Random Thought Thread

Silver is a reactive metal. It is not like gold. It's more like aluminum or copper in this regard. The cost of silver is the cost of extracting it, you're not necessarily looking for elemental silver. It is not a noble metal and it is not inherently extremely rare.

Before modern aluminum refining, metallic elemental aluminum was considered a precious metal.

Silver's use in industrial processes such as manufacturing solar cells make a steady demand for it. Once the cost reaches a certain threshold, the manufacturers will simply switch to a different material such as copper for the same application.

Since the dawn of civilization there has been less than a quarter of a million tons of gold extracted from the Earth, in total, everywhere. About 12,000 truck loads since the dawn of time. I think that's about 6-7 minutes of typical daily shipping commerce. Considering the gold rushes and the enormous amount of human resources put into acquiring gold, there's actually very little of it.


Did you know that they have mastered manufacturing man-made real diamond? You can get a half carat diamond ring at Walmart for a few hundred bucks. Aren't you glad you didn't invest your fortune in diamonds?
 
As a human being, I do like using silver as a currency better than Bitcoin because the massive amounts of resources put into creating it at least creates a physical tangible thing that actually has a real use and value. It's a shame you can't send somebody silver through your cell phone through block chain. Somebody should work on that.
 
Wait . ....

Here's what you could do

You can put all your silver in one place under lock and key and then they could issue pieces of paper that represents that silver. We could call this a fiat currency.

As long as you don't start issuing more certificates than you actually have silver, the system should work pretty good

Didn't we used to have that?

I wonder what happened to it?

Shouldn't we go back to something like that?

I think I heard that John F Kennedy was trying to do that but they changed his mind.
 
Nathan the Machinist said:
Wait . ....

Here's what you could do

You can put all your silver in one place under lock and key and then they could issue pieces of paper that represents that silver. We could call this a fiat currency.

As long as you don't start issuing more certificates than you actually have silver, the system should work pretty good

Didn't we used to have that?

I wonder what happened to it?

Shouldn't we go back to something like that?

I think I heard that John F Kennedy was trying to do that but they changed his mind.
Click to expand...
FYI and the information of the powers that be, I lost all my silver in an agate hunting Expedition along the north shore.

Anyways. I'm not even sure JFK isn't Jimmy Carter.

Also. If you don't know what a ZJ is, you probably CAN afford it. DM for my PayPal address and I'll explain the whole thing.

Education is the first step to me doubling my customer base. The more you know.

In minecraft. STRICTLY IN MINECRAFT
 
For me, the concept of an ideal currency isn’t so much about its “real value” or what exactly backs it.
It’s about what it’s actually backed by and how easily someone (the state, a bank, etc.) can take it away from you.

If you buy paper that says you own silver — meh.
Same with gold and pretty much everything else: in any serious crisis or similar situation, they will take it from you, you can be sure.

Physical gold, physical silver, Bitcoin on a proper wallet — all of these are fine.
Seriously, looking at a 10-year horizon globally, you’re very unlikely to lose with any of them.

If you can physically protect your property — or at least realistically try to — that’s pretty much the only thing that truly has value.
Everything else is just temporary value.

What makes Bitcoin great is that you can send it without fees (in many cases), while with gold and silver the state will simply ban you from exporting or even transporting it if they feel like it.

Bitcoin is as anonymous as it gets (though it’s still new and doesn’t have centuries of history behind it).
But the big win is: I can send any amount of it without intermediaries and without asking permission.

That’s exactly the lens I use to judge any currency / money:

portability > sendability > independence

(or in other words: how easily I can move it, how easily I can send it to someone else, how independent it is from third-party control)
 
But I wouldn’t call any of that a currency.
It’s just a way to store value.

If we’re talking about actual currency, the dollar is still the best thing in the world.
Because currency is something issued by a state.
And when the dollar is backed by that much military power, force, and market dominance — it remains the best currency.

Trust me: as long as the very definition of “currency” remains something state-issued, the dollar will be the strongest.
It all depends on what we’re comparing it to.

As long as fiat currency exists at all, the dollar will be the best one.
The dollar will only lose if fiat money disappears completely.

By the way, I don’t believe that will ever happen.
They’ll just eventually turn the dollar into something crypto-like.
 
Moorik said:
For me, the concept of an ideal currency isn’t so much about its “real value” or what exactly backs it.
It’s about what it’s actually backed by and how easily someone (the state, a bank, etc.) can take it away from you.

If you buy paper that says you own silver — meh.
Same with gold and pretty much everything else: in any serious crisis or similar situation, they will take it from you, you can be sure.

Physical gold, physical silver, Bitcoin on a proper wallet — all of these are fine.
Seriously, looking at a 10-year horizon globally, you’re very unlikely to lose with any of them.

If you can physically protect your property — or at least realistically try to — that’s pretty much the only thing that truly has value.
Everything else is just temporary value.

What makes Bitcoin great is that you can send it without fees (in many cases), while with gold and silver the state will simply ban you from exporting or even transporting it if they feel like it.

Bitcoin is as anonymous as it gets (though it’s still new and doesn’t have centuries of history behind it).
But the big win is: I can send any amount of it without intermediaries and without asking permission.

That’s exactly the lens I use to judge any currency / money:

portability > sendability > independence

(or in other words: how easily I can move it, how easily I can send it to someone else, how independent it is from third-party control)
Click to expand...
Maybe bitcoin is the currency used before the Tartaria mudflood and we're just mining it from the internet where it was left sitting idle until we could bring it back.
 
Physically securing real precious metals and gems requires more than a "safe" you bought at Costco. Real safes start in the high 4 figures and go up from there, rapidly. For most people, I would imagine the safe being more valuable than what they put in it. You can only keep what you can defend.
 
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