Gold

Elemental gold does not deteriorate with age. It is not reactive with oxygen so is resistant to the atmosphere. This is the main reason gold is 'valuable' and forms the wealth of any country: the gold reserves. Gordon Brown is infamous for selling UK gold at a low value thereby creating enormous potential wealth for the buyer when gold value inevitably increased. From being very low, the only way is up. If Brown had wanted to further the UK's decline in the Blair years, this was the triumph.

Over time gold (hard currency, literally) has been removed from circulation to be replaced with virtual money. This is only theoretical money and doesn't exist. Economies are based on mist, smoke and mirrors and consequently no-one noticed what was happening. The real wealth is locked away in some impregnable vault and replaced with virtual money. The world just plays a game with monopoly money and doesn't recognise the sting. On it goes and everyone seems to be happy, especially those who imagine that they have wealth. It's one reason to 'buy' up 'valuable' items, but value is so fickle, it's highly unstable.

Like share prices: this can be viewed as a kind of (virtual) money-laundering operation. What would happen if 1000 tonnes of pure gold was discovered tomorrow? The cost to buy as at 28.02.09: above $1000 an ounce (22 carat). But it's worth nothing, unless someone buys it. But with what? With today's higher-valued currency being worth more than it was yesterday. The perceived value changes by the day (though always with an upward and inflationary trend) for a commodity that itself never changes. This defines the nature of 'money'. It's nothing more than a 'promise to pay the bearer'. A credit in kind. Of no value other than a promise. And of what value is that?