and the dog to make it back
to the boat. When they got there on Monday it was
under water. He had tied the boat off on the creek
bank but the bowline got hooked on a stump and
wouldn't allow the boat to rise with the creek,
Chamblee said.

"It didn't take much current to swamp it," he said.

The boat's 40-horsepower motor was sticking out of the
water and the bowline was showing but Chamblee's
initial attempt to retrieve the boat failed. Exhausted
and hungry, Chamblee decided to wait for the water to
go down.

Chamblee had been rationing MRE's for two days and had
eaten the last half of the last one that morning. The
only thing he could find to eat in the Park Service
cabin was flour, so he and his dog spent the next two
days eating pan bread, Chamblee said.

"I'd make a paste out of it and cook it," he said.

A patch of rhubarb growing outside the cabin
complemented the pan bread, Chamblee said. He peeled
the rhubarb and ate it raw.

"I love rhubarb," he said.

But instead of going down the next day, the water in
the creek rose again and submerged the boat, making it
impossible to move it.

On Wednesday, Chamblee decided to attempt to signal a
passing plane with one of his six flares. He had heard
the plane passing overhead each morning on its daily
flight to Eagle. Chamblee fired two flares but the
pilot didn't see them, he said.

Chamblee tried again on the plane's return flight,
firing four flares this time.

"Once I had his attention I wanted to make sure I kept
it," he said.

The pilot notified Alaska state troopers in Tok at
around 11:30 a.m. Troopers alerted the Rescue
Coordination Center in Anchorage, which plotted the
original GPS coordinates for the flares on Weshrinarin
Creek, which is about five miles downstream of
Washington Creek.

Both troopers and the Park Service sent planes to the
area but found no sign of Chamblee. It wasn't until
Park Service personnel contacted the Everts pilot
again to clarify the location that he mentioned there
was a cabin in the area. That's when rescuers figured
out Chamblee was actually on Washington Creek.

The Park Service dispatched a helicopter to the cabin
and found Chamblee and his dog hungry but in good
shape at around 9 p.m.

"I was happy to see them," said Chamblee, who
commended the Park Service for "bending over
backwards" to help him.

They were flown to Eagle, where Chamblee was treated
to a plate of spaghetti and Scooby-Doo got a bowl of
dog food.

Chamblee and his dog flew to Circle on Thursday and
drove back to Fairbanks. On Friday he was in the
process of organizing a rescue mission to go retrieve
his boat and whatever belongings he could find
floating down the river, he said.

As for gold, Chamblee said he didn't find any.

Goldilox (7/2/06; 07:16:34MT - usagold.com msg#: 145715)
Funny Money: A Quarter Full of Hilarity
http://www.thestreet.com/_googlen/comment/funnymoney/10294794_2.html
snips:

Alan Greenspan said global economic imbalance might be improved if some high-growth nations let their currencies strengthen. Alan, let it go. You had your chance. Go back to wandering the beach with a metal detector, wearing your big shorts and black socks and looking like an out of work popcorn mogul. . .

Apple will offer computers that run Windows. Hooray! My Mac and I have been dying to get these "viruses" we keep hearing about. Thanks, Steve. Can't wait until you sell me the $300 portable solution to whatever problems this'll cause. . .

Delta folded its discount carrier Song back into the main airline, which is a tough blow for the seven people who ever flew Song.

GM fired its Chief Accounting Officer, Peter Bible. So much for faith-based accounting.

Newsflash: Bush's tax cuts will be paid for by selling your phone records to Mexico.

-Goldilox

Some financial humor for the holidays . . .



Goldilox (7/2/06; 07:08:36MT - usagold.com msg#: 145714)
Gold price rally ‘is no flash in the pan’
http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=95148&version=1&template_id=48&parent_id=28
snip:

MONTREUX, Switzerland: Gold fever rages on despite the metal's 24% jump in a month to 26-year highs followed by an even faster retreat.

"This is a serious bull run. Those people who think it's a bubble ready to burst might be disappointed," Tony Dobra, director of global commodity derivatives at Standard Chartered Bank, said.

Analysts see gold marching towards last month's peak of $730 a troy ounce after consolidating its position in the near term and reaching the previous record high of $850 in the coming years.

And they have ample arguments to support this - a weak dollar outlook, fund diversification, geopolitical tensions, inflation worries, poor mine supplies and safe-haven buying.

"The fundamentals that brought the investors in and made it attractive have not diminished," said New York-based Paul McLeod, vice president of precious metals at Commerzbank.

"After we get through the summer, which is traditionally a quiet period for metals, we will see the re-emergence of the buying interest from investors."

Gold tumbled 26% to $543 on June 14 from its peak in mid-May as a rise in the dollar, weakness in oil prices and easing political tension in the Middle East triggered a selloff.

Prices have recovered but are still hovering below $600.

"The correction was much needed and it's just in time," Dobra said. Delegates attending a precious metals conference of the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) in Montreux, Switzerland, has predicted that gold prices would be at $698.60 an ounce by November 2007.

The forecast, compiled electronically from the votes of about 150 delegates including bankers, analysts, producers and funds managers, is about 35% higher than gold's price at the start of the year and 60% more than a year ago.

So what makes the sentiment so bullish? "I believe the stature and reputation of the dollar as store value has been greatly diminished and undermined over the past decade," Anthony S. Fell, chairman of RBC Capital Markets, said.

"Investors forget that bear markets start when the skies are blue and bull markets start when there is despair and apathy in the air," he told the LBMA conference.

Analysts say that despite short-term spikes, the dollar was expected to fall in the long term and the Federal Reserve might reduce interest rates after raising them in the short-term.

Gold prices generally move in the opposite direction to the US currency as the metal is often considered as an alternative investment. A drop in interest rates prompts investors to shift to other assets from currencies for better returns.

Funds, which were instrumental in driving gold higher during the recent rally, have not lost confidence in the market and pension funds are considering diversification into commodities.

"Some diversification hasn't happened yet but will happen at some stage," said Michael Widmer, analyst at Macquarie Bank. "People are waiting at the moment to move back into the market."

Cyrille E Urfer, head of fund research at Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch, said pension funds would continue to increase their allocation to asset classes such as commodities that were not common in the last couple of years.

"You will see much more investment demand. They are looking at the possibility to make their portfolio more robust and they are going to be more medium- to long-term investors."

Safe-haven gold is also likely to get a boost from the situation in the Middle East and signs that North Korea might test a long-range missile.

"There are still tensions in the Middle East, you have got the issues with the American economy. It won't take much of a spark to re-ignite the gold price again," said Jeremy Charles, managing director of precious metals at HSBC Bank USA. - Reuters



contrarian (7/2/06; 06:16:02MT - usagold.com msg#: 145713)
Stages
http://whyquit.com/joel/Joel_03_13_stages_of_death.html
J-Bullion--don't forget bargaining, as the truth is never just suddenly and magically accepted. It would be interesting to apply this framework to current events. I would say we in the US are still in denial, as you can see with the push down in gold (although it has bobbed back up recently). The truth can be easy to deny, hard to accept, and gold can only tell the truth.

"In her 1969 book, On Death and Dying, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross identified five distinct phases which a dying person encounters. These stages are "denial," "anger," "bargaining," "depression," and finally, "acceptance." These are the exact same stages that are felt by those mourning the loss of a loved one as well."




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