"Not.. sure.. if intentionally obtuse, or just messing with me.."

> Yeah you're picking and choosing your examples there.

Ah yes, the classic "cherry-picking" -accusation. Always a good distraction.

You said:

>> Your baubles are worth nothing if the 2 largest economies go down.
>> You can't eat gold.

I pointed out that gold was actually "worth" food in Zimbabwe, and that therefore it was unnecessary to try and subsist on it. Gold has been used as a medium of exchange for ages, and it's still useable in that capacity. It doesn't really matter why, as long as you can trade in it.

You claim that if one "super centre" goes down, all others will follow. That may be true, but it's just as possible that all super centres going down would not affect gold's useability as a medium of exchange. For example, all those piece of shit backwaters outside of your super centres may just happily continue trading in gold and whatever other currencies they happen to use.

It's also possible that all other super centres would not fall in a chain reaction.

> Barter is the normal medium of exchange.

No. Barter is a method of exchange. Gold is a medium of exchange.

Here's how barter works:

Let's say you have 10 apples, and you meet some other guy with 10 oranges. You feel like eating an orange might be fun for a change, so you suggest a trade with him. He figures he could use some apples too, and so, he accepts some apples in exchange for his oranges. You both walk away munching on your newly acquired fruity loot, and there is much rejoicing.

Now, if for some reason you don't feel like eating oranges at the time, but feel like making a trade, then a medium of exchange is necessary. You want to exchange your apples for something that you can later exchange for something other than oranges. So, the guy with the oranges needs to give you a few apples' worth of "money" - be it gold or dollars, or whatever medium of exchange you trust enough. You might even accept cocoa beans, if you believe you can exchange them for something you want later on.

OK, I suppose you get the idea, but let me know if there was a part you didn't understand.

> Your gold has no use in a developing country, despite what you think. People trade in dollars for a reason.

I'm sure we all understand that physical gold is just pretty fucking inconvenient as a medium of exchange when you want to deal with someone who's not standing right in front of you, because it can't be converted into ones and zeroes and zapped across the world. But that is completely irrelevant to gold's "worth" as long as you can, in fact, exchange gold for things of value.

On the other hand, you need to consider the possibility that fiat currencies may actually end up dying, if taken over by de-centralized, cryptographic currencies like Bitcoin. That would be a welcome change, in fact.

> But gold huggers work on a small market, and it is their incentive for others to buy into this farce. Take from that what you will (reminds me of pump and dump and the tulip mania).

You're thinking like someone used to the idea of manipulating markets to their benefit, much like a Wall Street trader might. Do you think that gold's exponential rise in the past few years just might have something to do with the on-going disaster that the world woke up to in 2008? http://www.usagold.com/reference/prices/2012jangoldprice.jpg .. or is it just "gold-huggers" working their evil schemes pumping up the price, in a time where the vast majority of investors are completely oblivious to gold as an investment or even a store of value?

Do you think that the prices of gold in various fiat currencies might actually reflect the their perceived trustworthiness as mediums of exchange?

> Nothing is safer than the US government.

Right, and the fact that your nation's external debt is more than 100% of your GDP, and currently increasing at 1.5 trillion dollars per year does not affect the trustworthiness of your IOUs? Just like it doesn't matter that various US states and municipalities are bankrupt?

> Because if the US government isn't safe, well then, none of this matters.

There are other countries out there you know. No one knows what will/would happen if the US went down in flames. But it might also not be the end of the world.

> The US is a conduit for massive capital. It exports huge amounts of goods and services, and consumes far more.

Its main export seems to be global economic calamity. I'm not sure if iDevices count as US or Chinese exports.

Most of the "assets" sloshing around the globe are of imaginary value. Debt sliced and diced into various financial instruments, etc. Bullshit, pretty much. Tens of trillions of dollars "worth" of bullshit. Again, no one knows what will happen in the world's economy, but I'm sure we could do with less bullshit.

> It's just that you don't know what you're doing.

Well what exactly am I doing? Besides, you know, educating you? :p