Gold is a story, a hyped story, that has been told long enough that people believe it.
"Gold has been money for 3000 years"
Well, not really. It is a story. One that leaves out so many pieces that it can't even really be called a story. It leaves out letters of credit. It leaves out barter that took months, or even years to be completed. It leaves out that what most local trade was giving, because they had extra (when a cow was butchered) and that others of the community gave back when they had extra. You could say that "pay it forwards" has been money for 5000 years, maybe more.
It is really that "god's chosen people" like gold. (probably because their god liked gold) And so, since the banksters went about the lands that would become Europe, and brought their banks, from then, it was all about gold.
Still, China preferred silver. South America preferred jade. Native Americans used a specific form of sea shell. Africa had so much gold, that when "a king" visited the Mediterranean he brought so much gold that the economy of gold was messed up for decades.
And, one of the biggest findings, is that people 3000 years ago, didn't use money. They had a much more advanced economy that we dare conceive of today. In the Vedas, he wrote, "As we decsend into the Kali Yuga, things are gettign worse. Soon, we will see people using species (money)"
Can Gold Be Money?
As in, right now, if we could somehow enforce free trade, ended wars, and got everyone around the world to be on board, could we use gold as money?
Can we send gold half-way across the world to buy something from China? No. It would double the cost of all transactions. Having to send something both ways.
Swift is in the stone age, but you can wire money almost anywhere in the world.
To wire gold, what would basically happen is that all the gold is given to the banks, and the banks electronically transfer ownership of the gold. And we suddenly have gold depositories all over the place. And, if we do that, then why don't we just use a cryptocurrency?
Even locally, carrying gold around is a pain. Although gold is heavy, if we were using it as money, then we would probably be carrying around flakes of gold, or gold atomized onto plastic sheets. (like the GoldBack)
The answer to "Could we use gold as money", is if we really wanted to, we could. But, it quickly devolves to just having gold in the bank, and using our credit cards or swiping apps as we do today. (and then, why do we have gold?)
The near future
The fiat currencies of the world are failing. And, all over the world, people are jumping into precious metals. Unless they are in a war torn area, and need something they can spend RIGHT NOW, or something that can be sent digitally somewhere else. And thus, gold was going UP, and then not, and now it is moving up again.
As more people see the bond markets failing, people will be back into precious metals. Lots of people believe we will see $10,000 gold. but, soon after we might see The US dollar, the FRN dropping in value really fast, and so, the question, gold ounces per dollar will become a silly question.
And then! (this is speculations) Trump makes a new dollar, a "constitutional dollar" made by The US Treasury. And it is backed by a basket of commodities. (Gold being one of them) And so, the gold/dollar ratio will be set, or at least linked. A lot of gold bugs will cheer, saying we have gone back to God's money, but, i am betting that there will actually be no redeem-ability for actual gold.
The thing to mention here is gold will be very valuable. But converting it to cash may be:
- Quite difficult. Pawn shops / Coin stores can't deal with those sums of money
- Quite easy. There is a van outside every grocery store that buys gold
The further future
Several pieces happen, that makes gold not very valuable:
- The amounts of gold in the Grand Canyon and Chocolate Mountains is disclosed. Gold's rarity takes a hit.
- Secret stashes are reported: Vatican, Rots-childs, City of London… making gold's rarity appear shaky.
- The banksters/rots-childs are seen using gold to do bad things. Like buy private armies.
- The rots-childs gold is considered the devil's money, and many people won't deal with it.
- Vibrational separation of gold from ore is found. Now, anyone with a boombox can get get all the gold they want.
- Gold is everywhere. Its rarity gone. And it leaves a bad taste in many people's mouths
The Rots-childs could set the price of gold to $20 an ounce, just by selling it to jewellers for that price. They have enough gold to supply jewellers for a 100 years, and maybe more.
Gold is everywhere. It is in iron pyrite which you can find all over the place. It is in sea water. There is tons of it in sunken Spanish Galleons. It is just not that rare.
Unless the world splinters into thousands of countries that aren't talking with each other, or in some other way are not trading with each other. Then gold will not become money. Only by having very localized trade can we buy and sell with gold.
But, if we still have the internet, and long distance trade then gold is very unlikely to become money. If it does become money, it just goes into the bank and turned into digital gold, then what is the point of actually having gold as money?
What is worse, is that to actually preserve the scarcity, and increase tracking, people will put gold on the blockchain. And, if they do that, then why is the gold even necessary? And people will realize this, and just use the crypto.
And then we have streets paved with gold… because pure gold is very malleable, and as people just dump their mostly useless gold coins into the street (like people do with pennies dropped today, it isn't worth picking them up) and people walking, riding and driving over them, and soon, you have a street paved with gold.
So, be sure to trade your gold for other commodities or durable goods while the pries are high.