[varmintman]

Seems to me that if gold had any sort of intrinsic value or use for anything, it would be much harder for anybody to manipulate its price.

[seowulf]

Seems to me that if gold had any sort of intrinsic value or use for anything, it would be much harder for anybody to manipulate its price.

Absolutely. Nobody has ever manipulated the price of oil, or corn, or sugar, or...

[FreedomPoster]

Besides its uses in plating high end electronics contacts, women like jewelry made of it. That is a significant intrinsic value.

[nathanbedford]

Silver certainly has plenty of industrial uses, about 40% or more of it goes into everything from computers to teeth, and yet it tracks the price of gold.

Actually, I think that if gold had only "intrinsic" value it would be more difficult to manipulate as the economic cost of using the gold rises the demand slackens but with gold regarded by much of the world especially in places like India to be not only the ultimate repository of value but the only safe place besides jewels, the demand is inflexible to a great degree. One would think the opposite should be the case with intrinsic needs being less flexible than sentiment but apparently not.