[r00fus]

Once I can buy food directly with my 1oz of gold, I'll buy your gold-based-valuation argument.

Comparing one asset (share of GOOG) vs. another, namely, gold is silly when you contrast to assigning currency value.

Last I checked, food hasn't become 4x more expensive, so things still revolve around currency (or currencies), not the value of gold.

[sawyer]

Since when can you buy food in exchange for stocks?

[majorlazer]

That's the point. You can't buy food with gold or stocks, but you can with money (currency). So that is what you measure the value with.

[moheeb]

You should check again. While food prices haven't quadrupled they have doubled...

According to the IMF Commodity Price Index, at least. http://www.imf.org/external/np/res/commod/index.aspx

[r00fus]

How much of food commodities prices (and for that matter, gold prices) are the result of pure speculation?

http://triplecrisis.com/food-price-volatility/

[DanBC]

What's the value in Economist Burgernomics?

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/07/big-mac-in...