4 ms·

> the monetary value is merely historical In theory, yes. However, the all-time high price that one can get for gold today is actual and current.

sek 15y ago
A real currency is widely accepted, gold is not. Gold is very unhandy, the article is about one example why.
- david927 15y ago
  Where is gold not accepted? In which country? It's not as handy but it is valuable because you can't make more of it.
  - StrawberryFrog 15y ago
    Gold is not accepted at my local supermarket, and probably not yours either. They take cash or card, but not gold. You have to convert it into currency first. You can do this in any country if you know where to go, but you get the point - it's not as handy as paper money. Suppose you have a 1 ounce gold coin (worth USD 1882 today) and you owe your friend $100. You have the money, but how do you pay him? Do you file bits off the coin, or do you ask for change from $1882 ?
    - _delirium 15y ago
      It'd actually be an interesting experiment to see what you could buy with smaller-denomination gold coins. I would bet some number of independent businessmen (but not large chain stores) would be willing to accept, say, the 1/10-oz American Gold Eagle as equivalent to around $180.
      - StrawberryFrog 15y ago
        If that caught on, the next logical step would be for more counterfeit gold coins to come into circulation. Do these businessmen have the energy to try to detect fraud in two kinds of currency? Especially as gold coin fraud doesn't have the same harsh legal penalties as counterfeiting paper money.
    - icebraining 15y ago
      My supermarket doesn't take dollars either, doesn't mean the dollar isn't a useful currency. And we're talking about a country reserve, not exactly hand money.
      - StrawberryFrog 15y ago
        The original statement was "A real currency is widely accepted, gold is not". The following question was "Where is gold not accepted?" My reply of "At the supermarket" is, I think, a succinct and correct response about the basic difference between currency and valuables. My local supermarket won't take US dollars either since I'm not in the USA. You know well enough that supermarkets in the USA do take dollars, and no supermarket anywhere takes gold (if you find one, let me know what it gives as change). The point still stands. If I'm wrong, I'd appreciate more information on why along with the down-votes.
        sek 15y ago
        This downvote == disagreeing is so annoying, this prevents discussions. It is one thing when someone gives an upvote for agreeing but downvotes are for insulting and off topic posts.
        icebraining 15y ago
        But it's completely irrelevant to this discussion. Context matters. And the fact that there are or not supermarkets that accept a certain currency is irrelevant to its usefulness as a reserve.
    - eazolan 15y ago
      Yen isn't accepted at your local supermarket either. You would have to trade it for a local currency. This is a widely practiced and understood phenomenon. The only reason you would have a problem with this is if you're requiring gold to have attributes that no other "value units" have.
    - dualogy 15y ago
      "Gold is not accepted at my local supermarket, and probably not yours either." Neither is any other "foreign currency" which also needs to be "exchanged to local currency first". See that's the thing the markets are trying to figure out right now ... is gold an industrial commodity? In which case, yes it is terribly overpriced! Or, is it in a time of world-wide currency crises reviving its historical role as a store of value, an AAAA++ rated, supra-sovereign "monetary asset" (rather than granted an immediate for-daily-barter currency) with no debt burden and no counterparty risk? If yes, it might still be vastly undervalued!
  - a3camero 15y ago
    True story (somewhat relevant): I once took over a web contract from a company that failed to deliver. Their website had a tab for helping customers start using gold for payments. I requested and accepted payment in US dollars. There is not a chance I would have accepted gold for payment.
- StrawberryFrog 15y ago
  I mean "current" as in today, not historical. I didn't call it a currency, I said it was valuable. I agree that gold is entirely useless - you can't eat it, and it is unhandy; however the gold price today says that for all practical purposes, gold is very valuable right now. Probably because of lack of faith in paper fiat currency right now. This may change; it may be a bubble that collapses if and when faith in paper fiat currency is restored (you could read that as gold filling a temporary but valuable role as a hedge against unstable currencies). Or new deposits of gold could be found; or new ways of extracting it could arise. However the supply of gold is quite limited; it's not like diamond where the only difference between very expensive diamond and cheat-as-dirt coal is a detail of removing impurities and rearranging the atoms.
  - sek 15y ago
    When you don't believe in currency there are unlimited ways to invest your money somewhere else, when you don't believe in corporations there are much more conservative alternatives like farm land. In my opinion oil is a better investment than gold, the applications are endless but i personally wouldn't because of its volatility.
  - bdonlan 15y ago
    Gold is not entirely useless - it is used in small amounts in some electronics manufacturing (as a coating to improve conduction and resist corrosion for pins on CPUs, etc). It is also biologically inert, so if it were cheaper, it might find use in implanted prosthesics.

sek 15y ago

A real currency is widely accepted, gold is not. Gold is very unhandy, the article is about one example why.

david927 15y ago
Where is gold not accepted? In which country? It's not as handy but it is valuable because you can't make more of it.
- StrawberryFrog 15y ago
  Gold is not accepted at my local supermarket, and probably not yours either. They take cash or card, but not gold. You have to convert it into currency first. You can do this in any country if you know where to go, but you get the point - it's not as handy as paper money. Suppose you have a 1 ounce gold coin (worth USD 1882 today) and you owe your friend $100. You have the money, but how do you pay him? Do you file bits off the coin, or do you ask for change from $1882 ?
  - _delirium 15y ago
    It'd actually be an interesting experiment to see what you could buy with smaller-denomination gold coins. I would bet some number of independent businessmen (but not large chain stores) would be willing to accept, say, the 1/10-oz American Gold Eagle as equivalent to around $180.
    - StrawberryFrog 15y ago
      If that caught on, the next logical step would be for more counterfeit gold coins to come into circulation. Do these businessmen have the energy to try to detect fraud in two kinds of currency? Especially as gold coin fraud doesn't have the same harsh legal penalties as counterfeiting paper money.
  - icebraining 15y ago
    My supermarket doesn't take dollars either, doesn't mean the dollar isn't a useful currency. And we're talking about a country reserve, not exactly hand money.
    - StrawberryFrog 15y ago
      The original statement was "A real currency is widely accepted, gold is not". The following question was "Where is gold not accepted?" My reply of "At the supermarket" is, I think, a succinct and correct response about the basic difference between currency and valuables. My local supermarket won't take US dollars either since I'm not in the USA. You know well enough that supermarkets in the USA do take dollars, and no supermarket anywhere takes gold (if you find one, let me know what it gives as change). The point still stands. If I'm wrong, I'd appreciate more information on why along with the down-votes.
      - sek 15y ago
        This downvote == disagreeing is so annoying, this prevents discussions. It is one thing when someone gives an upvote for agreeing but downvotes are for insulting and off topic posts.
      - icebraining 15y ago
        But it's completely irrelevant to this discussion. Context matters. And the fact that there are or not supermarkets that accept a certain currency is irrelevant to its usefulness as a reserve.
  - eazolan 15y ago
    Yen isn't accepted at your local supermarket either. You would have to trade it for a local currency. This is a widely practiced and understood phenomenon. The only reason you would have a problem with this is if you're requiring gold to have attributes that no other "value units" have.
  - dualogy 15y ago
    "Gold is not accepted at my local supermarket, and probably not yours either." Neither is any other "foreign currency" which also needs to be "exchanged to local currency first". See that's the thing the markets are trying to figure out right now ... is gold an industrial commodity? In which case, yes it is terribly overpriced! Or, is it in a time of world-wide currency crises reviving its historical role as a store of value, an AAAA++ rated, supra-sovereign "monetary asset" (rather than granted an immediate for-daily-barter currency) with no debt burden and no counterparty risk? If yes, it might still be vastly undervalued!
- a3camero 15y ago
  True story (somewhat relevant): I once took over a web contract from a company that failed to deliver. Their website had a tab for helping customers start using gold for payments. I requested and accepted payment in US dollars. There is not a chance I would have accepted gold for payment.
StrawberryFrog 15y ago
I mean "current" as in today, not historical. I didn't call it a currency, I said it was valuable. I agree that gold is entirely useless - you can't eat it, and it is unhandy; however the gold price today says that for all practical purposes, gold is very valuable right now. Probably because of lack of faith in paper fiat currency right now. This may change; it may be a bubble that collapses if and when faith in paper fiat currency is restored (you could read that as gold filling a temporary but valuable role as a hedge against unstable currencies). Or new deposits of gold could be found; or new ways of extracting it could arise. However the supply of gold is quite limited; it's not like diamond where the only difference between very expensive diamond and cheat-as-dirt coal is a detail of removing impurities and rearranging the atoms.
- sek 15y ago
  When you don't believe in currency there are unlimited ways to invest your money somewhere else, when you don't believe in corporations there are much more conservative alternatives like farm land. In my opinion oil is a better investment than gold, the applications are endless but i personally wouldn't because of its volatility.
- bdonlan 15y ago
  Gold is not entirely useless - it is used in small amounts in some electronics manufacturing (as a coating to improve conduction and resist corrosion for pins on CPUs, etc). It is also biologically inert, so if it were cheaper, it might find use in implanted prosthesics.