Clearly I’m missing something...?
While this is true, its important to understand that "all value is subjective" the concept of "inherent value" is a fallacy that distorts ones worldview.
A glass of water has a different value at the oasis vs the dessert.
no, water and tuna have measurable and objective value to your biological system.
And even then, water and tuna have very little utility to a biological system that already has plenty of both. The utility of adding more may even be negative.
Someone dying of thirst values water much higher than someone drowning in it.
Someone allergic to tuna will value it much lower than someone who's not.
Every Fiat currency is a 'shared fiction'.
Currency is a social contract.
Then, if we all agree that Gold is a currency, then it has value in that regard, and since it always has been a currency across pretty much all cultures, across all time, it remains a form of rough currency.
If 'civilization fell apart' (and it won't) we would still need currency and if anything it would probably be gold.
Now (and really even then) USD is only as good as the integrity of the US Gov and the Fed. If they crash, USD won't be worth the paper it's printed on. In addition, mechanically, physical currency takes a lot of effort to keep going, and with nobody doing that, well it goes kaput.
Digital currencies rely on various layers of trust: networking, security, legal, financial, regulatory, institutional. If any of those break, we can't use digital currency. Technically, there might be some kind of super cook block-chain that could work without needing the internet, surely, but it's too complicated for regular use as a currency. Maybe for larger transactions between fiefdoms!
But gold and other precious metals would probably be used as s currency until institutional trust could be built back up into institutions so that they could have real fiat currencies.
If knowledge and responsibility were very strongly maintained at the local level, it's entirely possible for regional economies to maintain their own fiats. This requires exceptional knowledge and fiscal/monetary discipline.
If you have a populist, dirtbag leader who can corrupt the integrity of the monetary system, it will destroy everything. This is the source of most hyperinflation scenarios.
This is not how other countries saw it.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorbitant_privilege : "In February 1965 President Charles de Gaulle announced his intention to exchange its U.S. dollar reserves for gold at the official exchange rate. He sent the French Navy across the Atlantic to pick up the French reserve of gold and was followed by several countries. As it resulted in considerably reducing U.S. gold stock and U.S. economic influence, it led U.S. President Richard Nixon to end unilaterally the convertibility of the dollar to gold on August 15, 1971 (the "Nixon Shock"). This was meant to be a temporary measure but the dollar became permanently a floating fiat money and in October 1976, the U.S. government officially changed the definition of the dollar; references to gold were removed from statutes."
The average citizen, after the 1930s when the gold standard was abandoned (and for a time, private gold ownership was literally outlawed and people were obligated to turn all their gold in) could not go to a bank and say "give me my $ worth of gold" but other countries could. Between the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 and that, though, one could actually redeem a Federal Reserve Note for gold.
Now the US dollar's value is assessed by comparing it to a basket of other nations' currencies and dollar foreign policy sometimes favors a cheaper dollar. An analogous situation happened with the Swiss franc when the Swiss central bank deliberately devalued it to make Swiss exports more affordable and attractive to buy again.
In 1980, the Hunt Brothers cornered the commodities market for silver by buying up billions of dollars of it and "artificially" pumping the price up over 50$/oz. This is a good example of where metallism (backing a currency with a commodity like gold or silver or both) can fail as long as the commodity itself can also be traded. It would be quite difficult to do the same to the gold market though since silver has many more industrial uses.
The currency of a nation is only as good as the government that issues it, which in a democratic form of government means constant vigilance by voting citizens over the stewards of it.
Also curiously enough if that's your criteria cryptocurrencies would be even better.
And no, anything dependent on computers (an especially on a country's worth of electricity) to function is not a safe bet if we are imagining doomsday scenarios.
How do you counterfeit gold? Alchemy?
This is where all those hours of listening to drummers drone on and on about the metallurgical qualities of cymbal brass--and the audible differences between Paiste, Sabian, and Zildjian--can come in handy.
Napkin math tells me that over 50 tons of gold have been used just in iPhones over the past 13 years. Just like any commodity - if there is demand, there is probably value.
190,000 tons of gold mined in the history of the world vs. 700,000,000 tons of copper.
you didn't list utility. You listed physical properties.
Utility is how those physical properties help/hinder the use of said material for a purpose.
The utility of gold, when society is broken, will be minimal. Except as a barter currency, as it's widely recognized.
However, under such a circumstance, i would say other goods are better - such as food staples, guns and bullets, and a shelter you can defend (like a bunker).
If gold gets too valuable relative to labour, more mountains in South America will be pulled down to extract the gold.
Think of the way hundreds of millions of dollars have been put into bitcoin mining ASICS just because someone saw a return could be pulled out if thin air... Gold mining is pulling a return out of rock when the economic conditions are right.
Sure, mining may increase the supply of gold... a very small amount compared to the existing supply. It's not going to move the needle in terms of supply vs. demand, though.
(Technically it will a little until the network difficulty adjusts.)
It can be counterfeited or debased. Will you carry around a scale and testing supplies?
The thing in this article is caused by falling silver prices. Silver is down 50% this week. It's used in industry, as is gold, but the population of deranged gold hoarders is just a lot bigger, so they are propping up the price of gold somewhat. Goldbugs must be used to losing their shirts by now, since gold has been a terrible investment for more than 40 years.
Gold isn't a currency its money.
A currency is backed by a store of value, money is a store value.
Gold is a great store of value because its rare and doesn't expire this is why humans used it as the first form of money thousands of years ago, and it's why people continued to use it up until very recently.
> what exactly are you going to buy with your gold coins when all supply chains are broken and most goods can't be produced even at a higher price?
Total global economic collapse seems very unlikely, but let's say the US government collapses in that case the US currency Dollars collapses completely, it has no value its just monopoly money.
Today in a war zone where supply chains are broken, local currency or dollars are worthless, but gold will still have the same value world wide no matter what, simply because it is the value.
Tuna goes off after a year so while valuable its not a good store of value.
Gold doesn't go off, it doesn't rust, it has lots of uses in electronics like phones and computer, only a very small percentage of the worlds supply of gold is used for jewellery / decoration.