Fun fact: all the gold in the world cannot pay the U.S. national debt! Gold in world: 190,000 tons (gold.org) = 6.08 billion ounces Gold spot price: approx. $1300/ounce 6.08 billion * $1300 = $7.9 trillion U.S. National Debt = $22 trillion The national debt will never be paid, i.e. we will default on our debts.
that's why the world went off the gold standard, decades ago the US completely severed the link between the dollar and gold in 1971.
Agreed! Coz we do not have the wealth. We do have paper and ink. . . . Wikipedia says the US has $310 billion worth of gold. That ain't six months' defense budget. "All the gold in Fort Knox" = 15 aircraft carriers
The Federal Reserve has different plans. Their plan is to increase inflation at a controlled rate, which will effectively devalue our debt by making it worth less in real terms. It used to be a billion was real money for our government. Now it is a trillion. What comes next? A zillion? In a hundred years a trillion will be regarded as a much smaller amount of money than it is now.
Fun Fact #2 All the U.S. currency AND all the gold in the world cannot pay the U.S. national debt. "There is about $1.2 trillion dollars of U.S. currency in circulation." https://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/fedpoint/fed01.html (Our national debt is $22 trillion.)
It’s a terrible idea to tie your currency/debt to gold or a precious metal now. How much smaller would the US/global economy if you had to use gold to expand at such a rate. We forget how many booms and busts (more so)than before the implementation of the Fed then getting off the gold standard decades later.
Rare earth materials don't matter in the slightest through this trade war, and oh big deal- soy beans ~shrug~ we can keep that industry afloat through a trade war. However, a long trade war will lead to China grasping at straws
Let's simplify this. Imagine Uncle Sam owes $22 in debts to various people. He holds one dollar and twenty cents in one hand, and a 30-cent gold piece in the other. That's us.
ur not informed on this. it just means that the gold standard and mercantilism are eg of economic anachronism, they have no place in this age of globalism.
Imagine if you have a mortgage and a car loan, and student loans. So America is like Americans. Shocking. And lots of us would love to quit raising the deficit during a good economy, but what good would it be for Trump to not over inflate the economy?
It's quite simple. You know those green pieces of paper we call dollars, and those pieces of metal we call coins? Add them all up, and we get $1.2 trillion. We owe $22 trillion. If we give every dollar that exists in the world to our creditors, we will still be in default. Then, we can give all the gold in the entire world to our creditors, and we will still be in default. Then, maybe we can start selling national property to our creditors (at a steep discount, of course).
Which is why we don't pay it all off at once. Unfortunately our current President has increased what we owe.
Is that like getting a new credit card to pay off your old credit card? Then one day, no one wants to give you another credit card. Then what?
Ahhhhhh, you're saying money is really just an idea, and I'm too stupid to get that? Can you say more on how money doesn't need to represent any material object? Can money be strictly imaginary?
