Global economic situation for liveaboard cruising yachties

actually traditionally the values of various metals have been closely tied throughout history.

the Romans specifically tied the value of coins to the type of metal they were stamped out of

cheers
B

ps
worked for over 600 years and continues in some form today

 

during the period when Rome was collapsing, the money was clipped, shaved and otherwise debased... The history of gold and silver as money goes beyond 6000 years to the early Indian civilisations that I know of...

I am not sure about the great civilisations in Central America and Brazil where healthy economies existed but were probably wiped out by chicken pox introduced by the early European explorers...

 

Yes, I just wonder how these values would be determined. The Indians of North and South America had little to no value for gold and yet they were decimated for it because of another cultures obsession for it. Value is very much in the eye of the beholder.
I would like to see a monetary system where all values are equal, where I won’t feel like I got a couple strings of beads for Manhattan.

 

it had more of a religious connotation as it never rotted or deteriorated in any way as apposed to everything else in there environment

and it was easily beaten into some stylie stuff

 

No probably not, they preferred things of spiritual value. But when gold was seen as the buyer of guns from the white man it would be only sensible to aquire it, and behold it had value.

 

Tha Pacific Island countries still use other monetary forms like a fairly difficult to find and make bead currency (kina) around Rabaul, PNG, I have also used pearl shell, flint, salt, boar tusk, pearls, Golden Cowrey, live pig, Large stone disks, and lots of other things...

When you look at the numbers below many may think in terms of gold value went up, but gold, if you assume its purchasing power remained steady then all the listed fiat currencies DEVALUED... which means the Aussy, Euro & Canadian currencies lost about 180% in purchasing power the middle group of countries lost 250 to 299% of their purchasing power and the worst hit were Mexico, South Africa, India & Russia... That then makes a very interesting comparison and if market manipulation can be adjusted to the above values then future security of a currency is readily evaluated... Trouble, the depth and impact of manipulation is difficult to quantify and would really need resources greater than I can muster of even contemplate... A good exercise for GATA, or Gerald Cilente, or others???

 

Boston,
You seem informed about American history and I've noted at least some Native American roots. Was cannibalism really a commonplace custom practiced by many Native Americans?

I'd like others who may disapprove of this thread that I've found it fascinating and the many topics covered here has been encouragement for me to research and expand my knowledge on so many things.

in common with their racial cousins in Central and South America, ritualistic cannibalism was common. The full extent of these practices was noted by many early writers, with the most complete and detailed account of Amerind cannibalism and the habit of torturing White prisoners of both sexes appearing in the print in 1892 in The Works of Francis Parkman, published by Little Brown, Boston (Vol. III.)

The term cannibalism is derived from Canibales, the Spanish name for the man-eating Caribbean Amerinds who lived in the West Indies when Christopher Columbus arrived. The habit had clearly come across the Bering Straits when the Mongolian ancestors of the Amerinds had crossed into the Americas: in medieval times the Italian traveler Marco Polo reported that tribes from Tibet to Sumatra practiced cannibalism.

For the sake of political correctness, these disturbing traits are for the greatest part suppressed in modern histories of the Amerinds: but at the time they were well-known and feared by the White settlers; going a long way to explaining the extended period of conflict between the Whites and the Amerinds, and the particularly ruthless methods of dealing with each other if captured.

Eventually the more extreme White frontiersmen started retaliating against the practice of scalping by exacting the same punishment on the Amerinds - but there are no recorded incidents of Whites ever quite getting around to duplicating the cannibalistic habit of eating dead Amerinds, even though there are many recorded incidents of the reverse occurring.

Source

 

It could well be the "tradition" that is practised now by politicians and other leaders in USA seeking to usurp power by putting great fear into the hearts and minds of the average less well informed, or perhaps less well educated, person in USA...

The present fear appears to be.. - - To inculcate into the USA citizen a real fear of impending acts of terrorism from Muslims and other ethnic groups that may be suffering greatly from the relentless, murderous and mindless onslaught (as they may see it) of the "taming and democratisation" (stated but possibly misdirected objectives of USA) in that region... An ability to see reason-ability from both sides will facilitate understanding, as military solutions do not exist and if pursued will cost greatly for no perceived gain...

The USA Military machine as mighty as it is, - is not flexible enough, to accurately take out selected targets with NO collateral damage... Any perceived collateral damage will encourage greater determination on the "disenfranchised", to inflict reprisals and they will always be of greater emotional impact against USA... That is the nature of Guerrilla actions against conventional warfare - - always has been and will always be so found... Look and think about the recent failed attempt... Even that failed attempt had significant adverse, internal to USA as well as global, social and economic cost, that cannot be justified by the military expenditure outside USA...

An item on another topic from GATA wire services
http://www.gata.org/node/8222 "Judy Shelton: To insure against inflation, how about gold-convertible Treasury bonds?" not enough gold to cover the risk of a devalued US$ and hyperinflation let alone modest (15% or less) inflation... I thought GLD covered that but it too lacks proof of solid backing

 

A commodity can and does have different values in accordance to a person needs, look how Native Americans were exploited out of items and their Gold for items that held no real value whatsoever. When trading even with commodity's such as gold and silver some sort of at least local standardization of real value would be necessary for fair trade.

Not to say some sort of barter system wouldn't work, I could always consume the pig nothing better fresh butchered and cooked on a wood fire. But bartering only works well among neighbors. For things needed not produced in neighborhood one would need some hard recognized currency both parties clearly understand to finalize purchase and mutual agreement of value.

Gold has value for sure, and a lot of gold has been traded for powder and lead which in turn put food on the table.

 

If gold bullion was to become the base for currencies then the US$ would be tied to the demonstrated and audit proven gold bullion holdings of the reserve banks of USA proportionally adjusted to the US money supply (would that include treasuries, Bonds, ETF's and other forms of paper money and other stuff that comprises M3? plus lots more?) - someone expressed the view of somewhere in excess of US$50,000 per ounce at Oct 09 values - when I saw the estimate... someone else can do the sums for the US$...

Australia is easy, Stupid little Johnny Howard sold Australia's gold reserves at the bottom of the market... Cretin... Therefore the AU$ is worthless Keynesian minded, ignorant, retarded, Liberal fools... And even the (socialist, now 'right wing') Labour party has stuck to delusional Keynesian economic theory which will drag Australia into the depths of the economic sewers of despair...

 

You don't need to link currency to anything other than annual GDP, it must an accurate measurement. If you print one milion dollars for country that produces only one hot dog per year, then one of those dollars would not be worth much. If you print one million paper dollars for current US economy, each one of those dollars would be very valuable, even more than any gold or silver. So, as long as you match GDP to amount of currency printed per year, there should not be problems with currency valuation. This is exactly what they want to avoid. If economy tanks, they still print more money than GDP to pay for things, which creates inflation and devaluates currency and assets.

 

That would then make the US$ almost worthless as there is 5 to 7 trillion offshore and GDP was bugger all in USA for 09 if you EXCLUDE a grossly inflated and bubble like US Bureaucracy - GDP is not an effective measure of anything related to the value of the currency... Balance of trade may be useful but to relate gold to GDP, I could not agree, especially when internal debt is running at US$600 to US$700 TRILLION... so on that basis (net worth), somewhere near 6000 tonnes of dubious gold against 600trillion, = US$100 billion per tonne of gold held? in USA... - - - Say 33 oz per kilo, 1000 kilo per tonne is around US$303,000/ounce - - - But that would have to go offshore to pay the USA debts as China would foreclose on the 2 to 3 trillion of currency and treasuries it holds first... to be shared amongst a few other countries that have large US$ denominated holdings...

 

..and we dedicate this next one to the hot, hot girl that always
happens to be there to save our asses from the Wrath of Nylex.


..........Alternate title; Dead Before They Hit The Floor

 

A rare occasion - He's right there, Mas.

 

Bamby
as far as I know cannibalism was considered disrespectful or at least thats the impression I got from my grandmother when we talked food
my own mother seemed fairly ignorant of the traditions and uncomfortable speaking to us kids about them. I think she was more concerned that we fit in ( probably thought it was better if we did not embrace our heritage but instead try to blend with "society". I think she meant well but I wish she could have been "there" for us as well.
torture is another issue entirely
what we might today consider torture was at one time relative. Among the five hundred nations it was a test. A captured enemy was put to death and how he bore that death reflected well or poorly on his tribe. It was assumed that the stronger the bond with ones ancestors the stronger the individual. Therefore ancestral enemies could settle there differences if only one might suffer the anger of the others whole. Its a concept that often escapes whites today but one that made spiritual sense to the nations.

it was Algonquin warriors ( never proven ) who accompanied George Washington on his reconnaissance to Quebec and who were involved in capturing the French ambassador on his way to Philadelphia. Once captured it was they who having grievance with the french split the skull of the French ambassador and washed there hands in his brains; thus settling the tribes issues with the French.
The french not understanding the gesture kicked off the French Indian war which ended up costing the English so much in there defense of the colonies that they decided not to extend the colonial charter. Thus taxing the colonies and thus leading to the colonial rebellion which was

you guessed it

the American revolution





Torture is culturally relative

in the European sense yes
it was practiced by the tribes
in the tribal sense
it was a test or a way for one to atone for the many's previous wrongs
to the north american native population
there was no such thing as torture
or theft for that mater

now the south American natives had a whole other concept of human sacrifice and thats a completely other story

but in north america torture as a concept did not exist
canibalism is thought to have existed based on some forensic evidence
but that is yet to be proven and certainly not widespread is even it is

my two cents
B

Bamby this next quote is way off
the natives originally counted coup
and did not often kill there enemies unless a collective guilt need be abrogated by the individual captured and killed
oh
it was the French that introduces scalping as a way of paying bounty
it was not a native american tradition and it took a long time to catch on with the tribes
it was never practices universally by all tribes
the Hopi for instance
never practices scalping

there are no documented cases as far as I know of north american natives cannibalizing there European captives
Ill have to check your source but Ive studied native american history for many years and never found a single claim along these lines to be accurate

cheers
B

ok
I just looked up your source
I am appalled
you need to seriously reevaluate who and what you are reading
a better example of white supremacist literature could hardly exist
I can only hope you were not aware of who you were referencing or the nature of there prejudice views

wow
I am in shock that anyone could possibly take "a history of the white race" by an avoid racist as a quotable source of information on an open forum

I can only hope you print a retraction asap