Gold and gems aren’t wealth. They have no practical value. They’re not useful for anything. Therefore there’s no harm to society if dragons hoard gold and gems.
Gold has some uses. Diamonds have a few industrial applications as well. Some other gems too in optics I think, but natural ones would probably be useless there.
Both gold and a lot of gemstones have a great many uses in industry and electronics, garnet for example is used in water jet cutting and if you have a smart watch there is a good chance its touch screen is made of sapphire
And then there is the sheer amount of gold we use in plating soooo many of our printed circuit boards and connectors
With the exception of gold, all of your above examples are usually either abundant and cheap (garnet), or are cheaper and better when made in a lab. For example: Sapphire is just aluminum oxide – no one is cutting phone screens from mined gems. And lab made diamonds are pennies on the dollar.
You mean those wealth hoarding lizards that fire people and don’t pay taxes?
Isn’t that basically the same thing?
Gold and gems aren’t wealth. They have no practical value. They’re not useful for anything. Therefore there’s no harm to society if dragons hoard gold and gems.
Gold has some uses. Diamonds have a few industrial applications as well. Some other gems too in optics I think, but natural ones would probably be useless there.
Both gold and a lot of gemstones have a great many uses in industry and electronics, garnet for example is used in water jet cutting and if you have a smart watch there is a good chance its touch screen is made of sapphire
And then there is the sheer amount of gold we use in plating soooo many of our printed circuit boards and connectors
With the exception of gold, all of your above examples are usually either abundant and cheap (garnet), or are cheaper and better when made in a lab. For example: Sapphire is just aluminum oxide – no one is cutting phone screens from mined gems. And lab made diamonds are pennies on the dollar.