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It cannot cannot be created out of thin air and manipulated by governments, therin lies the value.
And what non-reactive periodic table element doesn't that apply to? Gold is hardly the rarest element on the periodic table, nor is it the strongest or any -est you can think of.
Any economic system's only importance is maximizing the ease and equitable distribution of wealth and goods. That's it. Gold does not achieve that goal any better or worse than paper.
Leaving aside this talk of the intrinsic value of gold, may I ask why exactly you were taking a photo of that sign?
That gas station takes gold as payment for food & gas. I took a picture of it for all the wacko's who say gold is not money, you can't eat gold & gold has no value. Gold has been money since before the oldest text or written word we have discovered. Only over the past 40 years has the USG deceived most fools that gold is not money. Since then the US Dollar has been effectively backed by oil because it was the exclusive Petro-Dollar & World Reserve Currency. Now that is unraveling.
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
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It's the prettiest element besides crystallized carbon and will always be in demand for jewelry that won't tarnish, but that intrinsic value depends on the culture valuing it, it's not necessarily a high value. It might not be the best holder of wealth in a total flat-out apocalypse with starving hordes ...... you'd probably have to give quite a lot of it to buy a can of peaches.
One of the big problems with it, is that individuals and nations sell off gold to raise money during hard times ....... that can sometimes lead to the paradox of gold becoming a glut on the market and least valuable in a very poor economy, depending on how many need to sell.
There's a place for it in temporary economic upheavals, but you have to pay a premium both when buying and when selling it, so it would take a helluva big problem for it to pay off.
There's a place for it in temporary economic upheavals, but you have to pay a premium both when buying and when selling it, so it would take a helluva big problem for it to pay off.
Your credit & debit card charge a 3% transaction fee. Gold's transaction premium is less than 2%.
Location: where you sip the tea of the breasts of the spinsters of Utica
8,297 posts, read 14,169,902 times
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Dealers wouldn't be making much money if they were only getting 2%. I remember it used to be 10% coming and 10%going, though I suppose the system might have become more efficient nowadays allowing for lower margins with big dealers.
Remember the price of gold, in the late Wiemar Republic?
Guess what gold goes for in Zimbabwe?
Heck it did not take long for Gold in Japanese to soar from 20 Yen to it's current 138,559.95 Yen. This happened recently while Japan is a first world country & was the worlds second largest economy until China recently passed them up.
It's the prettiest element besides crystallized carbon and will always be in demand for jewelry that won't tarnish, but that intrinsic value depends on the culture valuing it, it's not necessarily a high value. It might not be the best holder of wealth in a total flat-out apocalypse with starving hordes ...... you'd probably have to give quite a lot of it to buy a can of peaches.
One of the big problems with it, is that individuals and nations sell off gold to raise money during hard times ....... that can sometimes lead to the paradox of gold becoming a glut on the market and least valuable in a very poor economy, depending on how many need to sell.
There's a place for it in temporary economic upheavals, but you have to pay a premium both when buying and when selling it, so it would take a helluva big problem for it to pay off.
I must be the only person on Earth who finds gold gaudy and ugly. I never wear jewelry, but if I did, it would be silver, which has always looked classier to me.
Dick Cheney said to Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill: "You know, Paul, Reagan proved that deficits don't matter. We won the mid-term elections, this is our due."
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Gold's transaction premium is less than 2%. 
