Quote from JoePaterno:
In the Great Depression, 3 of the things that held value (or went up) from beginning to end were:
Gold
Real Estate (the same amount of land, not necessarily recovering their price)
Govt bonds
gold seems awfully pricey. And so are bonds. Perhaps well chosen land might be more interesting - farmland, undeveloped land...
Real estate got annihilated in the 1930s, and many lost homes or even land they had no debt on, due to increased property taxes and falling incomes.
The idea that an asset which was in a once per century super-bubble top just 3 years ago, and is still not remotely close to historical bear market bottom valuations, is going to be the place to earn excess returns seems far-fetched.
As for gold, the party most likely hasn't even started yet. Government bonds are at pretty low yields, although not all-time lows. Whereas gold is still way below its inflation-adjusted high - and that's if you just use the understated CPI as your inflation meaasure. Secular bull markets typically go to new inflation-adjusted highs before they top out, meaning gold should reach at least $2000 and maybe higher before this run ends for good. And if the retail investors start piling in en masse like with tech stocks and housing in the previous bubbles, gold could hit something crazy like $5000