It isn't. Gold/Silver are tangible stores of value. The value is imaginary but humans like to see and touch things and decorate their houses with shiny, and you can't paper your walls with government IOUs.
Which is why we don't have a gold/silver economy, but we do have a property and land economy which has taken its place.
These "investments" are based on a pile of almost-free fiat government IOUs. They have been converted into equally imaginary tangible value. You happen to be able to live in this store of value if you choose to, but at the high end hardly anyone does.
It's a form of imaginative arbitrage for high end abstract markets, just like gold/silver, cowrie shells, and big round rocks are. (And BTC, in its own way.)
Which is why at the high end economics is almost entirely faith-based. Fundamental use value is swamped almost instantly by an imaginary tradable value. And that is based entirely on faith in the stability and potential of the investment of your choice.
The consumer market is different because prices - including rentals - have some relationship to scarcity and use value. But there's still a large element which is faith-driven and subject to an irrational boom/bust cycle as faith and hope waver - partly driven by central bank and government signalling about future outcomes.
Which is why we don't have a gold/silver economy, but we do have a property and land economy which has taken its place.
These "investments" are based on a pile of almost-free fiat government IOUs. They have been converted into equally imaginary tangible value. You happen to be able to live in this store of value if you choose to, but at the high end hardly anyone does.
It's a form of imaginative arbitrage for high end abstract markets, just like gold/silver, cowrie shells, and big round rocks are. (And BTC, in its own way.)
Which is why at the high end economics is almost entirely faith-based. Fundamental use value is swamped almost instantly by an imaginary tradable value. And that is based entirely on faith in the stability and potential of the investment of your choice.
The consumer market is different because prices - including rentals - have some relationship to scarcity and use value. But there's still a large element which is faith-driven and subject to an irrational boom/bust cycle as faith and hope waver - partly driven by central bank and government signalling about future outcomes.