The church is like a fiat currency. It’s backed by nothing of substance and only has value if enough people believe in it. I guess if the world’s financial system can function on bullshit, I guess the church can as well.

I think Rusty has declared that Wendy is worth around 50 million copies of the BoM.

I wonder how much Holland is worth in The Restoration tracts?

Driving on the right (or left, for the matter) side of the street only works if enough people believe in it. Vaccines only work if enough people believe in them. Courts only work if enough people believe in them.

Most of society only works if enough people believe in it. That is neither bad, nor unworkable.

Good things clearly happen if everyone drives on the same side of the street, or get vaccinated. That is far less true for LDS Inc, though being part of a tight-knit religious family has its perks, if you can swallow the foundation of lies. We were not able to do that.

I was going to write something similar to what BoJ did. No government is powerful enough to control anywhere near all of its citizens all of the time: a legitimizing ideology is necessary, something that makes people generally want to obey the rules. In short, belief.

To put the point more concretely, let's look at your statement that a fiat currency "only has value if enough people believe in it." That sentence describes gold, a substance that has almost zero industrial utility and hence no productive worth. It is only valuable because people choose to believe it is. That is also true of the deed to your home. It's value is only as good as the credibility of the government behind it.

"almost zero industrial utility" = false
Gold has lots of industrial utility.

Gold's original use was for jewelry. Nothing else. By 6,000 years ago it became a store of wealth, not because it had industrial value (other than jewelry) but because people chose to treat it as valuable. Read any economic textbook and it will tell you that the determinants of the value of gold today remain financial: backing for currencies, hedge against inflation, etc. Gold is primarily a financial instrument.

How much of the demand for gold is for industry today? 11%. What is the biggest source of industrial demand? Jewelry. What comes next? Electronics, followed closely by dentistry--crowns and fillings.

The significant electronic uses of gold only go back decades. Until that time, virtually all demand was for financial reasons or as a material for jewelry--and even today the industrial (excluding jewelry and dentistry) use of gold amounts to less than 5% of total demand.

So I'm comfortable with what I wrote. Gold is used for financial transactions based on belief. If it were not for that, the price of the commodity would fall by at least 90%.

The same applies to diamonds. Plenty of diamonds in Mother Earth, and plenty in the (not-so) precious gem pipeline from mines to display cases. The supply is carefully controlled by the DeBeers diamond cartel to keep prices stable--and artificially high.

The standard markup for fine jewlery is 100%; for diamonds, 400% to much, much higher.

I remember from years ago a DeBeers industry-promotion ad for confused young swains, "How much should I pay for an engagement ring?" Answer: About three months salary.

The history of the diamond industry is indeed fascinating. It is quite an accomplishment to take something that is readily available in large volume, constrain the output, manufacture demand (wedding rings) and make a fortune.

Sort of like Steve Jobs.

1) "Fools rush in..."
2) I understand the place to buy an engagement ring cheap is at BYU--young men who proposed unwisely or prematurely. I saw a cute LDS indie rom-com, a guy put his "for-sale" ring ad on a bulletin board covered with them!

Compared to the lives of the earliest hominids almost everything about our modern existences are fiat.

The invisible hand brings me my needs.

The rights of kings have trickled down to me in limited forms.

The Mormon Church was born on a farm. I wasn't. It has cache from time and accumulations of clout and resources. Like the times of counterfeiters of which Mormonism converged with a bit in the Kirtland times, its power as a idea has waned but its currency is far from debased because there is little to fill the vacuum for people looking for a plan.

Someone's been watching conspiracy theory youtube videos, lol!

Also, 9/11 was an inside job, the earth is flat, the government is run by reptilians, we never landed on the moon, and if only we could go back to using gold as currency!

I'm not sure "the government is run by reptilians" is a conspiracy theory.

I would say the church is like a Yugo.

I'm persuaded!

I'll Yugo where you want me dear Lord...

Have you ever flown on Aeroflot? I have many times.

The horror. The horror.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Have you ever flown on Aeroflot?

I'm scarred. Yikes. I'm glad you aren't scarred.

Yes, it's true. I continue to use fiat currency because it still works. It has no intrinsic value.
And paper is 800 dollars per ton no matter how many zeros are printed on it.

Its a fiat marvelous to behold. That it still exists is a marvelous work for an obvious scam from a previous century.