Risky Mortgage Bonds Are Back and Delinquencies Are Piling Up

Re:Risky Mortgage Bonds Are Back and Delinquencies Are Pilin... by ehvatum on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @05:36PM (#21457513)

Gold can't exactly get more or less valuable over time. It is a rock. We have no practical uses for it.

My impulse to point out that it's a very useful metal is tempered by my surprise that only 10% of gold production goes to applications where gold does something other than look golden or just exist as a physical store of value. It seems a little silly. Gold mining is quite destructive; environmentalists should fly around the world, giving speeches on the worthlessness of gold, but where's the glamor in that?

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Re:Risky Mortgage Bonds Are Back and Delinquencies Are Pilin... by roenxi on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @05:48PM (#21457622)

Yeah, it would have lots of uses if we had industrial quantities of it.

> Gold mining is quite destructive; environmentalists should ...

If it makes you feel better, it is common for gold to be found as an enriched layer sitting on top of a copper deposit. So a big chunk of gold mining isn't gold-for-gold's sake, it is something mined on the way to a much more practical substance - copper.

Actual gold mines doing environmental damage are a thing (cyanide ahoy!) but the footprint is small and hopefully not important.

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Re:Risky Mortgage Bonds Are Back and Delinquencies Are Pilin... by linuxftw on Tuesday November 05, 2019 @07:16PM (#21458433)

Wait until you hear how destructive lithium mines are. There are lots of towns in the western US polluted by the mining industry.

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