Reply to: Irish debt cut to 'junk' status

[Doggy Styles]

I'm not familiar with Rickenbacker wine ... is it ready for drinking now? What does it go well with? I consider myself quite a wine buff so I'm surprised I've not heard of this producer before.

I wouldn't fret about it.

[Platypus]

Expensive guitars and wine

My Rickenbacker is worth more than I bought it for....second hand.

I'm not familiar with Rickenbacker wine ... is it ready for drinking now? What does it go well with? I consider myself quite a wine buff so I'm surprised I've not heard of this producer before.

Guitars on the other hand, I know nothing about.

[PAH]

There's some obscure species of bacterium that hoards gold atoms, for reasons unknown.

If they haven't named it yet, I'd suggest Bacillus Dimprawnius.

I hear it works by trapping the gold in a crusty sock.


Shame pure gold isn't magnetic or the solution could be easy.

[OwlHoot]

It must be stressful for those holding gold. Do they cash in now/soon or hold out for more likely increases?

Only takes one event to crash the party.

Is there such a thing as a gold metal detector that doesn't detect anything else?

If there is, strap it to the back of your robot vacuum and tell it to vacuum the nearest field for roman coins, or ocean floor for sunken treasure if it has the snorkle attachment.

If there isn't, why not?

Edit: Apparently Sea water contains about 0.1-2 mg/tonne of gold dissolved in water (average 1 mg/tonne). Just need a suitable filter and you're rich rodders!

There's some obscure species of bacterium that hoards gold atoms, for reasons unknown.

If they haven't named it yet, I'd suggest Bacillus Dimprawnius.

[TimberWolf]

Edit: Apparently Sea water contains about 0.1-2 mg/tonne of gold dissolved in water (average 1 mg/tonne). Just need a suitable filter and you're rich rodders!

I read our solar system consists of 0.13 parts gold per billion atoms, though sources for this were thin on the ground, to the tune of 1 and was not able to confirm it. Well the thing is, the Sun will contain about that proportion, I guess, perhaps a little less as it kept more lighter elements, as would the outer planets. But the inner ones, such as the Earth, which lost more abundant lighter elements, such as hydrogen and helium, because they were too hot to hold on to them with such small gravitational fields. So we ended up rocky. But the point is, if you work out even what 0.13 part per billion is multiplied by the atoms in Earth, there's an awful lot of gold down there!

I don't quite understand how our solar system came to have so much hydrogen (>99%) though, given that's our sun is supposed to be a 2nd or third generation star.

[PAH]

It must be stressful for those holding gold. Do they cash in now/soon or hold out for more likely increases?

Only takes one event to crash the party.

Is there such a thing as a gold metal detector that doesn't detect anything else?

If there is, strap it to the back of your robot vacuum and tell it to vacuum the nearest field for roman coins, or ocean floor for sunken treasure if it has the snorkle attachment.

If there isn't, why not?

Edit: Apparently Sea water contains about 0.1-2 mg/tonne of gold dissolved in water (average 1 mg/tonne). Just need a suitable filter and you're rich rodders!

[TimberWolf]

Gold has just set another new record in GBP - the record it set at 9 am this morning. Gold's been rising against GBP about 30% a year, but the current rate of climb is silly, up £500/kg since yesterday alone.

[BlasterBates]

It's very tempting. Shame most things useful in everyday life depreciate. Why can't they invent stuff that is useful but appreciates?

Hmmm. I think that guy on Dragon's Den the other year doing gold plated anything may be onto something. Gold plated cutlery, plates, remote controls. Use them every day and they still go up in value!

Just need to find a cheap outlet for gold plate.

Expensive guitars and wine

My Rickenbacker is worth more than I bought it for....second hand.

[PAH]

spend it. new car. house , holidays.

It's very tempting. Shame most things useful in everyday life depreciate. Why can't they invent stuff that is useful but appreciates?

Hmmm. I think that guy on Dragon's Den the other year doing gold plated anything may be onto something. Gold plated cutlery, plates, remote controls. Use them every day and they still go up in value!

Just need to find a cheap outlet for gold plate.

[BlasterBates]

The debts in Europe are nothing compared to the huge debt in the US.

When the US goes bust it's game over, welcome to a new paradigm.

[EternalOptimist]

Everything feels like a gamble at the moment.

spend it. new car. house , holidays.

[PAH]

Are the UK banks safe? Will the goverment bail them out again? Is our warchest safe in sterling in a bank protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme?

I keep reading about gold prices continuing the upward trend and how it may be safer to have significant investments in physical gold rather than stirling, but if gold is already in a bubble there must be events no-one can predict that could burst that bubble.

Everything feels like a gamble at the moment.

[BlasterBates]

There was a programme on German telly about whether the rating agency's ratings were justified, and what the outlook for the Euro was; I was fully expecting them to harangue the agencies and to be told that the debt problem wasn't actually that bad.

Well the criticism was the ratings agencies have been way too lenient, because all these countries have been raising debt and spending it on domestic consumption, they haven't invested and export sod all. The only healthy country is Germany because of it's exports, even France has been consuming, so it's the next domino after Italy. However when it all implodes Germany will be brought down with it, because they'll have lend all these countries

Basically Euroland has been doing exactly what the Soviet block did in the 70's just raising debt to artificially raise living standards.

[Churchill]

The downgrade came at the end of a day on which EU internal markets commissioner, Michel Barnier, said he would propose “stiff measures” in November to curb the power of the agencies. “We were surprised that the agencies would downgrade a country without any warning,” he said, referring to a similar downgrade of Portugal last week.

This has to happen, and soon.

[Mich the Tester]

No it just mean's we're all tulip'ed - and don't bother lending a penny to any of us

Seriously, ratings are not intended as a league table (although they are often presented as such), but reflect the odds on a bond defaulting within a certain time. e.g. AAA bonds have a .01% chance of default in one year, or something like that.

So if half of Eurozone is Junk, it means half of Eurozone is close to bankrupt

Yep, but banks and investors can´t make much money if they don´t lend.

Anyway, I also heard on t´news that Italy has a debt totalling an apparently panicworthy 119% of GDP. Shocking! Or not, as the case may be, seeing as most people seem to feel that a mortgage adding up to 400% of family income is basically OK.