alt Hacker NewsWhereas to me, it's wild that thousands of years of gold bullion trade as a form of currency exchange is supplanted basically overnight and now only "gold but only on paper" would be considered the only form of real gold currency.
"Monetized" gold has only existed for 50 years since gold futures started being offered in 1972. But the real "retail era" of "gold but only on paper" started just ~20 years ago with gold ETF's in 2003 (Australia) and 2004 (USA). So in just 20 years, we're now arguing that the norm from the past 3,000 years of gold trade is completely invalidated.
That said, you're not completely out of line with the views of the USA federal government. Gold has fascinating history of regulation. There was the 1933 total ban on private ownership when U.S. citizens were given until May 1, 1933, to surrender all gold coins and bullion. That lasted until 1974. Or that gold bullion is not subject to FinCEN Form 105 (currency) but rather CBP Form 6059B (goods).
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Much of the 3,000 years of history you're referring to saw precious metals used as wealth storage primarily in the form of objects like jewelry, silverware, and candlesticks. All of which have sales taxes.
The question I'm asking is why it's unreasonable that bullion that we've agreed isn't currency isn't being treated differently than these other things?
> Whereas to me, it's wild that thousands of years of gold bullion trade as a form of currency exchange is supplanted basically overnight and now only "gold but only on paper" would be considered the only form of real gold currency.
I mean, it's not a coincidence. For example, the US government has laws against using gold as currency, and they take those laws seriously and enforce them with vigor. They don't want dollars to suffer the competition.
Given the laws, it is necessarily the case, by definition, that gold is not currency.
I believe that is a widely misunderstood conception of the origin of money. Gold has generally not been used as currency. The sovereign right to dictate the value of a coin struck in a metal is called "seigniorage", and exists for all of those 3000 years. The value of the currency comes from the demand for it by the government to pay taxes, not the value of the metal in the coin. The metal in the coin makes it expensive to counterfeit said coin, with punishment by death doing the rest of the disincentive.
There is a reason the coins have the emperor's face on them. They are what he will accept as payment for the taxes he requests, and in assessing taxes according to his power, he dictates their value by fiat.