My best sense is that anything becomes a currency if enough people believe in it and trade in it. Examples inlude tulip bulbs, cowry seashells and a host of toher useless items including giant stone wheels. Look, there are people who do not believe in the value of a us paper dollar but who do believe in an ounce of gold and that it has more value. Governments acquire gold these days. So – what the most recent poster said will never come to pass but I do believe we will see gold rise again – maybe to unprecedented leverls and in doing so I expect silver will get dragged along for the ride as it is a precious metal and therefore money as much as gold is – just worth less.

As the markets plunders around the Globe and the stank of the wealthy and corporate greed runs amuck. Gold and Silver will not be worth anything to any one in the near future, nor will be traded anymore.

There will be point of self proclaimed persons of statue and recognized who meet each year in America and the other countries abroad. Will order to bring the markets around the World to a suitable stable economy, there will be a need to have a one currency system with out exchange rates and to make Gold, Silver, Stock certificates and etc illegal to trade with any thing, like commodities and other stuff.
You will see the day, if some of us live this long to see people try to feed, themselves and their families with a bar of Gold and be told to go away from farmers and etc, stores and stuff. It will be illegal and severely punishable crime, right up there with meth and other hard drugs.

1st: A proclamation, gold starts to bottom out, the wealthiest in the world will sell out fast as ordered. Another part of the economic chaos brought to us.
“Remember panic, fear threats and stuff to stock markets gets a lot of people motivated to put money from their accounts to precious metals, Gold and Silver mostly. This is what drive the price up!”

2nd: People will panic and governments around the World will take action.

3rd: “Planed” Emergency Summit meetings begin for WTO and WBank with assortment of governments invited.

4th: After a number of meetings and governments aboard, there will be an announcement to everyone in the World to bring all their Gold, Silver and etc to stations points around the World. There will be a massive buy out of Gold and etc to be electronically credited for a small price to the current value to each government allows.

5th: Time later, debit dollar will be introduced and used around the World. Based on supply and demand, exchange rates will be abolished.

And John, actually the US dollar is backed by OIL in a sense. I read that all oil is traded using the petro dollar, which is inturn a US dollar. So all this middle east (and russian) companies get paid in the US dollar and then store that money in US banks – which in turn gives the US banks the ability to offer more credit to its clients.

Now the big problem/reason for a gold boost is b/c these countries want OIL to be traded with the Euro, not the dollar. What will happen then is we wont have as many peolpe using our currency or as much cash available to our banks, and lending will not be as easy. When less people use our dollar then its value will go down and golds value will stay constant pretty much to the Euro, but since the US dollar drops in value to the world, the value of GOLD will be worth a lot of US dollars.

I’m quickly summarizing a few things I’ve read or heard so let me know if your thoughts. Good read to search “Dollar collapse” on youtube or google…

It could theoretically work if instead they traded it for something more precious, perhaps?

(Note – I like your pretentious use of viz.)

Also, I agree that people won’t be walking into groceries stores with oil, but I just don’t think they’ll be doing that with gold either.

You may be too young to remember when the Silver market was nearly cornered by the Hunt Brothers:

In 1970 the price of silver was at $1.50/oz. The Hunt brothers, Bunker and Herbert, of Texas oil fame, were both acutely aware of the wholesale theft of the Nation’s silver stockpile that had been taking place through the actions of the SUA. (For an in-depth examination of the Hunt brother’s attempt to corner the world silver market, see H.L. Hunt’s Boys and the Circle K Cowboys by Larry LaBorde.) When Nixon removed the dollar from the last vestiges of the gold standard in 1971, the brothers also realized that the New York Eastern banking establishment, led by the Rockefellers, was now free to work its diabolical monetary magic. Through the insidious contrivance called inflation, they could effectively transfer a portion of the Hunt’s oil fortune into their coffers. The brothers started buying silver.

http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/silverbear/2004/1123.html

Maybe Cuban is trying to position himself for the greatest heist in history?

Gold is important cuz aliens want it.

http://xfacts.com/sumerian_culture.html

If one were to own all the blue cheese and canned peaches in the world, during times of a global catastrophe, you’d be the wealthiest person alive. (Assuming that everybody likes blue cheese)(and canned peaches)