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Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

Iran? Argentina?

Until someone discovers a mine that doubles reserves over night. Gold can be just as bad as paper with modern mining technology.

Zimbabwe kicked their inflation problem by dollarizing. Note they have plenty of gold to mine in that area.

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in ground gold reserves are reasonably well known and factored in. There is a finite amount of gold in the crust. There is no limit to the amount of digits one can add to the banks balance sheet. dollarizing won't be possible for the USD.

We only have estimates for unknown discoveries, and the margin of error is huge for those. Not well known at all. There is definitely a finite amount of gold in the crust, but no one knows how much, and even "knowing" how much China has locked up in their vaults is difficult (they keep it secret for obvious market manipulation reasons). Of course, we are less than a hundred years away from being able to mine asteroids, but I'll doubt we'll bother mining for something as intrinsically worthless as gold.

The US dollar is still a very stable currency, whatever the libertarian alarmists claim.

1. User A submits link to HN explaining the intrinsic properties of gold that are useful for space program at NASA.

2. User B lists a number of additional areas in science and technology that rely on the intrinsic properties of gold and bemoans financial system reliance on gold. Somewhat off topic and interesting discussion of fiat currencies ensues.

3. User C comments that gold is intrinsically worthless.

Great example of why I find HN so interesting and infuriating.

The value of gold in any of those technologies is only worth as much as the alternatives that accomplish the same effects. Gold as a concurrency is completely detached from gold as a useful commodity.

> The value of gold in any of those technologies is only worth as much as the alternatives that accomplish the same effects.

This is true for all materials and services.

> Gold as a concurrency is completely detached from gold as a useful commodity.

Is that your way of saying "I should not have said gold was intrinsically worthless"?

Sure, gold is not worth much as a commodity to be mined from an asteroid.

Do you even economics?

http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-03-18/chinas-gold-...

surprising to see you read zerohedge AND have faith in the dollar's status as world reserve ;)

people have been telling us that probable in-ground oil reserves have been known for decades, but those estimates keep going up. I see no reason to believe there is a better estimate for in-ground gold reserves, nor do I believe the true size of those reserves is factored into the price. Considering the 40+% margins shown by Barrick Gold, I doubt even the marginal cost of mining gold is factored that well into the current price.

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