The link didn't work, BUT:
I agree, it is a shame to look at gold as ONLY any one of these:
* Money
* Just Another Commodity
* "The final ultimate form of payment", Greenspan.
* The best conductor of electrical or thermal energy with-out movement into super-conductor technology
* (Wordsmith):
Definition 1. a precious yellow metal chemical element that has seventy-nine protons in each nucleus, that occurs in pure form as a very dense, lustrous, highly malleable solid, and that is often mixed with other metals to make it harder and stronger. (symbol: Au)
Definition 2. any alloy containing gold metal, used in making coins, jewelry, and a variety of implements.
Definition 3. coins or bullion made mostly or wholly of gold, used as a commodity, medium of exchange, or standard of value.
Definition 4. money; cash.
Definition 5. wealth; riches.
Example an abundance of gold.
Definition 6. something comparable to gold in being regarded as beautiful, desirable, valuable, or the like.
Example a heart of gold.
Definition 7. a metallic yellow color like that of gold metal.
* The single investment unable to be manipulated
* An investment manipulated higher by governments
* The single investment instrument manipulated lower by governments
* A store of value - the greatest single store of value
* "An Evil symbol ,devoid of any value, of the explotation of of the sweet pure pristine natural mother earth by the vile corrupt human" The extreme of the environmental pseudo-religious fringe
* Free of manipulation lower by banks - afterall, if the credit / debit card industry view cash as "an evil enemy whose use we must discourage"(Robert Rubin after going to work for "C") then can they view gold in any possible higher position?
* "The most perfect reservoir of any culture's historic memory" Howard Carter - archeologist(?) - Tutankhamen's tomb
* Investment that pays no dividend(an obvious lie because there is a lease rate which is paid)
Perhaps this exchange shows the best single description of that which gold is:
(segments borrowed from Greatest Films - good review by Tim Dirks)
The Treasure of Sierra Madre(from one of the film's promotional posters - "The Nearer They Get to Their Treasure, the Farther They Get From the Law!" )
Dobbs (Bogart)
crazy old prospector - Howard - (Walter Huston)
Curtin (Tim Holt)
Howard: Gold in Mexico? Why sure there is. Not ten days from here by rail and pack train, there's a mountain waiting for the right guy to come along, discover a treasure, and then tickle her until she lets him have it. The question is, are you the right guy?...Aw, real bonanzas are few and far between that take a lot of finding. Say, answer me this one, will ya? Why's gold worth some twenty bucks an ounce?
Another man: I don't know. 'Cause it's scarce.
Howard: A thousand men, say, go searching for gold. After six months, one of 'em is lucky - one out of the thousand. His find represents not only his own labor but that of nine hundred and ninety-nine others to boot. That's uh, six thousand months or five hundred years scrabbling over mountains, going hungry and thirsty. An ounce of gold, mister, is worth what it is because of the human labor that went into the finding and the getting of it.
Man: Never thought of it just like that...
Howard: Well, there's no other explanation, mister. Gold itself ain't good for nothin' except makin' jewelry with and gold teeth.
Aw, gold's a devilish sort of a thing anyway. You start out to tell yourself you'll be satisfied with twenty-five thousand handsome smackers worth of it, 'so help me Lord and cross my heart.' Fine resolution. After months of sweatin' yourself dizzy and growing short on provisions and findin' nothin', you finally come down to fifteen thousand and then ten, finally you say, 'Lord, let me just find five thousand dollars worth and never ask for anything more the rest of my life.'...Here in this joint, it seems like a lot, but I tell you, if you was to make a real strike, you couldn't be dragged away. Not even the threat of miserable death'd keep you from trying to add ten thousand more. Ten you want to get twenty-five. Twenty-five you want to get fifty. Fifty, a hundred. Like roulette. One more turn, you know, always one more.
Half-drunk, Dobbs can't restrain himself and interrupts the conversation:
It wouldn't be that way with me. I swear it wouldn't. I'd take only what I set out to get, even if there was still a half a million dollars worth lying around waitin' to be picked up.
Howard looks at Dobbs and then continues with stories to his fellow "down-and-outers." He recalls his past gold quests all over the world - as though he hadn't been interrupted. He ends his tales of experience (when he witnessed "what gold does to men's souls") by describing how the noble, friendly, and solid intentions of gold-seekers vanished after gold was discovered:
Howard: I've dug in Alaska and in Canada and Colorado. I was with the crowd in British Honduras where I made my fare back home and almost enough over to cure me of the fever I'd caught. I've dug in California and Australia, all over the world practically. Yeah, I know what gold does to men's souls.
Another man: You talk as though you struck it rich sometime or other, Pop. How about it? Then what are you doin' in here, a down-and-outer?
Howard: That's gold, that's what it makes of us. Never knew a prospector yet that died rich. Make one fortune, you're sure to blow it in trying to find another. I'm no exception to the rule. Aw sure, I'm an odd old bone now, but say, don't you guys think the spirit's gone. I'm all set to shoulder a pickax and a shovel any time anybody's willing to share expenses. I'd rather go by myself. Going it alone's the best way. But you got to have a stomach for loneliness. Some guys go nutty with it. On the other hand, going with a partner or two is dangerous. Murder's always lurkin' about. Partners accusin' each other of all sorts of crimes. Aw, as long as there's no find, the noble brotherhood will last, but when the piles of gold begin to grow, that's when the trouble starts.
After listening to the philosophical old-timer speak about the destabilizing effects of wealth, Curtin and Dobbs share their own reactions:
Curtin: Me, now, I wouldn't mind a little of that kind of trouble.
Dobbs: I think I'll go to sleep and dream about piles of gold gettin' bigger and bigger and bigger...
The next afternoon on the Plaza bench while they lounge about, Curtin and Dobbs contemplate Howard's warnings of what lusting for gold can do to a man's soul. Although Howard has wisely warned them that the desire for wealth is tremendously destructive, they haven't been persuaded by his prophetic remarks to stop dreaming about sudden wealth. They deny their own vulnerability when Dobbs asserts that gold isn't inherently evil ("gold can be as much of a blessing as a curse"). He is assured that he will be the "right guy" - the one who won't be affected by gold's perennial curse:
Dobbs: Do you believe what that old man who was doin' all the talkin' at the Oso Negro said the other night about gold changin' a man's soul so that he ain't the same kind of a guy that he was before findin' it?
Curtin: Guess that all depends on the man.
Dobbs: That's exactly what I say. Gold don't carry any curse with it. It all depends on whether or not the guy who finds it is the right guy. The way I see it, gold can be as much of a blessing as a curse.
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