I’ve been hearing radio ads for gold for some time now. The basic premise and message is something like
The dollar is going down the tubes. It’s lost 40% of its value in the last few years, and we’ll be facing massive inflation soon. You need to own GOLD! Buy our GOLD COINS NOW!
What do they want you to buy the gold coins with? Your dollars! That’s right! The dollar is such a lousy investment to have that these companies will take it on themselves to burden themselves with *your dollars* to give you access to those oh-so-valuable GOLD COINS!
Whatever.
If the economic woes of the past few years have taught us anything is that very little of anything has any intrinsic value (food? basic shelter?) Value is defined as what all concerned parties agree on – nothing more. When everyone stopped believe in tech stocks, they didn’t have any value. When everyone stopped believing in the myth that “real estate always goes up”, it stopped. Yes, I’m simplifying this perhaps more than I should. Someone will fight me regardless of how detailed I went anyway. Flame away.
Having gold coins will only be valuable as long as everyone agrees that they’re valuable. If people stop believing that gold is valuable, it will be worthless.
