You can't eat, plant or grow gold. You can't make bullets with gold. You can't power a tank with gold. You can't cure disease with gold. Gold can't keep you warm. Doomsday means gold is worthless.
they are like the pawn shops. They give you nothing and turn around and send it off to the refiners for a fat profit.
Lyle Gramley was talking about this a while back. They do not want to lose control of the price of gold, but, hey times they are a changin'.
Anyway, looks like a good trade for Q4 2009.
1) The "public", during this trend, may be Europeans and Asians, not Americans.
2) When precious metals went crazy in ~1980, people were selling tons and tons of gold & silver. Folks may be more "rational" when it comes to selling physical commodities at market tops but not financial commodities, i.e. stocks and real estate.
It's a reliable store of value and even in doomsday scenario, gold and silver are the likely mediums of exchange as currency is worthless. The metals will take a haircut as opposed to direct barter, but hey, need to be practical.
I think the key is preservation of wealth. If you are planning for survival during doomsday, then you need to take other key steps. Water, canned food, seeds, a garden, medicine, protection, clothes, basic hygiene necessities and booze/drugs. However, you can stockpile valuables and simply exchange those to acquire what you need. Believe me, there will always be profiteers who will be selling goods.
But that's besides the point, as I do not think a crazy Doomsday scenario will occur. It will be more like Argentina's crisis.