The tyranny of metric???

[Old Koreelah]

You're both right about the limited supply of the yellow metal, but I believe a 25m cube could accomodate all the gold ever mined. The US still has mobs of the stuff and some authorities believe they could return to some form of Gold Standard; the price of it would rise to about $30,000 and stabilise their currency.

 

Little chance of that happening, however. There is no sign they can rein in their deficit; the only way to keep their $20 trillion debt under control is to devalue their currency by printing more money.

 

 

[pmccarthy]

The Fosterville gold mine near Bendigo produced 356,230 ounces of gold last year, just over 11 tonnes. I fly over it most weekends.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

That's a big slice of Australia's annual production, PM. It sounds like about 570 litres, so it would fit in the back of a ute; but probably wouldn't do the suspension much good.

 

 

[spacesailor]

"but I do note there are many disadvantages to the gold standard as well as advantages. "

 

A great big advantage of "kruger-rands" is , when buried it does not, rot,corrode, depreciate.

 

Thats why this government want let you have them !.

 

spacesailor

 

 

[willedoo]

A brave statement, Octave (In the Yes Minister sense of those words...)Gold has always been a favourite store of value and many nations are spending precious money building up their gold reserves ready for the next reset, which is likely to bring in a gold-backed Cryptocurrency.

 

Russia (and possible also China )are working on it as we speak.

 

Very likely, a bit like in Kevin Costner's Water World.

Russia and a few other countries are buying up actual physical gold. A lot of countries and people have pieces of paper saying they own gold, but don't possess physical gold. The amount of paper gold in the world market is much higher than the total amount of physical gold ever mined.

 

In the last year, Russia has bought a lot of gold and sold off the bulk of their U.S. debt assets. America's recent tendency to use financial sanctions as a strategic weapon is forcing a lot of countries on the same path. The goal is to reduce their economic vulnerability to the dollar. Good luck to them; I hope they achieve it. One of the worst pieces of legislation to come out of the U.S. is the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act.