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As fascinating as that is, what I find to be even more interesting is that the total wealth in that insane concrete-bubble structure built to withstand atomic a
by owenversteeg 10y ago
As fascinating as that is, what I find to be even more interesting is that the total wealth in that insane concrete-bubble structure built to withstand atomic attack... is just over a billion USD. That's nothing in the scale of global wealth. And that's the largest gold vault on Earth.
Pretty disappointing if you ask me. The entire gold vault (one million ounces of gold) is worth about a third of one percent of JPMorgan Chase's entire market capitalization.
- dualogy 10y agoWell, that's a telling finding. It's just "telling" different conclusions about "global wealth", "JPMorgan's market capitalization", and gold's "fair" value to different minds ;) The only thing that's safe to assess about that bullion is that for all human intents and purposes, it'll outlast infinite numbers of generations, and the other stuff --- won't. That alone tells of the impossibility and futility of putting any sort of currency number on it, in fact, any figure will do --- $100 or $100k, whatever the world perceives will be equally valid and equally workable. Doubly so since "you can't eat it", it's in the final consequence not broadly "needed at any price" for industry, and the actual supply for its prime purpose (preserve some proxy of wealth through the generations) need not be increased, and every physical ounce above or below ground is in extremis already owned by someone.
- Zigurd 10y agoYes, it's about the symbolism. The value of gold does not track the total value of other assets, making it unable to be use as a currency substitute because you would need too much of it to do anything meaningful. Revealing a "problem" with US-held gold would be a blow to US currency dominance. The value of such a shift in global power is vastly more than the total value of gold on the planet, which is about 8-9 trillion US$. In other words, gold is nowhere near able to become a currency substitute, but it is potentially a bomb that can damage the dollar.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- NotSammyHagar 10y agoEventually there will be asteroid mining, and like we already have a sense of 1 trillion dollars worth of palladium in an asteroid, there will be 1 trillion dollars worth of new gold - which did cost a lot to get. Google claims the entire mined gold in the world's history is 8 trillion, but tons (ha) have been lost over time. Anyway, you get 12.5% more in that first shipment. Maybe it will be a 100 years from now. And then we find another and so forth. Will that cause a panic? Will anyone care?
- xyzzyz 10y agoIf we find vast amounts of gold in asteroid, the price of gold will fall to just above the marginal cost of recovering that gold as long as it's lower than its current price -- this is some very basic economics. A good example to consider is aluminium. In early 1880s, the price of aluminium was around $10000 of today's dollars for kilogram -- actually the price of ounce made more sense, as you very rarely saw pieces of aluminium so large to weigh a kilogram back then. For example, the capstone for Washington Monument, weighing 9 kilograms, was the largest single piece of aluminium ever cast at that time. Then, in 1888, the modern process of aluminium was invented, and soon its price rapidly fell by orders of magnitude.
- NotSammyHagar 10y agoI agree with you. My point was that gold and all other elements and minerals on earth should likely go down in price tremendously in the next few 100 years, as we mine asteroids.
- hueving 10y agoThe same thing could be said about a chunk of any element. "It's worth whatever you imagine because it will last a long time."
- mannykannot 10y agoIt certainly underscores the fact that gold is now a historical anachronism, economically speaking. Maybe what is going on here is just a step in the slow termination of that relationship, that has to be kept secret to stop it unraveling in a rush?
- tonfa 10y agoI've always wondered: what would happen when most nations central bank's gold holding drop below say 20%? or 10%? Is there a cliff where gold as a store of value just starts crashing? Or would the fantasy continue for the non-institutional holders for a while?
- pas 10y ago20% of what? Most central banks have foreign reserves ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-exchange_reserves https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign-e... ) and and central banks' gold reserves are typically less than 1% of their reserves. So gold backing any currency is just a small part of all gold in existence (about 170 000 000 kg ~ 7T USD) For "all currency", the money supply is a lot (converted to USD): US M0 is 10T, UK 2.85T USD, Eurozone ~8T, Australia ~1.8T. And China, Japan, India and so on also has big monetary bases.
- joering2 10y agoYou miss the point. You CONVERTING gold into USD on a current value. But rest assured if one million ounces are rendered untouchable for period of 100 years due to radioactivity, you can bet your bottom dollar the price of gold (remaining stock) will sky rocket.
- NotSammyHagar 10y agoUhm, there will be other problems if someone nukes nyc.
- iamben 10y agoThe largest _private_ gold vault. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York is meant to be the largest (there may be more in Swiss banks) holding about 7000 metric tons (apparently).
- avar 10y agoWhich is around $280 billion, or about 1.5% of us GDP.
- nickjarboe 10y agoIf the world decides to leave fiat currencies and return to gold, the value of gold will be much (10x?, 100x?) higher.
- panarky 10y agoExactly this. What is it about gold that triggers wild conspiracy theories from seemingly rational people?