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The Incas had vaults and palaces full of gold. Just because the peasants of Inca times couldn't afford any, and bartered with textiles and animals, doesn't mea

The Incas had vaults and palaces full of gold. Just because the peasants of Inca times couldn't afford any, and bartered with textiles and animals, doesn't mean the gold wasn't valued by the ruling class. Please take your intellectually dishonest opinion somewhere else. The fact is that gold can be converted into any currency in the world, in any country in the world. I can walk into a bank in Zimbabwe with a gold eagle and walk out with several $trillion Zimbabwe dollars in fiat currency. As we speak, Gold just reached $1900 USD an ounce today. Which would you rather have stuck in a safe back in 2009? A gold eagle, or a $1000 in US currency?

anamax 15y ago
> The fact is that gold can be converted into any currency in the world, in any country in the world. That wasn't true in the US from the early 1930s until the 1970s.
roel_v 15y ago
Inca rulers and the upper class used gold for decoration and to make things like tableware from - the point of this discussion is whether it was used as currency, which it wasn't. How are you going to call something a currency when it's only hanging on the wall of the upper 2% of society? I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but you said that gold was used by all societies of the last 1000's of years as a currency, but it flat out isn't. Most societies, yes, but not all - and that's important, because it shows that in places where there is a relative abundance of gold, it's not good as a currency (the non-use of gold in Inca times was not solely because of high supply, I'm not interested in arguing details on Inca culture and economics here because frankly I don't know much more about it than what a couple of tour guides told me). Anyway, let's go back to 2007. A house in Phoenix that sold for 250k in 2004 just reached one million. Which would you have rather bought back in 2004? That house, or a gold eagle? My point - it's easy to make a 'case' with perfect hindsight. There are several drivers to the current high price of gold; people diversifying their portfolios into precious metals, Chinese millionaire who have limited options for storing value, increasing demand from emerging markets for jewelry. That's not the point; the point is that you are claiming that gold has 'intrinsic' value ('Gold is real money that holds it's value over time.'). That's bullshit, plain and simple. Yes, gold has historically been a relatively constant value store, but there is nothing intrinsically valuable about it, and (the vast majority of) those claiming it is are alarmist nutcases with little grasp of economics.

anamax 15y ago

> The fact is that gold can be converted into any currency in the world, in any country in the world. That wasn't true in the US from the early 1930s until the 1970s.

roel_v 15y ago

Inca rulers and the upper class used gold for decoration and to make things like tableware from - the point of this discussion is whether it was used as currency, which it wasn't. How are you going to call something a currency when it's only hanging on the wall of the upper 2% of society? I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but you said that gold was used by all societies of the last 1000's of years as a currency, but it flat out isn't. Most societies, yes, but not all - and that's important, because it shows that in places where there is a relative abundance of gold, it's not good as a currency (the non-use of gold in Inca times was not solely because of high supply, I'm not interested in arguing details on Inca culture and economics here because frankly I don't know much more about it than what a couple of tour guides told me). Anyway, let's go back to 2007. A house in Phoenix that sold for 250k in 2004 just reached one million. Which would you have rather bought back in 2004? That house, or a gold eagle? My point - it's easy to make a 'case' with perfect hindsight. There are several drivers to the current high price of gold; people diversifying their portfolios into precious metals, Chinese millionaire who have limited options for storing value, increasing demand from emerging markets for jewelry. That's not the point; the point is that you are claiming that gold has 'intrinsic' value ('Gold is real money that holds it's value over time.'). That's bullshit, plain and simple. Yes, gold has historically been a relatively constant value store, but there is nothing intrinsically valuable about it, and (the vast majority of) those claiming it is are alarmist nutcases with little grasp of economics.