At 08:02 AM 3/30/2008, you wrote:
>It is a bit hard for me to understand why people accept U.S. virtual
>dollars especially given the fact that the U.S. government has been
>printing dollars like crazy.  There is absolutely no reason to expect
>the value of the dollar to hold up against other virtual currencies.
>I expect to see the price of gold go to $2000 per ounce in 2 more years.
>
>cc

Before 1971 the US dollar was convertible to gold at a fixed rate under
the Bretton-Woods system. Due to the excess printing of money during an
expensive, long and losing war (V**tn*m, not Ira*) the creditors (especially
France) were demanding  gold in return for US dollars at the promised rate.

Nixon unilaterally reneged on that promise.

There was no realistic alternative to the US dollar internationally at that
time. One could almost argue that the US went bankrupt in '71 but the rest
of the Western world decided to pretend it didn't to keep the game going.

Best regards,

Spehro Pefhany --"it's the network..."            "The Journey is the reward"
speff@interlog.com             Info for manufacturers: http://www.trexon.com
Embedded software/hardware/analog  Info for designers:  http://www.speff.com



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