Re: Commodity (was RE: [Fwd: Kremen ...])

[Ian Mason <nanog () ian co uk>]

On 12 Sep 2006, at 10:11, Michael.Dillon () btradianz com wrote:

> For example, let's compare gold and uranium. Both metals
> are very valuable. Gold can be bought and sold at any
> time on an open market. It is a commodity. But uranium is
> not as liquid. There are few buyers and sellers. Trades
> happen too infrequently to establish an open market. There
> are restrictions on posession and transport of the material.
> In the end, uranium is not a commodity and is not liquid.
> IP adresses are more like uranium than gold.

Erm, Uranium *is* a commodity. Last week's spot price was
$52 a pound for U3O8. It's a small market in terms of numbers
of players but it's still an open market in the economic sense.
102 million pounds were traded in 2004. Hedge funds are players
in the uranium market (source: www.uxc.com, home page)  - when people  
trade
something who don't use it I think you've pretty much defined
a commodity.