Gold is fiat money too

If we enacted Ron Paul's recommendation, Gold would not be fiat money. He was just recommending that people be allowed to use gold in competition with Government-issued dollars.

I agree with this theory sir. Gold is just another commodity. Whenever the government attempts to gain control of any commodity then it can be corrupt. Fiat paper currencies are just god damn pieces of paper with a value printed on it. They have no actual value themselves. Gold by itself does not have any value either. The value comes from where we humans place a value on it. The value comes from how we use the gold ie computer microchips. Ask a lion or tiger to try to survive on gold. They cannot. We humans cannot survive off of just gold. In my opinion food, water, and clean air are far more valuable. If we were all to learn to grow our own food, obtain water directly from the atmosphere and not the sodium fluoridated public water supply, and energy from sources besides the energy grid our governments practically force us to use, then perhaps we wouldn't have to worry about whether or not gold has any value or not.

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That may be true, but I still have an outrageous water bill every month and there is plenty of rain where I live. Price or perceived valued can also be controlled by governments who set up monopoly providers.
grant

Gold has been called the most beautiful of all chemical elements. Its beauty has made it desirable for use in jewelry, coins, and artwork for thousands of years. It was one of the first pure metals to be used by humans.

Gold is one of the few elements that can affect politics and economics. Wars have been fought over access to gold. Cities and towns have sprung up and died out as gold was discovered and then mined out. Many nations still count their wealth according to the amount of gold they keep in storage.

Gold lies in the middle of the periodic table. The periodic table is a chart that shows how elements are related to one another. Gold is a heavy metal in a group known as the transition metals. Gold is also known as a precious metal (as are platinum and silver).

Large amounts of gold are still used in the manufacture of coins, medals, jewelry, and art. Gold also has a number of uses in industry, medicine, and other applications. For example, one radioactive isotope of gold is commonly used to treat cancer.

SYMBOL
Au

ATOMIC NUMBER
79

ATOMIC MASS
196.9665

FAMILY
Group 11 (IB)
Transition metal

Discovery and naming
Gold objects dating to 2600 B.C. have been found. They were discovered in the royal tombs of the ancient civilization of Ur. These objects showed that humans had already learned how to work with gold this early in history. Some of the gold, for example, had been formed into wires.

One of the special skills developed by the Egyptians was the adding of gold to glass objects. They found a way to use gold to make glass a beautiful ruby-red color. The glass became known as gold ruby glass.

Gold is also mentioned in a number of places in the Bible. A passage in Exodus, for example, refers to the clothing worn by Aaron: "And they did beat the gold into thin plates, and cut it into wires, to work it in the blue, and in the purple, and in the scarlet, and in the fine linen, with cunning work."

Writings from every stage of human history tell of the discovery and use of gold. Roman historian Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79), for example, describes gold-mining locations. The Romans found it lying in stream beds in the Tagus River in Spain, the Po River in Italy, the Hebrus River in Thracia (now Greece), the Pactolus River in Asia Minor (now Turkey), and the Ganges River in India.

Gold is both ductile and malleable. Ductile means it can be drawn into thin wires. Malleable means capable of being hammered into thin sheets. A piece of gold weighing only 20 grams (slightly less than an ounce) can be hammered into a sheet that will cover more than 6 square meters (68 square feet). The sheet will be only 0.00025 centimeters (one ten-thousandth of an inch) thick. Gold foil of this thickness is often used to make the lettering on window signs.

Gold is quite soft. It can usually be scratched by a penny. Its melting point is 1,064.76°C (1,948.57°F) and its boiling point is about 2,700°C (4,900°F). Its density is 19.3 grams per cubic centimeter.

Two other important properties are its reflectivity and lack of electrical resistance. Both heat and light reflect off gold very well. But an electric current passes through gold very easily.

Generally speaking, gold is not very reactive. It does not combine with oxygen or dissolve in most acids. It does not react with halogens, such as chlorine or bromine, very easily.

These chemical properties also account for some important uses of gold. Gold coins, for example, do not corrode (rust) or tarnish very easily. Neither does jewelry or artwork made of gold.

Gold occurs in nature in both its native state and in compounds. The native state of an element is its free state. It is not combined with any other element. The most common compounds of gold are the tellurides. A telluride is a compound of the element tellurium and one or more other elements. For example, the mineral calavarite is mostly gold telluride (AuTe2).

At one time, gold was found in chunks or nuggets large enough to see. People mined gold by picking it out of streams and rivers. In fact, gold was once very common in some parts of the world. People valued it not because it was rare, but because it was so beautiful.

The abundance of gold in the Earth's crust is estimated to be about 0.005 parts per million. That makes it one of the ten rarest elements in the Earth's crust. Gold is thought to be much more common in the oceans. Some people believe as much as 70 million tons of gold are dissolved in seawater. They also think there may be another 10 billion tons on the bottom of the oceans. So far, however, no one has found a way to mine this gold.

About a quarter of the world's gold comes from South Africa. Other leading producers of the metal are the United States, Australia, Canada, China, and Russia. In the United States, about two-thirds of its gold is mined in Nevada. California, Montana, Alaska, and South Dakota also produce gold.

There is only one naturally occurring isotope of gold, gold-197. Isotopes are two or more forms of an element. Isotopes differ from each other according to their mass number. The number written to the right of the element's name is the mass number. The mass number represents the number of protons plus neutrons in the nucleus of an atom of the element. The number of protons determines the element, but the number of neutrons in the atom of any one element can vary. Each variation is an isotope.

About two dozen radioactive isotopes of gold are known also. A radioactive isotope is one that breaks apart and gives off some form of radiation. Radioactive isotopes are produced when very small particles are fired at atoms. These particles stick in the atoms and make them radioactive.

One radioactive isotope of gold is widely used in medicine, gold-198. This isotope has two major uses. First, it can be used to study the liver. It is made into a form known as colloidal gold. Colloidal gold consists of very fine particles of gold mixed in a liquid solution. The colloidal gold is injected into the patient's body, where it travels to the liver. There, it can be detected because of the radiation it gives off. The radiation can be used to tell if the liver is functioning normally or not.

In a 1986 study, experts estimated that 121,000 tons of gold had been mined throughout history.

Colloidal gold is also used to treat medical problems. In some forms of cancer, the body develops large amounts of liquid in the space around the stomach and intestines (the peritoneum). One way to treat this collection of liquid is with colloidal gold. The colloidal gold is injected into the peritoneum, it is not able to Leave the peritoneum and go into the stomach and intestines. While in the peritoneum, the colloidal gold gives off radiation. The radiation kills cancer cells that cause the accumulation of fluid.

Some facts on gold for the discussion................

http://www.chemistryexpla...

"It is the responsibility of the patriot to protect his country from its government."

— Thomas Paine

Deb

after reading some of the posts below.... I still can not believe some of you actually still believe the bullshit your high school teachers and college professors taught you about gold! it was all lies! it was all brain washings!
if you want to know what gold really is.. bone up on your world history for the last 5000 years+..... not what some marxist tought you in the government reeducation camps! get a clue folks!

That is why the $USD was backed by Gold and became the worlds Reserve Currency. Early on the dollar was as good as Gold because the dollars could be exchanged for Gold. There may not have been many reasons for ordinary people to exchange there dollars for Gold, but if they wanted to they could. The Gold held by nations was used to settle international trade account balances.

Over time TPTB(The Powers That Be) were able to deceitfully convince the spineless, ignorant greedy politicians, and the hapless, worn down US citizens that a fractional reserve banking system was the way to go for a stable monetary system. The Gold Reserve in the US vaults was still, if only fractionally, backing the $USD.

The whole global monetary system was based on Gold as late as 1944 when the US reigned supreme and forged the Bretton Woods Agreement linking all global currencies to the $USD, with the $USD then being valued in Gold. So in effect all global currencies were linked to Gold, albeit through the $USD.

In 1933 the US Govt. led by FDR took the right of US citizens to own Gold away via legal tender laws, preventing them from using it to pay off public or private debts. In 1971 the US Govt. led by Nixon turned away foreign request to exchange US Treasury Securities (notes, bills, and bonds) for Gold. The US should have officially been declared bankrupt at that point for breaking its fiduciary contract obligations.

So the TPTB were able to force the US Govt. off the Gold Standard and convince the American People and the rest of the world that we do not need anything to back our currencies other than the US Govt'. implicit guarantee, backed by it' ability to collect enough money from the American People via the income tax, to pay any debts that it may incur.

What a grand scheme they, TPTB were able to pull off. They counted on the control of the Media and the ignorance of the masses. Man did they hit the jackpot. I guess that is what we get when we put are trust in other men. Of course, we did not put our trust in man, we put our trust in God, just like it said, and still does say on the notes and coins of our currency.

Misplaced trust will burn your eyes out, apparently that is what has happen to this nation and it' money supply. We have trusted men that we thought had the nations best interests at heart. Through control of the lame stream media, TPTB have convinced almost everybody that Gold is an old relic and we are in a new era where money can be created out of thin air and that it is ok to be backed by Govt. decree, commonly referred to as FIAT money.

The time is near when the $USD will all but collapse due to the precarious financial situation that our nation finds itself in. We have let TPTB construct a reality that looks Orwellian to me. Very few people seem to understand how bad or how close we are to the edge of financial disaster and all the associated usurpations of our rights and freedoms that the Govt. is ready to take as they pretend to save us from some evil.

The US and the world have been on a grand experiment in money for the last few generations. The problem is that we the people really did not know or understand what was going on with our money supply. We expect to be able to trust those in charge of our nations monetary system to do the right thing. Well that experiment has failed us miserably. If we had paid attention to history we would understand why our founding fathers wrote the constitution as they did and called for real money to be of Gold and Silver.

Try not listen to people who try their hardest to give you reasons why Gold has lost its role as real money, because it hasn't. TPTB will try to move heaven and earth to save their FIAT system, after all they are the ones that gain the most from it. Be on the look out, the signs are there, protect yourself and your family, get some Gold and get some Silver.

"enforced by law" then yes, any money that is not barter is automatically fiat.

But usually when we say "fiat" we mean "whose only value is that established by the government.

Of course if gold is required to be artificial tender, then its value does disproportionately increase relative to its worth to society without tender. AND there will be natural inflation/deflation cycles as the gold supply fluctuates and as the economy goes up and down.

However, the point is by requiring the government to back its currency, we take inflationary power out of the hands of people who should never have it, and leave it to the relatively headless market. That is why being pro-gold (or pro-silver, or pro-platinum) is a pro-liberty position.