Get real!'s Comments RSS Syndication from SeekingAlpha.com http://seekingalpha.comuser/191286/comments http://seekingalpha.com/article/102339-ignore-the-hype-gold-as-currency-is-dead?source=feed#comment-298216 298216 Chris, you're actually suggesting that 1 out of every 200 gold coins is a forgery? If it was one in every 20,000 (0.005%) it would be big news!

Forgeries are difficult to create and easy to detect.
Even a simple jeweler's scale, higly accurate to 1/100 ounce or better, can detect any change of metal.
I'm an amateur, but I've already used a digital scale it to tell the difference between silver plated medals and pure silver (not coins in this case, but "silver medals" I'd purchased that were actually silver plated). There's a much greater difference between the weight of gold and lesser metals, except lead or depleted uranium.

And as for minting coins, it's not that easy, you need not just equipment but artists to get it right -- it's an art.
Go ahead, take a chunk of lead and try to mint a coin, then plate it with gold -- you'd waste millions trying to perfect the process and the results would still get laughed at by any coin collector at first glance!
Or if a government tried it, the only way they could succeed is if they had one assembly line minting the REAL coins, and a separate SECRET assembly line minting one out of 100 with base metal cores -- and then when they got caught, they'd be out of business on both assembly lines.

Moreover, most true collector coins are graded by professional grading services (e.g. PCGS, NGC, ANACS, ICG), who are experts at detecting whether a coin is genuine.

Furthermore, the most likely type of "forgery" is to add or remove mintmarks from genuine gold coins in order to make them more valuable -- but then they are STILL gold coins, and still have the same bullion value. If you only invest in bullion coins, you don't care much about mintmarks and dates anyway, and if you're investing in RARE gold coins, then you'll take the trouble to get them professionally graded.

If someone is going to go to the trouble of forging or altering coins, they'd make a much better profit doing it on base metal RARE coins than on bullion coins -- for example, alter a 1909 VDB penny to make it a 1909 S VDB penny worth over a thousand dollars. But then again they'd get caught, thanks to professional grading services.

On Oct 31 11:24 AM Chris B wrote:

> OK, close your eyes to risk. Say it couldn't happen. Say it never
> happened before. Real estate never went down either, and people who
> warned that it could were once considered moonbat conspiracy theorists.
> Who were they to question the pros at Moody's with their mere common
> sense? After all, demand was through the roof!
>
> If you really think it is a manufacturing impossibility for criminals
> to find a way to coat a correct-density non-magnetic core with pure
> gold for 100+% profits, perhaps you should consider that somebody
> went through the trouble of building your cell phone for maybe $10
> profit. Consider that North Korea produces perfect forgeries of US
> currency, with all the security features. What I'm talking about
> is low tech in comparison, much higher in profit, and harder to trace.
> In an environment of manic demand for coins by unsophisticated buyers,
> where there is massive profit potential, you can expect to find fraud.
> It is naive to assume otherwise.
>
> Maybe only 0.5% of collector coins are forged. My only point then
> is that gold is not risk free. It would only take the publicized
> discovery of a few of them to sink the value of such privately owned
> coins. I could care less if it happened, but for some reason I feel
> the need to warn all the faith-based investors out there that nothing
> is ever perfectly safe - much less precious metals.]]> Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:42:19 -0500 Chris, you're actually suggesting that 1 out of every 200 gold coins is a forgery? If it was one in every 20,000 (0.005%) it would be big news!

Forgeries are difficult to create and easy to detect.
Even a simple jeweler's scale, higly accurate to 1/100 ounce or better, can detect any change of metal.
I'm an amateur, but I've already used a digital scale it to tell the difference between silver plated medals and pure silver (not coins in this case, but "silver medals" I'd purchased that were actually silver plated). There's a much greater difference between the weight of gold and lesser metals, except lead or depleted uranium.

And as for minting coins, it's not that easy, you need not just equipment but artists to get it right -- it's an art.
Go ahead, take a chunk of lead and try to mint a coin, then plate it with gold -- you'd waste millions trying to perfect the process and the results would still get laughed at by any coin collector at first glance!
Or if a government tried it, the only way they could succeed is if they had one assembly line minting the REAL coins, and a separate SECRET assembly line minting one out of 100 with base metal cores -- and then when they got caught, they'd be out of business on both assembly lines.

Moreover, most true collector coins are graded by professional grading services (e.g. PCGS, NGC, ANACS, ICG), who are experts at detecting whether a coin is genuine.

Furthermore, the most likely type of "forgery" is to add or remove mintmarks from genuine gold coins in order to make them more valuable -- but then they are STILL gold coins, and still have the same bullion value. If you only invest in bullion coins, you don't care much about mintmarks and dates anyway, and if you're investing in RARE gold coins, then you'll take the trouble to get them professionally graded.

If someone is going to go to the trouble of forging or altering coins, they'd make a much better profit doing it on base metal RARE coins than on bullion coins -- for example, alter a 1909 VDB penny to make it a 1909 S VDB penny worth over a thousand dollars. But then again they'd get caught, thanks to professional grading services.

On Oct 31 11:24 AM Chris B wrote:

> OK, close your eyes to risk. Say it couldn't happen. Say it never
> happened before. Real estate never went down either, and people who
> warned that it could were once considered moonbat conspiracy theorists.
> Who were they to question the pros at Moody's with their mere common
> sense? After all, demand was through the roof!
>
> If you really think it is a manufacturing impossibility for criminals
> to find a way to coat a correct-density non-magnetic core with pure
> gold for 100+% profits, perhaps you should consider that somebody
> went through the trouble of building your cell phone for maybe $10
> profit. Consider that North Korea produces perfect forgeries of US
> currency, with all the security features. What I'm talking about
> is low tech in comparison, much higher in profit, and harder to trace.
> In an environment of manic demand for coins by unsophisticated buyers,
> where there is massive profit potential, you can expect to find fraud.
> It is naive to assume otherwise.
>
> Maybe only 0.5% of collector coins are forged. My only point then
> is that gold is not risk free. It would only take the publicized
> discovery of a few of them to sink the value of such privately owned
> coins. I could care less if it happened, but for some reason I feel
> the need to warn all the faith-based investors out there that nothing
> is ever perfectly safe - much less precious metals.]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/87734-oil-vs-natural-gas?source=feed#comment-217743 217743 If Israel or George Bush bomb Iran, then Iran can cut off 40% of the world's oil flow by blocking the Strait of Hormuz, and we'll see $300 oil. If McCain becomes president, he's even more likely than Bush to "Bomb bomb bom, bomb bomb Iran," as he has sung about himself!
On the other hand, most of the natural gas used in the U.S., comes from North America (USA, Canada, Mexico), which avoids the geopolitcal risk that oil has.]]> Tue, 29 Jul 2008 16:36:44 -0400 If Israel or George Bush bomb Iran, then Iran can cut off 40% of the world's oil flow by blocking the Strait of Hormuz, and we'll see $300 oil. If McCain becomes president, he's even more likely than Bush to "Bomb bomb bom, bomb bomb Iran," as he has sung about himself!
On the other hand, most of the natural gas used in the U.S., comes from North America (USA, Canada, Mexico), which avoids the geopolitcal risk that oil has.]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/85236-gold-to-replicate-oil-s-parabolic-move-30-yr-treasury-yields-to-soar?source=feed#comment-206980 206980 Sorry to burst your bubble, but these numbers are impossible. For instance, even if ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) held as much oil as in the oil companies' wet dreams, the most it would ever produce is 780,000 barrels per day, 20 years from now at its peak.
Remember, the U.S. consumes 25% of the world's oil, but we only have 3% of the world's oil reserves (and that includes ANWR and the Outer Continental Shelf). If we could produce 2-6 million more barrels per day, we would be the number one oil producer, more than Saudi Arabia pumps. Did you know the US is already the world's number 3 oil produceer, after Saudi Arabia and Russia, even though we only have 3% of the world's oil reserves? WE ARE SUCKING AMERICA DRY, EXTRACTING OIL SO FAST IT IS NOT SUSTAINABLE AT THE CURRENT RATE. Drilling more oil is like putting more straws in a cup -- it doesn't make your cup any bigger.
Any nation with 3% of the world's reserves of ANYTHING can never expect to continue consuming 25% of the world's reserves of that substance for long. Especting, as you do "Mr. truthbetold" that the US could be the number one oil producer if we just drill more holes, is like expecting that North Dakota will suddenly become the world's orange grower if they just plant enough trees -- North Dakota doens't have the climate for oranges, and the US has already used up God's allotment of oil through our relentless drilling over the past 150 years.
The only solution, like it or not, is conservation and energy efficiency (EE). You can put your head in the sand and pretend the US could produce more oil than Saudi Arabia "if we only tried," but that doesn't change geology or depletion rates.
Face it, the US is in for a load of hurt from our glutonous ways.]]> Wed, 16 Jul 2008 12:38:42 -0400 Sorry to burst your bubble, but these numbers are impossible. For instance, even if ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) held as much oil as in the oil companies' wet dreams, the most it would ever produce is 780,000 barrels per day, 20 years from now at its peak.
Remember, the U.S. consumes 25% of the world's oil, but we only have 3% of the world's oil reserves (and that includes ANWR and the Outer Continental Shelf). If we could produce 2-6 million more barrels per day, we would be the number one oil producer, more than Saudi Arabia pumps. Did you know the US is already the world's number 3 oil produceer, after Saudi Arabia and Russia, even though we only have 3% of the world's oil reserves? WE ARE SUCKING AMERICA DRY, EXTRACTING OIL SO FAST IT IS NOT SUSTAINABLE AT THE CURRENT RATE. Drilling more oil is like putting more straws in a cup -- it doesn't make your cup any bigger.
Any nation with 3% of the world's reserves of ANYTHING can never expect to continue consuming 25% of the world's reserves of that substance for long. Especting, as you do "Mr. truthbetold" that the US could be the number one oil producer if we just drill more holes, is like expecting that North Dakota will suddenly become the world's orange grower if they just plant enough trees -- North Dakota doens't have the climate for oranges, and the US has already used up God's allotment of oil through our relentless drilling over the past 150 years.
The only solution, like it or not, is conservation and energy efficiency (EE). You can put your head in the sand and pretend the US could produce more oil than Saudi Arabia "if we only tried," but that doesn't change geology or depletion rates.
Face it, the US is in for a load of hurt from our glutonous ways.]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/81518-oil-s-gains-are-due-to-fundamentals-not-speculation?source=feed#comment-186632 186632
As even Bush admitted, "We are addicted to oil," and when your pusher doubles the price of a fix, an addict sacrifices everything else to pay for that fix. If oil rose to $200, gasoline might hit $6 per barrel (not $10, see below), and Americans would cough up the $6, and sacrifice in other areas, because we're all addicts (except the Amish).

Your second mistake is assuming that if oil prices nearly doubled (from $135 to $200), then gasoline prices would actually double. FYI, even if it actually doubled (which would mean $270/barrel oil), gasoline prices would not double, because the price of oil is only one part of the cost of gasoline. Other parts include refining costs, pipeline costs, tanker costs, gas station overhead, federal taxes, and state taxes (which do not double when oil prices double, because voters would not allow it, so instead, taxes would actually fall by 50% as a percentage of the gasoline price).]]> Mon, 16 Jun 2008 16:12:56 -0400
As even Bush admitted, "We are addicted to oil," and when your pusher doubles the price of a fix, an addict sacrifices everything else to pay for that fix. If oil rose to $200, gasoline might hit $6 per barrel (not $10, see below), and Americans would cough up the $6, and sacrifice in other areas, because we're all addicts (except the Amish).

Your second mistake is assuming that if oil prices nearly doubled (from $135 to $200), then gasoline prices would actually double. FYI, even if it actually doubled (which would mean $270/barrel oil), gasoline prices would not double, because the price of oil is only one part of the cost of gasoline. Other parts include refining costs, pipeline costs, tanker costs, gas station overhead, federal taxes, and state taxes (which do not double when oil prices double, because voters would not allow it, so instead, taxes would actually fall by 50% as a percentage of the gasoline price).]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/78072-renewable-energy-risk-of-market-bubble?source=feed#comment-170599 170599 The U.S. is the most drilled and most explored territory in the world, a veritable Swiss cheese of oil wells, in all 50 states including Alaska.
The U.S. had an original oil allotment second only to Saudi Arabia. However, the U.S. started using its oil 100 years ago. Remember Pennsoil corp.? Named after Pennsyvlania, which was once a fertile oilfield, but it has dried up. Remember Texas being a huge oil producer? The Texas oil wells have mostly dried up (except for small wells producing a few barrels a day). If the Earth has a creamy nougat center of oil, why isn't it replacing the oil in Texas, Pennsyvlania, and the other 48 states?
Remember that the Alaskan oil was going to save us? We have been drilling for oil in Alaska for 40 years now, but U.S. oil output is still lower than it was at its peak in 1970. Yes, 98% of Alaska is open to oil drilling, but Exxon-Mobil is greedy for that last 2%, in the Arctice National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and natural parks too. The Gulf of Mexico -- we are drilling heavily there, but U.S. oil output is still declining, and has been since 1970. You think it's coincidental that the developed world, the nations that were first to industrialize and use their oil, are the first nations to have used up their oil? Iran and Iraq do not have more oil than the U.S. because they had a larger allotment to start with -- the USA had more oil than either nation, but we have spent 100 years using up our own oil, and now we are using up the oil of every other nation besides. Most nations are already in declining production of oil, including the UK (North Sea oilfields drying up), Mexico (Cantarell is drying up -- the 2nd largest oilfield on Earth), Indonesia (an OPEC member that now imports oil), the list goes on and on and on. You'd think at least one of these nations would know about it if their oilfields suddenly, magically, started replenishing themselves! Why would nations import oil if all they had to do is wait for the oil wells to magically replenish themselves?]]> Tue, 20 May 2008 12:40:10 -0400 The U.S. is the most drilled and most explored territory in the world, a veritable Swiss cheese of oil wells, in all 50 states including Alaska.
The U.S. had an original oil allotment second only to Saudi Arabia. However, the U.S. started using its oil 100 years ago. Remember Pennsoil corp.? Named after Pennsyvlania, which was once a fertile oilfield, but it has dried up. Remember Texas being a huge oil producer? The Texas oil wells have mostly dried up (except for small wells producing a few barrels a day). If the Earth has a creamy nougat center of oil, why isn't it replacing the oil in Texas, Pennsyvlania, and the other 48 states?
Remember that the Alaskan oil was going to save us? We have been drilling for oil in Alaska for 40 years now, but U.S. oil output is still lower than it was at its peak in 1970. Yes, 98% of Alaska is open to oil drilling, but Exxon-Mobil is greedy for that last 2%, in the Arctice National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and natural parks too. The Gulf of Mexico -- we are drilling heavily there, but U.S. oil output is still declining, and has been since 1970. You think it's coincidental that the developed world, the nations that were first to industrialize and use their oil, are the first nations to have used up their oil? Iran and Iraq do not have more oil than the U.S. because they had a larger allotment to start with -- the USA had more oil than either nation, but we have spent 100 years using up our own oil, and now we are using up the oil of every other nation besides. Most nations are already in declining production of oil, including the UK (North Sea oilfields drying up), Mexico (Cantarell is drying up -- the 2nd largest oilfield on Earth), Indonesia (an OPEC member that now imports oil), the list goes on and on and on. You'd think at least one of these nations would know about it if their oilfields suddenly, magically, started replenishing themselves! Why would nations import oil if all they had to do is wait for the oil wells to magically replenish themselves?]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/77008-energy-sector-is-approaching-negative-seasonality?source=feed#comment-167430 167430
FYI, Babak, we would have had to "discover more oil" twenty years ago in order to start bringing it to market today. But that's not going to happen, because FYI, annual oil discoveries have been declinining each year for over 30 years! Of the three largest oilfields in the world, two are in steep decline (including Cantarell in Mexico), and the world's largest, Gawar in Saudi Arabia, is in its old age, after over 50 years of extraction, and is now producing more water than oil. Just to make up for the declines in production in Cantarell, the North Sea, and other mature fields, we need to discover new oilfields totalling the size of Saudi Arabia EVERY YEAR!

As for new extraction methods helping -- the U.S. uses the world's best, most technologically advanced extraction technology, but yet our oil production peaked in 1970 and has been declining ever since, despite Alaskan oil and deep sea oil brought online since then. Likewise, the British use the latest technology in their North Sea oilfields, but North Sea oil production is declining rapidly.

This analogy may help: think of an oilfield like a 16 ounce slurpee (drink). Better extraction technology is simply a "super straw" that sucks up the liquid FASTER, but it does NOT increase the amount you can drink, does NOT turn your 16 ounce slurpee into a 32 ounce slurpee! Or you could say better drilling technology is like giving an extra straw to your friend to share your slurpee drink -- two straws will sucks up the liquid twice as fast, but doesn't change your 16 ounce drink to a 32 ounce drink!

Economists are eternal optimists, however.]]> Wed, 14 May 2008 10:53:19 -0400
FYI, Babak, we would have had to "discover more oil" twenty years ago in order to start bringing it to market today. But that's not going to happen, because FYI, annual oil discoveries have been declinining each year for over 30 years! Of the three largest oilfields in the world, two are in steep decline (including Cantarell in Mexico), and the world's largest, Gawar in Saudi Arabia, is in its old age, after over 50 years of extraction, and is now producing more water than oil. Just to make up for the declines in production in Cantarell, the North Sea, and other mature fields, we need to discover new oilfields totalling the size of Saudi Arabia EVERY YEAR!

As for new extraction methods helping -- the U.S. uses the world's best, most technologically advanced extraction technology, but yet our oil production peaked in 1970 and has been declining ever since, despite Alaskan oil and deep sea oil brought online since then. Likewise, the British use the latest technology in their North Sea oilfields, but North Sea oil production is declining rapidly.

This analogy may help: think of an oilfield like a 16 ounce slurpee (drink). Better extraction technology is simply a "super straw" that sucks up the liquid FASTER, but it does NOT increase the amount you can drink, does NOT turn your 16 ounce slurpee into a 32 ounce slurpee! Or you could say better drilling technology is like giving an extra straw to your friend to share your slurpee drink -- two straws will sucks up the liquid twice as fast, but doesn't change your 16 ounce drink to a 32 ounce drink!

Economists are eternal optimists, however.]]> http://seekingalpha.com/article/76542-currency-precious-metal-and-futures-etfs-don-t-get-caught-in-the-tax-trap?source=feed#comment-164858 164858 Fri, 09 May 2008 11:26:58 -0400