Quote from splinter7:
I like the arguement that its a timeless measure of what a man can accomplish, but...
So Supply...and scarcity, but we don't pan for gold. There are mining companies who control supply, thus they control the price if demand is fixed.
Gold sits in mines, just like oil, until the price (and other commercial factors) is right. Its a large capital intensive industrial process.
How is that a good measure of the work a man can do in a day? Why does that give it value? Where does the demand come from?
BTW, water is not free or cheap, I pay $300/mo for just a little water and I have no choice, my plants and I have to drink. I can see me needing gold for anything, other than to trade to a sucker and get some water.
People do pan. Also the mining companies that mine the gold have to hire laborers, they spend millions of dollars on machines and when you check them out, you see that it costs them quite a bit of money to get that gold out of the ground. In fact it costs them several hundred dollars per oz to get it out. A panner can get an oz out for just his time. A mining company cant. Plus the mining companies have lots of regulations. Just look at novagold. they are losing 161 million per year, yet they are sitting on billions of dollars of gold.
And water is free, you dont pay $300/mo for the water. You pay $300 per month for the transportation of the water to you. If you dug yourself a well, it would be free, but instead you either do not want to dig a well, or you live on a place where you are not able to dig a well or there is no water under your property, but that was your choice to live there.