I see that gold is discussed as a valuable item here above, and I can't help but think that gold as a commodity is somewhat old style economics, as if belonging to an era where the economies of the world was smaller 50 years ago. I am by far no expert on economics, but I have the last few years come to think that so called fractional banking system is the "new" thing in economics, in which, as I understand it, faith is put in a system of circulating printed money and creating layered debt and value, for:
a) having most/all people predictably wake up in the morning and go to work and do stuff (creating value, one way or another)
b) put a price on anything, wages, things and property
c) create wealth by the concept of a predictable income from rent off loans
So, the more complex transactions become, with printed money (basically printed from nowhere as I understand it, though I won't claim to truly understand 'fractional banking') have more people paying more for things, creating more wealth in the other end. Presumably, the other end being able to get more, for less, as opposed to the other end again, who get less, for more. Although I am happy buying stuff from eBay at a nice price, or even buying chocolate where I live, I can't help but wondering if there are poor people doing the hard work, being doomed to live a life in poverty, people providing work, at at some predictably low wage standard, and I suppose there are really a lot of these people around on our planet.
I would think that debt and random price increases is (unfortunately) a valuable thing, barring war and unrest, and what I find disturbing nowadays, is that a serious gaming news website I read, entertain the idea that game developers might as well charge whatever for their games, simply because they would have their reasons for wanting a higher price, which imo is outrageous and silly, as if arbitrarily attributing a value to some commodity would be ok, as if the value of things were to be whatever-you-can-get-away-with (I think this is would be wrong and offensive with mass produced stuff). On a related note, I am sometimes bewildered as I see a laughably high price on chocolate, making me think that, the chocolate is either costly to manufacture with wages, OR, that they sell chocolate as an overly high price to look for trends that indicate that people are willing to actually pay a small fortune for that 200g bar of chocolate, and I occasionally see chocolate being sold at seemingly dumping prices (compared to regular high price on the very same item), a few times throughout the year. This dumping price gimmick is common with hot dogs at summer time where I live.
Edit: Wow, my typos, sry about that.