When Nixon broke the link between gold and the dollar the world did not stop turning.  The economy rebounded and prices dropped. There was a lot of dissatisfaction about price controls and other things.  However the economic recovery happened and the president was triumphantly re-elected.

Nixon however didn’t put an end to the love affair between gold and the Americans.  Gold had never been in such high demand for decorations or jewellery.  The link between man and this precious metal is seemingly not ready to break.

Gold contacts on computer chip

Gold still plays a central role in our daily lives.  This metal, which was discovered in Ancient times, is a key component of modern technology. It is an unalterable metal and an excellent conductor of electricity.  Each year the electronics industry uses 200 tons of gold. In this highly technological age, if you told an engineer or an electrician that they would have to do without gold they would explain to you that a large part of the IT, audiovisual and many more industries would have to stop, at least until an alternative to gold could be found.

Scientists themselves are looking at gold in a new light.  We know that its medicinal properties have been studied for a long time.  The Chinese are credited as being the first to use gold for medicinal purposes around 2000 BC.  It was not until the late 19th century or early 20th century that chemistry was used to design drugs containing gold.  The German bacteriologist and Nobel Prize winner, Robert Koch for example discovered that TB causing bacteria could be killed using a mixture of gold, aurous cyanide.

Pure gold inner ear insert

Before antibiotics were discovered, gold based drugs were an important weapon against disease.  Compounds containing gold are still used to treat certain forms of rheumatoid arthritis.  With current laboratory research, technicians are interested in manufacturing new soluble gold compounds to treat viral infections but there are also some soluble forms which are capable of killing cancerous cells which we have been able to test in recent years.  These products are not yet at the clinical experimentation stage and there is still a lot of work to be carried out on the chemistry of gold which is an active research area.  However, gold possesses a high degree of resistance to bacterial colonisation and because of this it is the material of choice for implants that are at risk of infection.

Further studies are underway to prepare for the next gold rush.  But this time, in space.  Rocks more than 4.5 billion years old, contain ten times the concentration of gold that can found in any mineral on earth and there are millions of rocks like that in space, in what are known as near earth asteroid belts and in the main asteroid belt.  For Jim Benson, there must be a way of collecting this extraterrestrial gold: “We could envisage launching a space rocket to one of these near earth asteroids between Earth and Mars and landing smoothly on it.  The first time we would certainly be able to take a sample and analyse it.  But on the next mission we might be able to bring back some of the rock or even use a space tug to bring a relatively small near earth metallic asteroid into the earth’s orbit where we could process it at a lower cost.  An incredible challenge but it will be possible not too far into the future.  Fortunes and empires could be built and I think for many generations to come.  Space offers infinite resources with no boundaries.”

If you believe Benson, one single asteroid could produce 80000 billion dollars worth of gold.  But like King Midas, who turned everything he touched to gold, when there is a considerable amount of gold to be had, the magic doesn’t work anymore, it’s finished, done.  And yet all throughout history the fascination in gold has never waned.  When the Romans found gold in Spain or when the Spanish carried out operations in Peru, all the gold that was discovered was used.  The discoveries of the 19th Century brought production levels to unimaginable levels, but gold has not lost its value.  We always want more.  The obsession with gold has been constant since the dawn of time.

Gold has pushed men and women to carry out the most extreme acts, of cruelty, bravery or beauty.  For thousands and thousands of years, owning gold has been of the utmost importance to become not only rich but also powerful.  Gold has survived all civilisations.  It was a central part of religion and the arts.  The economy of nations relied on gold, for better or for worse.  If one day we discretely gathered up all the gold of the USA, UK, Germany and France and we threw it into the sea, the economy would not stop.  Life would continue but in hard times we turn to gold.  Gold is something special.  It is not a product manufactured by man but by nature which is why we have confidence in it.  It is your insurance for a rainy day.  Gold is capable of surviving disasters.  Indestructible and universal, it has incomparable power.

Tags: Gold

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 at 4:28 pm and is filed under France, Gold, Great Britain, Thoughts, USA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.