Not sure if I can pick the thrust of this thread, but...
There is a great deal of very convincing evidence that the financial system is very much a stacked pack of cards, or a most wonderful ponzi scheme to put in legal parlance.
The fiat experiments track the scheme, and the track is, on a rolling average of 2-5 years, down. Fiat currencies trend down against true physical assets...
The bankers, who have a bit to do with the schemes as rumour and good investigations are provong, have been shown to be (remarkably? surprisingly!) acting in a self interested fashion, and their characteristics now resemble none of the fairy tale stories which I was told when I was young...but of course it took a long time for me to realise that the stories were really to be found in the fiction department, than the fact department in the book stores. I was indeed confused, if not lost.
The bankers new clothes (remember the story about the emperors new clothes? and I apolgise to Admati etal in their great publication) have been shown to be remarkably opaque, but now getting pealed back, to reveal a most worrying set of behaviours. Manipulations galore, and in fact one could be excused for thinking they would manipulate anything that there is a buck in it for them? Gold?! Perhaps I am tooooo cruel.
Piketty has come up with some interesting FACTs, which suggest the prevaling stories offered by Bankers and their off balance sheet empoyees, maybe a little astray.
I amjumping around a bit, but if anyone believes we are in a stable financial system, that is fair and equitable, and that the value of the Fiats will go up against gold, are as deluded as the Emperor.
The short term trades are fine and things go up and down, but the long term trend is hard to argue against.
Interesting to think of what the true value of a glass of water will be in 10 years time?
