Lee DunaChina is hoarding the world's gold
Sentient LoomBut I need that gold!
unalivejoySo? We don’t use it for money anymore.
Gold is used in a lot of other things than money and jewelry. For example, a sizable portion of the world’s supply is used in electronics like cellphones and computers.
Oh no a country is investing in their own industrial capacity, what devious monsters!
PugJesusYeah, like, I'm generally pretty anti-CCP, but this is a non-issue, really.
kevinBLTLook where that got us…
But when money fails (hyperinflation, sanctions, digital collapse, bank failures, violent revolution, etc.), countries who already have gold reserves will be the only ones with anything of value.
Beyond that, just by virtue of the fear of any of those events or general international turmoil rising, the value of gold rises, too, as one of very few stores of wealth that can survive any such event. Investing in gold is a great low-risk move for guaranteed returns on huge reserves.
Money is like fairies. If your stop believing in it, it stops existing.
I talked to someone in finance, and the first thing they said is that nothing has guaranteed returns.
Fair, low-risk not no risk, but a good buy
BOMBSFlowVoid: Hi, I’m FlowVoid.
Person in finance: Nothing has guaranteed returns.
FlowVoid: Oh…uh, ok.
Person in finance: I’m in finance.
Close!
FlowVoid: Hi, I’m FlowVoid, your 1:30 pm appointment. I’m here for some guaranteed returns, here’s $3.50, now set me up.
Finance person: Nothing has guaranteed returns.
You can get a guaranteed return in many ways.
- US Treasury bonds: if the US government fails you’ll have bigger problems than money. You don’t need to worry about that scenario. You’ll win the lottery first.
- Pay off a loan: by paying off your principal early you can guarantee that you pay less interest in the future.
- Buy something that saves you money: if you like cooking, an herb garden will save you a lot of money. If you like sweets, baking equipment will do the same.
The first is not guaranteed, the others are savings not returns.
Savings are better than returns because they are legally tax free. A penny saved is worth more than a penny earned.
Yes, savings are usually better if for some reason you are forced to choose only one. But they are generally used together. A penny saved is worth even more if it is used to generate a return.
Does gold still have the same value it used to? When it was first used people put value on “oooh, shiny rock, it must be precious”, but now is it really that valuable? It sounds like they’re hoarding it because they think it’s useful as a currency, but if things got bad would other countries care about it?
diprount_tomatoIf things got bad they’d have the advantage as gold is a much more trustworthy investment than unbacked currencies
Yup there’s a reason why the US holding them in Fort Knox
Gold is agreed upon as a store of value. There’s always someone willing to buy it. You’re right that its intrinsic value as a material is lower than the actual price but people’s belief in gold is the same as their belief in a fiat currency.
The difference is that gold is a physical asset, so that no matter what the rate of inflation or the fluctuation of the market price if you have a tonne of gold you will always have that tonne.
Also it is not administered by a central bank with a political agenda.
Lastly gold is rare and finite. Eventually there will be no more gold to be mined.
Flying SquidThe price of gold fluctuates though. And it could potentially devalue significantly if a new source is discovered or a new method of mining or extracting it (such as filtering it from seawater) is developed.
So yes, if you have a tonne of gold, you will always have that tonne, but it could lose, say, 20% of its value quickly.
It could indeed and has done so in the past. But the thing about it is that the price always recovers because people believe it will always be valuable. It’s the belief that endures and because people will always pay for what they believe to be valuable the value of gold as a currency endures. Also the retail value of gold remains high as the single largest application is jewellery Source page So there’s a conflation of the value of the labour that goes into making jewellery, adding value and in some cases the value of the piece will take that gold permanently out of circulation for use as currency e.g. the Mask of Agamemnon
I think the fact that it’s very chemically stable is likely a factor as well so it can be stored for effectively an infinite amount of time & it won’t degrade/react, it’ll still be gold.
Very good point.
Yeah, it’s more than just “shiny good”
Lampros Liontos@lanigerous @Spendrill It's also very conductive. It's not an accident that gold is used in high-quality electronic contacts like cable ends or card edges.
KSP AtlasNot if i shove it in the good old fusion reactor
Historically, the value of gold was tied to its “incorruptibility”. It is associated with purity and permanence.
Oh, look! An asteroid made almost entirely out of gold! T'would be a shame if someone were to mine it...
Just back a transit van up to it, hack a lump off with a pneumatic drill, sling it in the back, we’ll be back by teatime.
Until we can successfully mine asteroids, and then all precious metals will have nigh infinite supplies. I suspect we’re not too many decades away from that.
EndorkendIts value has kept increasing over time.
And it will likely keep doing so, as while in the past gold reserves only dropped when gold was lost (like ye old Spanish ship going down in the Ocean) against its natural increase of continued mining, these days, gold is also used in quite a lot of applications where it becomes impractical to recover after being discarded.
And this removal of gold reserves will only keep increasing with the increase of its uses in technology.
So, yeah, its value is almost assured to stay very solid and monopolizing the worlds gold also gives you a degree of control over technology markets.
Markets where the west has typically kept China behind the curve.
It gives them leverage, economical and technological.
It tends to go up in value during chaotic times as people use it to insulate their savings from the economy when they are expecting regular currencies or economies to crash.
About 10% of gold usage is in technology. This has been steady for many years. Jewelry and Investments can trade off. But yeah, basically its just mostly values because its a rare shiny rock.
I’d like you to tell me a better way for Xi to swim around in a giant moneybin like Scrooge McDuck.
Sure. And Trump gave his presidential salary to charity.
remoteloveWhen you are a dictator, you don’t need a salary.
Exactly.
This is actually, literally, propaganda. Almost fun to read because of how obvious it is.
I’m glad you recognize that, now apply it to western media. There is a huge global protest today. And hardly a whisper from American media.
So you’re anti-propaganda and globally aware, but still spreading CCP propaganda? Why share this article of you want people not to believe in political deception?
Not my post.
But it is your comment, the even more propagandistic one about Xi’s humble, laudable, selfless annual salary
I was responding with a source to show money has less meaning in socialism. We tend to view China through a capitalist lens. They have different priorities and goals.
Not really. Globally, money still brings power. They have incredibly capitalistic international trade and relations.
Globally, because capitalism currently runs the world. But not internally. Billionaires regularly have their capital reappropriated.
And the article you’re commenting on is about their global share of gold. So, rather than just propagandistic, I guess your pro-China rhetoric is also irrelevant here.
I changed the link to cover China’s policy of common prosperity. I do propagandize, but not for China. I’m trying to counter war drums the media is beating. I don’t want a war with China, do you?
Certainly not
Link for the lazy
Freedom Plaza, 2PM
global protest website only mentions American cities
Never change, America
That’s the big one on Washington. I don’t think they are coordinated other than the date. There’s one in London.
On the books
Do people realize communism is moneyless, because from the comments I’m not sure they realize the goals of socialism?
If you think Xi isn’t hoarding wealth for himself and his cronies you’re delusional.
Source? Why would he? He doesn’t need to, he’s President for life. What’s he gonna buy? Graceland?
“Wealth” doesn’t necessarily mean “money”. I’m sure he can get money if and when he needs it.
My point is that regardless of what pay he collects on paper, he is extremely wealthy and he exerts control over the distribution of significant wealth within the PRC. Xi is about as communist as Putin is.
Communists are poor. Got it.