Random Thought Thread

Nathan the Machinist said:
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?
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Wonder what ever happened to the televised Fort Knox audit that we were promised ....
 
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)
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Not to mention, we’ve already seen in the past where the US Government simply declared, “All physical gold is the property of the US Government. Turn it in”.

https://www.federalreservehistory.org/essays/gold-reserve-act
 
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