Gold hits $1500.00 an Oz. for first time.

[Phox]

In thinking about the antipathy displayed here towards gold, i think it may have to do with the circular nature of a medium of exchange's logic.

I have no antipathy towards gold.  It makes fine jewelry.  My antipathy is towards people who not only believe it has magical powers that will work where other currencies fail, but who also insist on evangelizing about it.

This.

Gold is valuable solely because people want it, and people want it, solely because it is valuable.

No, people want ti because they are told that it is valuable. Aside as metals go, it's too soft to make good tools, and as has been said, even its use in electronics is not so unique as to make it worth $1500/oz.

but the bootstrapped agreement among people that it is valuable is entirely sufficient, and the fact that it has remained this way for so long just cements the deal.

Only so long as the economic principles that we are currently subject to remain intact.

[Kai]

I'd just like to add that it makes fine jewelery only as alloys. Pure gold is virtually useless.

[Xooxe]

I hope the gold fairy shits in your fridge.

[Golden Applesauce]

To all the people complaining that gold isn't intrinsically useful - that's actually a desirable trait in a currency.  Since gold isn't needed in very many practical applications, you can stockpile it, keep it in banks, and speculate on it without messing up other people too much.  Imagine if we really used canned food as a currency/trade good...

Gold hits $1500 / oz. -> what is the big deal about gold?  You can't even eat it!
Beans hit $1500 / 8 oz can -> OMFG WE ALL STARVE GG WORLD COLLAPSE

[Laughin Jude]

But again, that only makes gold useful in a civilization where 1) everyone has agreed that gold is "valuable" even though it's really kind of worthless otherwise and 2) there's consistent availability of food, clothing, etc. Take away #1 and gold is just a shiny rock again. Take away #2 and food, clothing, water, etc.--the stuff you actually need to stay alive--is suddenly way more valuable than any rock you might trade it for.

I think everyone gets that gold might be useful in an imaginary placeholder kind of way, just like any other limited-resource-based currency. I don't think anyone's saying otherwise, though we can argue over the details and whether or not there's a better way to go about it than using gold specifically. What's ridiculous is the gold bugs' claims that gold would somehow retain its value in the absence of our current economy. If you think the country is headed toward a civil war/post-apocalypse wasteland scenario (which is the assumption if you're watching shows like Glenn Beck and thus the target audience for the gold-hawking commercials), gold is one of the stupidest investments you could make.

[Freeky]

i predict that gold will become completely useless as currency in Tucson when currency fails.  The main currency will be bullets, second will be potable water, then food, and then hippy rocks.  Gold isn't even used by hippies!

[Ben Shapiro]

Platinum is superior in electronics to copper,silver, and gold. If I remember my basic AC-DC circuits class. Fresh water > Gold. Also gold looks tacky to me.