Gold is everywhere, it can be extracted from water, it can be mined in space. A new rich ore can be found, a large hoard may be sold off suddenly. These scares have existed for millennia, and they are true, but the real source of scarcity is the cost of mining, which can not be higher than the price of gold.
This can be misleading. Two things immediately come to mind when someone talks about costs, especially those of gold and oil. The first thing is the higher the price of gold the more profitable (or just profitable) the mining of more depleted ores (or oil fields) becomes as well as deploying methods of extraction that otherwise wouldn't be profitable (up to extraction gold from sea water). The second thing confirms the first, that is, the price of gold as back as in 2002 was just above 200$ ounce. Now it is about 1,200$ an ounce. Did the costs increase 6 times since then?
You are at it, with the cost/labour theory of value again.
You are obviously confusing me with someone else. First, I am in no way supporter or follower of the labor theory of value (since I stick to the subjective theory of value). And, second, what I was trying to say is not relevant to either of these theories (or any other theory of value, for that matter)
Was the cost 6 times less in 2002?
As I said, the notion of cost in
this case (that is, costs of gold mining) is misleading. Thereby the question whether the cost was 6 times less in 2002 (than in 2015) is as meaningless as the question whether the cost is 6 times more in 2015 (than in 2002). That was my point in case you didn't get it
If cost of a potential new mine today and the next few years mining will increase only if the miner thinks the price will hold the next few years. It takes maybe five years for the miner to make up his mind, then five years to build the mine. Ten years lag. This will go on until mining cost increases, with ever lower ore quality for instance, till marginal mining cost is close to price.
I didn't quite understand what you were trying to convey (to be honest, I understood nothing)