It was hardly the discovery of America that caused the drop. It was the boatloads of gold and silver that came over from South America (causing a big inflation in Europe btw).
Are you implying that fleets of galleons loaded with tons of treasure regularly arriving in Europe had some effect on the precious metal supply, affecting its value?
...and unless they open Antarctica to developement AND it has huge gold and silver deposits, that scenario is unlikely to ever happen again...
Antarctica is virtually unexplored.
...and off-limits to exploitation, enforced at American taxpayer expense by the UN and the American military. You and I even pay to TANK the sewwage from scientists and such in Antartica to Argentina for processing. No way they are going to alow mineral exploration and excavation in our, or our children's lifetimes. Probably much longer.
So is the sea floor.
With the one exception of manganese, poray tell what metallic mineral's we have EVER mined in signifigant quantities from deep ocean depths? I think I hear crickets chirping...
That amounts to something like 3/4 of our planet being complete unknowns.
For the very good reasons that they can only be reached through great expense, or mahinery, and in many cases both.
As our existing stores of crude become depleted we'll no doubt begin exploring some of that uncharted territory.
Can you name ANY signifigant non-petroleum mineral find that was the result of the literally HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of petroleum exploration wells we've drilled? I think that number is very close to ZERO.
There's a very real possibility that the gold deposits we currently know of amount to a fraction of the gold deposits we might find in the coming decades.
You have some secret knowledge of vast areas like North and South America that are currently unknown and unexplored? Because thats what it would take...
Nuclear scientists have demonstrated that alchemy is possible afterall.
...and yet NOBODY is transmuting substances on a comercial basis - for the simple reason that the COST is orders of magnitutde greater than the value of the yielded substance. Nor is that likely to change at any point in the near future.
I wouldn't put it past a guy like Richard Branson to make off-planet mining a reality sometime in the next century.
Do you have a CLUE what it costs to get a kilogram just to low earth orbit, much less go off-planit and drag something back? NASA doesn;t even HAVE retrieved MARS rocks yet, and only a few hundred pounds of moon rock have come back, and at extravagent expense.
There's no guarantee that any of this will happen. But there's no guarantee that any of it won't happen. There's no guarantee that some other, unforeseen, unpredictable geopolitical shift might turn the world upside down again.
History tends to repeat itself. Throughout history, precious minerals have been just that - PRECIOUS. Even modern customs like wedding rings and other forms of jewelry, have their origins in the desire to ensure having concentrated portable wealth to hand, for ransom and other unforseen purposes. Thats why jewelry is made out of rare stones and...gold and silver.
If you all wanna bet that your gold will always be valuable no matter what, then go for it. I care not.
If you want to believe your pretty peices of unbacked paper will always be valuable no matter what, ditto. Suffice to say, I can provide NUMEROUS examples of fiat currency going kaput.
I just want you to know that gold hasn't always been valuable.
Can you name ANY time or place where it was VALUELESS, in anything OTHER than an aboriginal, stone-age society? If we fall THAT far back on the societal evolutionary ladder, you might then have a point....
There are long term factors that could cause your gold stocks to lose most of their value. There are short term factors that could cause your gold to lose most of its value. There are factors that could make your gold entirely worthless, if not a liability.
There are long and short term factors that could cause your digital blips of stored wealth, and the government counterfeit currency its based on, to loose ALL of their value. Fancy carting a wheelbarrow full of Federal Reserve notes to the storre to buy a loaf of bread? There are people alive today that have had that experience with a fiat currency.
Looking at the history of gold through rose-tinted glasses is intellectually dishonest. Projecting that rose-colored history into the future is folly.
Gold has NEVER become worthless or a liability in a modern society. Methinks tis THOU with a disregard for history.
