(December 25, 2016 at 10:12 am)Tiberius Wrote: I like how you think people will use precious metals in an apocalyptic future. They won't. There will be a return to bartering. Gold will be worthless to you and anyone else.
I agree, with the proviso that gold would be worthless to anyone in an apocalyptic future so long as everyone had a sane, rational perspective in such a future. But I wouldn't really expect that of everyone. Value of anything beyond essentials is bound up in perception. If enough people believe that precious metals remain valuable in such a world, then they'll behave accordingly, and the useless metal will retain some value for trade or for power over others. It wouldn't be rational; straight bartering would. But it might happen, nonetheless.
That said, most of the people I know who stock up on gold and silver don't do so in the expectation of a truly apocalyptic scenario. They do so in the expectation that fiat currency will someday crash and become valueless. In that case, gold or silver would be valuable and useful -- especially for those lacking skills or commodities that could be bartered.
