Gold, silver, copper, rice, and houses are all real. Money isn't. Money, as it exists now (meaning paper and digital money), is just an artificial idea created by banks and governments, and people act like it's real, but the banks create vast new amounts of it out of thin air simply by making loans to governments, businesses, and individuals. In this way the banks get richer, they basically run the show, we mostly get poorer, and the currency steadily loses value, simply because there's a lot more of it in circulation every year, while the rest of the world (the real stuff) remains finite...or even grows scarcer.

Money isn't really worth anything....unless people think it is. Then it's worth whatever they think it's worth. Like I said, it's an idea. People will kill and die for an idea. They'll fight a war for an idea that they themselves made up. The history of the human race has proven that time and time again.

The Indians took paper money off dead soldiers after Custer's demise. They could see it was only little pieces of colored paper, so they used it for ornamentation and for starting fires. ;-) They were a bit less crazy than the people they took that money off. They could see what it really was. It's worth nothing to people who don't believe in it, and you can't eat it when you run out of food.

Nor can you eat gold. ;-) But it's still a profoundly useful and beautiful substance, whether for making fine jewelry or fine quality electronics or fillings in your teeth. It does not tarnish, and that makes it quite valuable.