Tulips
/
"Tulip mania was a period during the Dutch Golden Age when contract prices for some bulbs of the recently introduced and fashionable tulip reached extraordinarily high levels. The major acceleration started in 1634 and then dramatically collapsed in February 1637."
- Wikipedia
.
On a Facebook page I follow, someone mentioned that America's going off the Gold Standard has wrecked our economy. They claimed that before that darn Roosevelt took us off the gold, we were a stronger nation with a better economy. They said investing in precious metals and gems was the best way to weather a financial pr political crisis.
I have a brief take on this.
Gold has no more basic value than a tulip.
Maybe less, you can eat tulip flowers and bulbs.
Gold (AU) is an element, number 79.
The majority of the world's gold (that’s been extracted) is held by nations, banks, corporations, and the individual world oligarchs. It’s not in the form of jewelry or ornamentation. Nor does it circulate as currency.
In the 21st century, money only counts as digital numbers.
Tulips.
The top two uses of gold are jewelry and as a measure of investment and trade. The electronics and industrial sectors follow these. There are other areas where gold has value, but not as many as you'd think.
As a hard commodity, gold is used in electronic mechanisms and components. Uses in filters are followed by medicine and dentistry as the remainder of significant uses. They are the only real uses of gold that have a real value.
Gold only has value because we give it value.
Tulips.
Do you think gold is the only commodity involved in this scheme?
Let’s look at the diamonds. The shiny little pebbles we get second mortgages to buy so we can give them to our sweeties.
At any given time, tons of diamonds are held in reserve. They reside in massive storage vaults owned by the same handful of families and nations that have owned them for generations.
This holding of massive reserves and allowing the diamonds to trickle out causes the diamonds to be massively overvalued. They aren't worth anywhere near what they're sold for.
Aside from being used as shine pebbles by jewelers, the number one most valuable use of a diamond is industrial. Drilling and cutting are what diamonds are most useful for.
Yes, I’m making a broad generalization about gold and diamonds, but can you see where I’m headed with this?
They are much like the tulips. Gold and diamonds have only the value assigned to them. But when we stop believing they have value...
Well, if we go by apocalypse rules, the only way something has actual value is if you can't drink it, eat it, sleep in it, ride it, wear it, use it for first aid, fight with it, or fuck it, it’s of no use to me.
I don't see gold or diamonds on that list.
So no.
They have no basic value.
They're scams.
Tulips.
-Josh (11-02-2025)