ERICOPOLY

As I said, "From the very beginning , government officials haven't led by example and this has undermined their own efforts." The CDC didn't get to the present day without previously putting forth a mask campaign that high up public officials did not think was cool enough for their macho image. It undermined their own efforts to reopen the economy.

From the very beginning , government officials haven't led by example and this has undermined their own efforts. The CDC makes recommendations, people don't see the government leaders following them. Monkey see, monkey do.

So many of the hospitals are private. We can have the socialized medicine debate so the government can tell them what to do.

Coronavirus Live Updates: California Gov. Warns Of New Stay-At-Home Orders https://www.huffpost.com/entry/covid-19-updates-vaccine-arrival-holidays_n_5fbbb56ec5b68ca87f7d481f But, in practice, his covid-19 rules typically don't really apply where I live (and I do live in California).

Encourage masks, hand washing, social distancing. Encourage high risk individuals to stay home/be cautious and to get the vaccine when it comes out. Allow others to go on with life. To me that's reasonable It remains to be seen if there will be enough hospital beds. What’s your point? That it remains to be seen if there will be enough hospital beds.

This debate reminds me of the free and unrestricted trade debate. There will be a great sucking sound (quite literally, with a hospital full of people gasping for breath). In this case, there may be a great sucking sound.

Encourage masks, hand washing, social distancing. Encourage high risk individuals to stay home/be cautious and to get the vaccine when it comes out. Allow others to go on with life. To me that's reasonable It remains to be seen if there will be enough hospital beds.

I presented a fact without an advocacy position.

I'm not so sure that their lockdown is entirely responsible for their low case count. Australia is in summer right now and it's becoming increasingly clear that this virus is highly seasonal. We didn't hit zero in the US during summer. The numbers actually went UP as we entered summer coincident with lifting restrictions. The summer increase in the US was almost entirely relegated to the sunbelt stats, where it was so hot that people had to gather indoors. Perhaps seasonal isn't the right word but rather the conditions that force people to gather in enclosed settings. And holiday travel. On the other hand, restaurants and bars were able to seat people outdoors. But how does this differ from Australia's state of Victoria?

People are shelling out more for the platinum settings. Plat $890: https://www.bluenile.com/build-your-own-ring/petite-solitaire-ring-platinum_19010 18k gold $750: https://www.bluenile.com/build-your-own-ring/petite-solitiare-ring-18k-yellow-gold_44709 Platinum: $971 per once Gold: $1,783 per ounce Nice hustle for jewelers ROLEX Lady-Datejust 28mm: $6,750 in steel $24,650 in yellow gold $44,050 in platinum https://www.rolex.com/watches/configure.html#/lady-datejust/m279178-0006/material

It's not ideal money if a country relies on deficit spending to fund the government expenses. Think about earning $1000 worth of gold (or any fixed base currency). Ten years from now deflation results in increased purchasing power because you can buy more with your $1000 of gold if you saved it. Inflation, on the other hand, is a tax. I already acknowledged that deflation is good for the individual that hoards gold. There are alternatives to cash if you worry about inflation, so it's not a binary debate between gold or cash as currency.

People are shelling out more for the platinum settings. Plat $890: https://www.bluenile.com/build-your-own-ring/petite-solitaire-ring-platinum_19010 18k gold $750: https://www.bluenile.com/build-your-own-ring/petite-solitiare-ring-18k-yellow-gold_44709

That flight to USD also happened in the GFC panic.

Platinum jewelry (unlike gold jewelry) also tends to be almost entirely pure (950/1000).

Gold is an element and therefore fungible and investable at scale (central banks and large institutions can trade gold and, absent chicanery, know precisely what they’re buying / selling), not so with diamonds (or art or air cooled 911’s or whatever) I do not know this for sure but I’d expect the above ground gold supply to be far less volatile than diamonds (ie I think there are big diamond discoveries that can be large relative to existing supply). This has happened with gold several times in history, but is probably less likely to happen today than with diamonds; someone more knowledgeable than I can opine) I think diamonds are a really bad example here. That's due to many issues: price control by cartel, ability to crate them by industrial process, huge difference between retail and wholesale value, small and tightly controlled wholesale market which is very hard to get into and that's just off the top of my head. Basically the only thing diamonds are good for is if you need to take off quickly you can shove them up your ass and go through an airport metal detector then take a large loss on redemption. The thing with gold like pupil said is that it's fairly liquid and has transparent pricing. How do the markets for platinum and gold compare on those qualitative terms of liquidity and transparency? Poorly. Gold is really liquid. You can walk into any neighborhood jeweler and sell them an ounce of gold at a small discount to market. I wouldn't even know where to go to sell an ounce of platinum. I don't know what the rate is in the US, but in Canada these sell your gold/we buy your jewelry types charge a 5% discount to the market price of the gold. That is crazy cheap when you consider that jewelry gold is of lower quality and has to be smelted/purified to turn it into financial gold. Or maybe they just use it to make new jewelry, i don't know. Either way it's not bad. I imagine if Atlanta has a place, other cities do to: https://www.rkcojewelers.com/advice-on-how-to-sell-gold-silver/ But I see far more "we buy gold" signs in what feels like every mall. However, I was thinking (for our purposes) of just people like us buying a platinum or gold ETF. There is enough liquidity there?

Gold jewelry was preferred over platinum back in the day. Great trivia to feed your beloved when you want to spring the question but don't want to foot the bill for platinum. I take no responsibility for how that works out for you. Platinum was used for and is more suitable for intricate filigree work and so there are a lot of antique filigree jewels in platinum, but today people pay a big premium for some very plain platinum settings simply because SHE is expecting platinum.

Platinum has a higher density. In theory that should equate to lower storage costs.

It's not ideal money if a country relies on deficit spending to fund the government expenses. Think about earning $1000 worth of gold (or any fixed base currency). Ten years from now deflation results in increased purchasing power because you can buy more with your $1000 of gold if you saved it. Inflation, on the other hand, is a tax. I see the obvious personal advantage to hoarding gold if it rises in real terms in response to rising economic output. However, that violates the legend that it is stable in terms of purchasing power, and I can see social unrest if one can earn true real returns by simply holding money instead of investing it.

Gold is an element and therefore fungible and investable at scale (central banks and large institutions can trade gold and, absent chicanery, know precisely what they’re buying / selling), not so with diamonds (or art or air cooled 911’s or whatever) I do not know this for sure but I’d expect the above ground gold supply to be far less volatile than diamonds (ie I think there are big diamond discoveries that can be large relative to existing supply). This has happened with gold several times in history, but is probably less likely to happen today than with diamonds; someone more knowledgeable than I can opine) I think diamonds are a really bad example here. That's due to many issues: price control by cartel, ability to crate them by industrial process, huge difference between retail and wholesale value, small and tightly controlled wholesale market which is very hard to get into and that's just off the top of my head. Basically the only thing diamonds are good for is if you need to take off quickly you can shove them up your ass and go through an airport metal detector then take a large loss on redemption. The thing with gold like pupil said is that it's fairly liquid and has transparent pricing. How do the markets for platinum and gold compare on those qualitative terms of liquidity and transparency?

Further, why is gold a suitable money when rising real production would be rewarded with deflation?

The value of gold will still be real no matter what the money supply is, because the supply of gold won't increase (aside from mining). I'm just wondering how gold can maintain it's real price if it's supply is fixed on one half of the scale, versus increases in supply of real goods and serviceso the other side of the scale. The USD is irrelevant, just the real price of gold in consideration. I'm wondering why gold's real value wouldn't increase in that scenario in order to maintain supply and demand balance on the scale. If you are predicting deflation in goods, then the same aggregate amount of gold can purchase more goods. The real value of gold has therefore increased, no?

If real household income rises, or declines, then it may not be so. As well as other variables like interest rates. So 'all else equal' is virtually impossible in the real world, and over a short time frame like 1980-2020. While I saw your mention of "all else equal" in the post I replied to, I pointed only to "real" income because, and if gold maintains it's real purchasing power, then in theory it must stay out of lockstep with real estate if real estate is driven by real incomes (all other things being equal). Does anyone know what the theoretical effect is on gold price if there is real GDP growth? If you put the world's supply of gold (priced against all things real) on one side of the scale, and then keep increasing the world's supply of 'real' on the other side of the scale, then what happens to the purchasing power of gold? I'm wondering if the increasing supply of real goods upsets the price equilibrium of gold in real terms.

If real household income rises, or declines, then it may not be so.

I'm not so sure that their lockdown is entirely responsible for their low case count. Australia is in summer right now and it's becoming increasingly clear that this virus is highly seasonal. We didn't hit zero in the US during summer. The numbers actually went UP as we entered summer coincident with lifting restrictions.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/victoria-australia-no-new-coronavirus-cases_n_5fc2734ac5b61d04bfaa183a Australia’s second-largest state, Victoria, once the country’s COVID-19 hotspot, said on Friday it has gone 28 days without detecting any new infections, a benchmark widely cited as eliminating the virus from the community. The state also has zero active cases after the last COVID-19 patient was discharged from hospital this week, a far cry from August when Victoria recorded more than 700 cases in one day and active infections totalled nearly 8,000. The spread of the virus was only contained after a lockdown lasting more than 100 days, leaving some 5 million people in Melbourne, Australia’s second largest city, largely confined to their homes.