The year was 2008, and the word on every lip was…
[cue honky tonk piano music]…GOLD! Gold fever! Everybody had it. It was bigger than la grippe, typhus and herpes put together, with similar symptoms to boot. There wasn’t a man-jack east of Oakland who hadn’t wondered at the myths of this magical metal seemingly immune to the feminine ebb and flow of Wall Street. While sub-prime mortgagers and mortgagees roiled in the meanness of their pilferous traffic, the Neo-Alchemists were busy transmuting their savings and services into tangible, fantastical gold.
The boon was felt first in Maryland, where environmental standards were so low that a cottage-industry of smelters sprang up from Cumberland to Ocean City. A shining cloud of mercury vapor hung over the state. Computers and electronics were yanked from various utilities for gold extraction. Grave robbery came into a new vogue. When the rumor got around that the Antarctic continent was rife with gold veins, a fleet of underequipped boats made what would be a one-way trip to the bottom of the Southern Ocean.
While scientists and doctors split on creating a cure for the terrible mania destroying the world versus pursuing the philosopher’s stone, politicians angled to position themselves on top once all reserves were plundered. At the peak of the gold holocaust, Canadian singer Neil Young was elected president of the US on the “My Heart is Made of Pure Canadian Maple Leaf Gold” platform. South Africa had become the preeminant world power with a GDP worth 140 trillion rand (at the peak, 1 rand = 42 US dollars). Socioeconomic effects were deep-felt, as indentured servitude, banking collapse and anarchy became general trends. The fever finally died down when it was revealed that gold is really not useful for anything beyond conducting and being shiny (“bling” value).
