• MrNesser@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    The imaginary money you invested in gold is worthless if civilization collapsed, so it’s in the rich person’s interests to keep things going so they can pull that investment back.

    It’s more likely we are heading to another US recession, hopefully not as bad as the 1930s

    • thepompe@ttrpg.network
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      3 hours ago

      I’m sorry, what? Gold has value regardless of if there’s a government backing it or not. That’s the entire point of investing in it, as a buffer for when fiat loses its value.

      • SpongyAneurysm@feddit.org
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        52 minutes ago

        That’s the general idea, yeah. But gold investments are just a kind of construct where you legally own a certain amount of gold. Wether anyone respects your right of ownership when civilization collapses… we’ll see about that.

        • thepompe@ttrpg.network
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          45 minutes ago

          Now this guy has a much better idea of what’s going on.

          The rest of you are kinda stupid and that also explains why you just try to fit in with the crowd.

      • Rob Bos@lemmy.ca
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        2 hours ago

        What value? Can’t eat it, makes shitty tools. It’s shiny, but I’m not going to trade ny potatoes for shiny in a survival situation.

        You can starve sitting on a pile of gold.

        For gold to be valuable you still need social stability.

          • Rob Bos@lemmy.ca
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            2 hours ago

            Value is what you can get for something. If you can’t trade it for something, with anyone, it has zero value.

            A dollar has value because you can trade it for a potato. In an apocalypse, you cannot trade gold for a potato if nobody wants it.

            Value is a subjective thing.

              • Rob Bos@lemmy.ca
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                2 hours ago

                Lots of things are rare. Doesn’t mean I’ll give you my potatoes for em.

                At best gold becomes something desirable once there’s enough security for me to value having pretty things.

                • thepompe@ttrpg.network
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                  2 hours ago

                  Like I said, you don’t understand value and that’s okay.

                  I’m going to ignore you now because you’re annoying me with your below-average intelligence.

          • dickalan@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            What uses gold when you’re buying/selling potatoes, nobody will think gold is worth anything if society has collapsed it’s just a useless hunk of metal

      • Legianus@programming.dev
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        2 hours ago

        He means regular money would be worthless as well as stocks and such. And as rich people own gold, but own much more of the other, he argues they would like to avoid collapse.

        However, I don’t think they really can. Also, if it comes to recession very rich people tend to profit.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    “The fall of Rome, Spain’s imperial decline, the French Revolution, the end of Bretton Woods [the 1944 agreement establishing today’s international monetary system]… this is effectively a transfer of real wealth from the poor to the rich elites who protect themselves with gold,” Bertrand wrote. “We’re witnessing what may be one of the great pivotal moments in financial history yet it’s being barely discussed.”

    It’ll never get old to me that the Uber wealthy know money is only valuable because everyone agrees it is. And when they accumulate too much, everyone else stops caring about it make Ng it worthless…

    And their response is always to hoard a different thing that is mostly valuable only because people all agree it is.

    Like, gold does have some actual uses, but none of this is being used for that. Just hoarded because people think others want it.

    But shit gets bad enough, it’s like a zombie apocalypse.

    You can have all the gold in the world, doesn’t mean someone will trade even a gun with a single bullet for it.

    There’s just no real way to hold onto that insane levels of wealth it inequality, because it’s totally unnatural. It’s unmaintainable, but the people who benefit will try everything to keep it.

    • floofloof@lemmy.ca
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      8 hours ago

      You can have all the gold in the world, doesn’t mean someone will trade even a gun with a single bullet for it.

      On the other hand, there are plenty of people who wouldn’t mind giving you a single bullet for free.

    • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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      7 hours ago

      It’s the legendary metaphor of the all powerful dragon that sits on his mountain of gold

      • lordbritishbusiness@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        I could see wall street and other traders trading options on the gold under the dragon because it isn’t going anywhere and it’s safe from basically everything.

        That market will crash if sufficiently skilled dragon hunters show up though, better ban dragon slaying.

    • nocklobster@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      I feel like the gold is more for using right before the worst case scenarios, in the end, they will have enough firepower, security, and other necessary provisions. After having that, just get a big enough following of people who think you’re the ideal candidate to be seen as a king for them and that’s what the rich will become in the next theoretical cycle of civilization.

      • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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        5 hours ago

        that’s what the rich will become in the next theoretical cycle of civilization.

        On the surface, it sounds plausible. But if you dig into how the resources you mentioned are produced, the ones which would allow them to become kings, there’s a plot hole. The production can only be done in centralized factories where many workers labour. And the inputs for those factories are done in other factories where many workers labour. As long as such resources are required to maintain these fiefdoms, the rulers power would be constrained by labour power. And we know from history that when enough workers are out of a job, when enough live in poverty, workers organize to stop working and take over the factories. Then they start producing for themselves, instead of the rulers. Then the rulers end up with no guns or other technology needed to enforce their power. What’s worse for the prospects of the future would-be-kings, is that the theory which tells workers how to organize and what to do in such cases has been written, and tested, and it works. And so I think we’re likely gonna see more of that instead of new monarchies formed by former capitalist elites.

    • Avid Amoeba@lemmy.ca
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      7 hours ago

      Yeah, many people, wealthy or not, do not understand what money is, or any other medium of exchange, and where their value comes from.