Quote:
Originally Posted by Jimbuna
Send it over to me and I'll put it to good use 
Back OT...any tradeable commodity is used for profitable gain and always will do as long as there is a buyer and a seller within the marketplace. |
That is why it is of paramount importance to have a currency that is indeed a freely traded commodity just like any other and that has its value not regulated and fixed by governments, but market participants. Only then the "value" of the money actually has a meaning. And only then prices have a meaning. And only then businessmen and traders can make reliable calculations on their cost-gains-balances. In other words, the general status of an economy is reflected ion the price fixing on a free market, and the value of its currencies. And when you want to hide the real status of a desolate economy, you have to prevent all that and command which price the currency should have - by that, you distort all, precent all, disguise all.
But such a commodity currency that is decided about by market and private people, would mean that politicians have limited means available only to finance their spending frenzies by which they bribe the masses to vote for them. So they always will move all heaven and earth and tell just any lie to prevent such a currency and make people believe in paper money instead.
Also, paper money is a precondition for the giant redistribution scheme of real values from bottom to top that is happening today. The word to watch out for is "Cantillon effect". It makes sure that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer just by printing more FIAT money and pumping it into the system.
That gold has been used as such a widely accepted commodity money, is only because of past markets decided so and people made good experiences with the physical availability and ability to manage it. It is practical to handle, can be turned into smaller or bigger coins, and if a symbol on a thaler is declared invalid and the currency changes to another name, you melt your thaler and still have gold that has not lost one bit of its bartering power than if it were not a necklace but the same amount of gold pressed into the form of a coin, also, it cannot rot and does not corrode. It could as well be plant seeds, or seashells or bones, or tobacco, pieces of dried bacon and whatever else man has used as token for a currency system. But people found out that all these things were not as practical and valuable to them as precious metals turned out to be, and that they did not offer the practical advantages of using metal instead of furs or dried bacon. And so, gold it was.
The Chinese were the first to try a paper money system, I think in the 12th century. It collapsed. And since then, ALL paper money system tried in any part of the world have collapsed. The inflation of paper money is nothing else than what ancient kins did when they reduced the amount of precious metals in their gold and silver thalers, and replaced them with inferior iron, to increase the amount of thalers and give the illusion of having more wealth that they then spend. It is betrayal, theft, and always it is snowballing.