I always wondered about this. Gold is now valuable only as a shared fiction. In hard times I’d much rather have useful things (food, meds, water, fire) than a pile of stuff that is valuable only because others think it is... which could and does change over time.
While this is true, its important to understand that "all value is subjective" the concept of "inherent value" is a fallacy that distorts ones worldview.
A glass of water has a different value at the oasis vs the dessert.
You are mistaking biological utility for economic value.
And even then, water and tuna have very little utility to a biological system that already has plenty of both. The utility of adding more may even be negative.
Eh, no worries. You gave good advice, and it sounds like it was heeded. You left me confused, but no big deal - I've been confused a few times before...
Then, if we all agree that Gold is a currency, then it has value in that regard, and since it always has been a currency across pretty much all cultures, across all time, it remains a form of rough currency.
If 'civilization fell apart' (and it won't) we would still need currency and if anything it would probably be gold.
First, it's worth remembering that the USD was ostensibly backed by gold up until one generation ago, until the Vietnam War. No kidding. There was some amount of Gold reserve to back dollars, that's why 'Fort Knox' exists. So even the USD was 'just a paper you could trade for gold'! Though really, you couldn't, it was a weird theoretically reality.
Now (and really even then) USD is only as good as the integrity of the US Gov and the Fed. If they crash, USD won't be worth the paper it's printed on. In addition, mechanically, physical currency takes a lot of effort to keep going, and with nobody doing that, well it goes kaput.
Digital currencies rely on various layers of trust: networking, security, legal, financial, regulatory, institutional. If any of those break, we can't use digital currency. Technically, there might be some kind of super cook block-chain that could work without needing the internet, surely, but it's too complicated for regular use as a currency. Maybe for larger transactions between fiefdoms!
But gold and other precious metals would probably be used as s currency until institutional trust could be built back up into institutions so that they could have real fiat currencies.
If knowledge and responsibility were very strongly maintained at the local level, it's entirely possible for regional economies to maintain their own fiats. This requires exceptional knowledge and fiscal/monetary discipline.
If you have a populist, dirtbag leader who can corrupt the integrity of the monetary system, it will destroy everything. This is the source of most hyperinflation scenarios.
>Though really, you couldn't, it was a weird theoretically reality.
This is not how other countries saw it.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorbitant_privilege : "In February 1965 President Charles de Gaulle announced his intention to exchange its U.S. dollar reserves for gold at the official exchange rate. He sent the French Navy across the Atlantic to pick up the French reserve of gold and was followed by several countries. As it resulted in considerably reducing U.S. gold stock and U.S. economic influence, it led U.S. President Richard Nixon to end unilaterally the convertibility of the dollar to gold on August 15, 1971 (the "Nixon Shock"). This was meant to be a temporary measure but the dollar became permanently a floating fiat money and in October 1976, the U.S. government officially changed the definition of the dollar; references to gold were removed from statutes."
There's some more detail to this. There was kind of a gray area between WW2 and the end of the Bretton Woods arrangement in 1971. After 1971, the Federal Reserve Note could no longer be converted into gold by other countries' central banks.
The average citizen, after the 1930s when the gold standard was abandoned (and for a time, private gold ownership was literally outlawed and people were obligated to turn all their gold in) could not go to a bank and say "give me my $ worth of gold" but other countries could. Between the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and that, though, one could actually redeem a Federal Reserve Note for gold.
Now the US dollar's value is assessed by comparing it to a basket of other nations' currencies and dollar foreign policy sometimes favors a cheaper dollar. An analogous situation happened with the Swiss franc when the Swiss central bank deliberately devalued it to make Swiss exports more affordable and attractive to buy again.
In 1980, the Hunt Brothers cornered the commodities market for silver by buying up billions of dollars of it and "artificially" pumping the price up over 50$/oz. This is a good example of where metallism (backing a currency with a commodity like gold or silver or both) can fail as long as the commodity itself can also be traded. It would be quite difficult to do the same to the gold market though since silver has many more industrial uses.
The currency of a nation is only as good as the government that issues it, which in a democratic form of government means constant vigilance by voting citizens over the stewards of it.
I'm not talking about relying on the US dollar as a currency, but relying on physical US dollar bills as a medium of exchange,just as you would on gold coins/bars.
How is it easier to print a realistic dollar bill, with all the easy to test security measures, than it is to alloy some gold with something else, or use some other golden substance?
And no, anything dependent on computers (an especially on a country's worth of electricity) to function is not a safe bet if we are imagining doomsday scenarios.
Tungsten, mainly. Anti-counterfeit testing now includes ringing the purportedly gold coin like a bell, if it passes the density test. A clad-tungsten counterfeit will have a duller, less sonorous sound.
This is where all those hours of listening to drummers drone on and on about the metallurgical qualities of cymbal brass--and the audible differences between Paiste, Sabian, and Zildjian--can come in handy.
Gold has utility as well: it’s highly conductive, doesn’t oxidize easily, is hypoallergenic, malleable, etc.
Napkin math tells me that over 50 tons of gold have been used just in iPhones over the past 13 years. Just like any commodity - if there is demand, there is probably value.
Bismuth is priced at $.39 per gram, copper at $.0074. I would bet gold would end up somewhere in that range or so as opposed to the $48 per gram it's at now.
Bismuth has low toxicity for a heavy metal but I think I'd recommend skipping the dental crowns. Bismuth makes very pretty dangly bits handing off earring or necklaces though.
you didn't list utility. You listed physical properties.
Utility is how those physical properties help/hinder the use of said material for a purpose.
The utility of gold, when society is broken, will be minimal. Except as a barter currency, as it's widely recognized.
However, under such a circumstance, i would say other goods are better - such as food staples, guns and bullets, and a shelter you can defend (like a bunker).
You might be able to bribe the ticket taker or border guard with gold, which you can't do with items like food and meds that have lower value-density and less liquidity. IOW it's more useful when human systems and group behavior are the source of the trouble...which is usually.
If gold gets too valuable relative to labour, more mountains in South America will be pulled down to extract the gold.
Think of the way hundreds of millions of dollars have been put into bitcoin mining ASICS just because someone saw a return could be pulled out if thin air... Gold mining is pulling a return out of rock when the economic conditions are right.
Yup. There are plenty of dormant mines here in Colorado because "there is 100 million dollars worth of gold in that mine but it will cost 200 million dollars to extract it". Once the first number changes enough in relation to the second, those mines will start right back up.
A high profile example is the Donlin project in Alaska. They've been spending decades on de-risking and logistics, and once the gold becomes valuable enough to extract it's likely to be one of the largest mines in the world.
I seem to recall that when the Spanish conquered Central and (most of) South America, and found and mined huge amounts of gold and silver, it increased the supply of gold by 20%.
Sure, mining may increase the supply of gold... a very small amount compared to the existing supply. It's not going to move the needle in terms of supply vs. demand, though.
And historically the amount mined somewhat depended on the price so, as with fiat currency, there was at least some feedback mechanism on the price. Though if you discover a new source it can be bad, see the price revolution[1].
Clearly I’m missing something...?