Folks, THIS is ALSO why metal-based currency is a bad idea. One breakthrough, and BOOM! all the world’s gold becomes dirt cheap.
IT’S HAPPENED BEFORE! Before bauxite processing was possible, aluminum was crazy expensive, more valuable than silver and occasionally gold. Now, it’s a meme for cheap metal.
I hope gold becomes dirt cheap. That makes for better circuit boards. The PC boards in the early ‘80s will outlast the newer stuff with cheaper and enviro-friendly materials.
The peak of the Washington Monument is made of aluminum. It was at the time the largest chunk of aluminum of earth- and way more valuable than gold. It would be fun to see a price chart that extended back that far.
The reason the Washington Monument is topped with 100 oz of aluminum.
Agreed. We establish a value for currency by simply having a minimum wage.
Right! Because non-metallic currencies don't inflate./s
The US dollar closed the 20th century at about 1/20th of the value it represented at the beginning. Most of that loss of value occurred after the dollar was unhitched from silver. I have a hard time believing that we were ever near discovering TWENTY times as much silver as we've collected in more than 7,000 years.