Gold And Silver... It’s True Worth Is Alluding Me.

This may not be a very popular thread, in terms of responses or traffic...
Because it may not interest the reader...

But please do bare with me and read to the end, just in case it does and you can answer my upcoming query.


So I got a bit of a fringe belief...
That money is worthless, and only exists because it was forced upon us sometime during history for whatever reason (probably nefarious, but that’s another topic).

I’ve had this belief a very, very long time.

So I’ve always (until recently) believed we should be more orientated towards silver and gold...
Sounds reasonable, right? Probably loads of people who feel the same.

Well lately, my belief has altered, or maybe more accurately, I’m beginning to question...

At the basic level, what good is gold and silver?
What makes it “valuable”, really?

I ask this, because like money (paper cash), all you can really do with it, as an average Human, is trade, right?
So essentially, my recent thinking leads me to the conclusion it’s as equally valuable or worthless as the cash we currently use...
Does that make sense?

It has no real use, aside from the ability to hand it over for goods, like cash.
To a person who can only do with it, exactly what you did.



So what is it’s true value, really?

I could get into my beliefs that high concentrates of precious metals could be useful for advanced vehicular use or even spacecraft, maybe even FTL travel.

But even if that is true, what good is that to the average Joe?



This conclusion I’ve come to hasn’t turned me into a cash lover, my thoughts on cash haven’t really changed at all...
Except for the fact that I don’t see it as less valuable than gold and silver like I have before.

I now pretty much place them at the same level.



I’ve bolded the questions I am interested in hearing opinions on sos not to drag this into a realm of debate I wasn’t truly intending, but might have influenced with the way I’ve written this OP.


Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance if you do decide to participate and open my mind a bit.

Peace!

a reply to: Hazardous1408

Paper (or cashless) money is an adaptation of trade. Instead of pigs and cows, it’s now paper. Think of it as more of an IOU for items sold or services provided.

Gold and silver (or any precious metal or gem) is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it. The rarer it is, the more people will pay. More available it is, people will pay less.

a reply to: Hazardous1408

Take away the words 'gold' or 'silver' and replace it with Bitcoin, people will put a value on anything, gold and silver are just a 'standard'.
Fiat currency is something you use to put a numbered value on an asset. It's a way of regulating how much something is worth.

Tulip Mania

Unlike paper money, or digital currencies. Gold and silver (As well as other PMs) have value in manufacturing and electronics.

So do factor that in.

a reply to: Hazardous1408

Many countries have superstitions regarding gold and silver and precious gems, that adds more to their "value". Think about Native American people, they lived off the land and traded with each other without "currency", yet still valued silver and gold and especially copper.

There is an Asian superstition that gold will protect you from being struck by lightning, and I've heard other things about silver keeping you healthy from bacteria (silver spoon/utensils)

a reply to: Hazardous1408

geology.com...

Beyond this the value of gold is just something we made up.

If things go south, it is good to have some old silver coins so you can buy some food. I don't think that gold has much more real value than gold. If you go to a farmer and buy a bushel of potatoes, you may be able to buy it for two silver dollars or an ounce of gold. So a fifteen dollar bag of potatoes will run either say twenty bucks or a thousand bucks. Or you could simply bring them some copper you have hanging around the house. You can buy some copper chunks from a scrapyard, that will always have value too, as long as it is halfway pure.

Gold's value is based on the belief in it's value, it actually is a pretty worthless metal. We may have a few rings around but I don't care for gold, it tends to attract thieves and scammers.

If something happens with the economy, having plain old cash around is a good thing. You may not be able to go to the bank. If you have gold and silver, you need to find someone to buy it or trade for it for it to have any value. I wouldn't invest in gold with what the price is now, it can drop like a rock if people start to dump it, but it will always have some value.

a reply to: Hazardous1408

Both are finite resources, so their scarcity (which is a major component of value) is unquestioned. That flies in the face of a fiat currency system by which we can see shenanigans such as "quantitative easing" and artificial inflation.

If you're making the argument of usefulness in absence of monetary value, then why stop at gold and silver? Basically, you're saying if you can't live in it, wear it, eat it, or screw it, why would anyone apply a value to it? Keep going through history, seashells, salt, beads, gems, metals, all things man has used over the centuries as a measure of trade more convenient than carrying a sheep along with you to barter against or, in some cultures, one of your daughters or sons to trade off.

a reply to: Hazardous1408

Sublimecraft, the Aussie, shared a video in a bitcoin thread.

In it, a person stated that money was the first language. Money is a language that conveys value.

Be it gold, silver, shiny rocks, beads, feathers. . . . money is the language of value.

Gold is just a dialect.

Paper money, another dialect.

My 2 cents. . .

(see what I did there?)

What's cool about metal is that the markets can be manipulated; Like any commodity. But if you speak the language and can see the subtle cue's, doors will open to the casino and you can play.

Remember the Hunt bros.....those were the days!!!

www.businessinsider.com...

ask yourself, why is Russia and China are buying so much gold.

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: Hazardous1408

Many countries have superstitions regarding gold and silver and precious gems, that adds more to their "value". Think about Native American people, they lived off the land and traded with each other without "currency", yet still valued silver and gold and especially copper.

There is an Asian superstition that gold will protect you from being struck by lightning, and I've heard other things about silver keeping you healthy from bacteria (silver spoon/utensils)

silver is antimicrobial. u can even use it in water to keep it clean. the ions just blast anything they come in contact with. i use silver coils in my watercooling loop and after 4 years and not draining it, i know shame on me, its still looking crystal clear and has zero smell.

on topic - im not sure if money was invented for nefarious reasons. probly just a way to trade things we valued or others found value in. these days i wonder just what value gold or silver would have though in a massive crash. im sure for a bit people would be into trading for it but if u cant really find an easy way to convert it into something u can use or eat it could quickly go the wayside and wed be back to trading in services or goods we can use

a reply to: Hazardous1408

without gold and silver the computer you posted this thread from would not exist, nor would the internet,
without a supply of gold the internet and computer manufacturing would end. do factor that in.

originally posted by: Hazardous1408
At the basic level, what good is gold and silver?
What makes it “valuable”, really?

People...people/society place value on it.

I ask this, because like money (paper cash), all you can really do with it, as an average Human, is trade, right?
So essentially, my recent thinking leads me to the conclusion it’s as equally valuable or worthless as the cash we currently use...
Does that make sense?

Yes...you've lost that lovin' feeling

I could get into my beliefs that high concentrates of precious metals could be useful for advanced vehicular use or even spacecraft, maybe even FTL travel.
But even if that is true, what good is that to the average Joe?

Let me have yours and I'll show you

originally posted by: Hazardous1408
This may not be a very popular thread, in terms of responses or traffic...
Because it may not interest the reader...

But please do bare with me and read to the end, just in case it does and you can answer my upcoming query.


So I got a bit of a fringe belief...
That money is worthless, and only exists because it was forced upon us sometime during history for whatever reason (probably nefarious, but that’s another topic).

I’ve had this belief a very, very long time.

So I’ve always (until recently) believed we should be more orientated towards silver and gold...
Sounds reasonable, right? Probably loads of people who feel the same.

Well lately, my belief has altered, or maybe more accurately, I’m beginning to question...

At the basic level, what good is gold and silver?
What makes it “valuable”, really?

I ask this, because like money (paper cash), all you can really do with it, as an average Human, is trade, right?
So essentially, my recent thinking leads me to the conclusion it’s as equally valuable or worthless as the cash we currently use...
Does that make sense?

It has no real use, aside from the ability to hand it over for goods, like cash.
To a person who can only do with it, exactly what you did.



So what is it’s true value, really?

I could get into my beliefs that high concentrates of precious metals could be useful for advanced vehicular use or even spacecraft, maybe even FTL travel.

But even if that is true, what good is that to the average Joe?



This conclusion I’ve come to hasn’t turned me into a cash lover, my thoughts on cash haven’t really changed at all...
Except for the fact that I don’t see it as less valuable than gold and silver like I have before.

I now pretty much place them at the same level.



I’ve bolded the questions I am interested in hearing opinions on sos not to drag this into a realm of debate I wasn’t truly intending, but might have influenced with the way I’ve written this OP.


Thanks for reading, and thanks in advance if you do decide to participate and open my mind a bit.

Peace!

Golds value stems from the fact it is one of the least reactive metals which means it won’t corrode over time as other metals would, making it a great long term investment, something which was obviously noticed many many centuries ago

a reply to: Hazardous1408

The questions you are getting into is "what is value?" And "what is money?"

Value:
- This is a very deep and involved topic, and like everything else in economics, there is no real consensus regarding the matter. Value in accounting and in economics is very different. What makes something valuable ?
1) Demand/Supply
2) Availability/Scarcity

What is money:
- Money needs to be a store of wealth. Meaning its not volatile like bitcoin.
- Easily transferable. Like paper is easily handed from one to another.
- Unit of account. Meaning it should be a benchmark for pricing items.

Money of itself has no value, besides that of a piece of paper. The belief that the next guy will take it and give me goods is what keeps it going. So basically its the biggest religion in the world.

Gold isn't really easily transferable, and also, because mining gold is necessary, central governments could create more out of thin air. So thus gold was dropped. Gold bugs believe gold is real money because it has intrinsic value besides being a piece of paper. I dunno if that answers your question or not. Bottom line, nothing has real value. We give things value.

originally posted by: Hazardous1408

At the basic level, what good is gold and silver?

Peace!

First thing to note, gold does not react with most other chemicals. It remains gold. Doesn't oxidize in air.

All the gold that was ever mined in the world, from the history of time, is still here circulating as gold bullion, gold coins, jewelry, gold teeth, or gold plated electrical and electronic parts, and a few other gold tools.

So, the first valuable thing about gold, is that it retains its mass and weight, over long periods of time.

Iron, for example, will rust, and decay, and crumble over time, to become brown iron oxide. The wind will blow the rust particles about, and eventually all the iron will vanish from the spot it was sitting, scatters across the earth.

Gold remains put.

Silver, on the other hand, oxidizes and becomes black. So, it's not as good as gold, as a store of value.

However, once the oxide layer forms on top of silver, that slows down the oxidation of the rest of the silver, so it can still hold value as mass for some time.

Silver and Gold have many uses. Silver kills bacteria. So people used Silver to make cutlery: knives, forks, spoons, plates, bowls, etc...to prevent bacteria from growing on the surface of utensils used to eat food.

In this sense, silver is more valuable than gold.

Both silver and gold are good conductors of electricity and heat. So, they are used to make various tools that we use which require electric currents to flow and/or heat to be transmitted from one part to another.

So, what we have is two metals that have practical uses, and maintain their mass and weight over time, better than most other materials.

Basically the "intrinsic value" of any precious metal is what ever the free market decides it to be, and the market will decide the value based on the scarcity of the metal and its utility. Gold has a lot of uses in electronics and it is also highly resistant to corrosion so it's a good way to store value.

This is exactly why I find it so humorous when people talk about cryptocurrency being imaginary and worthless because they cannot hold it in their hand, as if the federal reserve notes they own have any real intrinsic value. Cryptocurrency has a lot of utility and the protocol rules enforce scarcity.

a reply to: Hazardous1408

It's very simple really. Say you want to sell a guitar on craigslist. The reason you want to sell it is that it isn't something you want anymore. So you take cash from someone else who wants the guitar to use that money on something else you do need or want.

Its an exchange thing. Now, you could avoid that by telling whoever you sell the guitar to that you want to barter for another object or even silver.

That is up to you.

However, say if you work for a corporation, your time is worth something. Now I suppose they could pay you in items or silver, but that would be rather time consuming or possibly even impossible. So they give you money for your time. That money is believed to have value.

The problem that runs into is if you have a government that doesn't manage their money in a positive manner other countries might start thinking your money is worthless. That is the cause of run away inflation. Your government bonds and cash are no longer respected as payment and then that money loses value.

So, that is the nice thing about silver in particular. It is always good to have a few thousand current dollar value of silver in your posession. It will follow the real value of things you want to buy.

I have seen many examples that buying a car (or whatever) in silver is still the same as if you had the same silver pieces 40 years ago.

So its like this, (although silver spot has dropped recently) if you bought a meal in pre 1964 times for 1 silver dollar, you can now also buy a decent meal for 16 dollars in 2017 price for a silver dollar.

Hopefully that makes sense.

I bought my son a used car for 2000 bucks by selling about 170 silver dollars. I am curios what a used car went for in 1964?

originally posted by: NobodiesNormal
a reply to: Hazardous1408

without gold and silver the computer you posted this thread from would not exist, nor would the internet,
without a supply of gold the internet and computer manufacturing would end. do factor that in.

Also, we would never have gone to the Moon without gold. Without silver, I don't know how we would have developed photography. Plus there is silver in CDs and DVDs.

Every element on the periodic table is useful in some way. Some are essential to us, some we probably still don't know how useful they are. The value of an element depends on how useful it is and how abundant it is. Aluminum used to be more valuable than gold because it was so hard refine chemically. Now it's cheap and abundant but still very useful.

Money, on the other hand, has one practical purpose. It's a medium of exchange. A Washington will light your cigar just as well as a Hamilton, but neither one is really suited for the purpose. So you use the money to get little sticks with sulfur and phosphorus. No matter how many c-notes you tape to your Lunar Module, they won't protect you from solar radiation.

Maybe the question we should be asking is, what is the true worth of money? Especially a fiat currency that is so inflated that we can't physically print enough bills to match the number that is supposed to exist.

You ever try eating paper or metal?
I say we go to whiskey and beads standard.
That worked out well for the Injuns.