Gold? Worth it?

Ark_Welder

kidmugsy wrote: »

Gold is less dangerous - no sugar.

Sugars have more use. Have you ever tried fermenting gold?

sabretoothtigger

But if you were rich and stupid enough you could probably invest the money that would make it possible. Bit useless as the cost would be greater than the gold created.

Cant they use the Hadron collider to make gold, thats a particle accelerator isnt it. They spent all that money, they could at least perform a party trick

Platinum used to be worth less then gold till it was found to have industrial uses. In Victorian times they would forge sovereigns using platinum cores because its so similar

I think if they could make gold in any kind of regular way we'd also be at the point of free energy perhaps.

They have been promising fusion for years also and maybe the Chinese have got nuclear power from an easily available source outside of plutonium and its really easy to use, but I'm not seeing it yet


If we got free energy then you can scrap most of the threads on this entire board. Money saving becomes something entirely different.

At one point I hope people stop driving into traffic jams every morning and calling it work. It would be nice to see the human race skip a few pointless inefficiencies and just do useful stuff

(and sure gold becomes very cheap maybe but its like people saying silver will be worth 100 dollars an ounce in a couple of years, they are missing the main point - if that happens the world will have to have changed massively)

Froggitt

Also, when the whole world economy goes t1ts up resultant from Greek debt default, gold will be the currency of choice.

sabretoothtigger

Yep Greece owns gold so in theory they will always have currency to trade even when 'broke' I guess. Also Greek trade is less then a USA state so its a blip in the big scheme. Italy and USA all big debtors with tons of gold.

India found 560 kilos of gold coins lost for centuries in a random Hindu temple, which was nice. I think that does more to devalue gold then anything a government can do because they are already reliant on their gold reserves to back their currency. Its just they give no promise to owners of cash to this gold
In theory these guys can default and carry on I think, Russia did ?

No idea what'll happen but I dont rate gold being worthless as more likely then default.

Froggitt

sabretoothtigger wrote: »

Yep Greece owns gold so in theory they will always have currency to trade even when 'broke' I guess. Also Greek trade is less then a USA state so its a blip in the big scheme. Italy and USA all big debtors with tons of gold.

And what if the USA goes t1ts up due to a $15,000,000,000,000 (15 trillion) hole in its accounts? Thats a hundred $150 billions.....where $150 billion is about the size of the UK annual deficit.

jamesallen

sabretoothtigger wrote: »

X

Gold cannot be created, fair enough, but it does have plenty of similarities to fiat currency. It has very little intrinsic value. Virtually all its value is derived from speculation. Only a small part of its price represents actual utility and practical use.

I appreciate that gold looks set to keep on rising. But I just disagree fundamentally with those saying that it is bound to go up, and that it has some unique property which makes it an infallible asset. The world changes; economies change. Gold declined significantly, as you said yourself, for twenty years; it could quite easily do so again. Paper money has value based on the strength of an economy, and the word of a politician. Gold has value based on demand for gold - which is not guaranteed, and can be pretty volatile.

sabretoothtigger

It has very little intrinsic value. Virtually all its value is derived from speculation.

Anything can fall out of fashion even food can become 'worthless' and I use that every day, again gold exceeds its use in that it outlasts food . Gold has some uses and its been valued by people for thousands of years as a luxury and store of wealth.
If two dozen central banks buy it hold it and say this is valuable to us, who Iam to disagree when those nations are productive and useful to the world.
USA on the other hand we can be sceptical about anything they say or do, they are overvalued in their actions

I appreciate that gold looks set to keep on rising.

usa bonds keep on rising in value, so did housing and tech stocks. I wouldnt value it by price tags, Im arguing in its relative qualities vs money. I still value most of all useful companies/products

Paper money has value based on the strength of an economy, and the word of a politician. Gold has value based on demand for gold - which is not guaranteed, and can be pretty volatile.

Im rating higher the elements fundamentals vs the lack of anything principled or fundamental in the words of politicians.
I dont know about the price or profit of doing this but if this is a weighing scales or tug of war, gold is going to win out as its just more solid.

Everything true of gold today will be true every day for twenty years, it is very boring really - Im no fan.
A twenty year bond has really high risk of transforming totally, into trash. An Obama speech is far more entertaining, Im not sure he is more useful or dependable though

The world changes; economies change.

Gold will change less, it is a pretty inert lump. Paper money is volatile in comparison. Both prices can change but gold is the less changable, more reliable.

Judging the price as bad or good right now is personal judgement I guess but I clearly see why gold demand will rise in future. I see the world changing greatly

jamesallen

sabretoothtigger wrote: »

Anything can fall out of fashion even food can become 'worthless' and I use that every day, again gold exceeds its use in that it outlasts food . Gold has some uses and its been valued by people for thousands of years as a luxury and store of wealth.

But the vast bulk of its value comes from the "store of wealth" function - i.e. the same function which sustains fiat currencies. Gold's intrinsic value as a practical good is certainly far lower than its current price. That it fell to around $300 a decade ago demonstrates this fact.

If two dozen central banks buy it hold it and say this is valuable to us, who Iam to disagree when those nations are productive and useful to the world.
USA on the other hand we can be sceptical about anything they say or do, they are overvalued in their actions

Well we can be sceptical about the actions of many Western economies. I presume that Europe and the US have a lot of gold because it used to be linked in various ways to currencies. Now it is much less so. Interestingly enough, some of the top holders of Gold are the USA, Greece and Portugal - stellar examples of sustainable economies...

usa bonds keep on rising in value, so did housing and tech stocks. I wouldnt value it by price tags, Im arguing in its relative qualities vs money. I still value most of all useful companies/products

Why? The only reason to do so would be intrinsic, practical value - which is far less than its current price - or a belief in sustained/rising demand - which may be justified, but could quickly collapse (as you said yourself, the price fell consistently in the late 20th-century).

Im rating higher the elements fundamentals vs the lack of anything principled or fundamental in the words of politicians.
I dont know about the price or profit of doing this but if this is a weighing scales or tug of war, gold is going to win out as its just more solid.

If you want to talk about fundamentals, how is gold any different from shares? These can be used as a hedge against inflation, and have a value derived much less from politicians than other forces.

Everything true of gold today will be true every day for twenty years, it is very boring really - Im no fan.
A twenty year bond has really high risk of transforming totally, into trash. An Obama speech is far more entertaining, Im not sure he is more useful or dependable though

I'm sure it does. But in 1980, a lump of gold to be held for twenty years would have lost much of its value over the period.

Gold will change less, it is a pretty inert lump. Paper money is volatile in comparison. Both prices can change but gold is the less changable, more reliable.

But it's impossible to predict how things will go. Emerging economies in the East will at some point stabilise and become more rational and sustainable, at which point a lot of money will probably flow out of commodities and into Asian companies and currencies as a hedge against inflation. Some substantial demand for gold seems a given, but there's nothing to say it won't fall back to $300 again at some point.

Judging the price as bad or good right now is personal judgement I guess but I clearly see why gold demand will rise in future. I see the world changing greatly

There are very good reasons why it may - just like there are very good reasons why various equities, bonds and so on might do the same. But gold is not unique. Past prices have proven that it can go down as well as up.

I am not opposed to gold as part of any balanced portfolio. But, as I said above, it is not some magical, infallible commodity which will never fall in value. Every bubble bursts eventually.

grasslands

$25 Billion worth of treasure has been dicovered in India's temple. There is another vault which was not opened. I think the total treasure value will reach $40 Billion to $50 Billion.

Treasure find is not good news for Gold price.

atush

Not necessarily. If we ever found a way of adding or removing protons easily then we could make whatever element we liked from another element.

Ok, now we are going from particle physics to Star Trek (replicators anyone lol).

Cant they use the Hadron collider to make gold, thats a particle accelerator isnt it. They spent all that money, they could at least perform a party trick

Cern already has a party trick. That is that they serve Wine at lunchtime in the canteen lol.