re: #50 Romantic Heretic

The basis of their thinking, from what I’ve observed, is that gold has ‘real value’.

The problem is that is that there are no real values. They are all a matter of perception. Even in science the methods of measuring are arbitrary. 50 degrees Centigrade is 122 Fahrenheit, or to regular people, “Too fucking hot.”

If gold had a ‘real’ that is fixed value there could be no market in it. You can’t trade in something where the value never changes and is exactly the same for everybody.

I wish these geniuses did a little thinking once in a while.

That’s what always gets me about the gold bugs who portray buying up a shitload of coins as “insurance” against the collapse of the economy or of civilization. Gold has a value based upon what others put on it, which means if the fellow sitting on a stockpile of fresh water things your gold isn’t worth a thimble full of water, then that’s the value he’s put on it. Holding out a bag of gold coins and demanding he give you its worth in water is not going to accomplish a damned thing.