I just had a great converstion with the senior V.P. that has the office next to mine. He's been with the company since day-one in 1946, when he was an F.O.B. WWII refugee and helped build it up with the current owners' father. He and I were just talking about my topic du jour, the service industry vs. genuine industry. He's old enough to remember the shipyards on the north shore, the foundries and rail-yards around False-Creek, the south shore and Coal Harbour. He saw it and lived it and has the experience of building an industrial company. He knows the difference between a healthy economy that generates real wealth and "smoke and mirrors" (his term). There is nothing like talking about something with someone who knows from doing. It's inspiring.
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mbarrick
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Re: One more try.
Date: 2003-07-26 02:01 am (UTC)in some cases value was assigned because of the scarcity or novelty of something...one could think of chocolate, though valued highly amongst the central american indians, it took on a much greater value when introduced to the old world...as with many exotic spices...and as distribution and accessibility grew they fell in value as compared to what it once was...but gold is more interesting because many divergent and exclusive cultures assigned it a special value, whether it be the chinese, japanes, egyptians, romans, or mayans/aztecs/incas, there was even a discovery of gold jewelry in india from 5000 years ago...there were many metals which were more scarce than gold...though perhaps it's accessibility and maleability led to some of it's valuation...after all most societies didn't have advanced mining and smelting techniques, save the incas...do you have any ideas on why gold was so valued??? i'd be interested to know you hypotheses...here's an interesting thought i came across, over 99% of all gold ever mined is still around and it would fit in a cube just over 60 ft per side...oil makes sense for now, as it's ubiquitous and getting harder to locate and exploit...therefore as long as people believe there are ever dwindling stocks and it is used in many facets of our lives it will retain and increase it's value...the amazing thing is they keep it's value high by getting people to buy into our "need" for it and therefore shunning alternatives...