M19's

**bowtie427ss** · April 9th, 2011, 08:30 AM

Used to be based on gold reserves.

Gold and Silver, mostly prior to the 1930's. Tricky Dick put the final nail in that coffin. Today, it's "legal tender" which is a fancy term for pretty much worthless paper.

If you have precious metals(i wish), yesterday was a good day as the market closed with the metals at all time highs, oil at 112/bbl, and the dollar at a new low.

The light at the end of the tunnel for me is how all the walking i'm going to be doing in the future will improve my health and longevity.

**westend9** · April 9th, 2011, 09:06 AM

Originally Posted by bowtie427ss

Actually, it's ALL debt............. in the USA. We have no "standard" on which our currency is based, and 9 out of 10 Americans don't have a clue where money comes from or how it's created literally out of thin air by a few select folks in the very private sector. That's why they're able keep printing more and more, effectively driving the value of the dollar further down. The dollar is losing it's place globally, and those folks in this country who don't "get it" and are not preparing, are going to have a painfully rude awakening in the not too distant future.

One example, when the countries we buy our oil from are no longer willing to accept dollars for oil(and this is going to happen) you will see petroleum prices in the US come up to par with the rest of the world, and that's going to change a lot of American lives forever.

Story about money ignorance::I found some US Savings bonds in a drawer, Class E, I believe. I checked the maturity dates and saw they were near full maturity. I went to Wells Fargo NA., where I have multiple accounts and presented them for redemption. The bank associate told me that they would redeem them but would have to hold the deposit for up to two weeks. I mentioned that they were better than cash. She replied that they weren't and were similar to an out of region check. I asked her how the dollar was created and she said they printed them at the Federal Reserve. I then asked what the Federal Reserve has to back the value of the dollar. She was clueless. This is from someone that works in the financial industry.

Oil is a tricky business, especially from a USA-centric view. Our Gov't. supports or subsidizes exploration, investment, and production. Most folks aren't aware either that the US is on top for production. We send most of our Alaskan crude to Asia and it is exchanged for vouchers for Mideast crude. We also have Major oil companies that have agreements with other nations to explore, produce, purchase, and refine oil in those countries. In the middle of all the above, we have some monopolization and corporate manipulations going on and prices are often not realistic for the consumer. My .02.

**voice of the theater** · April 9th, 2011, 09:18 AM

Originally Posted by Altec Best

Used to be based on gold reserves.

Here in Altec Country (on the Altec User's Board) it's based on Alnico!

Originally Posted by bowtie427ss

The light at the end of the tunnel for me is how all the walking i'm going to be doing in the future will improve my health and longevity.

Time to dust off the mountain bike and buy a basket for it (for groceries, etc.). In my neck of the woods you have ("tolerable") biking weather about 9 months of the year (mid to late March through early to mid December) Mother Nature willing. I'm about a 10-15 minute bike ride to the grocery store and 15-20 minute bike ride to the local Sprawlmart depending on if I've had my Wheaties for breakfast. Come to think of it, it's kind of wasteful to drive to those places--I'm basically paying to avoid the exercise of biking there......

**AltecLansingFan** · April 9th, 2011, 10:47 AM

Originally Posted by voice of the theater

Here in Altec Country (on the Altec User's Board) it's based on Alnico!

Time to dust off the mountain bike and buy a basket for it (for groceries, etc.).......

Maybe this is the way to go again in the future http://bit.ly/dTj5QK :2thumbsup:

**voice of the theater** · April 9th, 2011, 10:55 AM

Originally Posted by AltecLansingFan

Maybe this is the way to go again in the future http://bit.ly/dTj5QK :2thumbsup:

Yeah, but then the horse gets all the exercise--maybe something more like this.....
http://www.mycamerashots.com/index.php?showimage=72
I could "retire" the stationary bike and treadmill that I use (Fred Flintstone would be jealous of this vehicle)....

**AltecLansingFan** · April 9th, 2011, 11:33 AM

Originally Posted by voice of the theater

Yeah, but then the horse gets all the exercise--maybe something more like this.....
http://www.mycamerashots.com/index.php?showimage=72
I could "retire" the stationary bike and treadmill that I use (Fred Flintstone would be jealous of this vehicle)....

For old people who aren't so mobile on a bike anymore, we devoleped this new bus in the Netherlands. (max. speed 250 km/hour) http://bit.ly/gj1UgB

**Old Guy** · April 9th, 2011, 01:04 PM

Originally Posted by bowtie427ss

One example, when the countries we buy our oil from are no longer willing to accept dollars for oil(and this is going to happen) you will see petroleum prices in the US come up to par with the rest of the world, and that's going to change a lot of American lives forever.

Politics. The very word has a bad taste. In a nutshell, the big subsidies to oil companies keep oil and gas artificially low in the US.
How this got started was the politicians keeping people happy. Bosses were happy, employees could drive to work. Employees were happy they could keep their cars running. Worked OK till the rest of the world wanted oil too.

We need to end the oil subsidies, and drop taxes. The reason we subsidize ethanol is so it can compete with subsidized petroleum. Duh!

Make energy cost what it costs. We would still have all of America's train systems, and we would have had public transportation as good as Europe's 30 years ago.

Why won't it happen? Politicians want to keep the tax money. Big Oil doesn't wanna give up it's breaks.

We really pay a high price for gas. It's just hidden in our taxes. But as long as Petroleum is subsidized we'll use it. Right to our economic grave.

**voice of the theater** · April 9th, 2011, 01:45 PM

Originally Posted by Old Guy

Politics. The very word has a bad taste. In a nutshell, the big subsidies to oil companies keep oil and gas artificially low in the US.
How this got started was the politicians keeping people happy. Bosses were happy, employees could drive to work. Employees were happy they could keep their cars running. Worked OK till the rest of the world wanted oil too.

We need to end the oil subsidies, and drop taxes. The reason we subsidize ethanol is so it can compete with subsidized petroleum. Duh!

Make energy cost what it costs. We would still have all of America's train systems, and we would have had public transportation as good as Europe's 30 years ago.

Why won't it happen? Politicians want to keep the tax money. Big Oil doesn't wanna give up it's breaks.

We really pay a high price for gas. It's just hidden in our taxes. But as long as Petroleum is subsidized we'll use it. Right to our economic grave.

I agree--the fact that subsidized oil keeps gas prices low at the pump keeps the masses from really caring about getting "off of oil". If some of that money was spent on alternative energy research and development instead/or if it starts being spent on this type of R&D and the rest of that money (currently used to subsidize petroleum) could be "converted" into lower taxes for people instead, we could have much more efficient solar cells for example (smaller, lighter cells that produce more electricity with less light than the relatively big "clunky" ones we have now) and better batteries to store the electricity generated by the solar power (smaller, lighter, batteries with a much higher storage capacity). Every car could have a solar panel instead of a sunroof/moonroof, and we'd be leaders in the automotive (and alternative energy) industry (and Henry Ford could finally stop rolling over in his grave)......

**westend9** · April 10th, 2011, 05:16 PM

So, next year, the price of a pair of Mpdel 19's, when new, would be equivalent to 375 gals. of 87 octane. In 1971, that would have been 5000 gals. of 90 octane.

Henry Ford, when he built the Model B engine (not the car) was quoted as saying that the engine deployed in a tractor could plant, cultivate and harvest 100 acres of potatoes and be run on the alcohol from one acre.

The 1975 Honda Civic averaged about 45 mi./gal..

The Sun delivered energy to the Earth is F * (pi * Earth's radius)2 = 1.8 x 10^17 Joules/s, about 1/10,000th of what we use from all energy produced daily.