Gold is money?

I feel like I've already written a post with this title, but I can’t find it. Maybe I just talked about the idea with a friend. Well, if I ever find that I did write a post with this title, I’ll change this post’s title to “Mountain of gold”.

Ok, so like, I keep reading user comments online about how if the economy goes belly up (and/or if the dollar collapses) they’re going to be ready with gold, food/water storage and ammunition (with guns, I presume). ...And I just wonder how that will play out.

I picture this guy sitting in a lawn chair, atop a big pile of gold. He’s got a big machine gun and belts of ammunition hanging off of him (with another pile of ammunition next to the pile of gold). Then behind those two piles (of gold and ammunition, respectively), there is a large storage unit with piles of food and water (in bottles).

What does he need the food and water for? Well, obviously he needs to eat and drink. What’s the ammunition for? To protect the food and water, and his pile of gold. What’s the gold for? Umm...good question. We’ll play out this scenario and see.

So let’s say some marauders come and try to take his gold. The guy shoots ‘em dead and, yeah. He keeps his gold and food/water. Fine. Then, more marauders come, try to take his stuff, and they’re gunned down. Ok.

But over time, the guy starts to run low on ammunition, and he’s had to keep eating and drinking to stay alive, so his food and water are running low. So he has to go out and buy more ammo and food and water. What does he use to buy these things? Gold. Because gold is money.

Ok, so he buys more ammunition, food, and water, but now has less gold. Rinse and repeat this cycle a few times and pretty soon, he’s low on everything; food/water, ammunition, and gold (which begs the question why he’s putting in such effort to protect something which only gets depleted by the very means to protect it, but nevermind that).

It’s clear enough how he replaces the food, water, and ammunition, but how does he replace the gold that he’s spent?

Currently, we use money (paper money) to buy gold, but if gold is money, then…I guess he’d use gold to buy more...gold. Though...not sure how that solves his diminishing supply.

Well, that’s where I was going to end this silly scenario, but since people might think about the traditional means of getting more gold - by stealing it – I’ll close with, ok, fine, but idea there is that the gold (er...money) has to move in order to have any value. Just sitting on it won’t help you.