I know people out there who have invested a lot in gold under the belief that in the event of like complete societal collapse or hyperinflation, they could use it for purchasing.
I have the hunch it’s a scam, but I haven’t learned enough monetary theory, business, or economics to understand why.
Fungible, portable, valuable. Gold isn’t a scam, as far as the concept of wealth and hierarchy isn’t a scam.
It isn’t fungible. Anyone who has tried to trade physical gold at anything close to the market rate can tell you that. And no retailer is taking a dribbling of yellow sand as payment.
It isn’t portable. You can’t produce a finite denomination of it easily or transfer it electronically or even carry it in a wallet economically.
It isn’t intrinsically valuable. It produces nothing consumable in the way an oil well or corn field or machine shop can. It’s a speculative asset with the potential to be turned into something more useful. But it has no practical use or purpose in a raw state.
The means by which commodified gold is packaged and sold to gullible investors is very often scammy. And the sales pitch promising future returns on investment are inevitably larded up with rosy predictions unsupported by current data.
The socialized mythology around gold (especially relative to peer commodities like copper or oil) radically inflates its sales price in bubble economies. But there’s no reason you’re going to see better investment performance than a purchase of real estate or commercial equity. And there’s certainly no reason you would want to buy and hold gold long term if you had an opportunity to build or invest in an actual value-accruing business.
At best, a long gold play is a hedge against deflation and economic decline. At worst, its a fad that cycles in popularity relative to cryptocurrency or beanie babies.