If only gold had a published US dollar equivalent.

WTF is gold good for exactly?  Well aside from its use in electronics.  Do people really think when society collapses that the gold bars you have stored away in some vault will be accessible and something you can trade for food?  Historically gold has only had value when you have stable market of some sort to assign it value.  In times of anarchy, say during the fall of the Roman Empire, when a city was pillaged the first wave of looting focused on good weapons, food, and clothing.  The gold and jewels were tossed on the carts if there was room, but they aren't the first item to go.

Your ability to produce something always has been and always will be king.  Be it some useful good or a credible threat due to having a weapon.  The gold is just what you give to your wife to smooth over the fact you came back from your looting with six young slave girls.

Even gold backed currency only works on the idea that there will be some government out there maintaining a stable economic market where your gold can obtain goods for you at a reasonable rate of exchange.  As in if America goes to shiat you can go convert your gold into British pounds, move to the UK, and purchase goods at an affordable rate.  If everyone else has also gone to shiat, you're SOL.

bighairyguy: Hmmm, anyone want to bet that the people behind this have been hoarding gold for a long time?

They're probably being bought off by those cash for gold places, like that scam one promoted by Glenn Beck.

ha-ha-guy: WTF is gold good for exactly?  Well aside from its use in electronics.

You can't just hand wave away one of the most critical parts of modern electronics.  We taint tons of gold every year by encapsulating it in electronics that it's a real pain to retrieve it from, but gold holds it's value for a few very good reasons that will never change until the laws of physics change at a fundamental level.  It's chemical properties let it perform the function of currency ideally, because it has aesthetic value, artistic value, manufacturing value, and has properties very little else does.  Gold is highly malleable, can be extruded into wire, doesn't corrode or ionize in most conditions, conducts electricity, blocks a wide spectrum of radiation, and can be melted at low temperatures making it easy to divide and recombine gold into a variety of purposes.

If the world collapses, gold will be more valuable as a solid form of wealth, not less.  It's diamonds that'll suddenly become devalued.  If you're not using diamonds industrially, they have little value to the common man, in non-powder form.

Debt money is economic slavery, gold money is economic freedom. If you can not understand that well go visit the trillionaires in Zimbabwe and they will tell you how well life is with their trillions, even ask japan how they are doing, hell ask those who gave up looking for jobs.

Are these the same states that wanted to secede? Whatever happened to that?  Did they give up like republicans like to do?

ha-ha-guy: WTF is gold good for exactly?  Well aside from its use in electronics.


Gold is REALLY useful for nanoparticles. Like, stupidly, INSANELY useful. Gold (and silver, and platinum) have really interesting optical effects at the nanoscale, one of which is called "Surface Plasmon Resonance"

(which is not NEARLY as scary as it sounds. I can actually give a brief description if you'd like).

Silver and Platinum (I think?) also have these properties, but gold is often more desireable, because silver oxidizes FAST (when compared to gold!), and platinum's even MORE expensive.

abhorrent1: Are these the same states that wanted to secede? Whatever happened to that?  Did they give up like republicans like to do?

Yea perusing failed policies, because you do not want to look like a fool is much better from a Democrat.

Mr Guy: ha-ha-guy: WTF is gold good for exactly?  Well aside from its use in electronics.

You can't just hand wave away one of the most critical parts of modern electronics.  We taint tons of gold every year by encapsulating it in electronics that it's a real pain to retrieve it from, but gold holds it's value for a few very good reasons that will never change until the laws of physics change at a fundamental level.  It's chemical properties let it perform the function of currency ideally, because it has aesthetic value, artistic value, manufacturing value, and has properties very little else does.  Gold is highly malleable, can be extruded into wire, doesn't corrode or ionize in most conditions, conducts electricity, blocks a wide spectrum of radiation, and can be melted at low temperatures making it easy to divide and recombine gold into a variety of purposes.

If the world collapses, gold will be more valuable as a solid form of wealth, not less.  It's diamonds that'll suddenly become devalued.  If you're not using diamonds industrially, they have little value to the common man, in non-powder form.

Isn't it just shiny lead?

zenobia: Isn't it just shiny lead?

Breath in gold dust vs lead powder, or even just work with it in lumps for a while, and see if you can tell the difference.

impaler: pmdgrwr: Debt money is economic slavery, gold money is economic freedom.

[growlersoftware.com image 431x55]

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Yea Impaler. tell me why the fed has to keep pumping money to keep asset prices up sounds like slavery to me. But don't worry inflation will make you richer.

pmdgrwr: Debt money is economic slavery, gold money is economic freedom.

Or, and try this on for size, desiring less than you can provide for yourself leads to freedom, desiring more than you can provide for yourself enslaves you.  Gold is a useful solid form of value, paper money serves the function equally well if you don't happen to be a technical worker or craftsman that can actually convert gold from stored wealth into liquid wealth by shaping it into jewelry, electrical wire or conduit, or craft things like leaf gold or one of the other many ways gold is used.  Your level of enslavement is a direct function of how much authority you give to others over your ability to feed yourself.

Because People in power are Stupid: Gold dealers love this idea.

So do people who want their money backed by something other than some officeholder's empty promises. But if that's good enough for you, then by all means shun gold and stock up on Gilt-Edged Obamas, Bernanke Sterling, or whatever makes you happy.

mitEj: Mr Guy: ha-ha-guy: WTF is gold good for exactly?  Well aside from its use in electronics.

You can't just hand wave away one of the most critical parts of modern electronics.  We taint tons of gold every year by encapsulating it in electronics that it's a real pain to retrieve it from, but gold holds it's value for a few very good reasons that will never change until the laws of physics change at a fundamental level.  It's chemical properties let it perform the function of currency ideally, because it has aesthetic value, artistic value, manufacturing value, and has properties very little else does.  Gold is highly malleable, can be extruded into wire, doesn't corrode or ionize in most conditions, conducts electricity, blocks a wide spectrum of radiation, and can be melted at low temperatures making it easy to divide and recombine gold into a variety of purposes.

If the world collapses, gold will be more valuable as a solid form of wealth, not less.  It's diamonds that'll suddenly become devalued.  If you're not using diamonds industrially, they have little value to the common man, in non-powder form.

Bullshiat

 if the world collapses there will not be a lot of tech companies coming to you to beg for your gold for their electronics. At that point all gold will be is a pretty metal used for jewelry. if you are starving to death it is less than worthless. Gold only has value today for a few reasons
1 tech
2 ascetics
3 stupid people and fear.

jjorsett: Because People in power are Stupid: Gold dealers love this idea.

So do people who want their money backed by something other than some officeholder's empty promises. But if that's good enough for you, then by all means shun gold and stock up on Gilt-Edged Obamas, Bernanke Sterling, or whatever makes you happy.

Enjoy changing the prices on goods and services hourly as gold fluctuates.  Should make paying back loans fun as well.

ha-ha-guy: WTF is gold good for exactly?  Well aside from its use in electronics.  Do people really think when society collapses that the gold bars you have stored away in some vault will be accessible and something you can trade for food?  Historically gold has only had value when you have stable market of some sort to assign it value.  In times of anarchy, say during the fall of the Roman Empire, when a city was pillaged the first wave of looting focused on good weapons, food, and clothing.  The gold and jewels were tossed on the carts if there was room, but they aren't the first item to go.

Your ability to produce something always has been and always will be king.  Be it some useful good or a credible threat due to having a weapon.  The gold is just what you give to your wife to smooth over the fact you came back from your looting with six young slave girls.

Even gold backed currency only works on the idea that there will be some government out there maintaining a stable economic market where your gold can obtain goods for you at a reasonable rate of exchange.  As in if America goes to shiat you can go convert your gold into British pounds, move to the UK, and purchase goods at an affordable rate.  If everyone else has also gone to shiat, you're SOL.

There it is making its usual appearance in any discussion of the worth of gold as money: the usual false choice of the present situation or a Mad Max world of dystopian social breakdown and a barter economy. The world will keep turning even if things devolve into hyperinflation and/or asset confiscation, and over millenia gold has proven its worth as a portable, compact store of wealth in those situations. The vast majority of us who own gold don't expect to be physically defending our freeholds from marauders, but the more likely scenario of varying degrees of Cyprus, Weimar, and Zimbabwe. If you think otherwise, then you're welcome to do nothing, and may you prosper. Some of us are going with a different viewpoint until changing circumstances dictate a change in strategy.

mitEj: Bullshiat

if the world collapses there will not be a lot of tech companies coming to you to beg for your gold for their electronics. At that point all gold will be is a pretty metal used for jewelry. if you are starving to death it is less than worthless. Gold only has value today for a few reasons
1 tech
2 ascetics
3 stupid people and fear.

People have such a silly idea of what will happen when the world "collapses".  We forget the most fundamental function of human beings.  We are not innovators.  We are the world's master imitators.  We do not need to know how something works, technically, in order to recreate it.  There is simply no way to erase the knowledge of what is possible from the world so sufficiently that all mankind suddenly forgets that there's an option to build technology to improve yourself.  There's no NEED for tech companies.  The knowledge will not simply vanish, and people will not simply be content to return to the stone age hunkered down on farms.  There's no viable way for society to so thoroughly break down at this point such that you can eliminate all knowledge and all capable workers.  You can just devolve society in bickering city states, and you try and bomb people into oblivion, but once that ends, people will immediately begin jumping into the gaps left by whatever apocalyptic scenario caused the problem.  Now that we know what to do, that knowledge almost CAN'T be lost.  We can't return to the dark ages, at best, I can personally use enough scavenged equipment to extrude wire, build solar and wind powered generators, and provide enough electricity for basic food production for my neighborhood.  It's only money to access raw supplies that stop people from doing what their knowledge allows them to do.  If society fell apart, more people would ignore arbitrary social contracts preventing them from taking the wasted wealth of the few and using it to provide food for the masses.

People forget the people they should really be afraid of aren't the scary thugs in the urban wilderness.  If society falls apart, the people to be scared of are the people who in times past would have been tyrants of small armies; the people who have the knowledge and drive to exploit others, and only choose not to.

jjorsett: So do people who want their money backed by something other than some officeholder's empty promises.

I suppose you have a vault with all your gold stored somewhere on your property? Or have you just purchased pieces of paper claiming you own gold?

Mr Guy: mitEj: Bullshiat

if the world collapses there will not be a lot of tech companies coming to you to beg for your gold for their electronics. At that point all gold will be is a pretty metal used for jewelry. if you are starving to death it is less than worthless. Gold only has value today for a few reasons
1 tech
2 ascetics
3 stupid people and fear.

People have such a silly idea of what will happen when the world "collapses".  We forget the most fundamental function of human beings.  We are not innovators.  We are the world's master imitators.  We do not need to know how something works, technically, in order to recreate it.  There is simply no way to erase the knowledge of what is possible from the world so sufficiently that all mankind suddenly forgets that there's an option to build technology to improve yourself.  There's no NEED for tech companies.  The knowledge will not simply vanish, and people will not simply be content to return to the stone age hunkered down on farms.  There's no viable way for society to so thoroughly break down at this point such that you can eliminate all knowledge and all capable workers.  You can just devolve society in bickering city states, and you try and bomb people into oblivion, but once that ends, people will immediately begin jumping into the gaps left by whatever apocalyptic scenario caused the problem.  Now that we know what to do, that knowledge almost CAN'T be lost.  We can't return to the dark ages, at best, I can personally use enough scavenged equipment to extrude wire, build solar and wind powered generators, and provide enough electricity for basic food production for my neighborhood.  It's only money to access raw supplies that stop people from doing what their knowledge allows them to do.  If society fell apart, more people would ignore arbitrary social contracts preventing them from taking the wasted wealth of the few and using it to provide food for the masses.

People forget the people they should really be afraid of aren't the scary thugs in the urban wilderness.  If society falls apart, the people to be scared of are the people who in times past would have been tyrants of small armies; the people who have the knowledge and drive to exploit others, and only choose not to.

You can bring the 50s back minus vacuum tubes, but you won't be printing circuit boards in your garage.

Koodz: Mr Guy: mitEj: Bullshiat

if the world collapses there will not be a lot of tech companies coming to you to beg for your gold for their electronics. At that point all gold will be is a pretty metal used for jewelry. if you are starving to death it is less than worthless. Gold only has value today for a few reasons
1 tech
2 ascetics
3 stupid people and fear.

People have such a silly idea of what will happen when the world "collapses".  We forget the most fundamental function of human beings.  We are not innovators.  We are the world's master imitators.  We do not need to know how something works, technically, in order to recreate it.  There is simply no way to erase the knowledge of what is possible from the world so sufficiently that all mankind suddenly forgets that there's an option to build technology to improve yourself.  There's no NEED for tech companies.  The knowledge will not simply vanish, and people will not simply be content to return to the stone age hunkered down on farms.  There's no viable way for society to so thoroughly break down at this point such that you can eliminate all knowledge and all capable workers.  You can just devolve society in bickering city states, and you try and bomb people into oblivion, but once that ends, people will immediately begin jumping into the gaps left by whatever apocalyptic scenario caused the problem.  Now that we know what to do, that knowledge almost CAN'T be lost.  We can't return to the dark ages, at best, I can personally use enough scavenged equipment to extrude wire, build solar and wind powered generators, and provide enough electricity for basic food production for my neighborhood.  It's only money to access raw supplies that stop people from doing what their knowledge allows them to do.  If society fell apart, more people would ignore arbitrary social contracts preventing them from taking the wasted wealth of the few and using it to provide food for the masses.

People forget the people they should really be afraid of aren't the scary thugs in the urban wilderness.  If society falls apart, the people to be scared of are the people who in times past would have been tyrants of small armies; the people who have the knowledge and drive to exploit others, and only choose not to.

You can bring the 50s back minus vacuum tubes, but you won't be printing circuit boards in your garage.

I should mention this is purely for fantasy since I don't believe in the Mad Max scenario.

ha-ha-guy: WTF is gold good for exactly?

Obligatory: Swimming

Gold is just not an investment, it's a personal statement of politics.  No other investment can say that. 

A better hedge against inflation would of course be real estate, or really anything with a better rate of return than gold, but that doesn't stick it to Fartbongo and his magic money printing press.

Sergeant Grumbles: ha-ha-guy: WTF is gold good for exactly?

Obligatory: Swimming

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Doesn't always work out.

namatad: Koodz: You can bring the 50s back minus vacuum tubes, but you won't be printing circuit boards in your garage.

Arent there places till making vacuum tubes? yes.
Aren't there people still hand-blowing vacuum tubes? yes
http://blog.makezine.com/2008/01/07/make-your-own-vacuum-tube/

so these people, with last-gen skills would almost instantly become worth their weight anti-matter.
and I am betting that the people with skills would be more interested in being paid in food, clothing and materials, rather than gold. at least until proper civilization returned.

What will these people do to preserve the value of their labor performed, if they have enough food water clothes and materials. If I do a job for three chickens prepared but need one, trade the second, I can lose the value of the third if not consumed. Ok so I work five days end up with 15 chickens live, I could sell them but I have to find people wanting and needing chickens, now I also have to care for them thus devaluing my five days of work. So yea gold will have value in your scenario.

GanjSmokr: Doesn't always work out.

You have to be rich enough, and you can't be wearing pants or otherwise covering your genitals. Laws of nature.

namatad: impaler: Also, this is what hyperinflation looks like:

[growlersoftware.com image 713x502]

see, the problem is that this graph uses a LOG scale and teahadists have no concept of reality, let alone maths.

I was thinking about this the other day. What are the early signs of impending hyper-inflation?
Because my guess is that the US isnt even close to high inflation, let alone hyper-inflation.

Hell, we aren't even at TARGER inflation.

Moopy Mac: namatad: impaler: Also, this is what hyperinflation looks like:

[growlersoftware.com image 713x502]

see, the problem is that this graph uses a LOG scale and teahadists have no concept of reality, let alone maths.

I was thinking about this the other day. What are the early signs of impending hyper-inflation?
Because my guess is that the US isnt even close to high inflation, let alone hyper-inflation.

Hell, we aren't even at TARGER  TARGET inflation.

Oops

Moopy Mac: Hell, we aren't even at TARGER inflation.

Problem is that we keep going in debt as fast as we are, target inflation may be much higher than we want.

You are correct that now it is not that bad.

Antimatter: Enjoy changing the prices on goods and services hourly as gold fluctuates.

Meh, just another item to barter with.  One upside on gold is that it can flutucate on the upside.  We all know which direction the dollar is headed.  The only mystery in this regard is how fast.

namatad: not really

Really - no one knows what the rate of inflation will be into the future.  Could be 1.5% or it could be 7% or even higher.

namatad: HeadLever: The only mystery in this regard is how fast.

not really

you are right namatad, it is not hard to see the devaluation of the dollar. it is quick in the sense that the dollar backed by just a word is just about  80 yrs. Here is food for thought, my neighbor whose house was bought and built for 4500 in 1931, that is 225 gold 20 dollar coins. Same gold coins is valued at 355500, which is the current (give or take a10 thousand dollars) tax value of the property. The same 4500 dollars in paper bills from 1933 after we left the gold standard can almost buy a yrs worth of housing in a poor neighborhood. So yea you can see the quick devaluation of the dollar.