Art poll

[wellinghall]

Titian's Diana and Actaeon saved for the nation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/feb/02/titian-diana-actaeon-saved

[Poll #1342795]

Comments

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

Hm. IMO we might not need reserves when things are going all right, but it's common sense to keep sensible reserves of everything from gold to oil to capacity for food production in case the sh*t REALLY hits the fan.

While I'm on the fence over whether they SHOULD stump up the money (ie. be morally obliged to kind of thing), I have no particular objection to some government money going towards the Titian, after all they waste enough on botched IT projects, wild schemes for this and that, and goodness knows what else, at least the Titian has both cultural and monetary value.

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

There might be a reason to keep reserves of commodities which have a real value like oil or food, but not gold. What are you going to do with gold reserves in a world of floating exchange rates? Much more sensible to have a basket of foreign currency reserves.

[tigerfort.livejournal.com]

Sell them to computer companies?

(Not a serious suggestion, given the tiny amount of gold you need for a typical computer. But it does have more industrial uses than you might think, and many of them are vital to a modern economy. Of course, since Britain doesn't manufacture anything any more....)