Gold, oil, and music
Posted by unbrand on 4 January 2008 | 2 Comments
Yesterday, the spot price of gold hit an all-time high on the New York market. Generally, gold (and other precious metals) go up in value when the fiat currencies (US dollar, Kiwi dollar, British pound, Euro, hell, pretty much all currencies I believe) go down. Makes sense that if you lose faith in fake stuff, you want to believe in real, tangible things. So why the big rush towards metals?
Also yesterday, the price of a barrel of oil broke $100 USD for the first time.
Gold and oil set all-time highs on the same day? How does this compare to the USD? Here in New Zealand, One US Dollar will get you 1.29 New Zealand dollars. Three years ago, that same US Dollar would have gotten you 1.7 New Zealand dollars.
On another currency front the European Central Bank recently pumped 350 billion Euro into the market to "head off a liquidity crisis". Someone at ECB just pushed a button and injected a buttload of money that came from...where again, exactly? Out of thin air. As you do with fiat currency.
Are these events related? Probably, at least to some degree. The decline of the US dollar is happening for a number of reasons: the US sub-prime mortgage market collapse (now extending to prime mortgages), the insanely stupid controlling of other countries' natural resources, the global lack of respect for the idiot-in-chief, the insurmountable trade deficit, and the pain that is named Paris Hilton. So the US dollar losing ground will drive up the cost of gold and oil when they're priced in US dollars, for sure.
But the real scam is that there's heaps of money yet to be fleeced from people straight into the pockets of the big multi-nationals. This is why they've sat on clean energy sources for decades. Yes, peak oil is happening, but the effects are being controlled to maximize profit.
So how does music fit into all of this? It fits in for me because it's something to focus on that's a postive antidote to all of the above. There's no button I can press to make the oil companies act responsibly. They'd probably argue that they are acting responsibly in that shareholder value is their number one concern. Thus anything they do to maximize it is justified. But back to music. Listening to music and creating music is one way for me to not so much counter, but maybe "deal with" the global economic bilge.
I was looking for a good quote with the word "antidote" in it. Here's the best one I could find:
At my lemonade stand I used to give the first glass away free and charge five dollars for the second glass. The refill contained the antidote. -- Emo Philips