Economics: Scarcity -- Gold, Aluminum, and Pretend Paper Money

[Fife]

Alchemy is a largely ignored topic in history. https://www.biography.com/news/isaac-ne ... hers-stone

I don't know about mining Psyche, but scarcity vs. technology is the story, eh?

What That Giant Asteroid of Gold Would Really Do to the Economy

Psyche has a lot of gold—about $10,000 quadrillion worth at current prices. The eye-catching headlines that claim it’s enough gold to make “everyone on earth a billionaire” are, of course, complete fantasy. Selling that much gold would cut prices nearly to zero.

If gold was still used for money, that much gold would create massive inflation, resulting in a lot of economic hardship. No country uses the gold standard anymore, so that’s hardly a concern. Rock-bottom gold prices would certainly be devastating for gold mining companies and people who keep their wealth in gold bars. That’s really bad for them, but they’re a tiny part of the global economy.

Perhaps the confusion rests in simple reverse causation. Recessions definitely cause lower commodity prices, but lower commodity prices cause recessions no more than umbrellas cause rain.

[Speaker to Animals]

Disagree. I think it would wreck the forex market like nothing else possibly could. Fiat currency is traded based on debts, interest rates, and the ability of the national banks behind those currencies to pay the debts. Most nations pay their debts right now by slowly liquidating their national treasury. If all national treasuries were rendered worthless..

[Speaker to Animals]

Anywhoo.. I was thinking about this lately and thought of a clever ploy if you were a very wealthy industrialist who just happened to own a space company. If you did just enough to actually convince most people you were about to go there and bring back a lot material from that rock, I bet gold prices would delve into a terrible bear market. Then you can buy a shit ton of gold and announce the project turned out to be unfeasible, sorry, yada yada.

[Fife]

Oh there's no doubt that mining Psyche, or creating a believable story that someone was about to mine it, or discovering some method of distilling pure gold out of some other composite or element, would wreck the existing economy.

The interesting thing to me is that we don't know how it would actually happen. There would obviously be some big losers, but a net increase in usable raw material means a net gain to humanity. It's like the airplane example this guy uses. In the 1880s it was quite literally impossible for the producers of the Washington Monument to think of the aluminum cap they used as a precursor to airplanes and space flight, or beer and soda cans.

[Zlaxer]

This is awesome news - gold is used everywhere in industrial and electronic application. A big worry was that we would run out of gold - gold economy would crash, but we would recover....but if we ran out of gold, we would be fucked as a species....

At the risk of sounding like a PinkO, I believe that the final economic system will be UBI based - the transition will suck, and world population needs to come down a bit...and the more savage cultures need to be tamed or eliminated...but if we can grow enough cheap (and nutritious) food for pennies on the dollar...and we have any army of machines making anything we want for pennies on the dollar....then Capitalism fails anyways...so who gives a shit if the asteroid would ruin the economy...

@Fife - you've never answered the question of how Capitalism is to last if the proles have no means what so ever of generating wealth. Soon, most of them won't be able to trade time/labor for money anymore.

*I'm not advocating we go full UBI at the moment - we're not ready as a society - too many cultural and population related issues that need to be addressed first.

[Fife]

@Fife - you've never answered the question of how Capitalism is to last if the proles have no means what so ever of generating wealth. Soon, most of them won't be able to trade time/labor for money anymore.

You think a permanent dependent class of drooling incel video gamers is what the world needs?


Schöpferische Zerstörung, Schnucki.



https://mises.org/wire/creative-destruc ... -game-town

It is a sorrowful reality that for the past century or more, people in the West have for the most part turned increasingly away from the economic system whose creativity redeems it and embraced instead systems whose hallmarks are economic irrationality, resource waste, bureaucratic tyranny, and ultimately mass impoverishment.

[Zlaxer]

@Fife - you've never answered the question of how Capitalism is to last if the proles have no means what so ever of generating wealth. Soon, most of them won't be able to trade time/labor for money anymore.

You think a permanent dependent class of drooling incel video gamers is what the world needs?

I stated we're not ready for it yet....specifically said we have cultural issue that need to be dealt with first. I can tell you, I wouldn't sit on my ass and play games all day if I didn't need to earn coin.

But you still havn't answered my question...are you OK with having a large class of proles and a super elite class? Is that a stable society?

[Fife]

Your question is meaningless. You may as well ask me if I more favor a cure for cancer or a new outbreak of the plague. Neither you nor anyone else can predict either. However, the outcome of state control of our lives is predictable.

[Zlaxer]

Your question is meaningless. You may as well ask me if I more favor a cure for cancer or a new outbreak of the plague. Neither you nor anyone else can predict either. However, the outcome of state control of our lives is predictable.

It's possible to create a system where the state doles out money but is limited in other powers - Doesn't mean it won't become corrupt....

For example, constitutional amendment mandating that the government doles out money without any condition/requirement other than citizenship.

Not saying my version of UBI is in perfect final form....but I don't see a stable society 100-200 years from now without it. You don't have a solution at all, Mr. Joe Camel.

[Fife]

Who's gonna win the World Series in 2119?