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Warren Buffet once wrote about gold... It gets dug out of the ground in Africa, or someplace. Then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay peo

• jrockway 15y ago
  Gold has utility: it easily forms a plating on other metals, and conducts electricity even when continuously exposed to air. This is not true of many other metals, hence the popularity of gold-plated electronic interconnects.
  • brown9-2 15y ago
    But is that utility that you mention the reason why people bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it? Gold may have some utility and practical applications but that does not seem to account for all of it's perceived value.
    • deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
  • lmkg 15y ago
    This is exactly why I hate it so much when people use gold as an investment instrument. Gold would be useful, except its price is high and its supply is low, because people purchase it with the sole intent of not doing anything with it.
  • aqme28 15y ago
    I'd need to find the statistic again, but it's something like 15% of the value of gold is due to its utility, and the rest is due to it being shiny/historically valued
    • Steko 15y ago
      50% jewelry (half to india), 40% investment, 10% industrial
  • cm127 15y ago
    Well, then why not rate all the elements in the periodic table? Silver is considered precious and can kill werewolves; Plutonium can send you back to the future. If you start talking about Gold as a resource, then what's the point?