TJ, Checking the arithmetic, once again: < 150,000 ton per 7 billion souls.>
That's 150,000,000,000 grams for 7,000,000,000 people.
That's 20 grams, 0.7 ounce, per person or $500 per person.
That's not enough to run a global money system. People have a lot more than that sitting in the bank or under the mattress.
Therefore, gold is no good as a global money system. You can't buy much at all for $500.
There needs to be something like $20,000 per person, which could be achieved by gold going up in value to that price, but that would set off an absurd gold-finding economy, like the Easter Islanders building Moais ce.eng.usf.edu = huge effort to no good use. I suppose digging rocks kept young blokes busy and out of mischief, like building the Great Wall of China, but there are plenty of useful things for young blokes to do these days, such as producing CDMA cyberphones.
You can forget gold becoming a currency other than for a few wacky Islamic Jihad types and silly atavistic Aztecs.
Which is not to say gold wouldn't be a temporarily good place to hide financially in the event of a financial reset, which commonly happens with fiat fantasy currencies.
Mqurice |
