systematic
Well-Known Member
haveblue said:
nice link
Why is gold so valuable ?
- Thread starter Dusty
- Start date
nice link
systematic
Well-Known Member
boston said:Don't laugh, but I have actually seen someone levitate once. Until the power was turned off.systematic said:True story!
can you tell us more!
systematic
Well-Known Member
lockheed martin loves playing with gold nanoparticles
RhythmDoctor
Active Member
quite so... funny how it went missing... 
edit: actually I believe the substance was called 'tcham' - a white gold powder used as a paste/coating for all pyramidions/benbens/whichever term you like to use. Also used on obelisks - good reference for this is Laurent Gardners book 'Shadow of Solomon'. Fantastic read - even if I do say so myself...
edit: actually I believe the substance was called 'tcham' - a white gold powder used as a paste/coating for all pyramidions/benbens/whichever term you like to use. Also used on obelisks - good reference for this is Laurent Gardners book 'Shadow of Solomon'. Fantastic read - even if I do say so myself...
systematic
Well-Known Member
I read somewhere it was some sort of crystal but a gold capstone would not surprise me. The bulk of the pyramid is made of limestone and granite.
Limestone is calcium carbonate which has a crystaline structure and one of the angles of that crystal structure is the angle of the pyramid super structure. Therefore the pyramid is made of the same "shape" of the "stuff" it is made up of ... ie. it is self referential .... seriously fractal ....
interesting interview with Stan Tenen on the technology of the the great pyramid
http://www.lauralee.com/index.cgi?pid=3653
Limestone is calcium carbonate which has a crystaline structure and one of the angles of that crystal structure is the angle of the pyramid super structure. Therefore the pyramid is made of the same "shape" of the "stuff" it is made up of ... ie. it is self referential .... seriously fractal ....
interesting interview with Stan Tenen on the technology of the the great pyramid
http://www.lauralee.com/index.cgi?pid=3653
systematic
Well-Known Member
The egyptians allegedly called white powder gold "mfktz" which translates as "what is it" ... it is sometimes referred to as "manna" it was used in a sort of bread and offered as a sacrament ...
Forge
Member
Wow. Nearly three pages and still no one has really touched on the most important answer.
The reason gold is valuable is because it is useless.
Unlike pretty much any other commodity or currency, gold can take on any value and not compromise industry.
Raise the Aussie dollar by a factor of two and see the collapse that causes (hmm - is causing). Raise the price of a food or energy stuff by that amount.... Even silver these days...
But gold; gold can take all the value in the world and not break a sweat.
The reason gold is valuable is because it is useless.
Unlike pretty much any other commodity or currency, gold can take on any value and not compromise industry.
Raise the Aussie dollar by a factor of two and see the collapse that causes (hmm - is causing). Raise the price of a food or energy stuff by that amount.... Even silver these days...
But gold; gold can take all the value in the world and not break a sweat.
Well, it involved a swimming pool, a live extension cord with 240V and a young male that was both invincible and unlucky. Barefoot and dripping wet. Get the drift?systematic said:boston said:Don't laugh, but I have actually seen someone levitate once. Until the power was turned off.systematic said:
can you tell us more!
Hovered, for quite some time and burnt a hole clean through his finger. Funniest thing I had seen for quite sometime.
systematic
Well-Known Member
boston said:Well, it involved a swimming pool, a live extension cord with 240V and a young male that was both invincible and unlucky. Barefoot and dripping wet. Get the drift?systematic said:boston said:Don't laugh, but I have actually seen someone levitate once. Until the power was turned off.
can you tell us more!
Hovered, for quite some time and burnt a hole clean through his finger. Funniest thing I had seen for quite sometime.
LOL
and lol at your edited for so called poor taste
goldpanner
New Member
I have read that the jewellery industry is a bit in strife already and this is a huge industry. If gold becomes too expensive to make into jewellery they may have to stop making 14K, and 18k and stick to 9 or 10K but it may still be too expensive. The only alternative is silver and not everyone likes to wear silver or maybe they will just make gold plated silver. I should think that silver will have to be used more for jewellery. Even in 9k it makes up about 60% of the metal
I can see a lot of existing gold jewellery being melted down.
All things that can be owned by us derive value from 3 sources: its actual use, as a storage of value and its ease to trade
The reason we are mystified by what seem like an implausibly high value of gold is because gold derives a vast majority of its value from its ability to store value (difficult to destroy) and its ease to trade (easy to transport and accepted everywhere). Its value due to its actual use as a decoration / conductor etc is only a small fraction of its full value.
The proportion of value contributed by each of the 3 sources depends on each individual item, the following table illustrates this (just an example in my viewpoint):
Plastic cup Crystal cup 1kg gold cup 1kg gold bar
Actual use 95% $9.5 10% $9.5 1% $9.5 0.25% $2.375
Storage of value 1% $0.1 60% $57 59% $560.5 59.45% $560.5
Ease to trade 4% $0.4 30% $28.5 40% $380 40.3% $380
Total 100% $10 100% $95 100% $950 100% $942.9
So, to summarize, gold is not the only item that has value as a storage of wealth and for its tradability. As can be seen above, to a varying degree, crystal and even plastic have their value as a storage of wealth and tradability as well.
The difference here is gold is just much more indestructible and limited in supply than both crystal and plastic (which is unlimited in supply hence not a good storage of wealth).
Indestructibility: Gold > Crystal = Plastic
Limited supply: Gold > Crystal > Plastic
You may extend the thought experiment above to all other items you own such as cars, watches, houses, land etc. and you will see that they all command varying levels of value as a store of wealth and as a medium of trade. Just that gold happen to have characteristics that makes it extremely suitable for these purposes.
***
It is true that gold derives much of its value (~40% in my example) from being a medium of trade, which relies heavily on everyone else thinking of gold as a medium of trade and a storage of wealth. So technically, I do not think that this human perception must remain in the future (although it has endured for much of our history) but for gold to lose its value as a medium of trade and storage of wealth, two things must occur:
1. We discover a better alternative (needs to be more inert, rare but not too rare, has fundamental uses (decor etc.), hard to destroy, easy to transport etc. etc.
2. We need to reverse the current perception of gold formed over thousands of years of human history (alternative needs to be much much better to be worth the effort of the entire human race favoring the new alternative)
Personally, I do not see the above alternative readily available.
***
Just my 2 cents
The reason we are mystified by what seem like an implausibly high value of gold is because gold derives a vast majority of its value from its ability to store value (difficult to destroy) and its ease to trade (easy to transport and accepted everywhere). Its value due to its actual use as a decoration / conductor etc is only a small fraction of its full value.
The proportion of value contributed by each of the 3 sources depends on each individual item, the following table illustrates this (just an example in my viewpoint):
Plastic cup Crystal cup 1kg gold cup 1kg gold bar
Actual use 95% $9.5 10% $9.5 1% $9.5 0.25% $2.375
Storage of value 1% $0.1 60% $57 59% $560.5 59.45% $560.5
Ease to trade 4% $0.4 30% $28.5 40% $380 40.3% $380
Total 100% $10 100% $95 100% $950 100% $942.9
So, to summarize, gold is not the only item that has value as a storage of wealth and for its tradability. As can be seen above, to a varying degree, crystal and even plastic have their value as a storage of wealth and tradability as well.
The difference here is gold is just much more indestructible and limited in supply than both crystal and plastic (which is unlimited in supply hence not a good storage of wealth).
Indestructibility: Gold > Crystal = Plastic
Limited supply: Gold > Crystal > Plastic
You may extend the thought experiment above to all other items you own such as cars, watches, houses, land etc. and you will see that they all command varying levels of value as a store of wealth and as a medium of trade. Just that gold happen to have characteristics that makes it extremely suitable for these purposes.
***
It is true that gold derives much of its value (~40% in my example) from being a medium of trade, which relies heavily on everyone else thinking of gold as a medium of trade and a storage of wealth. So technically, I do not think that this human perception must remain in the future (although it has endured for much of our history) but for gold to lose its value as a medium of trade and storage of wealth, two things must occur:
1. We discover a better alternative (needs to be more inert, rare but not too rare, has fundamental uses (decor etc.), hard to destroy, easy to transport etc. etc.
2. We need to reverse the current perception of gold formed over thousands of years of human history (alternative needs to be much much better to be worth the effort of the entire human race favoring the new alternative)
Personally, I do not see the above alternative readily available.
***
Just my 2 cents
systematic
Well-Known Member
The real reason gold is valuable has nothing to do with economics at all and even if people were told why they still would not believe it.
Now that I attempted to answer the "why" question, I thought we could also think about "how did gold become so valuable?". Consider the following story:
In a barter society where currency does not exist, trade was done through exchange of goods (lets also assume there are no refrigerators here). A fisherman had a good week and was on the way home with 2 salmons (1 would have been enough to feed his family for a week). He saw a gold miner with a 1kg gold nugget in his hand. The fisherman thought the gold nugget would make a good decor for his home and exchanged 1 fish (the extra fish) for the 1kg nugget.
The 1kg gold nugget was displayed in the fisherman's house for many years, until one particular week, he was unable to catch any fishes for his family and was about to starve. He saw the nugget on the shelf and although he was not sure if anyone would find it attractive and thus trade him some food, but he decided too try his luck at the market anyway.
At the market, he met a boar hunter who had excess boars for the week and offered to trade the gold nugget for 1kg of boar meat. The boar hunter found the nugget rather attractive and hence agreed to trade.
A second fisherman overlooked this transaction and remembered there were weeks when his luck wasn't good as well and how his family had to starve for those weeks. Seeing that the hunter accepts gold for boar meat, he immediately went to the gold digger to purchase some gold nuggets, which he would store in a box under his bed (since he did not find the gold nugget attractive). He hoped to use it to trade for boars during weeks when he could not catch any fishes in the future. Furthermore, the second fisherman also started accepting gold nuggets as payment for his fishes in the weeks he had excess fishes.
As more transactions occurred with gold on one side of the trade, more people demand to keep some gold both as a storage of value and also as a medium of trade (due to its ease of transport). And as with anything with limited supply and a growing demand, the price of gold increased far beyond the initial 1 fish that the first fisherman traded for, and for that matter, far beyond its value as a decor on the shelf.
In a barter society where currency does not exist, trade was done through exchange of goods (lets also assume there are no refrigerators here). A fisherman had a good week and was on the way home with 2 salmons (1 would have been enough to feed his family for a week). He saw a gold miner with a 1kg gold nugget in his hand. The fisherman thought the gold nugget would make a good decor for his home and exchanged 1 fish (the extra fish) for the 1kg nugget.
The 1kg gold nugget was displayed in the fisherman's house for many years, until one particular week, he was unable to catch any fishes for his family and was about to starve. He saw the nugget on the shelf and although he was not sure if anyone would find it attractive and thus trade him some food, but he decided too try his luck at the market anyway.
At the market, he met a boar hunter who had excess boars for the week and offered to trade the gold nugget for 1kg of boar meat. The boar hunter found the nugget rather attractive and hence agreed to trade.
A second fisherman overlooked this transaction and remembered there were weeks when his luck wasn't good as well and how his family had to starve for those weeks. Seeing that the hunter accepts gold for boar meat, he immediately went to the gold digger to purchase some gold nuggets, which he would store in a box under his bed (since he did not find the gold nugget attractive). He hoped to use it to trade for boars during weeks when he could not catch any fishes in the future. Furthermore, the second fisherman also started accepting gold nuggets as payment for his fishes in the weeks he had excess fishes.
As more transactions occurred with gold on one side of the trade, more people demand to keep some gold both as a storage of value and also as a medium of trade (due to its ease of transport). And as with anything with limited supply and a growing demand, the price of gold increased far beyond the initial 1 fish that the first fisherman traded for, and for that matter, far beyond its value as a decor on the shelf.
silversardine
Member
err, where did Dusty disappear to....now that everyone answered his question? I must have missed something.
systematic
Well-Known Member
adze67 said:I think you'll find that the 'aliens who seeded the planet, did so to leave a 'workforce' behind to get Gold for them.
They'll be back....any minute now...any minute now....
And it's PRETTY (Come to me, My PRECIOUS
truth is stranger than fiction ....