Ron Paul Vs Ben Bernake

I don't understand the point you are trying to make. Bernanke answered the question very factually and quite correctly. Gold is NOT money. If I had five minutes to question the Chairman I can assure you I wouldn't waste it on a goldbug diatribe. Besides, Bernanke is mensa level IQ material, I doubt very much Ron Paul or any other of those clueless politicians could joust with him on an intellectual level.

Perhaps the guys at the former LTCM could?? they apparently had an average IQ of 160.

Just like Ben they lacked common sense and an understanding in the fallibility of man

Ron Paul may not be able to 'joust' with him mate but i guarantee he knows more about true economics

I'm not trying to defend Bernanke, I despise his policies, but in THAT case he was absolutely correct. Gold is NOT money. Gold is asset. I just don't understand what the fuss is about other than what appears to be a lot of confusion on the part of goldbugs as to what gold really is.

Like I said, there's a lot more important stuff Ron Paul should have spent his allotted time questioning the Chairman about instead of wasting his time grandstanding about gold.

GOLD IS NOT MONEY.

Jim Rogers is spot on in his opinion of Bernanke.

Which is ?
For those of us not in the know on this small point.

Menelaus
Is BB quite up to your IQ level ?
That's the real question I and others reading on here have to decide.

FAFH, I doubt anyone posting on this forum even remotely comes close to Bernanke's IQ but that's neither here nor there. Because it doesn't take a mensa level IQ to know that gold is NOT money which was the whole essence of the original post. I'm getting to the point where the only thing I can do when I read some of the posts on here is to just.....shake my head in disbelief.

Just don't give yourself a headache that's all.
Btw the IQ tongue in cheek remark was more meant in relation to your disagreement in general with BB's supervision/control of the economy via his Fed position.
Is he wrong and you're right ? Neither of you in totality ?
That sort of thing.

Bernanke has already secured himself a place in history. He will go down as the man who saved the global financial system from collapse or the man who destroyed the US dollar. High IQ or not, he's an employee of the banking cartel and as such he is acting for their benefit and his options are limited. I would pay a lot of money to be able to know how he really feels about this mess.

" --an employee of the banking cartel--".
I would pay a lot of money to know how he feels about that opinion.
Not a lot I would think.

I don't get you last post. Yes, an employee of the banking cartel. Unless of course you are under the mistaken impression he works for the USG or the American people.

At the moment the US treasury issues $30 billion a bonds per month and the Fed buys them and expands thereby expands the money supply.
I suppose the USG then ?
Remember I'm not an economist, just a consumer.

Few typos there but you get my question.

By the way Menelaus i think you actually missed the point of this post

While you and others of 'high intellect' would rather discuss the thick of thin things in an interview with Ben Bernanke Ron Paul is clever enough to elicit an insight into the mans paradigm. That being, to illustrate how completely naive BB is to the affect his inflationary actions are having, namely on inflation's true barometer - the price of gold

At no point in time did he say Gold is money nor should BB have said that it was. The problem is though, if you want to be technical we don't actually have money at all in todays world.

The two real purposes of money are a store of value and a medium of exchange, and seeing that there are some organisations now which are allowing you to use gold holdings as a link to purchases, payments and receipt of payment - you better be careful when you say GOLD IS NOT MONEY ....

Also, Ron Paul is no gold bug, he merely is smart enough to know how fundamentally important sound money is in a free and prosperous society

Do you know that mate??

@ gatespeed

B0ll0cks !!!

If Ron Paul wanted to showcase gold as "inflation's true barometer" then he should have asked a different question. Because asking if gold is money is beyond stupid and a waste of time.
Bernanke was right and Ron Paul looked stupid. Gold is NOT money.

It is indeed, as he said an asset. It has intrinsic value, it is rare (gold mining output is declining), there's a great cost related to extracting it out of the ground (both monetary and environmental), it a malleable and ductile and YES it can not be reproduced by a central bank printing press BUT it is NOT money. Money is what a government degrees money to be, a nations currency, a nation's LEGAL tender, a legal method of settling debts. You can exchange gold as an asset to legal tender (MONEY) and use that currency, as an medium for the exchange of goods, as a means of legally settling debts but that doesn't make gold money. There's no country that I'm aware of at the moment that degrees gold as their currency. Indeed there's "organizations" that allow gold to be used as collateral but that hardly qualifies as vindication of the false belief that gold is money. Repeat slowly after me........money is what a government degrees money to be by LAW.

It is true that 6000 years of history suggests that gold was considered and used as money. But then as societies progressed, the money cartel invented fractional reserve banking through gold-convertable paper instruments backed by gold reserves. Paper money instruments became a derivative of gold. That worked out well for a while until one day the banking cartel decided that their ability to print money into existence was hindered by having to back it up with gold reserves.  And money as the world knew it changed that instant, right there and then on a very hot day in August 1971 in Washington D.C. The USD, the world's reserve currency, went off the gold standard. The world followed. The gold standard, hence direct convertibility of national currencies to gold was abandoned by all countries (last one being Switzerland), replaced by fiat currencies backed by nothing other than a nation's ability to tax.

There's no bigger friend of gold on this forum than myself but that doesn't mean that I believe the false notion that gold is money. I've been posting about gold as a store of wealth in these times of monetary madness for a long time but money it's not. I believe that is a question of time until some form of gold standard is  re-introduced to act as a check and balance against reckless money printing and currency debasement. So in that sense, gold can become money again. But unfortunately as things stand today, the Chairman was absolutely correct, gold is an asset, NOT money.


@ FAFH

I'm not going to engage in meaningless debate as to what happens when Treasury sells a long bond and the FED monetizes it and through this transaction deducting that Bernanke works for  the USG. If you what to know who Bernanke really works for then do some research as to who owns the FED. Bernanke as the Chairman of the FED by definition works for those who own the FED. And it's NOT the USG. End of story.

Why return specifically to a gold standard and not some other type of physical commodity or mixed bag of commodities ?.
What's so special about gold that it should be singled out as a check and balance ?
For sure the Chinese and Indian populaces seemingly love it to death.
Again, this is a question being made on behalf of all the laymen on here.

I agree with menelaus. Paul lost an opportunity there. He may as well have asked Bernanke whether sea shells were money. I disagree with menelaus regarding his assertion that gold has intrinsic value. It has withstood the test of time because it has little intrinsic value. As for what the future holds none of us know. My prediction is that gold will continue to hold us in its spell because of its extrinsic value.

Gold has no intrinsic value but it takes $400-600 dollars per oz to extract from the ground and bring it to market. Hmmmm, head scratcher that one.....May be the comment was made so we can engage in some sort of platonic debate between intrinsic and extrinsic but in finance extrinsic defines paper money, not gold. There is no difference in production costs between a £5 note and a £50 note but their extrinsic value (that is by definition, "value by agreement") is is 10X different.

Menelaus are u daft??? who said gold is money? hahahaha not sure why you keep disputing something that no-one here, or in that interview said. Maybe you have an axe to grind about this issue but let leave that for another day.

Just in case u keep missing the forest for them trees, i'm pretty sure ol shrewd Ron Paul had a feeling Ben was going to say its not money..  dont u think? dah

As for his bewilderment about why the Fed actually holds gold, that is the essence of this thread. You probably know why they do but im not sure your 1600 SAT, mensa level genius does....

oh no actually HE does.. what was i thinking, because "its a tradition"

Oh, I get it, now it's not the "is gold money" (who said gold is money? - CERTAINLY THE CHAIRMAN DIDN'T in response to that moronic question) thing that bothers you, it's the "tradition" part !!!!

Well, why don't we then start the debate all over again.....LOL.

By the way, what exactly has Ron Paul accomplished in all his years in Congress that lead you to the conclusion that he is "shrewd"? I'd be interested in knowing.

And let's face it anybody who has two Christian names can't be that bright.
Is he Ron or is he Paul ?.
Can't be both.
He's a smart pollie, of that there can be no doubt.
Can't see that BB would get anywhere if he actually had to be elected to anything.
But that in itself says a hell of a lot about the intrinsic ( or is it extrinsic ?) weakness of populist democracy.

Still waiting to hear why he is "shrewd".

Everything is relative. He has a basic understanding of economics which is wider than the political consensus. So in that sense he is shrewder than your average man and indeed politician.

Gold has no intrinsic value but it takes $400-600 dollars per oz to extract from the ground and bring it to market. Hmmmm, head scratcher that one

I think it clear why but my view clearly differs from yours. People go to the effort to mine it because we place a value on it which is commensurate or greater than the cost of extraction. Why is that? It is either because it has some intrinsic worth which for example may add value to some other process as with some other precious metals. Alternatively, as I argue it has value because it is shiny, pretty, can be made into things which adorn etc and of course because of its relative scarcity. The definition of the words is clear. I accept that financiers may not understand the difference between the meaning. You buggers are too busy making money.

I agree Ron Paul has a better handle on how an economy works (and the mess the USG is in) than most of his clueless peers. That understanding of economics however makes him more knowledgeable than the rest but not necessarily more "shrewd". The two words mean different things and are not mutually inclusive. But I don't want this to turn this into another platonic debate similar to intrinsic or extrinsic.

The truth is, and something Ron Paul's Libertarian followers can't argue with, his ACCOMPLISHMENTS on the hill for all the years he's been there, beyond the rants, raves and the theatrics, are non existent. If I'm wrong, someone point me to a significant piece of legislation sponsored by Paul beyond the toothless, heavily altered and mostly forgotten and never to be enacted "audit the FED".

I would have to concede both those points. If he were more shrewd he would have made a heck of a lot more difference than he has.