Jay, at the risk of being boringly repetitive, gold is old-style money, where material goods are bartered. The only promise involved with gold is a modicum of civilization to avoid violence and theft.
Gold is a great leap backwards, not a leap beyond fiat cash.
Fiat cash is pure promise that the politicians and electorates or mobs will hold true to value and not rob the savers.
Such promises have been broken time and time again. A weather eye on those responsible for the promise is essential because they might indeed take the atavistic road to eons-old wealth by conquest and theft.
With fiat money, there's the tempting theft by stealth and dilution as well as outright confiscation.
Fiat money is like music and only exists when the Maestro is held in some esteem and the orchestra mindfully obeys his baton. Any wavering in determination to stick with the script and the score will lead to discordancy and cacophony as each goes their own way and the whole thing collapses and the audience leaves, finding no pleasure in the mess.
When properly run, an orchestra's output is one of the highest creations of humans. Purely abstract, ephemeral but valuable.
It's true there is risk in creating such intangible value, prone to failure and cacophony. What joy is there in prosaic security? Better to risk a riskable effort [which will not leave one destitute] and attempt to create a new arm of fractality out on which humans can climb to new realms barely imagined in decades past, let alone centuries.
While we humans hold each other in trust and trust each other and are trustworthy our fiat money is as secure as anything. Paradoxically, love and trust are the most powerful and real of bonds and value, but also the flimsiest [as those who have suffered divorce and breach of trust will attest, sadly].
As they say, we have nothing to fear but fear itself. If we cut and run, every man for himself, yes, you are quite right, gold will indeed be a value left standing while the pixelated phantom will have gone 'poof' to nothing.
The tragedy of the commons and the nature of panic is that if there is to be a grab for value or a stampede, one had better grab and stampede first. The question is, will there be a stampede or are Uncle Al and the US electorate [Mr & Mrs J6P] worthy of our trust.
Why hold their promise when the return is a derisory 1%? One needs hold the currency 100 years, just to get one's own money back [excluding taxes and inflation], let alone any interest returns [after tax and inflation].
As you say, gold is sure to be standing in time travel. I know of no currency which has stood for a century [without ugly erosion at best].
Hmmm, maybe I had best review the risks and spread of bid and ask. A century is a long time.
Mqurice |
