I’m more puzzled by the cowrie shell economy that used to exist in Africa. How can something be money or have value if any idiot with some time on his hands can just go to the beach and grab a handful of freshly minted seafood-equivalent-of-a-Benny ? And yet it worked.
Economy is just weird.
So why is the advertising targeted primarily at right-wingers?
Speed up MEASURE. You can sell and trade gold for currency in just about any country in the world. Gold moves up in price with inflation and turmoil.
A gold coin bought 20 years ago, can be sold for the amount of money that will purchase what it did back then. Your currency can not do that.
Well, with the addition of a little ammonia…
Sure. Same for platinum or Volvos. But gold isn’t a currency anywhere: it’s not a significant medium of exchange.
Sadly, no. Gold fluctuates and holders suffer from long periods of even negative returns. In 1980 gold fluctuated between $500 and $850. Then the price collapsed: $600 wasn’t hit again until 2006. That’s 26 years before breaking even ignoring inflation.
There’s a chart here:
Gold simply isn’t a very good inflation hedge (which I concede is odd). Note that the inflation-adjusted line is worse -it varies more- than the nominal dollar line. If gold was a perfect inflation hedge, the inflation adjusted price would be flat. It’s not. At all.
Kobal2 If I’m reading wikipedia correctly, a single cowrie shell was worth maybe a penny- they were strung together in strings of 40-100. Though the business was highly profitable, I guess not everyone lived near the beach. At any rate, it wasn’t like scooping dollar bills. Shell money - Wikipedia
The shells were used in America, Africa, Australia and Asia. I’m wondering why their use hasn’t persisted in some symbolic or niche format to the present day.[1] Lots of 3rd world countries have suffered from high rates of inflation, yet use of cowries disappeared AFAIK.
[1] Ok, it has persisted apparently and I see the value varied considerably unsurprisingly: http://www.pilotguides.com/destination_guide/pacific/pacific-islands/shell_money.php I’d still like to know further details.
VolvoS ?They drop in value when bought and then go surely and slowly down.
Gold has had an inverse relationship from the stock market. If you bought it at 400 , you would have a huge return now. Gold is easily sold. That makes it a medium of exchange. You can sell it for cash at a zillion places. It is not equivalent to platinum at all.
Many years ago, I bought silver. Then the HUnt brothers tried to corner the market to control the price. When they were caught, silver dropped and never really recovered. I doubt anyone can do that with gold.
So? Buy a used Volvo then. At least you get the use-value in the meantime. The point is that gold is a commodity like any other – and it’s not especially liquid as seen by its large and varying markups.
That’s actually your strongest point. Gold has a lousy long-run return, but sometimes it zigs when the market zags. It’s not negatively related to the stock market (which would be nice), but it’s at least uncorrelated with it. As I said back in the 2009 thread:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=539805
I’m using a technical term: gold is not a medium of exchange to any significant extent, although it once was: Medium of exchange - Wikipedia
It has, sort of. Coins quite often depict shell engravings. I can think of one each from India, Mauritius, Italy and Greece. I’ll dig some out from my collection when I get home.
I think y’all are missing the point entirely. The idea is to find a safe investment which will in no way help the American economic recovery. Removing huge numbers of investors from their usual stocks and bonds investments is meant to keep the economy sour, and help re-elect Republican leaders.
Then when they get into power, they will declare it “safe” to invest in Wall Street, their minions will sell the gold, buy stock, and the leaders will appear to have “Saved” the American people. Of course, none of this has been shared with the majority of the right-wingers, they’re just following what they heard on Glenn Beck, or rush Limbaugh, or from their investment advisor buddy down at the gun club.
Cowries weren’t native to Africa. They came from India as a ballast cargo on European ships. Their main virtues were that:
They were (initially) rare. As they became more plentiful, they experienced the same inflation as other currencies; toward the end, people traded in bags of cowries, not individual shells.
They were very nearly indestructable, but did not require the stamping process that metals did.
Fetishization of currency is indeed wierd, but once its in place, it’s pretty solid. The only thing that broke cowries was colonial insistance on European currency for taxes.
I can’t believe we’re this far in and no one has mentioned the Yukon Cornelius Effect yet.
Yeah, but a gold coin bought thirty years ago will be sold for less money than what you paid for it (adjusted for inflation).
What was your point, again? 
