Keynes complained about goldmining being a wasteful activity that consumed a lot of resources while adding nothing to real wealth. While his critique does contain a kernel of truth, in the sense that increasing the supply of the monetary medium does not increase the wealth of the society using it, he misses the point that gold's monetary role is a result of it being the metal likely to attract the least human and capital resources toward its mining and prospecting, compared to all others. Because the supply of gold can only be increased by very small quantities, even with price spikes, and as
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