Re: (OPE-L) Re: recent references on 'problem' of money commodity?

From: Francisco Paulo Cipolla (cipolla@UFPR.BR)
Date: Tue Nov 30 2004 - 12:25:06 EST 

Hi Jerry,
all you say shows quite clearly that the circulation functions of gold
have been substituted by other instruments.
Paulo

Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM wrote:

> Yes, Paul B, the message you sent on Sunday replyingto Rakesh was
> posted at that time. Some time ago (on November 19) you wrote: >>>>As
> a matter of fact Fred, I know of no one who would not be prepared to
> accept a certain quantity of gold for any of their property , ( should
> they wish to sell it, even if they later had to exchange it for paper
> for  other reasons), that is to say that this commodity remains the
> money commodity, par excellence..  <<<  Interesting, since I know of
> no one  (save, possibly, Claus, Akira, oryourself) who would be
> prepared to accept a certain quantity of gold inexchange for their
> property.  I know that if I wanted to sell propertylike a house (which
> I don't own) or a boat (which I do) I wouldn'taccept gold as payment.
> To begin with, I would have no confidence thatit was real or that it
> was 'pure'.  I certainly wouldn't want to paythe extra expense and put
> up with a delay to hire an appraiser.Also, I would feel very
> uncomfortable accepting gold from a securityperspective (I'd much
> rather receive a bank check).  And then I'd have thehassle and delay
> of selling the gold.  And -- given the frequent fluctuationsin the
> price of gold (yes, gold _does_ have a price) -- I would
> feeluncomfortable holding on to the gold since I am not interested in
> goldspeculation. And -- more to the point -- I know of no one in
> mycommunity who would accept gold as payment for property of
> anysignificant worth.  If someone went to my landlord's office and
> proposedto pay for real estate in gold, s/he would get laughed out of
> the office. In solidarity, Jerry PS: thanks about the reference to
> "course."  I guess it's anotherinstance of how language has changed
> since Marx's time.  Martha,Fred, and you have each in your own ways
> helped to solvethe "mystery."

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