Virginia Gun Owners Forum - VGOF

100% agreed. Ben Bernanke thinks that when the stock market is up people feel like they have more money and that will get the wheels moving in that people will spend which will create demand which will create jobs. I'm just an armchair economist but I think that's a load of BS. The average Joe MAY have a 401k or IRA, but not a portfolio that they could easily cash out to go spend on goods and services to create that demand. Rich people do have these types of portfolios and they are making a killing but not necessarily spending. It's good that they are making a killing because they'll need it as our dollar continues to be devalued with all of the funny money they're pumping into the system.

I swear, this country went through some great economic times prior to 1913. Why can't we just get rid of the FED and get rid of this artificial economy? If it's not the housing market that's being blown up artificially it's the stock market.

Stating the stock market is "artificial" in a headline is equivalent to a glaringly alarmist headline informing us "The Sun is really big and hot".

Ya think? Since one cannot eat a stock certificate nor live in it its value is of course imaginary.

I have a rothIRA but I have no illusions about what it is; I am simply pooling my pretend money with other peoples pretend money in the hopes of getting more pretend money I don't have to pay taxes that never feel pretend on.

Any non-barter based economy is a mututally agreed upon fantasy. The Fed is evil but to the gold standardists I would remind them gold is just very heavy pretend money albeit in a finite form too.

Like federal reserve notes gold has no intrinsic value (beyond some industrial and medical uses). We just psychologically assigned value to it because it was rare and shiny.

Hey, I'll take rare and shiny over printing funny money any day.

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Kreutz wrote:Stating the stock market is "artificial" in a headline is equivalent to a glaringly alarmist headline informing us "The Sun is really big and hot".

Ya think? Since one cannot eat a stock certificate nor live in it its value is of course imaginary.

I have a rothIRA but I have no illusions about what it is; I am simply pooling my pretend money with other peoples pretend money in the hopes of getting more pretend money I don't have to pay taxes that never feel pretend on.

Any non-barter based economy is a mututally agreed upon fantasy. The Fed is evil but to the gold standardists I would remind them gold is just very heavy pretend money albeit in a finite form too.

Like federal reserve notes gold has no intrinsic value (beyond some industrial and medical uses). We just psychologically assigned value to it because it was rare and shiny.

The intrensic value theory is practically ancient economic thinking. Nothing has intrensic value; to suggest otherwise violates the very concept of valuation. If you want to move forward in your valuation theory knowledge into the modern era, check out subjective valuation based on marginal utility.

Edit: Kreutz = economic flat-earther

QE3 will only prop the market up for the short term. One thing you can take to the bank, if you can get there before they go under, is that anything Bernanke touches will turn into a clusterflop of biblical proportions.

This is the type of stuff that makes me think it is better to have cans of food in the closet than $$ in the bank. Not that we don't need some savings, but that it is all very fluid and can be make nearly worthless in a hurry.

It has occurred to me that you can't eat gold, and you can't shoot it at the looters (unless you've got a damn good slingshot). At LEAST you could use that paper money as a substitute for one essential commodity I can think of.

If the excrement ever does truly hit the fan to the point that production, commerce and distribution break down and wreck society, my guess is the only true form of wealth usable as a medium of exchange will be beans and/or bullets; and firearms.

gunderwood wrote:Edit: Kreutz = economic flat-earther

Ouch!

Just remember with your fancy post 18th century economic thinking valuation still comes down to...

1) Can you or I eat it?

2) Will it keep you or I from dying of exposure?

3) Can you or I use it to live in?

Until we transcend our physical forms with the coming of Xenu we will always be constrained by the three above and anything not directly satisfying the above three or allowing us to acquire them more efficently is worthless on a non-fantasy level.

Please note I'm not knocking the idea of nor the usefulness of currency (which allowed the development of occupations and early civilizations such as Uruk), I'm just saying when you reallllllllllllllllllllly get down to it its all a pretend game, doesnt matter if its dollars, gold or wampum.

Kreutz wrote:

gunderwood wrote:Edit: Kreutz = economic flat-earther

Ouch!

Just remember with your fancy post 18th century economic thinking valuation still comes down to...

1) Can you or I eat it?

2) Will it keep you or I from dying of exposure?

3) Can you or I use it to live in?

Until we transcend our physical forms with the coming of Xenu we will always be constrained by the three above and anything not directly satisfying the above three or allowing us to acquire them more efficently is worthless on a non-fantasy level.

Please note I'm not knocking the idea of nor the usefulness of currency (which allowed the development of occupations and early civilizations such as Uruk), I'm just saying when you reallllllllllllllllllllly get down to it its all a pretend game, doesnt matter if its dollars, gold or wampum.

No. Valuation is done by people, the item has no intrensic value without their judgement of its value. Yes, basic needs are a key component of some things we value, but it does not explain why people on this board have so many firearms, or why some people value a peice of artwork at $10,000 and others wouldn't hang it in their house if you paid them. A bottle of water has no value if you're 20ft under a lake and drowning, but is practically priceless if you're in the desert and dying of thirst. It's the same bottle of water and in one case it's worth nothing and the other it's worth virtually anything. The bottle of water didn't change, the people in question changed their valuation of it subjectively based on their preception/understanding of how it fulfills their needs and desires. This is subjective valuation.

Each additional unit of something has less utility to the owner. A box of ammo is great if you have very little or none. If you have stockpiled 100 million rounds, the next box of ammo makes virtually no difference. The value that people subjectively attribute to items is influenced by the quantity of things they have the fullfil their need or desire. The "price" they are willing to let one unit go for is essentially it's marginal untility. e.g. even two people under the exact same circumstances, zombie attack, subjectively value the same item different because the cost of selling one unit varies for both. The man with 100 million rounds will hand them out for nothing more than a promise to help defend the compound, while the man who only has one box will likely not sell it for a literal ton of gold.

These two concepts describe how people make valuation judgements and have nothing to do with inherent value of an object and how that relates currency.


Your idea of money if flawed. Just like any other man-made item it has an intended function. How well if fulfills that function depends on many things and for money there has yet to be a single solution which is best at every requirement. The world doesn't really run on Dollars anymore or Euros or any other physical currency. Most of the worlds "money" is nothing more than information stored in a computer. This form of digital currancy is huge on portability (a requirement of good money since it aids in one of its functions which is to facilitate exchange), but their history shows their lack of accountabilty for creation, i.e. creation is practically costless to the creator, breeds corruption and inhibits value storage (another primary function of money). Most gold bugs, myself and noted economists, aren't saying that gold is perfect, but rather it is one of the better standards because other forms of money which have no actual asset backing, and thus are practically free to create, have caused emense havok with exchange and value storage. So great are these problems that they have destroyed great civilizations throughout human history. Analysis of the functional requirements of money indicates that gold is one of the best assets to base a currency upon and that is why we prefer it. However, we prefer currency competition so as to avoid the plague of government corruption which is unavoidable when they can create money of nothing or demand acceptance of their form of money. Actual gold is good. So is silver, so is digital or paper cirtificates backed by whatever asset of your choice...on and on.

Gold and silver have been money since the dawn of civilization and even the modern attempts to demonetize it have been unsuccessful. It's not some mythical inherent value of the metals, but rather that their inherent physical properties align well the requirements for exchange and storage of value (aka money). The primary reason for governments disliking gold and silver is because the creation of new monies is difficult and prevents them from increasing their power through spending...advocates of gold and silver say, that's part of the whole point!

Well, you kind of made a mountain of a molehill on this one. I'm keenly aware valuation is more multifaceted than my extremely reductionist example, but please keep in mind I said

"gold has no intrinsic value (beyond some industrial and medical uses)."

Which is factually correct. Yes I'm aware of the reasons and utility of its use as a medium of exchange, but when you really do get down to it, at some point people decided consciously or unconsciously it had value and could be used as a substitute for bartered goods or services. There is an undeniable psychological underpinning to all non-barter transactions; aka an "economy".

I still find it really revolutionary I can trade paper someone drew on for food someone worked really hard to grow, harvest, and deliver, but as a economic flat earther it is to be expected I marvel at such 6,000 year old newfangled ideas like money.

I hear someone is making progress on adapting a discoid object to transport goods and people over great distances; the fools! We just domesticated the mule, slow down already!

gunderwood wrote: No. Valuation is done by people, the item has no intrensic value without their judgement of its value. Yes, basic needs are a key component of some things we value, but it does not explain why people on this board have so many firearms, or why some people value a peice of artwork at $10,000 and others wouldn't hang it in their house if you paid them. A bottle of water has no value if you're 20ft under a lake and drowning, but is practically priceless if you're in the desert and dying of thirst. It's the same bottle of water and in one case it's worth nothing and the other it's worth virtually anything. The bottle of water didn't change, the people in question changed their valuation of it subjectively based on their preception/understanding of how it fulfills their needs and desires. This is subjective valuation.

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The varying valuations of the bottle of water result from what financial folks call “time and place utility”. This involves the notion that a thing is actually objectively worth more when it is in the place at the time that someone needs it than when it is not. That is the classic justification for the so-called “middlemen”, who buy stuff and resell it at a profit. They are said to add value in the form of time and place utility. The idea has significantly more merit than many will credit it with, and the “bottle of water” example is, to use one of Mr. Obama’s pretentious phrases from last night’s debate, “instructive”. Clearly, the service of transporting the water from the lake where it can be had for nothing but is not needed or wanted to the desert where having it is essential to life is a service with considerable value.
The picture (or the 1911 pistol that I value highly but Glockoholics would only use for a doorstop) is a better example of subjective valuation. But subjective valuation really has two elements. One is pure subjectivity, such as a preference for a certain kind of art, and the other has to do with a difference in the utility of an item between two persons. The 1911/Glock example may be one where both subjective preferences and disparate utility (or at least PERCEIVED utility) make people come down with different valuations for a given item.
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gunderwood wrote: Each additional unit of something has less utility to the owner. A box of ammo is great if you have very little or none. If you have stockpiled 100 million rounds, the next box of ammo makes virtually no difference. The value that people subjectively attribute to items is influenced by the quantity of things they have the fullfil their need or desire. The "price" they are willing to let one unit go for is essentially it's marginal untility. e.g. even two people under the exact same circumstances, zombie attack, subjectively value the same item different because the cost of selling one unit varies for both. The man with 100 million rounds will hand them out for nothing more than a promise to help defend the compound, while the man who only has one box will likely not sell it for a literal ton of gold.

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Yup. The economics of scarcity. Supply and demand. The invisible hand of the market at work. You see, Kreutz? It really does work.
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gunderwood wrote: These two concepts describe how people make valuation judgements and have nothing to do with inherent value of an object and how that relates currency.

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Or, to put it another way, the so-called “inherent” value of an object depends on the circumstances. I know, I know - - if it does, the value derived therefrom is not “inherent”. But a lot of folks will gloss that over. And that thought leads to the notion that NO valuation is completely intrinsic, because Kreutz’s assertion that no object has intrinsic value if you can eat it or take shelter in it involves the assumption that the CIRCUMSTANCES are that you don’t already have something you’d rather eat and a place you’d rather take shelter. If you did, then discovering another object with those potential uses might actually give it a negative value (make it a liability) because it might attract or harbor predators or competitors for other resources. So this whole notion of “inherent value” is sort of one of those “slippery slopes” you keep hearing about; and I really don’t see as it matters whether an object has a theoretical (or some, including me and Gunderwood, would say illusory) inherent value. What matters (as you have pretty much said, Gunderwood) is what its utility to me is or foreseeably will be. This applies even to the subjectively-valued art. Its utility is derived from my desire to possess and admire it or from my expectation that I can sell it later. That is its utility.
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gunderwood wrote: Your idea of money if flawed. Just like any other man-made item it has an intended function. How well if fulfills that function depends on many things and for money there has yet to be a single solution which is best at every requirement. The world doesn't really run on Dollars anymore or Euros or any other physical currency. Most of the worlds "money" is nothing more than information stored in a computer. This form of digital currancy is huge on portability (a requirement of good money since it aids in one of its functions which is to facilitate exchange), but their history shows their lack of accountabilty for creation, i.e. creation is practically costless to the creator, breeds corruption and inhibits value storage (another primary function of money). Most gold bugs, myself and noted economists, aren't saying that gold is perfect, but rather it is one of the better standards because other forms of money which have no actual asset backing, and thus are practically free to create, have caused emense havok with exchange and value storage. So great are these problems that they have destroyed great civilizations throughout human history. Analysis of the functional requirements of money indicates that gold is one of the best assets to base a currency upon and that is why we prefer it. However, we prefer currency competition so as to avoid the plague of government corruption which is unavoidable when they can create money of nothing or demand acceptance of their form of money. Actual gold is good. So is silver, so is digital or paper cirtificates backed by whatever asset of your choice...on and on.

Gold and silver have been money since the dawn of civilization and even the modern attempts to demonetize it have been unsuccessful. It's not some mythical inherent value of the metals, but rather that their inherent physical properties align well the requirements for exchange and storage of value (aka money). The primary reason for governments disliking gold and silver is because the creation of new monies is difficult and prevents them from increasing their power through spending...advocates of gold and silver say, that's part of the whole point!

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At base, money is a repository in which we can store value and a medium of exchange. Much of that value is derived from the labor we devote to securing and/or enhancing the time/place utility of some object that has value to someone who will pay us money for it because they value the object at least as much as the money they paid for it. We can then hold that value in the form of money until we want to acquire something that has equal or greater utility to us than the money does. The creation of electronic or paper money that is not backed by value is just another form of forgery. Gold and silver coins probably became so entrenched in our psyches as money because due to the scarcity of silver and gold and the difficulty of striking acceptable coins they were difficult to forge. Paper is much easier to forge. Electronic money is ridiculously easy to forge – particularly if you are a government or quasi-governmental organization. And when the issuing authority starts forging, it is particularly insidious. The cost of this activity we call INFLATION. But it is really just forgery and theft. OK, off the tanbgent and back to the issue of money: As a medium of exchange, money greatly simplifies exchanges of value because we need only value the millions of objects we might potentially negotiate an exchange for in terms of money instead of knowing, for each of those million objects, how many of a million other objects it is worth; in which case the volume of information involved just becomes so vast that a rational system of exchange would probably be impossible.

At any rate, Gunderwood is right, IMO. Whether the notion that objects have “inherent value” is an illusion or just a theory that is very, very hard to apply, an object’s UTILITY is what gives it value. And Kreutz’s idea of money is flawed. Matter of fact, most people’s idea of money is probably flawed.

Kreutz wrote:Well, you kind of made a mountain of a molehill on this one. I'm keenly aware valuation is more multifaceted than my extremely reductionist example, but please keep in mind I said

"gold has no intrinsic value (beyond some industrial and medical uses)."

Which is factually correct. Yes I'm aware of the reasons and utility of its use as a medium of exchange, but when you really do get down to it, at some point people decided consciously or unconsciously it had value and could be used as a substitute for bartered goods or services. There is an undeniable psychological underpinning to all non-barter transactions; aka an "economy".

I still find it really revolutionary I can trade paper someone drew on for food someone worked really hard to grow, harvest, and deliver, but as a economic flat earther it is to be expected I marvel at such 6,000 year old newfangled ideas like money.

I hear someone is making progress on adapting a discoid object to transport goods and people over great distances; the fools! We just domesticated the mule, slow down already!

You said things have intrinsic value and even just stated it was correct again, which is wrong. If you really understood what you are claiming too, you would understand that the concept of intrinsic value was searched for centuries by the classical economists to no avail. It's been disproven, regardless of your statements to the contrary.

It's an economic myth that refuses to die because it sounds so "right" to the economically ignorant (i.e. economically uneducated) and there are many other economic myths as well. That's why I made the flat earth reference, it too has been disproven, but at least it seems we've put that flawed idea to bed unlike intrinsic value.

dorminWS wrote:This applies even to the subjectively-valued art. Its utility is derived from my desire to possess and admire it or from my expectation that I can sell it later. That is its utility.

This is worth calling out as I think it's one of the main reasons people get attached to the inherent idea of value, rather than subjective valuation. Utility isn't limited to basic needs. Utility is anything that facilitates or enhances the life of individuals; human beings. Art is a great example. Its utility may only exist because it makes you happy when you see (all senses really) it and it's likely that someone else truely hates it. Its utility is your happyiness and that causes you to value it highly, whereas the person that hates it will value it quite differently. Utility isn't limited to concrete uses like "I can eat it." That false concept leads people to the idea that the value is in the object rather than their assessment of the object.

This doesn't change in times of great stress and despair. In war or depressions some of the most valuable things (as the summation of a large populations desires and thus subjective valuations) are not things that you "eat to survive" or use for "environmental protection," etc. They are items that help people relax and get away from the stress even for just a little while. Cigarettes, alcohol, chocolate, etc. In these terrible circumstances it's their more abstract emotional and mental qualities, aka utility, that cause the higher subjective valuation.

gunderwood wrote:You said things have intrinsic value and even just stated it was correct again, which is wrong. If you really understood what you are claiming too, you would understand that the concept of intrinsic value was searched for centuries by the classical economists to no avail. It's been disproven, regardless of your statements to the contrary.

It's an economic myth that refuses to die because it sounds so "right" to the economically ignorant (i.e. economically uneducated) and there are many other economic myths as well. That's why I made the flat earth reference, it too has been disproven, but at least it seems we've put that flawed idea to bed unlike intrinsic value.

Er, things do have intrinsic value. It doesn't "sound right" but it is. Yes they can vary by time, place, and situation, but certain things are valuable simply for what they are, hence have intrinsic value....I don't consider gold much in this category, but basic physical necessities like drinkable water and food are worth something by virtue of being consumable and necessary for life.

I mean, we can go round and round on this, but physical reality and biology kind of support inherent value.

Kreutz wrote:

gunderwood wrote:You said things have intrinsic value and even just stated it was correct again, which is wrong. If you really understood what you are claiming too, you would understand that the concept of intrinsic value was searched for centuries by the classical economists to no avail. It's been disproven, regardless of your statements to the contrary.

It's an economic myth that refuses to die because it sounds so "right" to the economically ignorant (i.e. economically uneducated) and there are many other economic myths as well. That's why I made the flat earth reference, it too has been disproven, but at least it seems we've put that flawed idea to bed unlike intrinsic value.

Er, things do have intrinsic value. It doesn't "sound right" but it is. Yes they can vary by time, place, and situation, but certain things are valuable simply for what they are, hence have intrinsic value....I don't consider gold much in this category, but basic physical necessities like drinkable water and food are worth something by virtue of being consumable and necessary for life.

I mean, we can go round and round on this, but physical reality and biology kind of support inherent value.

The intrinsic value of water is the physical fact that it is composed of hydrogen and oxygen atoms in a specific arrangement; i.e. it's water. Gold is the same. However, neither of these physical properties or their descriptions has anything to do with their valuation by human beings in an economy, specificly for consideration of exchange. You're playing meaningless word games with "value."

Virtually by your own admission, human beings or at least life are required and thus the intrinsic value of even water does not exist. Human beings and most carbon based life forms value water exactly because it is required to sustain life. However, in a universe with no such life or life that does not require water (may even find it toxic), but still with the existance of water, waters "intrinsic" value would change. How is that possible if the value is inherent to the water itself? It shouldn't matter if there are carbon based life forms to value it or not, but it does.

The water is required for life, therefore life values it...not, the water is valuable, therefore life requires it.