on the subject of the qualities of money

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January 23rd, 2010 at 11:06:37 AM permalink

Banknotes are pretty heavy also. A million dollars in $100 bills weighs 22 pounds. So any movie where a guy gets a small briefcase with $5 million dollars in it is crap. He would need a fairly big suitcase on wheels.

pacomartin

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April 13th, 2011 at 2:07:30 PM permalink

These gold coins are in 1/20 ounce size (a dime is 46% heavier). With the standard 400 ounce gold bars going for $583K today, I guess the tiny coins will be the currency of choice in the post apocalyptic world.

FleaStiff

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April 13th, 2011 at 2:21:21 PM permalink

Gold is HEAVY.

FleaStiff

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April 13th, 2011 at 2:25:22 PM permalink

Quote: odiousgambit
and a fortified cabin in the mountains is your best option.

In that case, you are probably going to want lead not gold.

AZDuffman

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April 13th, 2011 at 2:31:50 PM permalink

Quote: FleaStiff
Gold is HEAVY.

Here is an example of how heavy gold can be. After 9/11 my company did emergency rat abatement work at the site. This was about 2 -weeks after, when rescue turned into recovery. Our guy on the scene said there was a fleet of Brinks Armored Trucks there and they were taking out the gold that had been recovered. These are very heavy duty trucks, but he said you could see their suspensions were bottomes and even the tires showed how much weight they were carrying.

He aleays stressed how that never made the news. It probably went to the Federal Reserve.

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others

pacomartin

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April 13th, 2011 at 2:42:17 PM permalink

But the price of gold is now $46.87 per gram. One gram is the weight of a US banknote. Gold used to be under $20 per gram.

You can see the possibility that pound for pound gold may be more valuable than $100 banknotes someday.

rxwine

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April 13th, 2011 at 2:57:19 PM permalink

Quote: Mosca

Scratch that. I just went looking through Youtube for the clip. The first encounter with the gold shows it to be heavy, then minutes later GIs are seen loading boxes full of gold bars onto a deuce-and-a-half. So it seems that gold is very uncinematic!

Perhaps when you have that much, it starts to bit feel lighter right away. I certainly couldn't enjoy lugging lead around as much.

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April 13th, 2011 at 3:12:24 PM permalink

Trivia question: Which is denser, lead or gold?

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April 13th, 2011 at 3:49:30 PM permalink

Quote: Nareed
Trivia question: Which is denser, lead or gold?

I guess lead, because Superman can't see through it.

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AZDuffman

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April 13th, 2011 at 4:58:09 PM permalink

Quote: Wizard
I guess lead, because Superman can't see through it.

I thought he could see thu it but it was dense enough to shield the effects of nearby kryptonite (sp?)

I will say lead based on its higher atomic number.

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HKrandom

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April 14th, 2011 at 7:01:38 AM permalink

Why carry it physically instead of storing it in a safe offshore? I have been buying gold for a while and I never had any physical coin/bullion.

Nareed

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April 14th, 2011 at 7:10:06 AM permalink

A cubic meter of gold masses 19,320 kilograms (just short of 20 metric tons). A like amount of lead masses <drumroll> 11,340 kilograms (a bit over 10% more than one metric ton).

So gold is far denser than lead.

Lead is used in radiation shielding only because it's cheap and readily available, while gold is as rare and expensive as, well, as gold :) BTW NASA does use gold leaf to provide some radiation shielding on spacecraft windows, helmets and even umbilical cords. In some of the old color photos of Apollo and Gemini astronauts, you can see the gold tint on the faceplates of helmets.

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Doc

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April 14th, 2011 at 9:50:34 AM permalink

Quote: Nareed
A cubic meter of gold masses 19,320 kilograms (just short of 20 metric tons). A like amount of lead masses <drumroll> 11,340 kilograms (a bit over 10% more than one metric ton).

So gold is far denser than lead. ...

Nareed, you are correct about gold being denser than lead and also about the mass of a cubic meter of each. But you seem to have lost track of the decimal point when you claim that 11,340 kilograms is "a bit over 10% more than one metric ton." Gold has a density about 70% greater than lead, not the almost 20:1 ratio that your error suggests.

Here is a little tale as a side note to show just how far off some folks can be. When I was a grad student, I held a position as a teaching assistant for an undergraduate thermodynamics course and graded a bunch of homework papers. One of the problems required the density of lead, which was not given in the textbook, not even in the reference tables in the back. Some students were too lazy to look up the number in another reference book, and several used a formula they remembered from high school chemistry: the mass in grams of 22.4 liters of a material is numerically equal to the atomic weight. Yes, the students treated the lead as if it were an ideal gas at standard conditions. Talk about being a long way off!

Nareed

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April 14th, 2011 at 10:13:53 AM permalink

Quote: Doc
Nareed, you are correct about gold being denser than lead and also about the mass of a cubic meter of each. But you seem to have lost track of the decimal point when you claim that 11,340 kilograms is "a bit over 10% more than one metric ton." Gold has a density about 70% greater than lead, not the almost 20:1 ratio that your error suggests.

Whoops! That's what I get for trying to skew results with talk :)

19,320 kilos are actually nineteen point thrirty two metric tons, or just under twenty tons, and 11,340 kilos make up a little over 10% of ten metric tons (11.34% is a little over 10% in my book). A metric ton is 1,000 kilos, not ten thousand.

A while back the Mythbusters took on the saying "It went over like a lead balloon," by constructing a cubical balloon out of lead foil and getting it to fly (well, getting it off the ground at any rate). I wonder if they should follow up with a gold balloon...

Quote:
Yes, the students treated the lead as if it were an ideal gas at standard conditions. Talk about being a long way off!

At what temperature does lead boil? It wuld be interesting to find how it behaves in a gaseous state. expensive, too :P

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pacomartin

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April 14th, 2011 at 10:39:39 AM permalink

Quote: HKrandom
Why carry it physically instead of storing it in a safe offshore? I have been buying gold for a while and I never had any physical coin/bullion.

Buying gold is an expression of fear and distrust of modern finance. You are investing in people's fear. The people that are actually afraid need to touch the stuff.

The ultimate expression of fear is buying gold in coins that are smaller than a dime. You not only need the gold, but you want it in a size that you think you can use as currency when normal currency is no longer acceptable. Think of the huge overhead you must pay to buy gold in tiny quantities.

Doc

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April 14th, 2011 at 11:28:16 AM permalink

Quote: Nareed
... At what temperature does lead boil? It wuld be interesting to find how it behaves in a gaseous state. expensive, too :P

According to this link, the boiling point of lead is 1740.0 Celcius. For gold, it's 2807.0 C, which would be even more expensive to test. (I find it interesting that the web page describes the color of gold as "gold".)

And yes, this is getting well off the topic of this thread.

Ayecarumba

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April 14th, 2011 at 6:02:36 PM permalink

Thinking post-apocalypse, why would gold be a good standard of exchange? Why would people value it? You can't eat or drink it, it won't make your car go, or your gun fire... I would think something with more intrinsic value would be the common means for exchange... perhaps rechargable AA batteries?

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Ayecarumba

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April 14th, 2011 at 6:14:01 PM permalink

Quote: AZDuffman
I thought he could see thu it but it was dense enough to shield the effects of nearby kryptonite (sp?)

Nope. The Man of Steel cannot see through lead (it's called "X-ray vision" after all). Lead also shields him from the effects of kryptonite. For way to much on this specific topic, check out this article.

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication - Leonardo da Vinci

pacomartin

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April 14th, 2011 at 7:35:21 PM permalink

Quote: Ayecarumba
Thinking post-apocalypse, why would gold be a good standard of exchange? Why would people value it? You can't eat or drink it, it won't make your car go, or your gun fire... I would think something with more intrinsic value would be the common means for exchange... perhaps rechargable AA batteries?

The wealthiest of the survivalist school has safe havens packed with all those things, plus a means of transportation to get there.

Some people are more concerned about banking collapse, and widespread poverty than literal apocalyptic scenarios. Concentration camp survivors have told stories that the only thing between them and painful disease was the decision to wear a sturdy pair of shoes.

There are some real life scenarios. The banking collapse in Iceland meant their currency lost half it's value to the Euro in a matter of months. The Mexican peso lost half it's value to the dollar in the early 1990's. Almost 1/3 of the businesses collapsed.

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April 14th, 2011 at 9:25:44 PM permalink

Maybe this is off topic, but I've always wondered what the deal was about money and gold. Bear with me on my grade school knowledge of the subject, but isn't the concept of money basically that the US has gold and silver, and the paper bills (silver certificates) represented you owning a share of said gold and silver? And if this is so, am I the only one who finds this strange?

I mean, gold and silver are 'valuable', but why? What real value do these metals possess? Gold conducts electricity quite well, but due to the weight and its rarity, isn't very efficient at doing so. Other than that, I can't easily come up with a use for either one, other than they 'look pretty'. What am I missing? Come this apocolypse deal, I'd much rather have a stick I could use to spear fish and small mammals than all the gold in Alaska. Gold bars are cool, but they ain't got many calories.

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April 15th, 2011 at 12:45:23 AM permalink

Quote: Face
Maybe this is off topic, but I've always wondered what the deal was about money and gold. Bear with me on my grade school knowledge of the subject, but isn't the concept of money basically that the US has gold and silver, and the paper bills (silver certificates) represented you owning a share of said gold and silver? And if this is so, am I the only one who finds this strange?

I mean, gold and silver are 'valuable', but why? What real value do these metals possess? Gold conducts electricity quite well, but due to the weight and its rarity, isn't very efficient at doing so. Other than that, I can't easily come up with a use for either one, other than they 'look pretty'. What am I missing? Come this apocolypse deal, I'd much rather have a stick I could use to spear fish and small mammals than all the gold in Alaska. Gold bars are cool, but they ain't got many calories.

To serve as a measure of value, a medium of exchange, needs to have constant inherent value of its own or it must be firmly linked to a definite basket of goods and services. It should have constant intrinsic value and stable purchasing power. Gold was long popular as a medium of exchange and store of value because it was inert, was convenient to move due to even small amounts of gold having considerable value, had a constant value due to its special physical and chemical properties, and was cherished by men.

That is not an entirely satisfactory explanation, but the first coins made about 2700 years ago were made of electrum, a naturally occurring alloy of gold and silver, with trace amounts of copper and other metals. So gold and silver were our first monetary system.

Your grade school understanding of currency needs to be updated. While it is true that paper bills (specifically silver certificates) represented ownership a share of the nation's gold and silver, that hasn't been true in many decades. While the gold of the nation was gathered by the government in the 1930's and put in For Knox, the need for currency in WWII meant that we printed banknotes that in too large of a quantity to be backed by our gold. The silver certificates were not printed after 1964, and since 1968 can only be redeemed as federal reserve notes.

All forms of representative money have been withdrawn by the world governments. Switzerland was the last developed country to stop backing it's currency with gold. The requirement to have 40% of it's currency backed by gold was removed on 1 May 2000. But the Swiss franc has probably done better against the US dollar than any currency since WWII. At WWII it was fixed at US$1 = 4.30521 francs, and today a Swiss franc is worth $1.12 .

All world currencies today are fiat money, i.e. the banknotes are money because their governments says they are money. In other words they don't represent anything else, and the government has no requirement to turn banknotes into gold , silver, or anything else. What economists say is that the banknotes are backed by the value of the good's and service that are bought by that country, and the good faith of that country.

Critics of the prevailing system of fiat money argue that fiat money is the root cause of the continuum of economic crises, since it leads to the dominance of fraud, corruption, and manipulation, establishing one of the worst frauds against humanity, precisely because it does not satisfy the criteria for a medium of exchange cited above. Specifically, prevailing fiat money is free float and depending upon its supply market finds or sets a value to it that continues to change as the supply of money is changed with respect to the economy's demand. Increasing free floating money supply with respect to needs of the economy reduces the quantity of the basket of the goods and services to which it is linked by the market and that provides it purchasing power.

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April 15th, 2011 at 6:57:28 AM permalink

Quote: pacomartin
To serve as a measure of value, a medium of exchange, needs to have constant inherent value of its own or it must be firmly linked to a definite basket of goods and services. It should have constant intrinsic value and stable purchasing power.

True. It should aslo be easily divisible in standarized portions and hard to counterfeit.

Other things that have been used as currency include salt, which has always been essential but hasn't always been easy to come by (today it's cheaper than dirt); as a side note the word "salary" derives from the Latin word for salt. After WWII cigarettes were a popular informal form of currency in Europe, too. A cigarette can't be divided, but a pack of them can.

Stuff like diamonds and gems make poor currency because they're not easy to divide, and are too easy to counterfeit

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pacomartin

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April 15th, 2011 at 7:46:01 AM permalink

Quote: Nareed
To serve as a measure of value, a medium of exchange, needs to have constant inherent value of its own or it must be firmly linked to a definite basket of goods and services. It should have constant intrinsic value and stable purchasing power.

Nareed, you've lived through a severe currency devaluation. I am not sure how old you were.

Was there a massive rush to buy staples, to turn your currency into cans of food, and other staples. Did the government or the stores kick in with limits on purchasing?

Nareed

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April 15th, 2011 at 1:29:40 PM permalink

Quote: pacomartin
Nareed, you've lived through a severe currency devaluation.

I wish! I lived through three of them.

Quote:
I am not sure how old you were.

Funny, I don't seem to eb able to remember that :P

Quote:
Was there a massive rush to buy staples, to turn your currency into cans of food, and other staples. Did the government or the stores kick in with limits on purchasing?

No. But in 82-83 there were sporadic shortages of things like toothpaste, tortillas, toilet paper and such. At the time, too, a lot of people left Mexico. Some returned a few years later, but most stayed in the US or Canada and built businesses there.

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April 15th, 2011 at 2:10:36 PM permalink

Thank you paco, indeed you are a fountain of knowledge. I knew the old school idea of money was off as silver certificates are no longer used, but the only other concept of money I could come up with was that it had worth simply because people say it has worth, which sounded too suspicious. Turns out I was right by the sounds of it. I don't even know what to say, just the whole concept of money seems very strange to me.

I'm still left curious about the gold thing. As Nareed pointed out, there have been many items used as currency. Most of the ones I've heard about I can understand. My people used furs and other animal products in the way back, which is understandable because they were needed to survive. Salt, before electricity and refrigeration, was needed to preserve food through the tough times, which is also based on survival. But todays high value minerals, from gold to silver, diamonds and other gems, I just don't see why they are given value. Gold especially, all you see on TV is gold companies buying old jewelry by the boat load, gold prices highest in history,...but why? In the history of man, what use has gold had that has made it such a high value commodity? Salt has 10,000 uses, how many does gold have?

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April 15th, 2011 at 2:36:51 PM permalink

Quote: Nareed
Quote: pacomartin
I am not sure how old you were.

Funny, I don't seem to eb able to remember that :P ...

Nareed, if you are having difficulty remembering your age, I can provide the link to the post in this forum where your age is listed. Should I?
( :P yourself!)

Nareed

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April 15th, 2011 at 2:41:11 PM permalink

Quote: Doc
Nareed, if you are having difficulty remembering your age, I can provide the link to the post in this forum where your age is listed. Should I?
( :P yourself!)

I don't know. Do you have a strong death wish or is it just temporary? :P

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Nareed

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April 15th, 2011 at 2:59:13 PM permalink

Quote: Face
Salt, before electricity and refrigeration, was needed to preserve food through the tough times, which is also based on survival.

Oh, it went further than that. You need salt in order not to die. Today the problem is too much salt rather than too little, but both are dangerous.

Quote:
But todays high value minerals, from gold to silver, diamonds and other gems, I just don't see why they are given value.

Because they are highly desired and rare.

Quote:
In the history of man, what use has gold had that has made it such a high value commodity? Salt has 10,000 uses, how many does gold have?

Plenty. You just don't hear much about it because, other than jewlery and dental fillings, it's used in very small quantities. Some electronics, for instance, ahve small amounts of gold plating at contact points.

As metals go gold is quite unique. It doesn't tarnish like silver, it's compact as a store of value, it cannot be counterfeited easily. Ever hear of the "acid test"? Gold is impervious to most acids, that's one simple way to test for authenticity. Iron pyrite, known as "fool's gold," looks very similar, but it's harder, not as malleable and succumbs quickly to acid. At the same time gold's easy to work with and shape. It's so malleable it can be produced as gold leaf, which is thinner than paper.

As currency it's easy to divide into standard units, soft enough to stamp a design on it, and it's durable as hell. Roman coins remained in circulation in Europe for centuries.

If gold were as common as iron, you'd see plenty more uses for it. Of course then it wouldn't be so valuable and wouldn't be used either in jewlery or as a store of anything. We'd use platinum for that instead.

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April 15th, 2011 at 4:06:49 PM permalink

Quote: Nareed
Oh, it went further than that. You need salt in order not to die. Today the problem is too much salt rather than too little, but both are dangerous.

Indeed you do, but can't the required amount of sodium be aquired in a normal diet? Or were the old times rife with salt's version of scurvy? In a dietary sense, I always though of it as a luxury, not so much that you needed a supplement of salt to live.

Quote: Nareed
Because they are highly desired and rare.

Highly desired, yes, but WHY? That is what I don't get. What is it about this ridiculously heavy, soft, yellow metal that makes it $1,000-an-ounce desirable? The uses you described almost fit. Due to its conductiveness, its durability and its maleability, it ALMOST is the best thing since sliced bread. But unfortunately, it's too heavy, and as we know, too rare to find widespread usage. If there were some very important use for it that ONLY it could do, then I could probably understand. But there isn't. You might find the tiniest speck of it in high end electronics, a sheet or two used for an old school motif on a motorcycle, or a couple chunks that Hardcore Pawn customers use to chew with, but what else? And how necessary is it?

What if we just started over. Gold is now worth 0. What would government pay for stores of it? What would businesses pay to use it in their goods? What would the common man pay to display it? I get that due to its characteristics it DOES have value. But $1,200 an ounce? Really? Why? It just seems absurd.

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April 15th, 2011 at 5:41:18 PM permalink

Quote: Face
Indeed you do, but can't the required amount of sodium be aquired in a normal diet? Or were the old times rife with salt's version of scurvy? In a dietary sense, I always though of it as a luxury, not so much that you needed a supplement of salt to live.

Today you can. I haven't added any salt to any dish I've eaten in over 25 years and my sodium seems ok, my blood pressure sure is. In ancient times, who knows? But if nothing else salt was used as a spice then, too, and there were less spices available. In any case when eating foods preserved with salt, like salted fish, you'd eat a lot of the salt, too.

Quote:
Highly desired, yes, but WHY?

Because it's soft, shiny, beautiful, easy to work and lasts forever untarnished.

Why is good art highly desired and rare? But you can't use art as currency as easily as gold. How much do you think works like Leonardo's "La Gioconda" or Michelangelo's "David" sell for?

Quote:
What is it about this ridiculously heavy, soft, yellow metal that makes it $1,000-an-ounce desirable?

Turn it around. What makes 10 $100 bills desirable? They're money only because people believe they are. Ok, it's actually more complicated than that, because US currency is backed by the goods and services produced by the US economy. But essentially US bank notes are used as currency because people accept them as such. There's no other reason.

BTW gold as currency is also un-inflatable. The government cannot decree more of it into existence.

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Ayecarumba

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April 15th, 2011 at 5:49:11 PM permalink

As it stands today, it has value because someone is willing to pay X amount for it. Regardless of their motive(s), it is the trade value. In a land where the basics of life are easy to come by, we can splurge our resources on excesses like gold for adornment.

But what if we all didn't have potable water, warm clothes, electricity, or a ready supply of food? Would we trade anything for a shiny piece of metal?

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April 15th, 2011 at 5:55:05 PM permalink

Quote: Face
Highly desired, yes, but WHY? That is what I don't get. What is it about this ridiculously heavy, soft, yellow metal that makes it $1,000-an-ounce desirable? The uses you described almost fit. Due to its conductiveness, its durability and its maleability, it ALMOST is the best thing since sliced bread. But unfortunately, it's too heavy, and as we know, too rare to find widespread usage.
What if we just started over. Gold is now worth 0. What would government pay for stores of it? What would businesses pay to use it in their goods? What would the common man pay to display it? I get that due to its characteristics it DOES have value. But $1,200 an ounce? Really? Why? It just seems absurd.

Nobel Prize winning economist Friedrich von Hayek put it this way: "History is largely a history of inflation, and usually of inflations engineered by governments and for the gain of governments.'' In recent times, the hyperinflations of Germany in the 1920s and of Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil in the 1980s are all examples of governments debasing their currencies and engaging in what Mises called "a fraudulent attempt to cheat the public.''

Unfortunately the USA is extremely aware of the dangers of inflation on it's own people. Instead we made a conscious decision roughly 1991 when the Soviet Union to flood the world with our money. It allowed us to consume way beyond our means.

Traditionally gold was money precisely because it was rare, and only partly because it was useful. If the gold is rare, then you can control the wealth. In modern parlance, gold takes the decision of money production away from government.

For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. -Hamlet

The answer to your question is partly tautological. Gold is valuable because people think it is valuable. That is why counterfeiting is so dangerous. The biggest fear is that people will mistrust currency.

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April 15th, 2011 at 7:32:40 PM permalink

Quote: Nareed
Why is good art highly desired and rare? But you can't use art as currency as easily as gold. How much do you think works like Leonardo's "La Gioconda" or Michelangelo's "David" sell for?

'Good art' I can kind of see, because it is a physical creation containing man's creativity and imagination. It's almost like owning a part of one's soul. To say how much it's worth is complicated based on the contents of this thread, and I think that's where my issue lies. If someone where to offer me $1,000,000 for my sons scribble hanging on my refrigerator, I'd take it, right? But money, literally, is simply a cotton blend covered in ink that the WORLD says has value, whereas the scribble is something very, very dear to me that I SAY has value. What would possess a person, in this case me, to give up something that fills their hearts, for something that has nearly no real value? /sigh. I know this isn't very clear, I'm having a hard time expressing my point. It appears something sparked the long inactive, pot smoking, hippy part of my brain and I can't find the words to get it out. ><

Quote: Nareed
Turn it around. What makes 10 $100 bills desirable? They're money only because people believe they are. Ok, it's actually more complicated than that, because US currency is backed by the goods and services produced by the US economy. But essentially US bank notes are used as currency because people accept them as such. There's no other reason.

You kind of asked my question and answered it in one shot. Money has value because people say so. There is no other reason. That's basically what I thought, but it just seemed so...silly, I guess. I may be simply making a mountain out of a mole hill, or I may have begun the plunge into insanity, but does no one else find this to be bizarre? I'll try not to recreate a rant I've gone into elsewhere, but to sum it up in one sentence, it seems our entire world revolves around a concept of value that only has value because we say so. Seems, I dunno, dangerous? That's not the right word, but it's close. This athiest can't help thinking of golden calves.

Quote: pacomartin
Traditionally gold was money precisely because it was rare, and only partly because it was useful. If the gold is rare, then you can control the wealth. In modern parlance, gold takes the decision of money production away from government.

Aha! Very good, paco! This makes sense to my feeble mind and justifies to my satisfaction the use of gold as currency. At the very least it quieted that nagging part of my brain that can't stop asking questions. Thank you, sir. =)

Quote: pacomartin
The biggest fear is that people will mistrust currency.

Methinks this ship has sailed, at least for me. ;)

Thank you all for bearing with me on this topic. I'm not trying to fear-monger nor trying to impart negativity anywhere, this just happened to be something I've thought of previously. Seeing so many in my circle killing themselves to keep up with the Joneses, or just to keep their heads above water, got me to thinking of our whole working society and why so much of our lives are dedicated to The Dollar. It became a topic of interest to me for a while and I thank you for imparting wisdom into my concerns. I still think it's daft, but what can you do?

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April 15th, 2011 at 8:10:41 PM permalink

Quote: Face
'Good art' I can kind of see, because it is a physical creation containing man's creativity and imagination.

yes, but what is it good for? It has no use save decorating walls and spaces, does it? like gold has for personal adornment and such? And so?

Quote:
You kind of asked my question and answered it in one shot. Money has value because people say so. There is no other reason. That's basically what I thought, but it just seemed so...silly, I guess.

Not just because they say so or believe so. After all, there is a price for money: interest rates. Money's bought and sold in open markets. If governments print too much of it, it looses value regardless of what people say or believe. Look up inflation.

Donald Trump is a fucking criminal

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April 16th, 2011 at 12:46:28 AM permalink

Quote: Nareed
yes, but what is it good for? It has no use save decorating walls and spaces, does it? like gold has for personal adornment and such? And so?

What good? Hmm. I'm not an art buff as it pertains to paintings, but to someone who is I imagine them to respond in a similar fashion that I do to music, which is also a creative and imaginary experience. Listening to art changes who I am, affects me personally, adjusts my mood, etc. If I'm feeling blue, too angry, too manic, too happy, too bored, musical art can assist in making me feel the way I want. I imagine visual art must be similar. If you can look at Painting X and be inspired, feel calmer, be happy, then said painting has a real value. I suppose you could stretch that concept to anything, be it a pile of seashells, a collection of oak leaves, or yeah, even gold, but I dunno. I guess I just won't ever get it. To me it'll always just be a rather ugly yellow metal. Wrap it all fancy-like around a pen, and yeah, pretty cool. Wait, $3,000 for that pen? Umm, I think I'll stick to my Bic.

Quote: Nareed
Not just because they say so or believe so. After all, there is a price for money: interest rates. Money's bought and sold in open markets. If governments print too much of it, it looses value regardless of what people say or believe. Look up inflation.

The price for money is interest rates, which are paid for...with money...that um, has no real value...except it does because we say so...so we'll pay money of no value for...more money of no value except that which we state it has...so we can in turn get what we need to be productive and make...um, money....that has no value.
This is what the inside of my head looks like lol.
I mean, I get money. I understand the concept of needing a way to track wealth and to do it in such a fashion that we're not reduced back to trading for goods whose quality may or may not be suspect. And I understand what you and paco have said about it representing a portion of our country's wealth, yada, yada, yada. I just thought that if you stop and look at it from afar, from a virgin perspective, that the concept of money is strange. We all have needs that are absolutely required not only for happiness, but survival itself. Food, water, shelter, medicine. These are all very real, very direct. Yet the only way to get these items of the highest value is through this concept of money, which has no value. It's funny. People live 70ish years, 50 of which will be spent chasing money. I feel mankind would be better off spending their time elsewhere. Or maybe I'm just sick of working. I dunno lol. Thanks for the chat =)

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pacomartin