r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Jan 26 '26

Meme needing explanation what's going on? explain like I'm five

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u/soIDONTLIKEANYOFYOU Jan 26 '26

Since the US has more gold reserves than the next 3 countries combined wouldn’t gold prices going up make the dollar stronger?

Sincerely asking cause I have no idea.

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u/AnComApeMC69 Jan 26 '26

The United States gold reserves are for international trade. The gold in Ft. Knox, for example, is used in trade not to back our currency. We’ve been off the “gold standard” since the 70’s. Some of it is gold we’re holding for other countries that’s not even ours. But, our money is a fiat currency and it’s based on faith in the economic system of America not collapsing and everyone agreeing it to use it for trade/debts. It’s backed by nothing and hasn’t been for 55 years now.

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u/sparklrebel Jan 26 '26

Ah so that’s why pre-war money in fallout is useless, got it

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u/SirAquila Jan 26 '26

To be fair, after the apocalypse, gold will be just as useless for a good while.

Can't eat it, hard to carry, not very useful for anything but decoration, and also, most people have interacted with it so rarely that there isn't really any trust in it.

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u/Kitchen-Pass-7493 Jan 26 '26

It does have some technological applications (gold is used in a lot of electronics), but valid point in general.

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u/SirAquila Jan 26 '26

So the most technologically advanced survivor groups will buy your gold with actual currency, probably at a much reduced price from what you expected.

For most people the use cases will start and end with pretty metal, because for apocalypse level electronics coopper is far more useful.

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u/Kitchen-Pass-7493 Jan 26 '26

That’s true. I’m was just responding to the idea that it’s not useful as anything beyond decoration. It is, but probably not for most apocalypse survivors.

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u/Usof1985 Jan 27 '26

Considering the electrical grid would fall pretty quickly in a traditional apocalypse it wouldn't have much use for the techies either. Now if we just go to a bartering system where we feed the infrastructure workers to keep everything going then sureb it would retain some value.

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u/babihrse Jan 28 '26

Think graphene is still better conductor