Quote from: freshman777 on November 02, 2016, 01:05:40 PM

Quote from: iamnotback on October 30, 2016, 08:07:22 AM

The problem is that physical silver coin is not ever going to be used as currency ever again, no matter what happens. Period.

1. We are in a digital age and no one is going backwards, no matter what happens. Period.

2. When global collapses ensues such that you think you might be able to use metal coinage, what actually happens is as follows.

You can't transfer digital value when electricity and internet are down. You need substitutes. And I don't mean permanently disrupted, just a week is enough to remember the "barbaric" past. Sure, food will be a priority but those who have access to large stockpiles of food will accept barbaric metals and other such items of value. They would accept digital but electricity and internet will be turned on next week only and so they accept what they have confidence about, many people have confidence about metals. Not to mention that two-three billion people in the world don't have bank accounts (including developed countries) and aren't really accustomed to and haven't gone full digital, and I don't mean tribal people of some remote islands. Everyone knows metals, they will always have some value.

This line of reasoning was already rebutted in the discussion upthread. If you read the entire thread, you will find the rebuttals.

I will add to the upthread points that people will use fiat money at face value, before they will resort to gold and silver coins at metal (not face) value. Not only because it is more well known and trusted (also no need to assay the metal value and content purity), but because there won't be enough gold and silver coins in circulation to attain the economies-of-scale to be trusted as a universal unit-of-exchange.

People accept money that they think they can spend. Even those with large stockpiles of food, will want the money they can liquidate for replenishing their farm or operation. The gold market makers are many heads of basically one bank JP Morgan. So gold liquidity can be shut down overnight when they are ready to cause maximum chaos.

Quote from: freshman777 on November 02, 2016, 01:05:40 PM

Quote from: iamnotback on October 30, 2016, 08:07:22 AM

As Fernando FerFAL Aguirre points out, only the currency that can be exchanged external to the crisis area has value. People are not bartering silver dimes, rather if you had German DMarks in Bosnia or USA dollars in Argentina, then these were accepted and liquid. Gold coins were much more difficult to liquidate because there is a funnel of few dealers that can't actually exchange them for the externally liquid currencies of USA dollars.
As Dmitry Orlov points out, everyone's priority is on food, security, and transportation. Direct trade of these is more valued than some metal which can't be traded for these needs, because these metals are not liquid.
Armstrong has also explained that gold and silver only have a value for as long as the collapse is not total and there is still an external market. During Dark Ages such as in Japan or fall of Rome, the gold and silver become entirely illiquid (is buried in the ground) and only food, guns, fuel, and alcohol+cigarettes become money.

This is relevant if other fiat currencies have stable value. In FerFAL's time they did. This is not guaranteed as central banks are all in a competitive devaluation race.
There is a lot of ground and time space leading to what you call total collapse and between that and now there could be temporary disruptions of infrastructure that call for trading metals for items of necessity, while access to digital is limited. A simplest case is ATM malfunction, bank is closed, you have a gold chain you can take to the pawn shop. Expand that to ATMs and banks being closed for a week.
You can't easily stockpile food to last you a year of these temporary disruptions, unless we talk canned food which is shit and can give you major stomach issues after you consume it for a couple of weeks. You see just two extreme ends: dark age and digital age, one or the other happening fast - this is your problem. There is a lot of distance and a lot of opportunities to use metals and crypto and other items of value, depending where and when you are. Even in most dire circumstances (war, widespread famine) there are always stockpiles of food somewhere that someone has access to and will sell for the right price in valuable items.

The point that gold and silver are not viable alternatives applies regardless of whether there is another stable money to trade to externally. Collapse goes from known currency to barter with food and guns as money. There isn't much coping in the middle unless you have stable barter societies accustomed to operating at that level of low efficiency such as using manual handcranks to pump their water up from the well, and making their own clothing, weapons, and tools from locally sourced cottage industry. That doesn't exist any more in most places in the world. And the places where it does exist, you wouldn't want to be there in a collapse scenario because of the barbarism.

The technology sector is very innovative. Temporary disruptions will cause the networks to become more resilient as the engineers build in infrastructure innovations to future episodes.

I see three scenarios, Digital Age, intervening paper fiat age, and possible Dark Age. We must come out the other side into the Digital Age. There is no other choice, unless you want to go to nuclear war and reduction of the global population to 500 million.