If you bought 10 years ago you would have more than doubled your money. You don't nec have to hold an investment for 30 years to make money. Personally I think it's high now, but hey, what do I know. I didn't buy 10 years ago when I thought it was a good time to buy....

Take a look at the chart in the link below. Back in the late 70's you could buy gold at $750 an ounce and today it about $850. If you bought back then you would have made almost no money, in fact in inflation adjusted dollars you would have lost big time, not exactly a great investment.

http://www.kitco.com/scripts/hist_ch...rly_graphs.plx

Just like every other investment, it's about timing.

Claro. If you'd bought a few years ago at three hundred dollars an ounce, you now could sell for three times that. Wouldn't we all like to be sitting so pretty?

While this is true you could you could have done as well or better in many other investments with probably less risk. The point is that gold over the last 30 years as an investment has been a stinker. If you bought gold 30 years ago you would have had to wait until 2006 or later to get your very depreciated dollars back.

Hindsight & all that. I'm a starving artist so I don't have any money at all never mind investments. But I specifically remember about 9 or so years ago thinking "if I had money I'd buy gold"... It's the only investment I would have hypothetically made any money on had I gone with my instinct. We won't even get where I was planning on keeping it etc....
Good thing I don't have any money, I don't have to worry about how my investments did or didn't do!!

I didn't really do any investing when I was 3 years old. I may have a silver rattle lying around somewhere. How is silver doing?

stan,

sorry for the late reply....check the facts again please....my charts tell me that gold is up the past 9 years in a row.....

i wouldn't consider gold an investment necessarily but more a store of wealth - unless you manage to get in early, which i still believe that even at its current price of $940, it's still a good buy.

i'm still sticking with my SHTF scenario. the US is due for quite a shock when the consequences of the reckless spending and quantitative easing are felt. take into account the Bush tax breaks which expire i believe in 2012 and you've got a recipe for disaster.

obama is also trying to push the cap & trade tax, which will only serve to kill business as china and india will not go along with this. when GDP is falling, it's not a good idea to increase taxes on citizens, entrepreneurs and businesses.

In short, what do you have to lose? Put 10% or 15% of your assets into precious metals, something advisable even when the economy is doing well. Can't hurt.

Check out the 47 min video Money as Debt for a great explanation on money, how it was created and how a debt based money supply is inherently flawed: http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...=money+as+debt