Grahams law… the penny dropped

Meet Mr Gresham

I was watching a video by David Birch a week ago, he introduced me to Gresham’s Law

Gresham’s Law, theorem – the economic hypothesis that bad money drives good money out of circulation; the superior currency will tend to be hoarded and the inferior will thus dominate the circulation. [named after Sir Thomas Gresham (1519-79), English financier]

It actually took me a while to figure out what this means, do you know what it means?

Basically when there is too much printed money in circulation, coins go out of circulation.
The theory holding that if two kinds of money in circulation have the same denominational value but different intrinsic values, the money with higher intrinsic value will be hoarded and eventually driven out of circulation by the money with lesser intrinsic value.

WTF? I know, i know.

I remember these from 1985, guess what its worth?

Yesterday in the paper i saw an article about how this 20p Irish coin was sold for nine thousand euros

Cash is always a bad investment

Hey, I bet you thought…?

What some people are doing

It looks like coins are too valuable to just give away, they cost too much to make for people to horde too, it looks like silver coins are the ones to go after

Cash costs a lot, to make, secure, transport, paper and coin; another reason to move to a cashless society

I was listening to Charlie Munger, Mr. Munger quotes the Scottish author and historian Thomas Carlyle once wrote

“Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.”

You need to grasp the opportunities at hand as they arise, and for the most of us, they were in our pocked not so long ago.

He goes on to say that masterplanning is a complete waste of time.  Masterplans are merely delusions of grandeur and people often think their plans are wonderful simply because they created it themselves.  It ruins their objectivity of evaluating any deal that comes along.

What you must have is the “propensity to disbelieve” by being willing to change what you originally thought.  Munger and Buffett have been masterful at carrying out that philospophy and it has paid off in spades for their shareholders.

So, is it real or fake?

Peruvian Money

Disbelieve this, in Peru they have counterfeit notes and coins

And then i read how in Ireland how they are dropping the one and two cent coins

And i was and still am looking at a huge bottle of coins next to the computer, lots of people keep coins, they are worth a lot!

I read a few years ago about an engineering company in England that made washers out of coins, as it was cheaper to do this

DIY washers

In Argentina, no one has coins, if you want to get the bus, you need to get a Taxi. They have a financial downturn around every seven years.

The scarcity has prompted everyone to overvalue coins.

Meet Alexander

Alexander the great had his own coins, with god like images

Yet the impact of such images, although perhaps muted to those who see such portraits on a daily basis, is still powerful in some cultures. One has only to think of the coinage of one of the world’s largest democracies, to see the taboo in action in the modern world. No living individual is yet portrayed on the circulating coinage of the United States, which uses instead a gallery of dead presidents where other nations acknowledge the living.

Spread the word!!

Coins were important communication tools by governments, there is usually a face on them, the Suffragetts defaced the Kings image, they did other stuff too, take a look

Halloween gold? The price of gold goes up when more when people are afraid

Warren Buffett does not invest in gold. He has invested almost $1 billion in silver, so the reason for his aversion to investing in gold is not simply a dislike for precious metals. The explanation for Buffett’s dislike of gold and for his enthusiasm about silver stems from Buffett’s basic value investing principles.

Here’s Warren Buffetts take on Gold