Luker said:
Silver has no intrinsic value....all of it's value is derived by those who have interest in it.
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The value is entirely extrinsic because the individual is making the determination of silver's value, not the other way around
hey missinglink,
I am not sure that I understand your argument,
It seems to me that a logical extension of what you are implying is that
nothing is inherently/intrinsically of value, as value is determined solely by those that have interest in the "thing" in question. So it naturally follows that neither air nor water are "intrinsically" valuable- as they are only
deemed to be valuable by those who require it to live and breathe....I think that we all can agree with your premise, but it seems somewhat of a moot point and more relevant to a discussion in philosophy. I would agree that the value of silver beyond the industry break-even cost for pulling it out of the ground- the very argument that the majority of silver-stackers speculate on, is essentially dependant on extrinsic factors.
Back in the early Roman times, it was deemed that 1 oz of silver could purchase the services of a soldier or common laborer for 10 days...not so much anymore-perhaps merely 1.5 hours of work from the unskilled worker. Thus, the "value" of silver has changed based on the
extrinsic preceptions of those involved in the contract. But one could argue that it also had intrinsic value due to its everyday applications/ tools of the times, just as today it has a myriad of uses in our economy, one which requires silver to "breathe" to function properly.
Cheers,
Luker
In my view, clarity of a term(s) or thought(s) that I am involved with discussing is never a moot point. And so yes, I do make it a point of defining what I see as a misapplied term in the discussion of the value of something.
Intrinsic value (price.let's not make any mistake about it, it's price we are talking about here when we state "value" in the discussion of intrinsic/extrinsic value) of any inanimate thing is an empty or null set. That's not a philosophy statement, it's a logical statement when attempting to attach a specific value on anything - any commodity, any asset, and currency....anything.
Having an intrinsic value means having a value that needs no other ("intrinsic" = unto its own). Having it's own value outside of any extrinsic valuation is never the case for silver or any commodity. The value of any commodity is always determined subjectively and extrinsically by people (or groups of like minded people) who desire to have or to own that commodity/asset/currency, etc. That value is changing all the time and it differs from one person/group to the next to the next.
To answer your question, yes, nothing that is inanimate (that is, nothing that can not make a value (price) judgment) has intrinsic value. The fact that silver may have been valued by Roman soldiers and the Roman leadership during the Bronze Age doesn't mean that silver had any value to anyone else. It may not have to some and to others it may have. To others who may have valued it, the value that they attached to silver may have been very different than the value a Roman leader did.
If it cost agent A from territory 1 X amount of resources and time to pull a ton of somewhat useful substance N out of the ground and it cost agent B from territory 2 8X for the same thing and agent C working on mining the same substance in territory 3 has no idea yet what it will cost her team, then what is the precise intrinsic value of substance N that moment or any given moment? If an alien mother ship came down to earth with unlimited amounts of substance N or had technology that could mine substance N for 1/10,000thX, then what would be the precise intrinsic value of substance N? What was the exact intrinsic value of substance N 30,000 years before anyone knew that substance ever existed? Substance N, just like silver or dog feces gets ALL its value from those who desire itbecause these things can not ever have a value (price) without others to attach a subjective value to it, dog feces, silver, substance N, or any inanimate thing has no intrinsic value.
There may be mining costs but miners can't even agree what those are.
Miners don't come up with even remotely similar numbers in terms of cost for mining an ounce of silver so to attempt to claim that the cost of mining an ounce of silver is an intrinsic value is not understanding how valuing things works. When I first got into stacking (around 12 months after $49 USD/oz silver - many people claiming that $49 was a real bargain price because the real value of silver is hundreds and even thousands of dollars an ounce), I can remember reading how some miners were claiming that all in cost of mining an ounce was like $34 USD /oz....considerably less than the $49 that many people seemed willing to dole out for an ounce but considerably more than some people apparently are willing to dole out for an ounce priced at $17. Today, miners are still all over the map in terms of their claims for what is the all in cost except for the fact that none of them seems to be claiming that $34 is really the cost. The point is of course, all of it...every part of what miners claim, is a subjective valuation that changes all the time. So what is the precise intrinsic value of silver?
The people claiming that silver has intrinsic value always conveniently forget that the value (price) they call "intrinsic" is ALWAYS a subjective, extrinsic valuation that is changing all the time....while you read this, while you eat your next meal, while you have sex, and while you sleep. Silver has no intrinsic value because it needs others to attach a value (price) to it.
Now you can call the cost of extraction of a single ounce of silver from the ground something, but it's a misnomer to call it an intrinsic value. Call it AIM (All In Mining) value for mining company B, call it something but the claimed alleged cost that mining co. B gives is not an intrinsic value.
Finally, we should not (and I'm not stating that you are) confuse intrinsic properties or characteristics of a thing with what some call intrinsic value. You don't need miner B to attach a claim to silver that it has specific characteristics of atomic weight or melting point or whatever but silver can not itself determine what its value is...you need miner B and dealers who want to pay rent, taxes, electricity, salaries, etc, etc, etc to store it, and commodities exchanges, and people who make jewelry from it, and people who want it only if it comes in the form of semi-numi coins from a particular mint, etc, etc, etc. I think you get the point...value can only be extrinsic but characteristics or properties can be intrinsic.
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