Natural Money
The comments below are an edited and abridged synopsis of an article by James Turk
Every natural element the earth has been endowed with has a usefulness, a purpose. Gold’s message is loud and clear; gold is money. To serve as natural money is gold’s highest purpose.
The advance of civilization demonstrates that nature throughout the ages has provided everything humanity needs to progress, including money. Few today, however, understand money as it has existed from pre-history and was perceived up to the dawn of the 20th century. Since the commencement of WWI in 1914, time-honoured principles have been abandoned. Humanity has become enthralled with money substitutes, like national currencies and cryptocurrencies, circulating in place of money, and it has lost sight of natural money itself.
Although gold these days rarely circulates as currency because of government-imposed restrictions and impediments, gold still retains all the features that explain why humanity originally chose it to be money. Gold is natural money, which is well illustrated by the chart included.
A gram or an ounce of gold buys essentially the same amount of crude oil today as it has anytime over the past seven decades. Turk chose oil because the energy it provides is essential to our standard of living, but other commodities have a similar result.
Up for discussion: Natural money; gold is natural money; and growth of gold stock.