I am happy to have educated you, but let me also tell you that it's only the start of the journey... As @Sig mentioned, if you go to pretty much any tropical resort, your USD will be most welcome. Anywhere in the Caribbean, Mauritius, Maldives, you name it, they all happy for you to pay in USD. Just sayin'...
Tulip mania: the classic story of a Dutch financial bubble is mostly wrong
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Long journey indeed! Can't wait to be educated on the subject of the full list of small islands that accept the USD as legal tender. I'm sure it will be an extremely exciting discovery, but right now it's friday, NYC is finally closed, and I've got 48 hours of freedom before Sydney opens again, which I intend to employ on some other journey of great discovery. Enjoy your weekend Martinghoul!
What are you talking about? I haven't heard of this bitcoin thing.
Must be one of them Asian deals.
Not for you, but if you want to buy some of my 'Tulips,' then send me some BTC and I'll short them to you.
You're just being silly here. First, good luck bringing a gold nugget down to your local store, shaving off a fraction of an ounce, and convincing them to accept that for a dozen eggs. In any part of the world I've been a local store would be much happier to have me sweep the floors for eggs than offer them some gold dust.
Second, you're completely missing the bigger point. Gold is just as arbitrary a store of value as giant rocks were on Easter Island or USD. Your mythical storekeeper who values gold only values it because others value it and he can use it as a form of currency. The eggs in your example have an independent intrinsic value, they can be eaten. My labor has an independent intrinsic value. But gold's value is largely arbitrary and only exists because everyone agrees, by "fiat", that it does. As a vehicle for buying and selling goods and services it's more convenient and easier to use than giant rocks and less so than USD or EUR, that's one of several reasons why we stopped using it for day to day commerce some time ago here in the real world. Why anyone who knows the first thing about economics would want to go back to an economy of the 1800s or the dark ages is just baffling, but maybe that's just an unfortunate side effect of knowing the first thing about economics.
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Hey, don't you mean mythical THOR-keeper?
More seriously, though - store of value IS a use. And gold stores value far better than fiat. If you read Aristotle's definition of money, it applies to gold, but not to food. In other words, yes, you can eat eggs, but you can't spend them for things - and both functions have utility to humans.
It's deceptive to say that only things that you can eat or live in have value. It's also arbitrary to remove all value from anything that is not directly life-sustaining, not to mention ridiculous. Gold's value may be somewhat arbitrary, but the fact that it has value is based on fulfilling the criteria of money, most especially limited supply and stable store of value - a function that almost nothing else can provide.
My point is that gold is as arbitrary and "fiat" as any other form of currency. And as I pointed out earlier, gold from 1913 to today buried in a chest was a significantly worse store of value than dollars invested in 10 year Treasuries.Hey, don't you mean mythical THOR-keeper?
More seriously, though - store of value IS a use. And gold stores value far better than fiat. If you read Aristotle's definition of money, it applies to gold, but not to food. In other words, yes, you can eat eggs, but you can't spend them for things - and both functions have utility to humans.
It's deceptive to say that only things that you can eat or live in have value. It's also arbitrary to remove all value from anything that is not directly life-sustaining, not to mention ridiculous. Gold's value may be somewhat arbitrary, but the fact that it has value is based on fulfilling the criteria of money, most especially limited supply and stable store of value - a function that almost nothing else can provide.
I've been saying that about gold for longer than many of you have walked the earth.
But compared to the artificial value embedded in these cryptos, GOLD is a direct store of value from the hand of God Almighty.
But compared to the artificial value embedded in these cryptos, GOLD is a direct store of value from the hand of God Almighty.