>From David:
>Quoting Clark: >> Works of art would be cherished because they were >> beautiful, not because they were rare. > It is my opinion that works of art are mainly valuable because > the purchasers believe that they will find someone else that will > pay much more for the art piece in the future. In many cases, > the signature on the art is what counts. This has always bothered > me since the lack of intrinsic value leads me to believe that one > day someone will be holding an empty bag. > > Look at the insane protection being afforded precious gems if you > want to observe a ridiculous situation. I purchased a couple of > synthetic rubies for my wife that would be worth a king's ransom if > natural. The gem industry goes to extreme length to make us believe > that the natural ones are special when we all know that they are of > much lower quality than man made ones. My wife is a jeweler of lost wax casting. She works with precious and semi-precious stones and precious metals. She knew a scientist who worked with a team that eventually figured out how to manufacture opals. I understand we now have figured out how to manufacture good size diamonds too. When it comes to disposable income all too often it would seem that we try to exchange our disposables for some other "thing" we believe will increase in monetary value. IOW, we are trying to transform disposable income into even more disposable income. All too often we just to don't realize (or perhaps appreciate) the fact that we are participants in a psychological shell-game being played against each other. When you think about it, people with lots of disposable income are doing nothing more than finding ingenious ways in which to liquidate excess currency in the hope that what they liquidate will eventually transform into even more potential disposable currency. But then. who knows. Perhaps the art of "collecting" might actually be a good thing in the sense that it could help remove excess currency from the system. Collectors might help dampen the inflation since there would be less cash in the Demand & Supply equation to buy the other necessities of life. Regards, Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
