The Cobra Commander Dialogues: II.VII.2

Originally posted on Atlas Shrugged: Goldbuggery.

Cobra Commander: Okay Ragnar let’s get back to the gold thing.
Ragnar: I’d be happy to, I love gold!
Cobra Commander: Well we can agree on that! Which, again… going to note that primarily villains are obsessed with hoarding gold.
Ragnar: But I’m not a villain.
Cobra Commander: Right right, no we’re not getting into that argument again. I just wanted to ask again… why gold?
Ragnar: It’s objectively valuable!
Cobra Commander: But it isn’t.
Ragnar: Sure it is! Gold is and always will be valuable exactly like it is right now. Unlike that wicked paper money.
Cobra Commander: Okay I know something about this, I’ve had plenty of plans involving gold before! One time I invented a machine that would destroy all paper currency…
Ragnar: Man that sounds like a great machine!
Cobra Commander: Again, we’re not getting into the whole ‘you’re really a villain’ argument here but seriously let me finish. Okay so my plan was to destroy the economy by getting rid of paper money and then replacing commerce with gold coins that I minted myself with my face on them. I was particularly proud of that bit.
Ragnar: Seems legitimate.
Cobra Commander: Yeah but after the plan was thwarted by those fools at GI Joe I realized it probably wouldn’t have worked anyway because being the person who destroyed the economy there would be a.) little left for me to buy what with society collapsing and b.) people probably wouldn’t sell it to me anyway because of spite, and also with little to buy the gold I was flooding into the market probably wouldn’t be worth anything.
Ragnar: I’m not following you here. It’s gold, people would always trade for it at exactly the exchange rate it is being traded for right now.
Cobra Commander: Yeah but they wouldn’t. If you completely destroy the world’s economy and all the governments collapse people are probably going back to trade and barter, so commodities and manufactured goods are going to be the medium of exchange, not gold. I suppose some people might accept gold, but if you say… were the only person in the world who still had a working milk farm you could just charge 100 gold bars for a bottle of milk because where else are people going to go?
Ragnar: But… I routinely sell commodities and manufactured goods for large piles of gold…
Cobra Commander: Yes and you’ve said you’ve been doing these deals with known criminals right?
Ragnar:…
Cobra Commander: Seriously, they are… look I kind of feel bad to break this to you Ragnar but these guys are completely taking advantage of you. They’re taking tons of valuable goods that you stole in exchange for completely worthless gold that they realize is going to be completely valueless in the coming collapse of society.
Ragnar: But… I’m… I’m a big scary pirate. And really smart…
Cobra Commander: Sure you are… look, I don’t usually do this but, now I feel kind of bad for you… Hey c’mon why don’t we paint some snakes on your boat, attach a few red lasers to it and you can come work for me alright?
Ragnar: But what would you want me to do? I’ve never worked for a villain before.
Cobra Commander: Oh don’t worry it’s easy! You just do literally the exact same thing you are doing now, only shout ‘COBRAAAAAA’ while you do it, think you can handle that?
Ragnar: COBRAAAAAA!!!!
Cobra Commander: Ha ha, great!