If the dollar ever went to zero, I would give an ounce of silver for 1 billion dollars in 100 dollar bills and keep it in a room in my house, just for the heck of it.
Faber's statement is hardly outrageous. <b>ALL</b> types of unbacked fiat 'money' are inherently more illusion than currency, and they <b>ALWAYS</b> end up getting devalued down to zero eventually. <img src=http://z.hubpages.com/u/38177_f260.jpg> P.S. Buy this dip in gold and thank me in a week (Current spot price: $1039). This is an official RM prediction.
I wish this were true. But sorry, I think this will not work. The Germans pulled up their bootstraps and worked. I think Americans are not going to do that. We are too fat, spoiled, lazy and entitled, and we have raised our children to be the same way. The only way America can prosper again is to open the borders to many more people (probably from Asia) who want badly to excel and are willing to work really hard. We don't want to work hard. We like to sit on our ass and watch TV (or post on ET, I suppose).
Buffet says the history of the U.S is that every generation has lived better than the next. I would add that every generation has worried if the next generation will live better than the next and as a result has done things to insure a better life for their progeny. I have been very angry and gloomy over the last year due to the financial crisis, which in my opinion ended in Nov of 08 with the first TARP and has become a political crisis once government took the reins. If you believe in free markets, then you believe they are eventually self correcting, no matter how painful the process. I don't believe in Government solutions and itâs clear that currently the problems the country face are more of a political direction than whether Americans know how to build and run businesses. I am optimistic though that the political process has been brought to a tremendous grind, and the Americans as a whole are more concerned about deficits, and dollars and than other problems. Thatâs a sign that over time we will make the right decisions. As much as I despise the level of intervention in the markets, I still have some faith, maybe foolishly, that Bernanke is trying to do what he thinks his right. Now For the dollar to go to zero it would be deliberate and you would need to buy into crazy conspiracies of NWO, UN Armies and the Amero, Central banks can print money and the can also erase it, Bernanke will not let the dollar go to zero. The YEN has been operating under similar constraints for 10 years, it is not worth zero. Kudos for the Fabers and Rogers though without them there would not be a pressure to otherwise prevent the very collapse they predict.
Agree, of course. But you're still missing the point... and that is, it would be CATASTROPHICALLY BAD for all of us here today. We would all be bankrupt. When the "country recovers", it will be profitable for those who came in and bought assets on the cheap... people whose money did not get destroyed in the currency collapse. Frankly, if I get bankrupted but somebody from another country with is assets having been held in another currency... gets rich in the recovery... I doubt I'll give a shit.
For those that think Faber is using exaggeration for personal benefit - even at the risk of losing his credibility - please explain how we will cover a siginificant amount of these debts/obligations in the coming 3 decades. Granted, no nation need be debt free to be viable, so I will allow that not all of these obligations need to be extinguished - but some, like Social Security and Medicare, do. Interest payments also need to be serviced. source: http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article14518.html
The Germans did not rebuild themselves. Neither did Japan. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_plan Neither did Europe. It was called the "Marshall Plan". In addition, the Allies never repaid the colossal amount of war debt from the U.S.
The unfunded liability is over the infinite horizon. The majority comes from Medicare and the projected high growth in health care cost. All the more reason that Medicare and health care needs to be reformed soon.