gold is a means of exchange, it has no intrinsic value
Gold always has value. It's not rational, but it's true. Gold is different from all other commodities. It doesn't matter that you can't eat it, people will value it anyway, under any circumstance.
When you're starving, a pile of gold is worthless to you.
you would trade it all for a loaf of bread.
Gold has value because it's beautiful and LIMITED. It cannot be printed. Thus it is a perfect medium of exchange.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_value
The subjective theory of value is an economic theory which proposes the idea that the value of any good is not determined by the utility value of the object, nor by the cumulative value of components or labour needed to produce or manufacture it, but instead is determined by the individuals or entities who are buying or selling the object in question.
Gold is also used in the manufacture of many electrical components among other things.
It's interesting that many of the uses for gold are modern discoveries- 2000 years ago, gold wasn't that useful. Makes bad weapons/armor/tools because it's so heavy and soft... but boy, does it look sharp!
Yeah sure and bread a year on is garbage. They both have value.
Indeed, but it is relative. Gold tends to hold its value over time. However, there are long stretches of history when all the gold in the world was worthless to own.
Not rational? Gold has real world use. It is in the computer you are typing on currently. As other have noted it's value in terms of trade comes from it being limited, "beautiful," not susceptible to corrosion. Silver shares many of these qualities thus is also popular as a store of value and medium of exchange.
It is a light weight medium of exchange that doesn't have you lugging around 10 gallons of milk that will go bad just so you can buy a side of pork.
I used to think this, than I saw someone trying to exchange gold for goods in real life, and he was unable to. Nobody understood the value of gold, nobody knew how to determine if the gold was real or not, they all thought it was just a scam. The only person who would take gold for trade was a jeweler who dealt regularly in gold and understood the worth of it.
It was at that moment I realized gold is mostly useless. It'll do ok as an inflation hedge sure, but crypto will do better. If a full SHTF scenario occurs and crypto becomes worthless, gold is mostly worthless too. Like crypto, gold is only useful in a functioning society. Sure, it's slightly better, you probably can trade it for something, but you'll get much LESS value for it then you would have just simply having the commodities to begin with. Buy/store toilet paper, cigarettes, food, lighters, alcohol, ammo, etc.
If you are buying to invest against inflation, gold might retain it's value, sure, but crypto is the future of money and will appreciate.
True story, I knew an old guy getting evicted from his home, he owed 40k and medical bills hit...
And he literally had 300k in silver on his kitchen table.
He, his family... I.... Looked for a silver broker / buyer for almost a month and while we found a few that would pay a fair price for some of the silver, we couldn't put together any deals that made sense.
He ended up losing the 120k house that he had 80k into... Because he wouldn't take 40k for 300k of silver.
Shit is only worth what people will pay for it when you need to cash out.
You guys don't have bullion exchanges in your country? That is so weird to me.
owning gold was illegal in the United States until 1974. they did that to make people dumb to the fact that it's the only real form of money in the world.
it obviously worked on the sheep without father's/grandfather's to teach about this stuff.
you are free to think that, clearly
hopefully we will not see a society where gold has no desired value, it would be some pretty crap one.
Gold is more conductive than copper, it is a vital component in electronics. It is exceedingly rare in nature and scarcity is value.
Gold isn't more conductive. It's about .76 if Copper is 1.0. Silver is the most conductive at 1.06, and is a great conductor of heat as well. That's why you get silver bearing thermal paste.
Gold is used in electronics because it doesn't corrode, but if plated wrong or thinly the base material will still leach through and corrode the surface. It has to be completely removed from soldering surfaces in military applications.
Here's a good chart for reference. https://www.tibtech.com/conductivite.php?lang=en_US
and has the ability to NEVER corrode.
>Gold always has value.
Agreed. Hence why Russia has now converted to the Gold Standard.
Should be noted that Bitcoin isnt affected by the fake news.
One Bitcoin (as of this morning) is trading at $24,874.48 to £1.
Bitcoin is cleaning house.
And the fact that central banks all hold gold.
(post is archived)