How can this be? Clearly the cost of gold is out of their control; let's call it X per unit of weight, and they then need to manufacture the card itself at some cost Y. In order to make a profit they need to sell a Karabat with W units of gold for at least ((W * X) + Y + 1). If they don't, they don't make a profit.
In other words, they must charge a premium over the price of the raw gold itself. In which case, why not fucking buy the gold to begin with?!? You are paying for the fucking plastic!
Then who is? Karatbars can't be both profitable and selling this stuff for less than cost. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Right. But Karatbars is. So unless the price on the bars is sufficient to actually cover the cost of the gold, the cost of the manufacturing and the cost of the shipping, Karatbars wouldn't be making any money. Yet they are. 2 + 2 is... what?
There's a HUGE difference between a manufacturers cost per unit, and the going market rate per unit.
Maybe a simple analogy would help make it clearer for you.
If I was a big name fancy haute couture designer, whose actual costs for material, thread, beading, lace, buttons & labour etc came to a total of $40 to make a floor length evening gown, ...and the going rate for a comparable haute couture floor length evening gown was $5,000 ...don't you suppose that I could sell my evening gowns for $3995 and still be highly profitable? ...so profitable in fact that I could afford to throw in an extra button?
995.0 gold is LBMA GLD. And you need at least 350 ounces. So a 1 gram Karatbar isn't GDL anything... But don't take my word for it, check out http://www.lbma.org.uk/pages/index.cfm?page_id=27.
Actually I said GDL gold, as in Good Delivery List gold. I didn't say Good Delivery Bars.
A Good Delivery Bar is a 400 oz bar.
And if you scroll through the list you will indeed find the Atasay refinery on the Good Delivery List
http://www.lbma.org.uk/pages/index.cfm?page_id=147&title=good_delivery_listsPlus, I suggest that you don't have a fucking idea what "999.9" means; the gold in a Karatbar is somehow mixed with the plastic. This means that it cannot possibly have a millesimal fineness of 999.9 since 999.9 parts out of a thousand would have to be gold, and we've already established that a Karatbar is 98.6% plastic and 1.4% gold.
You can suggest whatever you want. it doesn't make it so.
And the gold is NOT mixed with the plastic. That's ridiculous.
I'm embarrased for you that you would even make such a ridiculous allegation.
And in actuality, the card is 100% plastic, and the gold ingot embedded in the card is gold refined to a purity of 999.9.The gold and the card are 2 separate substances. Your argument is not only a specious and intentionally misleading one, it's also ridiculous beyond words, and I'm even further embarassed for you that you would even make it. Heaven help those for whom it made any sense to. That's like saying a bottle of wine is not 100% wine because the bottle is made of glass, the label is made of paper, and the cork is etc., etc., Therefore the wine isn't 100% pure wine, it's X% glass, X% paper, and X% cork.
But they can't detect a counterfeit one? What's the point in being able to detect tampering if I can produce "untampered" fakes?
If you think you can produce a passable and untampered fake... go for it. See how far you get.
You know what they say about beliefs - they're like assholes: everybody has one and yours stinks.
Find me one person with 100 square miles of Las Vegas willing to sell me a car and will accept payment in Karatbars.
You go find
yourself someone within 100 square miles of Las Vegas who will sell you a car for karatbars. What do I look like... your own personal shopper? Are you even in the market to buy a car, ...or are you just being an asshole?
The problem is that Karatbars aren't practical as a currency: they don't satisfy the property of easy divisibility, which is of paramount importance. If I need to buy a $1.50 sprocket, you can't scrape off a $1.50 of gold from my Karatbar and all is well.
Karatbars are indeed a practical medium of exchange. Infact, they are a far more practical medium of exchange than American Eagles or Canadian Maples due to the very same argument you just made. You cannot scrape off $1.50 to exchange for a sprocket, or $50 to exchange for a bag of groceries, or a tank of gas or whatever.... It requires the liquidation of the entire oz. which is problematic (see my earlier example with John)
A $1.50 sprocket may be equivalent in value to 0.000X grams of gold. By Oct 2013 (barring no glitches) the holder of a karatbars account will have the ability to exchange a mere fraction of a gram.
No, sorry. I have no vision for silly little plastic collectibles.
That is quite evident. Now I know how Ray Kinsella must have felt. lol
That's ok. Lack of vision is not always a permanent condition. When I was a kid, I lacked vision as well. I lacked the vision for silly little paper collectibles. I shudder to think of how many mint condition bobby orr rookie cards I threw away / gave away/ skidded off school yard playgrounds. Bobby Orr, Mario LeMeiux, Paul Henderson, Half the time, I threw out the hockey cards, 'cause I only bought them in order to get the 5 cent piece of gum that was stiff like cardboard. If only I knew. OY!
Those with vision see that you are peddling a product that makes no sense, hoping to make commissions.
Ya know, when Bill Gates & Steve Jobs first presented the idea of PCs, the head of IBM didn't have the vision to see it. He stated uncategorically that there was probably only 4 people on the entire planet... maybe the President of the United States or the President of GM who could possibly have a need for a personal computer. Well history has shown how much of a visionary he was... NOT!
But let's assume I did. Let's assume I have $1,000,000 in gold in convenient Karatbars form. I haul them around in a big truck, because of all the extra plastic surrounding the gold (Hmm... maybe not so convenient after all). With my Karatbars in tow, I set out to spend some money. Where can I go to spend my hard earned plastic gold?
Why on earth would you be hauling $1,000,000 worth of anything (cash or gold) around with you in the first place? Are you homeless? Are you one of those guys who hauls his possessions around with him everywhere he goes in a supermarket shopping cart?
Tell me ONE FUCKING PLACE in my area that will accept payment with Karatbars. Not in a year. Today.
Sorry, I'm not familiar with Vegas brothels. I heard there was a Mustang Ranch that got taken over and run by the federal government, but it went broke.
I am not personally aware of a K-Exchange in Las Vegas at the moment. That doesn't mean it does not exist, ...only that I am not yet personally aware of one. Understand this has been 3 years in development, ...and all the components are coming together slowly but surely. And as beautiful as it is, ...it is still an unfinished work of art. Remember, Rome was not built in a day.
Right... a mysterious and anonymous airline... yeah.
No, I wouldn't say it's a mysterious or anonymous airline. I think
chaste is more like it.
{whispering} Feel free to read between the lines on that oneWell, at least that's something. Now, I just wonder how I can order a beer, pay with a Karatbar and get change back...
At the moment, you can exchange physical karatbars and get change back in fiat paper, ...or after Oct 2013, you can exchange physical karatbars and get change back in either fiat paper, or transferred from the establishment's Karatbars account to your karatbars account, ...or you can simply transfer an exact amount without the need for change, just like you do when using a bank debit card.
What issues? As far as I know, their bullion bars are second to none and their name is well-known and respected. Have they delivered any bars that weren't as represented?
I don't consider it my place to air the dirty linens of my competition in public.
I prefer instead to speak positively about my own brand.
So? What do I care? I'm only interested in the gold. Not their business model.
You should care about the business model. That's like asking why can't I buy my ketchup from Heinz?
Heinz is the manufacturer, they don't have retail outlets. They rely on retail outlets to sell their products.
IKEA's business model is different however. In IKEA's instance they are both manufacturer AND retailer.
That dual role is conducive to greater profitability. The profitability of a vertically integrated company is "off the chain" as they say... so much so that they can often afford to throw in a few extra buttons or a little piece of plastic at no charge. Kind of like when McDonald's give you a packet of ketchup without charging you for it. Or is it your contention that McDonald's has a bad business model because they don't charge the consumer a nickle to have a packet of ketchup with their fries?
Wait a minute... now I know why you keep insisting I find you a car dealership in Vegas, an airline, and a restaurant that accept karatbars. You're probably sick & tired of getting turned away every time you show up at the assembly line in Detroit trying to buy a car. Ahhh... I get it now.
Avxo: I wanna buy a car!
Assembly line foreman: no avxo we only make them here, we don't sell them from here.
Avxo: I don't care about your business model, I wanna f'ing car
Assembly line foreman: No avxo, you need to find a dealership in your local area
Avxo: I want a f'ing car NOW!
You're probably running out of cash too, what with all those darned flights back & forth from Vegas to Detroit,
...and you're probably hungry as well huh? Lord knows airline food not always the best.
Poor thing. Is your tummy grumbling... making scary noises?
So, a refinery has higher up front costs, but a middle man, who will buy from the refinery, massage the gold a bit and sell it to me doesn't? How does that make sense?
I am saying there is a higher upfront cost for
the buyer to purchase credit-suisse bars.
In your zeal to be argumentative, belligerent & bellicose, you are not even comprehending what you're reading.
I don't want to buy 1 gram of gold anymore than I want to buy one pea or one walnut.
That's YOU! One person out of how many billions worldwide? While there may be others who feel the same as you, there are imo a greater majority who either cannot afford to acquire their gold by the ounce or kilo, ...or who may see how clever it is to have gold in smaller, transaction friendly weights. And still more who see the ability to magnify & accelerate their gold accumulation at essentially no out-of-pocket cost as more than ideal. I certainly hope you're not suggesting that karatbars should change it's business model to cater to your individual tastes and preferences rather than to make gold ownership more accessible for the masses? Uh, ...please don't hold your breath on that one.
Perhaps. But that doesn't mean their product makes sense. I mean, shit, Microsoft is a reputable software company and Windows 8 sucks
Yet you and so many other people felt the need to upgrade the O/S from XP, Vista, & Windows 7...
It's called progress my friend. And when one finds a better, more clever, and more innovative way to achieve the end objective, keeping pace and staying ahead or new technological, or economical paradigmns, then upgrades are necessary if one wants to remain functional. Otherwise you get left behind.
Yeah... right.
Yeah... right!
Where is that jeweler who can tell that a plastic card he's never seen before contains gold?
Right about now, ...he's probably in bed.
"A few days" isn't liquid...
It's as liquid as the hold many banks place on cheques deposited either at the teller or through the ATM.
If that's not liquid enough for you, go to a local K-Exchange.
I don't need to - I know that my card will be accepted in every place I go.
That is not a precise number. I asked for a precise number.
Are you sure American Express is accepted everywhere you go? You probably may not go to that many places then? Or maybe it is a matter of you only go to where your American Express is accepted?
I used to have an American Express card. I switched to Visa & MasterCard. I found it bothersome that many places didn't accept Amex... only Visa or Mastercard.
How convenient. Just like the airline, you know it's there but can't reveal information... I'll bet you a shiny 1 oz Gold Maple that not a single gas station in the United States will accept payments in Karatbars in 2013 or 2014. Care to put your money where your mouth is?
There you go again with your damned bets. you really
DO live in Vegas don't you?
At least we agree on something
Ya, ...you stink. lol.