[MRM]

I don't think you understand the Keynesians. Richard Nixon said we're all Keynesians now. No one disputes the underlying theory of Keyenes. It just doesn't go far enough to explain modern economics. That's where Uncle Milt and the Chicago School comes in. Austrians? No one cares about the Austrians. The only modern economists worth a phenning came from the University of Chicago School, especiatially the Rational Expectationists. If you can do an ISLM curve for me, I'll listen to your economic analysis. If not, not.

Here's the deal. Money is what money does. Money has three properties: 1) it is a store of value; 2) it is a measure of value; and 3) it is a medium of exchange.

Gold is particularly poor at anything other than storing value, and it's pretty bad at that. What are you going to do with gold when society crashes and the zombies come? Throw it at them? No one will want your gold when society crashes because they can't do anything with it. That's why I inherited ingots of gold that made it through the 1930s, WWII and the Cultural Revolution in China. Why didn't Grandpa sell it? What was he going to sell it for, he asked. There was nothing he could trade the gold for, so it sat in his dresser until his grand daughter escaped the country and his rich American decendents could do something with it. And if you're not holding gold for the day the zombies take over, why do you have it? An asset that sits in your closet collecting dust, never to be used, is no better than money lost in the market.