Text 12002, 73 rader
Skriven 2008-03-07 08:06:24 av Robert Bashe (2:2448/44)
  Kommentar till text 11979 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
Ärende: Stability is security
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Michiel van der Vlist wrote to Robert Bashe on Thursday March 06 2008 at 13:43:

MV> Many "mystiques" have been abandonned or watered down over the ages.
MV> Few peole would hoard Kauri shells these days....

Who ever used cowrie shells as money except for a few islanders?

RB>> I would guess. Lots of people have thought the way you do, but people
RB>> still want gold the same way they did thousands of years ago.

MV> So how come the bubble doesn't burst?

Because the total amount of gold ever mined doesn't increase markedly over the
years and the metal remains rare and attractive (color, weight). It just
_feels_ solid. Don't discount the emotional part of it.

MV> I had a similar conversation in the mid seventees in RSA wiht someone
MV> who believed South Africa would never go bankrupt because they had
MV> gold and diamonds and white supremacy would be forever because they
MV> were the one's who controlled it.

MV> I asked him (mind you he was a physicist) about the intrinsic value of
MV> diamonds and he admitted there was little or none. Nevertheless he
MV> insisted that "diamond are forever".

MV> Well, RSA is not what it was 30 years ago and the "diamond bubble" at
MV> least /did/ burst...

Diamonds remain rare and particularly the larger ones (1+ carat) are quite
stable in value. You may be talking about the drop in value of the smaller
ones, less than a carat, since the market is meanwhile flooded with them and
they can even be made synthetically.

Oh, and just try making gold to flood the market - alchemy is out of style
nowadays.

RSA isn't what it used to be, as it's now part of black Africa with all the
term implies, and the gold and diamond mines are starting to approach
exhaustion. Remember, they've been mining gold and diamonds there on a grand
scale for more than 100 years. But gold and diamonds are still worth plenty, as
you can see from the amounts sold by various people in the Congo to finance
weapons purchases. I believe people call them "blood diamonds".

RB>> Remember, Lenin once remarked he wanted to line the public toilets in
RB>> the Moscow subway with gold, to show his distain for the "supposed
RB>> value" of gold.

RB>> Well, he didn't,

MV> He took a pragmatic approach then. Of course he knew very well those
MV> toilets would be vandalised within two microseconds of delivery if not
MV> before.

Stolen, you mean. Not vandalized. And in spite of the ideology, he wasn't
stupid. Gold is valuable and is accepted the world over.

RB>> but instead put it all into the central bank and used it to buy what
RB>> he thought the country needed. And the Moscow subway is still just
RB>> painted, like subways throughout the world.

MV> Again a good observation, but not so good an explanation.

Then let me just remark that you may give me all the old, ugly, valueless gold
you possess and I will dispose of it for you. Not an attractive suggestion? Why
not, unless you too think gold is valuable. And if so, why don't you explain
that to me instead of asking for explanations yourself?

That's what's known as turning the tables" on someone ;-)

Cheers, Bob

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