Charlie Rose

fuddled  12/12/2010 03:09 AM Report

Rose suggested that Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner saved the world from financial disaster and all these rather intelligent and knowledgeable people agreed. Yet these four men did not indict Paulson, Bernanke and Geithner as irresponsible managers of a corrupt system that allowed such a disaster to occur.

Aren-Haich  12/09/2010 10:16 AM Report

The experts interviewed on this show missed a very important reason for why the price of gold is high and is likely to remain high.

It would have been useful if the viewers were informed of the following:

--- World’s central banks are the main holders of gold, with Western countries leading the field.

Gold holdings comprise over 50 percent of Western countries’ central banks reserves on the average.

--- The newly rich countries and the developing ones have traditionally had little of their central banks’ reserves in gold; and now with dollar plentiful they show great appetite for scarce metal.

--- In BRIC-countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) governments’ central banks share of gold in their reserves is on the average about 5 percent - In China the figure is under 2 percent. BRIC-countries’ gold production is now used to augment central banks reserves holdings rather than letting it end up on the international gold market.

--- The global share of gold in the central banks is about 10 percent. If China were to notch up its gold holdings to that level it would have to buy some 8000 tons of gold from the international markets.

Recently India purchased 200 tons of gold from the IMF to boost its reserves.

--- Western central banks which previously sold gold on the market, are now reluctant to do so because the gold price keeps rising and they do not want to be on the losing end.

bonacker  12/08/2010 07:11 PM Report

I'm grateful for the ability to see these shows online especially since KQED the PBS channel in San Francisco inexplicably and without explanation repeated Charlie's Friday show in its entirety in the time slot (midnight Monday) when this one should have aired.

Not the first time this technically inept channel has done something similar. Sadly, they never suffer any glitches when preempting, at pledge time, Frontline or Nova or Charlie with the 1000th repeat of Dr. Wayne Dyer explaining how we can change Dr. Wayne Dyer's life by buying Dr. Wayne Dyer's books.

P.S. At least the repeat glitch reprised the Nora Ephron interview. She's the best: Funny, smart, sexy. Sexier at 70 than most of the bimbo 20 something actresses. Sorry for going off-topic.

DeeKay  12/08/2010 12:12 PM Report

Someone below writes, " Properly understood, money is an IOU, a promissory note, the result of borrowing, and its value depends on the probability of its being paid back. Money and credit are synonymous."

Is this what they are teaching in public schools nowadays!! Money has been debt since 1971.

ReMant's statements are so wrong and the reasoning so full of non sequiturs (like this one: Government fiat has nothing to do with it, especially since there's no question of convertibility to gold or silver, or enforcing its use for all debts public and private. Thus money's value depends on productivity and the only way to ensure that money or credit does not unwarrantedly multiply, is to require loans to be drawn from savings directly, which is termed a 100% fractional bank reserve." that one doesn't know where to begin to correct the errors.

I have to think that this is satire...

JohnGelles  12/08/2010 04:49 AM Report

Sorry for the bubu: "REMant said that gold and money are not the same."

================

On the topic of comments before transcript is ready: Really Charlie, you're on TV not in a newspaper or magazine. LET US COMMENT AHEAD OF READING WHAT WE WATCHED !!!

For instance, tonight, Dec 7, 2010, was the best show anyone could ask for:

1. On the tax cut compromise, the segment was fair and balanced. I am as tough a critic of the President as anyone alive. But he did OK on the tax cut. The estate tax is bummer. The conservatives are not WRONG ON EVERYTHING:

..... If we want private sector investment to have a real punch why not protect the investors from taxes IF THEY DO INVEST?

2. CR and the pretty novelist (once an intern on the show) had a real conversation on writing. Very enlightening.

3. CR and the movie maker whose "The Tourist" is just opening, were really great on a must see movie.

I agree the transcript will allow comment based on text -- a good thing. But comment on the show as seen is also wanted.

JohnGelles  12/08/2010 04:32 AM Report

After the transcript was ready and comments opened up REMant said the gold and money are not the same.

In the show, the better comment was made: "If a Russian thought gold was not money and better than Bernanke's electrons he'd be shot." Or words to that effect.

So, REMant. Gold is money.

But it's not the best money to issue if you want to be the leader of the world. Leadership requires maximizing standards of living and human rights. It also requires huge arms budgets. Bernanke's electrons are just the right kind of money for these requirements.

JohnGelles  12/08/2010 04:26 AM Report

On gold and money I said yesterday:

Last night the gold price discussion yielded the thought that Bernanke and the Fed were no longer into interest rates and reserve requirements as much as they were PLANNING for the full scope of the national interest: employment, production, national and homeland defense, the future of the liberty and the planet, etc.

This represented a huge risk that in softening our currency, QE 2 and 3 would force the central bankers in Europe and Asia, especially Russia, to buy gold and sell dollars.

Maybe so. But the American median standard of living and military power could not be sustained by intellectual property rights and financial services. We were destined to reset our manufacturing and production priorities to the top of the list or descend to the level of a banana republic.

Bernanke has it right--but is waiting for congressional and executive action to turn his greenbacks into spending.

I hope Charlie Rose stays with the economic picture night after night until the media wake up: gold may be priced at 2000, 3000, or more. It is of zero consequence. We will plan and budget for domestic military production, full employment, and domestic manufacture and production of 80% of all consumption (except where natural resources of exotic imports is necessary--and some secure imported supplies for national defense must be included in our plans).

I hope to continue some of this thread on December 6 comments when the page is ready.

LaveCross  12/08/2010 02:43 AM Report

Well Charlie you have caught on to the gold CRAZE! You know what that means? It must be over! Thank you for your help !!

SharkswithfrikingLazers  12/07/2010 04:56 PM Report

Mr. Grant is ever the intellectual but he did have his issues with Louis Rukeyser.

Nonetheless, the issue of H-Y-P-E was not discussed and all one has to do is turn over to Fox News to hear and see gold sold all day and all night long.

"The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report" have their crack team on it. What about these three guys? Did they even mention the hype?

Check it out these three minutes:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-december-10-2009/beck---not-so-mellow-gold

Then there is this: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/258566/december-15-2009/prescott-financial---g old--women---sheep

Ricardo_Amaral  12/07/2010 04:28 PM Report

North Korea also has its “QE” of U.S. Currency

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL33324.pdf

Which helps Ben Bernanke and the Fed to put even more US currency around the world.

.

anne4444  12/07/2010 02:18 PM Report

Ben Bernanke shall print 1 trillion dollar, since we are short with 1 trillion dollar in circulation. The deal is...Please bring back this one trillion dollar into the circulation and Ben Bernanke will stop print money.

anne4444  12/07/2010 02:06 PM Report

Gold doesn’t have much real value. It is only perception of mankind. Money was created to the benefit of human, the same as internet, car, computer, lights and etc. If anyone whose wealth was generated by selling the products/services to the societies without acknowledging the fact of reality that the others made him/her rich, is a shame. By putting money into the Gold, will not create anything. It brings us back to the last century.

Please put your money back into society where you made your fortune. Since you do have the brain in making and handling the money, you shall deserve the benefit of tax relief in order to do more goodness for all.

Wondering… where is the governmental tax for the GOLD transaction? It shall be taxed at min.100%..

REMant  12/07/2010 11:08 AM Report

Mr Grant, his reputation notwithstanding, seems a typical "goldbug," opposing gold, a thing, to "fiat" money. Ron Paul and some of the "Austrians" have talked this way. But gold is, and always was, a commodity, not money. Often a fairly universally, highly-valued commodity, but a commodity. Its value has always depended on the amount of it, not the figure that was stamped on a piece of it, and what it could be traded for in other commodities, products or services. Properly understood, money is an IOU, a promissory note, the result of borrowing, and its value depends on the probability of its being paid back. Money and credit are synonymous. It is inconceivable that anything like modern commerce could have arisen without it. Government fiat has nothing to do with it, especially since there's no question of convertibility to gold or silver, or enforcing its use for all debts public and private. Thus money's value depends on productivity and the only way to ensure that money or credit does not unwarrantedly multiply, is to require loans to be drawn from savings directly, which is termed a 100% fractional bank reserve.

The other guests seemed just plain stupid. Charlie apparently did not learn a thing from the meteoric rise and crash of oil a few years ago.

Anyone holding dollars will have to decide about the probability of the value of American credit: whether to support the public credit or to cut their losses. Many continue to buy dollars not because of our productivity, but because we are at the top of the food chain at the moment. That is as short-sighted as buying gold, however. You can't eat gold, so saying that you are in favor of having the price of gold go up, is nonsensical and self-destructive. That was what the fable of King Midas was about. In fact, it was just this attitude which brought about the institution they deplore.

Just like people buying both gold and dollars to protect themselves, the stock mkt and gold have both gone up at the same time, because they are also "hedges" against the expansion of credit, i.e., inflation. No one expects dividends anywhere near what they expect from a rise in the stock price as a result of inflation.