Gold. Intrinsic or Tautological.

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strawman

strawman

@Li3n said:
I really wouldn't call that odd... we do it pretty often...

Just look at diamonds... their main value comes from being shiny.
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Diamonds are even worse. They have a high cost, but a very, very low value due to the monopoly destroying the secondary market. You really can't buy a diamond, and expect to sell it for the same cost, nevermind at a profit. It's not a good investment choice for this and many other reasons.
 
Necronic

Necronic

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stienman said:
The major reason it has value today beyond it's usefulness is because it historically has had value due to its usefulness. Now it's a self-sufficient, or tautalogical, system - gold is valuable simply because gold is valuable.
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Ok, so we are in agreement (but your reasoning is way better):

Gold is an oddity in this regard - it now has a lot more social value than practical value. Thus it is much more likely to experience fluctuation due to human perception more than to supply or demand, which is why normal economic models don't apply.
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I like that description.

4Keep in mind, though, that even though it has a high social value, the fact that we still use it industrially at it's insane cost indicates that there really is no other replacement. Its extraordinary properties are well worth the cost for many things, which only reinforces the belief that gold is valuable.

If it were not for its continued usefulness in industry, it would very likely bubble and deflate.
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Yeah but we really don't use that much industrially. For scale I found a study that said roughly 320 tons of gold is consumed yearly for industrial uses, compared to the 3800 tons consumed through other sources (against ~2600 tons produced annually). Considering that there is a global supply of close to 130k tonnes we could consume gold for industry at this rate for centuries. Compare that to other precious resources, like oil or (my favorite) Indium.

Indium is the main ingredient of Indium Tin Oxide, which is used for LCD, solar panels, and touch screen manufacturing. Currently ~900 tonnes of Indium are produced annually, and 50% of that goes to ITO production. This is something with a limited supply (mostly coming from China) that has a massively increased industrial application. The price of Indium has risen from 90$ to 900$/kg in the last 10 years (more or less.) And you want to know something REALLY scary? We're projected to run out of it in the next 10 years.

THAT's a mineral with an industrial demand that drives up a price. As an aside though it is crazy toxic so it really couldn't be used for jewelry.

Also, a lot of the industrial usage of gold is simply a marketing gimmick. There are tons of cables and whatnot you can buy out there that have "gold plated" connectors. They are actually gold-plated, but they are done so purely for marketing. They make no significant difference in quality. In most electronic applications you can get away with tin or copper or whatever.
 
strawman

strawman

Necronic said:
Yeah but we really don't use that much industrially....roughly 320 tons of gold is consumed yearly for industrial uses, ... against ~2600 tons produced annually
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No wonder you and I disagreed earlier on regarding the importance of gold in the industry - you have a different measuring stick for what is "much". I'd say that 12% is significant. I'd call under half a percent insignificant.
 
Necronic

Necronic

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Well I would consider 12% significant (although not incredibly significant), but you're looking at the annual production. I'm looking at the current worldwide supply. In regards to the current supply the annual tonnage that goes to industry is ~0.3%. That is what I would call insignificant.

Edit: That's a really unique thing about gold though, the fact that there is this MASSIVE quantity of it already out there, just hanging about ready to use. People don't stockpile other minerals like that.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

Tinwhistler said:
The US has the worlds single largest stockpile of helium in the world
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That doesn't actually say anything about how much helium is stockpiled vs how much is in use though...

Of course gold isn't the only rare resource, so me saying "none" was very likely an exaggeration...
 
AshburnerX

AshburnerX

Tinwhistler said:
That said, we get most of our rare earth minerals from China...and they've wisely stockpiled tens of thousands of tons of the stuff we need. heh
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This is mainly because the US Rare Earth Metal mine cost a shit ton to operate, due to insurance and other factors. For a long time it was actually cheaper to buy the metals from China than to dig them up here in the US. However, because of how much China is overcharging the world, it's actually almost at the point where it would be cheaper to mine it here. Plus there is the threat of China stopping it's exports again for political pressure.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

And that still tell one nothing about how much was stored vs how much was used... (well obviously use had to have gone up, seeing how the stockpile that should have lasted 100 years is now running out).
 
figmentPez

figmentPez

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Tinwhistler said:
Like gold, helium is a bit of a limited resource--the majority of it comes from natural gas wells. Getting it any other way invovles far more expense and difficulty than would be practical under today's use.
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From my understanding, helium is even more limited than gold. Gold can be recovered and recycled without much pre-planning. If worse comes to worse, for gold, we start mining old landfills for computer parts. Helium is another matter. If my understanding is correct, helium can escape into space once it's used. We can't just mine the atmosphere for it once it's used. More helium is produced gradually by radioactive element decay (somehow, I'm a little fuzzy on that) but it's a slow process that wouldn't keep up with the world's demand. I suppose helium could also be produced if we started using fusion power, but I'm guessing that wouldn't result in much volume, either.
 
@Li3n

@Li3n

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