No, I'm looking at things with a multi-year view. I've tried putting money in Euro bonds, British bonds, Aus bonds, NZ bonds, and some of the currency ETF's, and basically the spread kills you, and the interest rate changes kill the values of the bonds. Its a catch 22 and you are lucky to get your original capital back in the end, losing by inflation, no different than if you'd bought CD's here and lost 5% on them to the 10+% money supply growth, LOL, before tax. The reason of course is that ALL the currencies are in a race to the bottom, with each nation trying to print money faster than the others but still appear to control inflation, in desperate attempts to help local productive businesses compete against the impossible odds of competition from the East. Lets hope the devaluation isn't an overnight event. It will be gut wrenching if it is.
good lesson on human nature. seems like it will have to come pretty damn close before ordinary people find their voice
Well yes nflation and deflation can be caused by manipulation of the monetary supply, but they can also come as part of the business cycle when there is no way to manipulate monetary supply [under gold standard] . Lat time you had deflation, pure deflation ~1930, deflation with a currency that's falling even faster ~1970 [thnx Keynes] thriftybob: The swiss franc is the only currency that backs some of it's printing in specie, as fas as I know.
Bad money always drives out good money. If there was one country that backed its money with something tangible, then all the other countries would just print up whatever they needed to buy the real money. That is the real legacy that Nixon left us.
Look, there is no such thing as the business cycle. And inflation & deflation only exist if there are fluctuations in the money supply. Otherwise, it's just basic supply & demand. And yes, it is quite possible to manipulate money supply under a gold standard. It's been done for ages. Have you ever heard of debasing? How about warehouse & goldsmith receipts? Or have you ever considered that the Fed was originally based on gold reserves? Yeah, that certainly did not stop the rapid money supply growth of the roaring twenties. Yeah and during 1930s there was an extreme contraction of money. The whole crash was caused by a contraction, starting with margin calls. It's really a contraction of credit, calling in the loands, BKs, etc. And 1970s actually started the inflation wave we are in. Because it's much easier to pyramid reserves once you do not have to worry about gold. The selective deflation used by Keynes to form his propaganda completely omits the whole picture. 1970s had inflation, quite a lot of it. Right inline with the take off of the money supply. And they had traditionally a very stable money supply. And no real business cycles. Only real flunctuations were due to outside nations & their economies, and even then, the country was relatively unnaffected. But no longer true in recent times. It's now pretty much a fiat.
We had a depression in 1929 not hyper inflation, inflation was in pre-war germany where they needed wheelbarrows to cart money around. SO I would say get a decent wheelbarrow or work only for gold..... seriously nothing you can do except accept it and work for gold. IN Hungary, in the '30s, plumbers worked for gold chains only - the only people got screwed were the civil servants and employees of business who decided not to pay indexed to inflation. Realistically nobody in the US will work for worthless money.....