Every one of us uses measuring devices every day. Chefs and Mom, use measuring devices to cook, be it a ‘pinch of salt,’ or a tablespoon of something, or a teaspoon of something else. They bake their biscuits at 350 degrees for ten minutes, and a cup of flour, some yeast and a quarter pound of butter went into them?
In the above paragraph, everything a cook uses is a measuring device. “Degrees,” “teaspoon,” “tablespoon,” “minutes,” “cup,” “pound,” “weight,” etc. are all typical measurements used in the kitchen.
Mechanics use “foot pounds,” to measure tightness of a nut or bolt, parts of inches or meters to measure sizes of wrenches, quarts of oil, pounds of inflation of tires, degrees of measurements in front end alignments, gap measurements in spark plugs, pressures in compressions, and injectors, and on it goes, just to fix your car.
Electricians use measurements of volts, amperes, thickness of wires, in feet for the height of a new service, and depth of a ground wire. Resistance in ohms, pressure in watts, and on it goes.
Every trade, be it plumbing, roofing, painting, grading, slope, size, temperature, flow, all have to use measurements. If you a writer. typist, bookkeeper, printer, accountant, mason, or any trade, measurements are paramount. Did you know that sewer slopes, to make it run, go down an eighth of an inch per foot? Or that 14 gauge wire is good for 15 amps? A barrel of oil has 42 U.S. gallons in it. Measurements everywhere!
Trucks, railroads, planes, shippers by boat, barge, or any other transportation of which the mind can conceive, depends on several measurements to perform their trade or profession. Miles, miles per hour, distance, TOA (time of arrival), fuel consumption, highway rules, speed limits. 55 foot length of trailers, vehicle registrations, insurance premiums, tire sizes, compressed air. Did I leave out anything?
I did indeed, and that is a very simple measurement we all use, and it’s the one measurement which changes daily, and that is the purchasing power of the dollar we use to buy and sell. Different names and prices for every currency in the world, but none of them are backed by anything other than “The full faith and credit of the U.S. government,” in our case. When you save in dollars, you are loaning your money to the government, which I choose not to do!
If any of the above measurements changed even by a fraction of a measurement, all of civilization might be lost, literally, because nothing could be measured, built, invented, manufactured, or even patented. I left out one key measurement, and that is sold or bought prices in dollars. Those measurements change all the time, and with un-backed currencies, which all are, everywhere in the world. It is silly to store value in them, because their ‘prices’ or ‘purchasing power’ changes with the weather, a politician’s latest vote, or the amount of government debt which increases daily, as it always does.
Without political caused inflation, which America had for 150 years, gold remained at $20.67 an ounce. When FDR was elected, prices of everything began to rise. Homes, cars, fuels, rents, clothing, and things needed to be purchased with un-backed paper dollars, went up, not in value, but in price. My million dollar house, which I bought for $150,000 in 1991, cost $8,000 to build in 1887, as a classic example. It’s the same house, but it’s not out in the country as it was in 1887! Gold was $20.67 an ounce when it was built. Lowering of any currency’s purchasing power, has never been stopped until that currency has become valueless. The U.S. dollar has already lost over 95% of its purchasing power, as in nickel Hershey bars, Cokes, and quarter a gallon gasoline. Isn’t it extremely likely, that it will eventually become value less? And savings in that currency, will become valueless also, and be able to purchase nothing. Thanks to Trump’s war, hasn’t gasoline and diesel doubled in dollar prices, and every other thing increased in dollar prices?
99.9% of measurements critically needed to manufacture, build, and cook, plus others, cannot change if civilization is to continue. Politicians cannot hopefully change those. Dollar prices change by the minute, like stocks, which are also denominated in dollars. logical thinking people, store surplus assets in something stable in value, but whose cost and redeeming price, goes up as the dollar goes down, and which can be changed to dollars quickly, at little cost, with no governmental involvement.
Wages have to go up with inflation. As a kid, growing up in D.C., I worked in my Dad’s drug store for 75 cents an hour and a little metal tin of Bayer’s Aspirin sold for 12 cents. I remember cigarettes selling for 21 cents a pack, but I never smoked one. Dad bought a new civilian 1947 Jeep for delivery, and it cost about $400. They bought the 2600 square foot house I grew up in, for $3300 in 1935, and now it would sell for a million. The dollars then, looked about the same as they look now, except they could be redeemed for silver, and they were called ‘silver certificates.’ I sent one in and got a little envelope with grains of silver in it. I still have it. As I write this, a tenth ounce of silver is $9.24, and the local super market is begging for employees to start at $17 per hour.
Last week, an old customer of mine who had bought gold at $500, sold some at $4500 to pay for his wife’s nursing home, and anther sold a piece of property and put all of it in Gold Eagles. My son David, had a customer of his call me to ask if I knew of any reliable place to sell numismatics, which he had bought a long time ago. I told him that numismatics, are similar to used car salesmen. It’s a matter of opinion, even if they’re professional graded, because people want the most gold and silver they can get for their dollars, not how old or in what condition they are. All of what we sell are virtually brand new, with prices on the web site. I told him that I had no place to send him, unfortunately.
Here, the snow is still on the mountains 30 miles away, and it is beautiful. I can see it from my 2nd floor office-solarium. It’ll all be gone by 4th of July, but here, the summer temperature rarely goes above 94 with low humidity, and in winter, rarely below 14 above. We had 9” of snow here all last winter. 300 days of sunshine here and no racial problems. It’s a nice very conservative town of about 30,000. It was 9,000, in 1991 when I bought our home. Tired of a big city? I’ll give you the name of a realtor customer of mine.
-Don Stott don@coloradogold.com