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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;-jeffB, post: 3896756, member: 27832&quot;]Yes, and that guess would be &quot;so much that we could crush every human that&#039;s ever lived under his or her own million-ton solid gold cube, and still not make a discernible dent in the total&quot;. It&#039;s irrelevant. It&#039;s all about <i>cost of production</i> (or retrieval) -- which <i>varies</i>, depending on long-term demand and technology shifts, but also on short-term fluctuations in (say) energy costs).</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Of course. And you can, I suppose, pick any one of those things -- say, gold -- and choose to define other prices in terms of it. Most of us use the dollar as our measure of value, though.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Slamming the brakes on commerce&quot; -- I&#039;m thinking of the change shortage in the 1960s around the time of the shift from silver to clad. People hoarded silver coinage because they thought it would be worth more in the future, and stores couldn&#039;t make change.</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;Spike in metal prices&quot; -- sure, this can happen in the face of war. It has also happened when a couple of ambitious brothers decided to corner the silver market (1979-1980). If a couple of low-life grifters can cause the price of a metal to spike 10-fold or more, I&#039;d just as soon <i>not</i> look at it as &quot;suddenly the price of bread and milk has dropped 90%, but so has my salary&quot;.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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