This is a disconnect of what gold is, and the distinction between it's use value and it's financial value is as old as the hills.
Look at what happened to Spain and Portugal when they were uniquely able to flood Europe with gold and silver. It didn't make them masters of the known world, it certainly helped extend bourbon lands but ultimately their economies weren't magically lifted to the stratosphere.
Look at the emergence of bimetallism as a politico-economic movement. Why did people think silver mattered?
Beyond gold rush, look at the economic benefits to Australia and Alaska and Canada and California and South Africa of gold. Is it truly about "the value of the gold" or is it really the value of civil construction and mining and capital investment?
Are we fundamentally short of gold? Is there some Erlich/Simon bet risk here?
I think not. This gold from fusion exercise either revalues gold as meaninglessly cheap and uses for industry continue, or proves uneconomic and pointless. It won't be 1000 years of money flowing like rivers of gold, unless they constrain supply to match real demand for gold as a value object.
Diamonds are the same. Massively propped up value proposition divorced from supply and industry. Argyle pink diamonds personify everything wrong with the diamond business.
I suspect they're shilling for JV investors to fund fusion in 50 years.
downrightmike•1h ago
A lot of people hold the simple belief that having gold makes you wealthy, so they overpay for it
ggm•1h ago
As individuals, hedging or even speculating, it's proved pretty resilient. Nation states have a more .. sophisticated sense of gold reserves, buying and selling at scale is an odd process. Investment grade gold has its own rules. Jewellery doesn't usually work out quite how people expected, value wise.
So I don't knock anyone individually doing gold as an investment strategy any more than anything else. And it's a lot better than some other things. Wine, whisky, very risky.
But they'd be shitting their pants at the risk of fusion sourced gold happening.
ggm•1h ago
Look at what happened to Spain and Portugal when they were uniquely able to flood Europe with gold and silver. It didn't make them masters of the known world, it certainly helped extend bourbon lands but ultimately their economies weren't magically lifted to the stratosphere.
Look at the emergence of bimetallism as a politico-economic movement. Why did people think silver mattered?
Beyond gold rush, look at the economic benefits to Australia and Alaska and Canada and California and South Africa of gold. Is it truly about "the value of the gold" or is it really the value of civil construction and mining and capital investment?
Are we fundamentally short of gold? Is there some Erlich/Simon bet risk here?
I think not. This gold from fusion exercise either revalues gold as meaninglessly cheap and uses for industry continue, or proves uneconomic and pointless. It won't be 1000 years of money flowing like rivers of gold, unless they constrain supply to match real demand for gold as a value object.
Diamonds are the same. Massively propped up value proposition divorced from supply and industry. Argyle pink diamonds personify everything wrong with the diamond business.
I suspect they're shilling for JV investors to fund fusion in 50 years.
downrightmike•1h ago
ggm•1h ago
So I don't knock anyone individually doing gold as an investment strategy any more than anything else. And it's a lot better than some other things. Wine, whisky, very risky.
But they'd be shitting their pants at the risk of fusion sourced gold happening.