The investment game, Inflation and the cost of goods.

[Hoofhurr]

Well it's all a house of cards isn't it? A grain of wheat only has intrinsic value if you can mill it and bake it into bread. Gold isn't worth shit unless you can smelt it and stick it on your tooth. So Maull's relativism (I'm giving him credit for purposes of this argument) still rings true. The value of an item is surely connected to where you currently are on the social ladder just as the value of an item changes based on where society is on the civilization ladder.

To give this all a buddhist spin you could make the argument that at some point in space/time a share of enron stock is going to be worth just as much to someone as a sharp rock might be to that same person at a different point in space/time.

So when considering an investment and the value of a thing you have to be ready to consider the likelihood of a total meltdown of the framework that gives the thing its perceived value. I might even make the argument that nothing has intrinsic value. It's all contextually dependent.

Let's divvy up economies as we know them:
Credit Economy
Monetary Currency Economy
Mineral Based Currency Economy
Barter Economy
Sustenance Based Economy
Survival Based

As you move up or down in these economies what something is worth changes dramatically it seems to me.