Gold Standard University III

Gold Standard University Schedule for Session III

Hilton Garden Inn, DFW Airport South, Dallas, Texas February 11-16, 2008

Adam Smith’s Real Bill Doctrine and Its Relevance Today

Monday, February 11

10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Open the Mint to Gold and Silver! 2:20 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Don’t Fix the Price of Gold!
4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. Credit Unions

Tuesday, February 12

10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. The Two Sources of Credit 2:20 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. Second greatest Story Ever Told 4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. The Invention of Discounting

Wednesday, February 13

10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. Mystery of the Discount Rate 2:20 p.m – 4:00 p.m. . Bills of the Goldsmith
4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. The Big Threat of Small Bank Notes

Banquet:
Thursday, February 14
10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. The Revolt of Quality
2:20 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. The Acceptance House
4:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. Borrowing Short to Lend Long

Friday, February 15

10:00 a.m. – 11:30 p.m. The Unadulterated Gold Standard

Saturday, February 16

7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. Closing Event: Banquet at the Hotel

Friday, February 15

3:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.

Economics of Gold Mining Conference:

Saturday, February 16

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon
7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. Banquet

Gold Profits In Troubled Times Conference:

Saturday, February 16

3:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
7:30 p.m. – 9:30 p.m. Banquet

Sunday, February 17

10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon

Announcement
Gold Standard University Live

Session Three of Gold Standard University Live will take place in Irving/Dallas, Texas, U.S., from February 11-17, 2008. It will have three parts:

  1. A course on Adam Smith’s Real Bill Doctrine and its Relevance Today, consisting of 13 lectures, from February 11-15;
  2. A lecture followed by a debate on The Economics of Gold Mining, with industry participation; date: February 15-16;
  3. A panel discussion entitled Gold Profits in Troubled Times, date: February 16-17.

More details on these programs can be found in a separate document below.

The tuition fee (1), including the participation fee for the week-end debates (2) and (3), and the cost of reading materials, beverages during the sessions, lunch between February 11-14 and the cost of the banquet on Saturday, February 16 is $2500. An early-bird special is offered at $2000 for those who fully pay it before December 31, 2007. A non- refundable pre-registration fee of $250 applies which will be credited towards the tuition fee at the time of registration. Payment of the pre-registration fee now will guarantee your place, should request for registration exceed the number of available places.

A discount is available to family members (spouse or children regardless of age), as well as to groups of three or more.

Please note that it is possible to register for the week-end programs (2) and (3) separately from GSUL Session Three. The participation fee is $500, including the cost of the banquet on Saturday, February 16, but not including hotel and other meals, with a non-refundable pre-registration fee of $100, which will be credited towards the participation fee at the time of registration. Again, the payment of the pre-registration fee now will guarantee your place.

The programs are scheduled to take place in the Hilton Garden Inn DFW Airport South in Irving (Dallas), 2001 Valley View Lane, Irving, Texas, USA 75061, Tel: +1-972-313-2800 Fax: +1-972-313-2885 one mile from DFW International Airport on Airport Freeway (HWY 183). The hotel offers the following transportation free of charge to registered guests:.

DFW Airport Transportation
Shuttle Service to any location within a 5 mile radius of the Hotel

At this hotel a reduced hotel rate is available for all participants (1,2,3) at $99 per night per room (sharing is possible) in executive style rooms with high-speed internet access, breakfast included. Participants make their own arrangements with the hotel. If you want to take advantage of this offer, please please tell the receptionist that you belong to the group of Gold Standard University Live.

To book rooms online:

go to: http://www.dfwairportsouth.gardeninn.com/

Then enter dates of stay, click “go”.

Enter room type/preferences, then below under “Special Accounts” go to Group/Convention code and enter GSU, then click continue.

Participation is limited; first come first served

Payment can be made on PayPal online money transaction service which can be used even by persons not being member. Let us know your intention to pay at GSUL@t-online.hu with the name and address you want to have an invoice on the payment and we shall send you an e-mail invoice. Then you can charge your PayPal payment to a credit card or a bank account. Instructions about the usage of this system will be given at the time of the invoicing.

EXTRA SPECIAL!!!

Some scholarships are available for participants of the Gold Standard University Session Three course THE REAL BILLS DOCTRINE OF ADAM SMITH in the value of $500, $1,000 and $1,500 that can be used towards paying tuition fees. Interested people are invited to submit a 2-page essay on the subject of what they expect to get out of this course. Please send your entry to: GSUL@t-online.hu.

Deadline: January 31, 2008. Successsful applicants will be notified within days.

For the benefit of European friends of Gold Standard University Live, Session Three will be repeated at 10-17 March, 2008, at Martineum Academy in Szombathely, Hungary, where the first two sessions of GSUL were held, provided that a sufficient number of people register. The tuition fee will be €1000 including room and board; a pre-registration fee of €200 applies which will be credited towards the tuition fee at the time of registration. The payment of the pre-registration fee now will guarantee your place, should request for registration exceed the number of places available. In case the course is canceled for insufficient registration, the pre-registration fee will be refunded in full.

For further information please inquire at GSUL@t-online.hu.

The Program In More Detail ECONOMICS OF GOLD MINING

At this seminar we shall evaluate the disastrous and failed hedging strategy introduced and promoted by Barrick Gold Corp. Although President Wilkins is now saying that Barrick’s hedge plan will not be revived, his company is still hemorrhaging at the rate of almost $10 million per $1 increase in the gold price.

Gold Standard University (GSU) has been an outspoken critic of Barrick’s hedging strategy from start. We are on record to have predicted that the strategy would end in a fiasco. GSU provides the only organized research effort on the science of hedging. Its approach is open-minded. We believe that there are lessons to be learned from the Barrick saga, arguably the worst mining disaster in the history of gold mining.

We don’t say that all hedging is bad per se. Barrick’s plan was bad because it was unilateral: it used forward selling to the exclusion of forward buying. The trouble with unilateral hedging involving forward sales of gold at an upwards spike of the gold price, is that it alienates bullish gold speculators, driving them to the short side of the market.

But there is a bilateral hedging strategy that also includes forward purchases of gold at a downwards spike in the gold price ? a bull-friendly strategy.

GOLD PROFITS IN TROUBLED TIMES

As the bull market in gold reaches maturity, and the volatility of the gold price increases, it will be ever harder to initiate new positions. The question arises whether there is a winning strategy that is not too late to get started. The answer is YES, provided the investor has the discipline to carry his or her balance sheet and profit-loss statement in gold units, rather than fiat dollar units. The strategy is called BILATERAL ARBITRAGE, meaning that profits after every run-up in the gold price are not taken in terms of fiat dollars, but in terms of silver, and vice-versa. The strategy uses paraphernalia such as gold and silver basis, lease rates, NAV of ETF, in addition to the bimetallic ratio. They can be used as clues in bimetallic arbitrage. Invited experts include Tom Szabo of www.silveraxis.com, Bill Koures the founder of Intermountain Institute of Science and Applied Mathematics in Missoula, Montana.

ADAM SMITH’S REAL BILLS DOCTRINE AND ITS RELEVANCE TODAY

The Real Bills Doctrine asserts that bills drawn on retailers of merchandise moving sufficiently fast to the ultimate cash-paying consumer can circulate as purchasing medium before maturity in 91 days or less. As the recent sub-prime crisis so vividly shows, mortgages will never circulate as purchasing medium, no matter how cleverly they are packaged and repackaged by the banks. As an old adage says, there is no easier profession than that of a banker provided that he can tell a real bill and a mortgage apart.

There are two types of credit according as the source is savings or clearing. The scarcity of savings is measured by the rate of interest, while the scarcity of credit created through the clearing process is measured by the discount rate. Not only are the sources of credit different; so are the forces governing the rate of interest and the discount rate. The rate of interest varies inversely with the propensity to save; the discount rate with the propensity to consume.

The timeliness of the Real Bills Doctrine is due to the disintegration of the international monetary system based on the fiat dollar, playing out before our eyes. There is a school advocating the so-called 100 percent gold standard where only gold coins serve as money, to the exclusion of real bills. According to Adam Smith such a system would be too rigid and would not survive. Real bills are not inflationary, as new money emerges together with new merchandise and is extinguished when merchandise is removed from the market by the consumer.

Professor Lawrence H. White of the University of Missouri in St.Louis has been invited to represent the view critical of the Real Bills Doctrine.

You can watch the recordings of this seminar for free on YouTube or listen to it as a podcast