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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132835
Posted: 04 December 2023 at 1:01pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

When I was in art college, the rancher boyfriend of one of my gal pals bought her two ounces of gold for use in the jewelry class she was taking. The rest of us were mighty impressed. This was circa 1972 and gold was a whopping $35 an ounce. *

As of today, the price of gold has topped $2100 per ounce.

There’s inflation in a nutshell!

————

* Context: two years later my first apartment, a one bedroom in a hi-rise, was $125 per month.

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Michael Penn
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Joined: 12 April 2006
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Posted: 04 December 2023 at 3:01pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Average wages were about $4/hr in 1972. Nine hours of work to buy a single ounce of gold back then. Today the average hourly wage is about $30. Seventy hours for an ounce of gold.
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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132835
Posted: 04 December 2023 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | 3 post reply

I was reading the other day about the possibility of asteroid mining. The article noted there is one trillion (1,000,000,000,000) times more gold out there in those flying mountains than there is on Earth.

Curiously, there was no comment on the impact on gold values accessing all that gold might have.

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Bill Dowling
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Joined: 07 July 2004
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Posted: 04 December 2023 at 5:04pm | IP Logged | 4 post reply

Accessing that much gold would make it cheap enough that we could use gold instead of copper for wiring. 
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Vinny Valenti
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Joined: 17 April 2004
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Posted: 04 December 2023 at 5:07pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

I remember the SECRET WARS II issues of Spider-Man titles (with joint covers by ....some guy.... that took me years to realize that they were meant to go together!) Where the Beyonder turned an office building into solid gold. Defalco did handle that aspect fairly well - the implication of having that much gold suddenly in existence would completely wipe out the economy all over the world. Something new for 12-year-old me to try to comprehend!
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Brian Miller
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Joined: 28 July 2004
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Posted: 04 December 2023 at 5:16pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Surprised all that gold hasn’t been used since that story, Vinny. I guess it’s
still just sitting there at the bottom of the ocean.
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John Byrne
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Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
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Posted: 04 December 2023 at 5:19pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

Kind of a flip on GOLDFINGER, where ol’ Auric wants to contaminate the gold in Fort Knox and by so doing increase the value of his own stockpiles.

(As opposed to the novel, where his plan is to STEAL the gold!)

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Dave Kopperman
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Joined: 27 December 2004
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Posted: 04 December 2023 at 5:24pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

And now I'm kicking myself once again for misplacing the 1/10 ounce gold coin that a family friend once gifted me.
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Dave Kopperman
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Posted: 04 December 2023 at 5:28pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

I'd have to assume that a good part of the skyrocketing value of gold is the whole end-times marketing aspect of it on Fox and other conservative platforms. Not sure if it counts as 'artificially inflating' the market value, but it definitely has a vibe of Grant's/Gould's Black Friday scandal.
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Michael Penn
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Joined: 12 April 2006
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Posts: 12598
Posted: 04 December 2023 at 8:20pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

This image popped in from my memory...

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Daniel Burke
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Joined: 10 November 2016
Posts: 100
Posted: 04 December 2023 at 9:30pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

Gold was pegged at $35/ounce until 1971 when Richard Nixon took us off the Gold Standard, (Bretton Woods system) which allowed gold to be turned into US currency anywhere in the world. 

A very, very underrated event in world history!
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Jim Petersman
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Joined: 26 June 2012
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Posted: 04 December 2023 at 10:15pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

So the Beast can lift a solid gold tree but Colossus has to struggle to pull out a tree trunk? lol
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