[mywittyname]

Gold is worthless for buying stuff. My dad holds this view that people should keep a bunch of gold on hand for disasters. He was right that disaster would strike (massive snow storm), but he was wrong about the gold. Turns out, when credit card machines are inoperable, grocery stores won't take gold, just cash.

Tuck away a few hundred bucks in small bills. It will be more valuable than a chest full of gold when you really need it. It suuuuuuuucks to be caught without physical cash in an emergency.

[dgzl]

I can't agree with your opinion or your father's anecdote. Throughout all of history, gold has held intrinsic value in all kinds of civilizations, and is still one of the most valuable elements that's widely traded. If you can't buy groceries with a block of gold (assuming you're not just shredding off dust to pay them), then the seller clearly doesn't understand the value. On the contrary, paper dollars are intrinsically useless, especially since we left the Gold Standard, which links the value of paper dollars to the value of gold.

[komali2]

Yea his father could have just traded the gold for cash to the cashier.