View Single Post
Old 04-22-2017, 01:01 AM   #5
Boomerang
 
Boomerang's Avatar
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Location: Melbourne, Australia (also known as zone Brisbane)
Default Re: Post Apocalyptic Economics

Why I think gold is a good after the end currency:

1) Historic acceptance: through much of recorded history gold was money and even in modern times with fiat currencies backed by strong governments about 40% of all gold is held by investors. In ancient times gold ownership was a sign of status.

2) Durability: as mentioned before in this thread, gold does not tarnish, is resistant to acids, is non-flammable and does not spoil.

3) Non-consumable: gold that has been used, for example for jewellery and dental fillings can be recovered fairly easily.

4) Appeal: polished gold is beautiful. Gold is valued even when it has no mundane practical purpose.

5) Rareness: gold is rare enough that small quantities can represent large amounts of value. Although as discussed earlier in some cases it could be too rare to be practical. I think it would depend on how the end came about.

6) Easy to verify: gold has a number of properties that make it difficult to forge and relatively easy to validate.

7) Quantifiable: gold is easy to quantify by weight.

8) Independence: gold's value isn't tied to any particular commodity, unlike for example ammunition which depends on the availability of compatible firearms. And it's value is independent of government unlike fiat currencies.

9) Storage and portability: makes it handy for transactions.

10) Security: a small amount of gold is worth a lot so it is easy to hide a large amount of wealth or even the fact that you have any.

11) Malleability: gold is soft enough that it can be split into smaller denominations with hand tools but not so soft it falls apart.

12) Future proof: as civilisation rebuilds the relative value of gold increases.
Boomerang is offline   Reply With Quote