Zyobot
Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
And then there's gold in them thar asteroids...
Considering how industrial-scale asteroid mining probably won’t be viable for a while, let’s leave that to our descendants to figure out.
And then there's gold in them thar asteroids...
Well, the really high-end estimates are real outliers, and not generally taken seriously. I went with the ballpark figure that all official institutions use, across the board, across the globe. (Which suggests that some "national interest" skewing the estimate can't be applicable, since they all agree that this estimate is credible.)Note that the 200,000 tons figure is extremely vague and towards the low end. Estimates on the total amount of gold in the world vary from 160,000 tons all the way up to the Gold Standard Institute estimating it at 2.5 million tons.
We frankly don't have a clue due to how much secrecy there is in gold mining, nobody advertises exactly how much they have and China has been hoarding and hiding how much gold they have for a long time, either way they must have some staggering gold reserves at this point as they wait for the petrodollar to collapse.
Good luck getting to it. Even better luck getting any of it back over here.And then there's gold in them thar asteroids...
This kind of consideration is going to be relevant in the long term. Certainly. But let's face it, once we have basically limitless fusion power, and ships capable of zipping across the solar system, and a diaspora of explores off towards the final frontier... well, most of our economic premises will need to be re-evaluated to at least some extent, at that point.
There's still a lake in South America that's chock full of gold from them. The "Urban Legend" was that there was a city made of gold, because the Conquistadors met the guys and said "not enough gold".(as it happens, when you only need gold every now and again, you don't tend to have terribly much day to day).Isn't this an urban legend? Dating to the mid 1500s?
Actual history is more complicated than simplistic first principles, as directly illustrated by the fact that supposedly "gold not fiat" Roman coins were absolutely infamous for being a de facto fiat currency because the Roman government constantly debased them. The value of a denarius was *never* the supposed actual precious metal value it contained; it was the Roman government's say-so that this was a denarius and shall be accepted.
I consider it more unexploded ordnance from a soviet psychological warfare attack going off.Wokeness as an Ideology is essentally the wests intelectual class's temper tantrum about communism not being a viable form of governance.
I consider it more unexplored ordnance from a soviet psychological warfare attack going off.
Actually, it's that "there is far too little gold per person to run an economy on, you need some way to correct this". It wasn't a continual problem in ancient times because the vast majority didn't work with currency, they worked with barter, and largely produced their own needs. But today? That mentality does not work. Too many people are too reliant on too much trade across too far a distance to go back to an inelastic hard currency.What I'm hearing from one side of this seems to boil down to: "I want to keep buying stuff despite not having an income to match my expenditure, so I'm going make everyone accept payment in funny-money that I can print more of anytime I want."
How? If they've invested it, what they have is the investment, not the currency. If they put enough into it to be "betting their future on it" previously, then it's likely still the case under deflation, but the bet has to have a higher margin to merely "break even". The calculation gets a bit more complicated because whatever savings are left are appreciating in value rather than depreciating, but you nonetheless need the investment to have returns.This makes it less risky for them to undertake such ventures, since their future isn't necessarily on the line if they do.
What about the rare earths? What about the years and years needed to rebuild the factories? This is the bit all you gold standard nutters do not get, when you make trade zero-sum, you cannot handle the world-spanning raw resource demands, and modern economies cannot turn on a fucking dime to enact your pipe dreams. You can't just "stop trade with China", they will cash out all the currency, their raw materials are important, and we do not have enough factories."Worst" case scenario: the fuckers won't trade with you anymore. Boo-hoo, Western jobs returning by the ten-thousands as we are "forced" to do our own manufacturing again. Oh no how horrible I'm crying all the way to the bank.
And yet intellectuals dare act surprised when anti-intellectualism is on the rise...
From what I've seen the end of a modern period seems to always end with a purge of inellectuals, as in violent murder purge. The roman republic was pretty mild but had that, the end of the chinese modernity was like a cocain bender of violence.
An age of modernity seems to be an intellectuals best age, because its a time of social experimentation where you can test out new ideas, and the compitition between states means your pretty much always able to find a backer. The problem is unfortantly this a lack of accountability.
When an Intelectuals ideals fail in the real world, when they result in chaos destruction death and horrific suffering. There is no conquence for the Intelectual who created the plan. They simply go off and try their ideas some where else. That's pretty much been the case for the entire 20th century lots of ideas played out. Some worked some failed horrifically but no conquences for the people with the bad social plains and the results get swept under the rug.
Thing is a civilization only experiements for so long before people just want stability again, eventally the results of an experiement have to bear fruit and be counted. No age lasts forever and from the looks of things intelectuals do not handle the loss of power or prestige well. They get more rabid, more cult like more vicious.
And then when modernity ends they get murdered in fucking droves. If the populists win they die, if their choice of ruler wins even more of them dies because their pick rightfully sees them as an obstical to their power. I think we have only begun to see the rise of anti- intellectualism. I think this story ends with a whole lot of dead liberal professors.
Let me point out where this bit started:Pro tip, @Morphic Tide -- If you're going to call the people who understand more about economics than you do "nutters", they won't be inclined to give you a free education.
Bye.
If you only back your money supply with 50% gold (e.g. by having coins be half gold, half worthless metal) then you no longer have a full gold standard. You have a 50% gold standard, and 50% fiat.
...No? There's zero difference between metals in this case, so long as you declare it to be a consistent hard material. Gold is not at all special like this, it's expensive because it's a rare material with a distinctive appearance.
Your first sentence regarding "zero difference between metals" already reveals that you don't really know what you're on about. You compare gold and copper. Most estimates of the total amount of gold that's been mined in all of history arrive at a number c. 200.000 metric tons. Let's see how much copper we have... what's that? 700 million metric tons, you say?
However... what you say is not accurate. You see, if we have deflation, then your savings and your pension will consistently increase in value. This means that the very people you think won't spend money anymore (e.g. on investments of business ventures) will be in a better and more secure position. This makes it less risky for them to undertake such ventures, since their future isn't necessarily on the line if they do. The measure of financial security and comfort that people will enjoy will more than compensate for the lack of (unhealthy) pressure that you seem to fear.
What good are those manufacturing jobs when there's no access to their mines for the resources to make the stuff with? Again, you critically misunderstood the problem I was concerned with, I was talking rare earth metals. We need their mines to sustain volume of product, we merely like their labor for doubling down on boosting profit margins."Worst" case scenario: the fuckers won't trade with you anymore. Boo-hoo, Western jobs returning by the ten-thousands as we are "forced" to do our own manufacturing again. Oh no how horrible I'm crying all the way to the bank.
Please note, while the Crusades were on, and all the Islamic attacks before and since? They didn't stop trade between Christians and Islamics. Barely slowed it down.
What good are those manufacturing jobs when there's no access to their mines for the resources to make the stuff with? Again, you critically misunderstood the problem I was concerned with, I was talking rare earth metals. We need their mines to sustain volume of product, we merely like their labor for doubling down on boosting profit margins.
Again, this is the condition for Merchantilism. Zero-sum trade like this is full-on World War Three waiting to happen over it. Do you seriously think China will hesitate for an instant to declare war if its food supply is threatened? Shit is simply too thoroughly interconnected.
A gold standard is a tragedy of the commons waiting to happen.