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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;mumu, post: 1632589, member: 24620&quot;]You keep assigning the term &quot;money&quot; to gold as if money is some kind of absolute. Money is a man made idea. And it only works when there is wealth at any part of the heirchy. The Irish famined wanted crowns because thats what the wealthy men that had the potatoes wanted for the potatoes. If there were no potatoes at all the silver and gold would be meaningless. The problem is you are not seeing the forest from the trees. You need to step outside and look at it subjectively. You are inside the lexicon where you were born into a world where the human animal could afford the luxury of money and you have never seen a different scenario. It just so happens that it has been the case for millenia, for the most part. I&#039;ll give you a few scenarios that might help you see what I am saying. </p><p><br /></p><p>Before money...we were cavemen. We needed food, water, air and shelter to survive. At some point some cavemen got good at finding food and had a surplus. Other cavemen found pretty rocks. The cavemen with the extra food liked the pretty rocks too and traded some food for some rocks. After some time they developed a standard exchange rate for x amount of rock for x amount of food. If there was no food surplus, the cavemen with the food would eat and the caveman with the rocks would die.</p><p><br /></p><p>2nd scenario is a little more historicly factual. Fast forward thousands of years, the cavemen are now advanced human beings who farm and such things. One farmer grows corn, another farmer grows potatoes, some other guy sucks at farming finds pretty rocks in the ground. The guy with pretty rocks likes potatoes and corn but can grow neither. The guy with Corn has extra corn and likes pretty rocks but doesnt like potatoes. The guy with potatoes doesnt have enough potatoes to trade for pretty rocks but is willing to trade for corn which he can also eat when he gets sick of potatoes. The corn surplus is the only reason the guy with gold can eat in this scenario.&nbsp; He can trade the guy with corn directly with his gold, or trade for potatoes because the potato guy knows his gold will get him corn even though he doesnt care about gold. If there were just enough potatoes and corn for the 2 guys, the gold guy would die. Once everyone has food, they can hold the gold as &quot;money&quot; because it doesnt spoil as food does, and trade it again later on. But if ever everyone else decided that they no longer liked pretty rocks, then the gold is worthless. It just hasnt happened yet but that doesnt mean it cant. When food starts to run out at the highest classes, it will happen.</p><p><br /></p><p>The last scenario is easy. If you were the only person on earth would you care about gold or food? There are tribes in the amazon who would not give you a single thing for your gold if you found yourself stranded on their land. So where is the innate value? Offer a dog if your gold bars or your steak. We are animals just like the dog.</p><p><br /></p><p>We have proven by the successful use of paper money that rocks are arbituarily assigned value. Heck we dont even need a physical represnetation of money whatsoever anymore, just numbers in a computer can have a side of beef delivered to your door tomorrow. Money is not an absolute. There are billions of people who have lived and died and never once used gold or silver as money. Money is whatever we decide it is. It is only by custom and paradigms that gold and silver has persisted with some value.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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