Sure, I’m a chemist. I know lots of these uses. I tell you, gold could completely disappear tomorrow and we’d barely feel the effects. Sure, some things would have to be reworked, but we’d be fine in a year.

Indeed, that is out of question. The matter of discussion is that the value of gold is attributed and not intrinsic, since gold does not really cover any fundamental human need. Besides, gold is not strictly required to make computers.

What other relevant uses does gold have? Which ones of those are relevant to sustaining life needs?

I guess, frankly not much difference. Maybe just less chances of a civil war with Evo.

I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m sorry, I am not American and I do not know who Bannon is. I hope full control of the media won’t be a thing, but how is this related to gold?

I did have troubles passing the Anubis check from time to time. It does not offer an alternative way to prove you’re not a bot and locks you out of the website completely.

How many things relevant in your life are made out of gold? I guess jewellery, computer and phone. Real things that matter to people the most are completely unrelated to gold.

The fact that it is a material that does not degrade makes it a good choice as a vector for value. It is good to be used as money for that reason. If you use iron as money it will eventually rust out and leave you broke.

The other properties of gold are quite irrelevant to the fact that it has been selected (over and over again through history) as a value vector.

That is valid for many other resources: iron, silicon, carbon, carrots whatever. Gold has always been attributed some special value, throughout history. That is ok. I don’t think US civilization is going to collapse, why would you think that?

The value of gold lies in the fact that other men may be disposed to work their ass off in order to have some shiny things to gift to women in order to have sex. As you can imagine, the power of gold amongst married couples drastically decreases.

Besides this… History shows humans always gave value to gold. For some reason we got very used into associating gold with value. As such, it is probably something good to have if economy collapses. But it doesn’t really matter if society collapsed.

The fact that arousing suspicion of something is enough to be condemned is wild.

Hey NATO, could you please send these satellites into space to fuck with America Russia?

Oh well indeed, that’s much more complex to evaluate. It is unclear what the US will get in exchange. I’d imagine lithium would be the main focus. Not sure if this would be going towards Trump associates (probably at least in part) or to relevant sectors of the economy. Will this have a relevant impact on the economy as a whole? Surely not on the whole economy, but it could have a significant impact on parts of it - especially now that they have an economic war going on with China. Does this benefit the average American? Probably some of them, likely many of them will stay in the same conditions as now. But it’s also worth mentioning that if the US stopped doing these kinds of things (without enacting some significant changes in their production and economic system) their influence would decline and citizens would be affected by that. Is this a better way to spend money rather than on public hospitals? This is up for opinions and it is difficult to come up with an answer. From my point of view, a poor man with public healthcare lives better than a rich man without it. But that is my opinion that goes to the individual and does not consider country wide effects.

Will Argentinians benefit from this? Probably there’ll be some relief in the short term, but things really are not going great and I’m sure giving away resources won’t help much.

I don’t really like the action itself. I would not say it is justified by Trump perspective or by people’s perspective. Rather, it is an action which does make sense on an economical and geopolitical level. Now, whether it was a good moment to take this action, whether Americans want this and whether this is morally acceptable - I’m not getting into. I’m not American, you do you and take your own decisions and vote whomever you wish.

I really do not like that this has happened. But that is me. I have many friends in Argentina, and I don’t think this will be good for them. However, this does not look to me as Trump trying to steal money from the government as has been said here above and in other comments, but a rather valid decision with it’s motivations and reasons.

Oh sorry I missed the last part. This is clearly not done to help the people of Argentina.

This is to tell that such actions are of fundamental importance for the US government and population. If the US had no strong influence over other countries, it’s economy would be way worse and its people in worse conditions. As such, to sustain such level of wealth it is necessary for the US to perform actions such as this one to maintain and gain influence over other countries. To be able to use their natural resources as if they were American, to reap the benefits of their people working in their countries.

This is what I meant to say. This action is reasonable for the US under the system it is currently working in. To make sure I made no mistakes, I searched what a straw men argument is. From what I understood it refers to refuting an argument by sustaining something unrelated. I do not believe what I wrote is unrelated. The fact that this action has been done to acquire influence in Argentina is what I’ve been writing the whole time.

Sure, that is internal politics. Go ahead and take part in the no kings day. Protest against your government and change it. I’m not American, I don’t know in detail what the president can or can not do. It is completely fine that you don’t agree with his decision. Hell, I really do not like this either. What I’ve been doing is explain the rationale behind the decision. There is a reason behind this choice and it is not that Trump wants to steal money from the government.

Do I like the US intervening more and more in other countries? No, I really do not like it. But frankly that is not just about Trump.

I’m not sure what you mean by straw men, it feels to me that we’re missing each other somewhere in the discussion.

I’m sure you can find a little bit of value out of a gold crown with 1300 diamonds. The article never says the stolen items have no value, it says they are priceless, as such of a high value which can not be quantified. I guess it is the word “priceless” you’re focusing on.

This move seems very much to the benefit of the US and to the detriment of Argentina. Argentinians will pay dearly for this. Now, if you want to close your eyes and act like the US is a third world country nobody cares about go ahead. If you don’t want to see how the US relies on influence in other countries to sustain it’s wealth, that is ok.

Thank you for the reference. I would consider this an investment by the government, at that it does not appear to be a bad one at all. Even though I really despise the implications behind it, it is a justified and rational choice.

The US relies on influence on external countries and foreign investments. Do you think the US is rich because of their great manufacturing and exports? I live in Europe and own basically nothing made in the US. Not because I’m against it, there just isn’t anything made in the US to buy. It’s been a long time US products are just software and websites, but most wealth comes from other sources.

I do not like your government, and I despise they cut government spending and social spending. I believe this will cause plenty problems in your country. However, this decision seems completely justified. The US will probably get back way more than those 40 billions, by opening mines and acquiring local industries. I believe your country is quite interested in lithium, that is a good source for it. Together with Bolivia, who has elections today and is already decided to sell off swats of its resources in exchange of some dollars for a year or two of economic stability.

Why do you think those objects have no value? These people are clearly very experienced, probably they already had a buyer before the heist. This stuff is sold for lots of money.