Has anyone checked Fort Knox lately?

(Boy am I gonna get hammered on this one, I know so little about how the US Economy works...)

Ok, We owe China something like 500 Billion (I've heard).
Isn't our money supposed to be backed by gold bullion (spelling?) at Fort Knox?

Every time I see the tv talking about the "bailout" -- in the background -- you see images of money being printed.

You can print money all day -- but that isn't what gives it value...

What if Bush high-tails it out of here, and all the money (gold) is GONE?

Alright have at me for my ignorance.

When Bush came into power, I predicted he would bankrupt the US. And I believe he's going to get away with it.

What do you think, what do you know?

And you forgot to mention, although we own China 500 billion
they have poisoned our childen ,cats and dogs,and us.. with the toothpaste. our children's toys and formula,and even food, just to name a few,
I myself dont want to use dishes or cups made in china,and most are now,
Point is!! a county who we owe all this money too,is killing us in more ways than one...................

Well, KZ that's at least a good argument for why any country should try to keep themselves unreliant on any other nation -- if possible -- for it's own survival.

In the case of the USA, this nation has so much in the way of resources, metals, coal, ability to grow it's own food, manpower... there really is no reason we ever needed to go global for any of it.

I can only think greed was the reason we just didn't stay home and mind our own business, create our own products, and live happily ever after.

I agree 100%, they will never admit that it was a bad idea.and that we protect our own people and test what we put out here.
not saying a mistakes don't happen, they do,
but someone taking all this in from other countries is not doing there job.and if it's going to cost us more to have to test everything coming in from these countries, where are we ahead...
Ad if we are going to loose life's and become ill from these products,Then our country dont really care about our people.
if our products need to be tested here.Then why dont we make that happen, when shipped from other countries

The US Dollar hasn't been on the gold standard for over 30 years.

God, Jonnythan. I didn't know that.

Now here's a huge request. If you could... could you explain how this works now?

It makes sense that it isn't on the gold standard, because there are a lot more valuable things than gold.

Wow, I'm not sure this question isn't too overwhelming for anyone. If there is no world money standard, what is the value of anything?

Don't shoot me.

The US dollar is essentially floated on the stock market. As people buy more dollars on the market, the value of the dollar relative to other currencies goes up and vice versa.

Look up "reserve currency" and "fiat currency"

It all started in 1863. That's when we went to a National Bank System. In 1913 (same year the 16th Amendment wasn't passed), we went to a Federal (Reserve banking) system. Pushed hard by progressives in Congress. It was addressed due to the National Banks having "panics", and the goal was to make currency more elastic and liquid.

After that in the 30s, America went Nazi and put a public message out there stating to turn in your gold to the government (for reserve notes) or be considered a traitor. One would think we would've fought really big time back then. Why didn't we?

In 1976, we officially replaced the gold standard with a limited and partially secretive set of rules. The FED sets everything, and Congress can't even get all the numbers it needs to maintain sound monetary policy today. Yeah the FED does it all.

Personally, I think it should be called DEAF, Dictators Enacting Americans Finances.

If Congress would stop succumbing to scare tactics, we would still have a free bank system.

"Partially secretive" must be the key word here.

I tried googling, like Jonathan said, but I couldn't understand it.

I'm thinking the barter system is beginning to look better and better... All I need is a roof, food, electricity, and a job. I'll trade.

If the money's value is based on the stock market, and the stock market "falls", the money has no value. It's that simple. Why would we base our money on something that is unreliable?

Makes no sense to me.

Christ, is someone in the US running an actual anti-China propaganda campaign or are Americans just born sinophobic? It's horrendous.

There's nothing secretive about how the US dollar works. It's floated on an international market with the backing of the government.

jonnythan,
Keep telling yourself that. Not like there's any information on the internet about how secretive the FED is. [/sarcasm]

What's so secret about the dollar? Not much. If you try to find out conversations between certain international corporations and the FED, you can't get the info you need to lean this way or that (officially). But with the openness of other markets, you can infer that secret agendas and conspiracies are going on.

You can think of it like this; let's say you own a government bank. You find two people trying to "hack" your website - one uses an open IP and the other uses a TOR proxy. Which are you going to be most suspicious of?

Christ, is someone in the US running an actual anti-China propaganda campaign or are Americans just born sinophobic? It's horrendous.


You dont mind your pets being killed, you babies dying from bad formula ,and lead in your tooth paste and other things and on your children's toys
your welcome to there products

What is "sinophobic"?

You have to admit, there have been a whole LOT of reports about food and products from China -- causing problems for people.

I don't think labeling it with a "phobia" suffix is a rational way to acknowledge this reality. The facts are the facts.

Being from a foreign country and working here as a tennis pro on a Visa I see things a little differently.

Gold in reality never backed the dollar, the usa govt. just guaranteed it. Being such a strong stable country foreign countries decided to invest heavily in the usa. Buying treasury notes, thereby adding drastically to the national debt. To make even more money, everbody but everybody invested in wall st.

To let all in, wall street over sold the market giving the stock sales a new name Swaps. These swaps were below the radaar of the us govt. and therfore just weren't backed by anything; causing wall street to fall. The world economy was then effected immediately by wall street's downfall. My country relies mostly on tourism, and then invested in usa markets. When market fell, aussie economy got hit hard.