Tuesday 22 May 2012

gold and cash - two graphs

I often say that there is not so much money to be made in gold rather the avoidance of losses.

first gold 'price' in US dollars (reasonably current from goldprice.org)



now over the same period the number of US$'s in circulation





note the similarity?

6 comments:

Charles Maclauchlan said...

incredible simple. So simple in fact that even a liberal should be able to make the connection but...

obakesan said...

Charles, I'm a little confused. Am I a liberal or a democrat or a republican based on US interpretations of that (I've often been confused by what I see as a division between the meaning of the title and what the title is applied to).

But can liberals read graphs?
:-)

Charles Maclauchlan said...

don't know, Chris...but confused is my middle name. Liberals in US-speak believe in the power of big government. Bigger is better if it's central government, bad if it's business.

obakesan said...

Charles

couched in the terms of my ignorance of the modern American politic I can only say that as a poor student of history I find affinity with the writings of the late Thomas Jefferson (your third president if I recall rightly). I can only say I wish he was running your country now.

Perhaps you'll never listen to a word I say again after that admission. But to paraphrase what I said "what would I know"

:-)

obakesan said...

but anyway ... does that make me a democrat or a republican in views?

ok ... back to a red wine and a few olives

Charles Maclauchlan said...

actually, neither or both. Each political party finds pearls in Jefferson's life and each finds ruminations they "re-interpret" or ignore. He was a brilliant man also a flawed man...a man in other words. Some of his beliefs about the tendencies of government were spot on though. We rely upon his insights daily.

In my opinion the press and others love to couch their political beliefs into propaganda about how the other party feels about inter-personal relationships. Conservatives in this country are often labeled as a word ending in "ist," racist, sexist etc. Not only is this not true but a good case might be easily made that this is the exact opposite of the truth. These sorts of "Straw Man" arguments play out in the press daily, particularly prior to major elections. They're really nothing more than distractions.

The decision making criterion is quite simple. Do you believe the national government is quite large enough (or too large) or do you believe it is too small. Large enough-Conservative, too small-Liberal. Republicans tend more conservative, Democrats more Liberal.

Each political tent is quite large though and has beliefs in many many areas which is why the majority of Americans have traditionally considered themselves to be Independent. "Im an independent but right now I'm leaning toward ..." is a common statement in discussions. We've become more polarized in the past few years through, which is disturbing.