One more thing: if every single person on the Earth got up tomorrow morning and agreed that the value of all the gold ever mined was $3, they would be correct. Conversely, if every single person on the Earth got up tomorrow morning and agreed that the value of all the gold ever mined was $10 quadrillion trillion, they would be correct, as well. Value is a concept.
And birds go tweet.
This is only true in the most superficial sense. It’s like saying that we could all decide houses were worth $3, or that oil was only worth $3.
There are lots of uses for gold both in industrial and aesthetic applications, ranging from jewelry to electronics. So even if you convinced people that gold was ugly and bad for investment/currency purposes, it would still be both rare and useful. If gold went to $3, it would be cost-effective in many more applications than it is right now. There wouldn’t be enough gold to go around. Price would go up until you reached an equilibrium between supply and demand.
I did a quick back of the envelope calculation…rather interesting factoid. IIRC the amount of gold mined in 11 years between 1848 and 1859 in the CA gold rush was 28.4 million troy ounces, meaning that almost 1% of all of the gold ever mined since people have mined gold up to now was mined in 11 years in a relatively small area.
As an aside, IIRC the volume of diamonds large enough to be of interest for other than industrial uses isnt exactly big either. Something like house sized. But don’t quote me on that.
Diamonds aren’t quite the same thing. Diamonds, even gem quality stones, can be manufactured. The scarcity value of diamonds will eventually disappear.
Yes it is.
Not meaningless at all. It’s the amount of gold that is in question - not just it’s value.