ABSTRACT
As Omar observed, throughout history, civilizations needed to assign value to things, and across time and cultures, gold kept appearing as the ultimate store of value. It doesn’t lose its value precisely because people believe in it. Omar referenced Bitcoin sending panic throughout the gold and silver industry in 2015, when some financial analysts predicted that the internet-based currency would undercut precious metals. They believed that Bitcoin would retain value and, thus, render gold obsolete. Gold companies don’t talk too much about the production of gold, the messiness of mining. They mostly communicate in the parlance of investor relations. The World Gold Council tells the story of gold; the companies’ job is simply to produce it. Metaphors are ways of making people care about something by relating it to something else, something they can easily understand. Omar told the story of how gold has as much symbolic value — or metaphorical value — as actual value.
