I just saw an advertisement saying how gold is a good safeguard against socialism. Well, no it's not. Because if you go to cash out the gold for money to buy things you will pay a tax on it. So, not such a great bet after all, is it?
If I'm cashing out my gold for fiat currency, its because I've run out of options and I'm desperate. Fortunately its still entirely legal for me to just trade my gold for other valuable things without using cash. I just have to find people who have things I want who want gold in exchange for them. Now, in theory, 'socialism' could criminalize such transactions. But even then I still have the option to engage in that crime, I just have to be willing to risk becoming a 'criminal.' That would result in it being difficult to buy certain things (like land) with gold. But not impossible. I would just have to launder the gold, by using it to buy something else that I can trade untraceably for the thing I really want, like land. Laundering does, of course, require some loss in the process that reduces effective value. But unless people can somehow be convinced that gold isn't valuable, it will always be a hedge against fiat currency inflation and also 'mark of the beast' style economies where participation is predicated upon ideological cooperation. Banning gold would make it less valuable to more people, but also make it more valuable to certain people- 'criminals.' The question is- do 'socialists' want to implement such an economy and/or ban gold? If so, why?
Never EVER trade gold for fiat currency! If you want to trade for cash, it has to be hard currency only. Or keep your gold in 'barter' quantities.
Whoever is left holding the bag of gold has to pay 90% tax on it unless they can prove that a tax was previously paid on it. Not such a good deal for the last guy in the line of gold exchanges.
The thing about gold (and other 'precious' metals) is that its stable. It cannot be made worthless (until we either find so much of it that it becomes ubiquitous and we can literally pave the streets with it, or it becomes useless, like if we find some other ubiquitous material that is easily maleable and never ever ever corrodes). Salt used to be a currency- the Romans at certain points in history would trade it in equal weight for gold, because salt was hard to get. Salt is essentially worthless (not totally, but close to it) today because its easy to get. Salt is an example of a currency that is not stable (though its a good idea to stock up on it- it could become very valuable again someday, possibly even more so than gold if enough **** hits the fan). Dollars are viewed by many as not stable because in theory an infinite amount of them can be printed (and that seems to be what is happening....). The dollar can be made worthless.
OK, but how you gonna prove who has gold and how much? We can't even stop people from trading guns and narcotics and child sex slaves... gold is way easier to smuggle.
Yes, that's another reason to not exchange gold for cash. But gold doesn't have to be traded for cash to still be valuable to trade for other things. Lets try it this way. The value of gold is partially linked to peoples willingness to engage in unofficial or even illegal transactions. Its kinda like how impending gun control makes gun sales increase- its because people are willing/preparing to potentially become 'criminals.'
