[dennisw]

I never saw or heard of anyone throwing gold in the trash bin. Gold is a beautiful lustrous compact convenient store of wealth. People know this instinctively.

[Proud_texan]

Yeah, and once upon a time people instinctively knew that the world was flat and the sun rotated around the earth.

What makes it wealth other than, like paper money, people think it has value? If the world ends I'd rather have something usable to survive.

I guess I just don't get it, I see it as tulip bulbs. Just ask those poor souls that bought it at $850 in 1980. Don't think they'll ever get their "wealth" back.

At least you could eat a tulip bulb.

[Gordongekko909]

Gold is valuable because you know that you can get things for it. That's all there is to it. Paper money works the same way: if some psycho decided to NOT accept legit currency for payment of any debt, public or private (see any dollar bill for this wording), then he would be in violation of the Legal Tender Act and end up going to jail or (ironically) have to pay a fine in US currency.

The threat of jail means that once upon a time, people knew that the paper was good because they knew other people had to take it. Nowadays, virtually nobody would be insane enough to refuse cash (unless they thought it was counterfeit, in which case they are refusing it because they believe that it is not cash), because it's common knowledge that your US Dollars are good anywhere in the United States, and plenty of other places too.