[ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine"

[Eugen Leitl]

On Fri, Oct 18, 2013 at 10:45:51PM -0700, spike wrote:

> .I can't imagine what it is.  Google claims there is about 150 million
> ounces of gold in Ft. Knox, so that is about a couple hundred billion

Nobody knows how much gold is in Ft Knox. My guess is: very little.
You might remember what ended Bretton Woods on 15th August 1971.
The French called the bluff.

There are some people who think they bought gold, by buying certificates.
They might even have demanded to see the gold in person, and were perhaps
even shown yellow metal bars. But this is a scam, as you will find out if
you want to take physical possession of it. Try it for yourself.
(If you raise enough stink, especially involving the press, the bad
publicity will eventually outweigh issuing massively oversubscribed
metal, and you will get it. But not before).

Even if they own physical metal, remember Roosevelt's Executive Order
6102, on 5th April 1933. You only own it if it's entirely off the record.

> dollars right there.  If we sell that to China, we still owe them over a
> trillion dollars, but at least we offset two entire months of borrowing at
> the current rate, TWO WHOLE MONTHS of this current Bacchanalian spendfest!
> Just hand over the damn gold.  We could sell off that, wouldn't even need to

I'm afraid there is nothing to hand out.

> borrow until the middle of December, possibly make it to Jingle Bells on
> that alone if we tighten the belt a bit.  Two months of our current
> lifestyle to which we have grown so fondly accustomed, just for a pile of
> useless yellow metal.

Gold is not an investment, it's a portable value store to hedge against 
blowup of fiats.

People think of ROI, the Jews who bought personal transport from smugglers
out of Nazi Germany after borders were closed thought the ROI was excellent,
considering the only alternative: becoming black smoke up the chimney.