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I forget where I heard it. Supposedly the amount of silver needed to buy a goat during Roman times is similar to today. Cold metal seems to act as cold storage

I forget where I heard it. Supposedly the amount of silver needed to buy a goat during Roman times is similar to today. Cold metal seems to act as cold storage of value across history.

kspacewalk2 3y ago
>Supposedly the amount of silver needed to buy a goat during Roman times is similar to today. Probably not during famines.
- ARandomerDude 3y ago
  Ackchyually...if you compare ancient famine surge pricing to modern, stable, non-famine pricing then probably not. But go somewhere on earth where famine is still a real thing without humanitarian aid and compare famine-to-famine pricing. I imagine it would probably be similar.
everforward 3y ago
That would be fascinating, if true. It requires balancing so many things. We keep mining, so supply is increasing, but so is population and thus demand. We keep making more efficient ways to mine silver which should make it cost more silver, but we are also getting more efficient at herding goats making it cheaper. It's crazy that many factors could be/stay in balance. It makes me wonder whether those factors are actually separate or whether these factors scale based on some common element like population.
- foobarian 3y ago
  Would be even crazier if the causality flows from the amount of the mineral available - i.e. can't have a larger population without mining more of the silver (which could be correlated with mining a whole bunch of other minerals involved in the supporting economy etc.).
o11c 3y ago
Hm, sources seem to vary a lot ... but they all seem to be within a single order of magnitude at least.
HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
> Supposedly the amount of silver needed to buy a goat during Roman times is similar to today Interesting factoid if true, but it's hard to see how this could be anything other than coincidence. The relative scarcity, and demand, for goats vs silver must have changed massively due to things like modern factory farming, modern mechanized mining, modern fiat currency, modern food alternatives, etc, etc. So, if the price of goats in silver is in fact still the same, I don't think the takeaway should be that these two commodities can be assumed to still have the same relative supply vs demand of 2000 years ago, and that this proves that bullion is a good store of value (even if it is).
darth_avocado 3y ago
We can arbitrarily pick data points to prove a thesis, but that’s only one item. It is incredibly cheaper to do pretty much everything right now than it is during the Roman times. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30653366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30653366
pjc50 3y ago
Even the Romans had problems with debasement of the silver currency. As well as the real problem of a metal currency: specie shortage making it difficult to do large transactions at all sometimes.

I forget where I heard it. Supposedly the amount of silver needed to buy a goat during Roman times is similar to today. Cold metal seems to act as cold storage of value across history.

kspacewalk2 3y ago

>Supposedly the amount of silver needed to buy a goat during Roman times is similar to today. Probably not during famines.

ARandomerDude 3y ago
Ackchyually...if you compare ancient famine surge pricing to modern, stable, non-famine pricing then probably not. But go somewhere on earth where famine is still a real thing without humanitarian aid and compare famine-to-famine pricing. I imagine it would probably be similar.

everforward 3y ago

That would be fascinating, if true. It requires balancing so many things. We keep mining, so supply is increasing, but so is population and thus demand. We keep making more efficient ways to mine silver which should make it cost more silver, but we are also getting more efficient at herding goats making it cheaper. It's crazy that many factors could be/stay in balance. It makes me wonder whether those factors are actually separate or whether these factors scale based on some common element like population.

foobarian 3y ago
Would be even crazier if the causality flows from the amount of the mineral available - i.e. can't have a larger population without mining more of the silver (which could be correlated with mining a whole bunch of other minerals involved in the supporting economy etc.).

o11c 3y ago

Hm, sources seem to vary a lot ... but they all seem to be within a single order of magnitude at least.

HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago

> Supposedly the amount of silver needed to buy a goat during Roman times is similar to today Interesting factoid if true, but it's hard to see how this could be anything other than coincidence. The relative scarcity, and demand, for goats vs silver must have changed massively due to things like modern factory farming, modern mechanized mining, modern fiat currency, modern food alternatives, etc, etc. So, if the price of goats in silver is in fact still the same, I don't think the takeaway should be that these two commodities can be assumed to still have the same relative supply vs demand of 2000 years ago, and that this proves that bullion is a good store of value (even if it is).

darth_avocado 3y ago

We can arbitrarily pick data points to prove a thesis, but that’s only one item. It is incredibly cheaper to do pretty much everything right now than it is during the Roman times. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30653366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30653366

pjc50 3y ago

Even the Romans had problems with debasement of the silver currency. As well as the real problem of a metal currency: specie shortage making it difficult to do large transactions at all sometimes.