Metals are like tokens of energy. They cannot be turned into energy
Well...technically all matter is energy. It's just difficult to do work with it unless it's in a metastable state. This is why they call gold a "barbarous relic". You can't do any real work with it, and it's biggest use is a counter to
vampires inflation. If you can't do work with it, and you can't stop inflation with it since you have to issue IOUs, which will turn into endless fractional reserve, it's use is basically some type of stability/anti-corrosive agent like copper on the bottom of a boat.
It'd appear I'm splitting hairs, but gold is better in dealing with devaluation, rather than inflation.
Inflation is usually dealt with, internally, in a given country. What developing countries do is simple: If in 2015 you needed 1000 local currency to get you through the month, and you are getting paid 1000 local currency from your job, and in 2016 you need 1300, then they pass a law that says that wages must be raised a minimum of 30%. So now you are also getting paid 1300 and paying 1300. The inflationary effect is not so visible in things like rent, hiring a plumber to fix your home, utility bills like telcos and water (power is usually "felt" more), but it will be very visible if you try to buy a new car that is imported.
For wealth preservation purposes, what countries with high inflation can do (and often do) is equally simple: Big deposit interests and big sovereign bond interests, always denominated in local currency. Say inflation is running at 25% per year. The government's bond or a bank deposit may give you 28% so that you stop looking around for investments like gold and keep your money in local currency. So you will have theoretically "preserved" your wealth by the end of the year. That's assuming the inflation rate is accurately reported (which it rarely is for reasons having to do with growth... as growth equals gdp increase minus inflation, and thus most countries underreport inflation to pretend their inflation is ...gdp growth). Typically, in a high inflation environment, it goes like this in terms of popularity - but the order can be different depending cultural differences
a) high interest bank deposits and gov bonds
b) real estate (fiat dumped for land, buildings etc) which will create future inflation-adjusted revenue for the land-holder, by requiring rents or leases in future inflated prices.
c) foreign currency - if one can access it
d) gold
e) stock market (which is also perceived as a gamble by the masses)
Since the devaluation rate can be larger than the inflation rate, (c) and (d - gold) might offer better performance than (a). So gold can be far better than a local bank deposit or government bond.
Yet (b) / real estate will tend to be perceived as the best investment of all times in an inflationary environment. There is a continually confirmed perception (which becomes self-reinforced perception and reality) that prices can only go upwards and thus it is considered the safest bet ever. With money supply ever increasing, wages rising, cost of life rising, it makes no sense to expect that houses will be cheaper tomorrow than today. This creates a momentum in dumping fiat savings and buying land, houses, flats etc that creates an avalanche of demand and appreciation which can exceed in performance (a) and can rival (c), (d), or (e) - because it's not only the rise of the property itself, but also the ability of real estate to "pay" the owner a stable income, in the form of rent/lease.
It would be an understatement to say that most westerners who haven't lived through protracted periods of high inflation, do not typically understand the above, thinking that gold is the primary antidote to inflation when in reality it's things as mundane as ...land and buildings while gold is better suited to counter shadow currency devaluation. However, there are cultures like India, where possession of gold is directly related to social status and the rule book is entirely rewritten.
Now, regarding the barbarous relic argument, I see it differently.
This reality, at its fabric, is not solid. It's not even energy because at the quantum level the photon can either be a particle or a wave, depending the observer. So what gives this energy/matter its solid-state in the macrocosm is information. There is a process which informs the photon on what to be. So, in a way, this reality is an information-based reality. In other words => a program.
The "programmer" of this "program" has hardcoded something like
const Primary_Currency = 79; // atomic number of gold element
const Secondary_Currency = 47; //silver
const Third_Currency = 29; // copper
All human attempts to replace these hardcoded const of the "programmer" have failed*. Currencies come and go, gold remains. Debt-backed money, which we currently have, is severely flawed as it always requires more money than the total existence of money in order to repay the debt of creating the money supply. It can only operate temporarily by rolling-over the debt and pretending it is serviceable as long as the economy is in "growth" and then, when it is not serviceable anymore, the liquidity crunch comes and wipes everything off.
Gold, as a monetary system, hasn't failed. It can't fail unless you design a system which is based on fiat and pretend that it is ...gold backed, which then opens the door for fractional practices and abuse. Otherwise gold/silver/copper are excellent forms of money. Some say gold is not granular, well, it doesn't need to. It's the high-value asset. If gold was used as a global currency, an ounce might cost 100.000 usd by replacing the tens of trillions of fiat currencies and getting revalued upwards as a result. At that point the second and third consts(silver & copper) would be the granular alternatives for everyday transactions.
* BTC is the first attempt of humans to rewrite the "program" while being ...inside the program. They are programming money when money has already been programmed. Even fiat was never intended to replace this reality programming. It was a means for the Elite to take the metals away from the people, being too valuable, and replacing them with worthless papers. The Elite was "honoring" the primary program by actually acknowledging gold's value. Their motivation was to hoard gold for themselves and taking it from the ordinary man - which was left with papers instead. What BTC does is a level of "heresy" that is groundbreaking. It is thus ensured that programmed money which is "doubting" the primary programs hardcoded consts will face enormous and multifaceted resistance. I can assure you that there is nothing ...barbaric with gold. It is programmed in its place, and in the human psyche, by the highest level of "programmers".
