InfoGraphic: All About Gold -- Past and Present

 Once again, the world's ultra-rich are stocking up on gold.  Do they know something that you do not?  Or did they become rich by falling for every scam that came along?   Regardless, if this goes on, how long will it take before the Obama reich steps in to put a stop to this anti-social trend?

From OneMint (via BusinessInsider) comes this data-packed chart that looks at gold's present, recent past, and ancient past.  You can find more information here or here.  Gold has been seen as "real money" by most civilisations from ancient times.   For a clearer, larger image, see here.

Paper money has no value in itself, but is instead a symbol (an IOU) of underlying wealth residing elsewhere. Gold is generally seen as real money.   If you have total faith in the central bank of your nation, forget about gold.  Otherwise. look at metallic wealth -- including gold, silver, copper, platinum, etc.

What about oil? Oil is being manipulated out the kazoo by the big money investment funds and firms. If the price of oil ever does rise -- AND STAY -- above $100 a barrel (1980 dollars) for a long period of time, substitutes for oil will pop out of the woodwork after their natural respective delays for development and scaling.

So no, oil is not the new gold. Even platinum is not the new gold, since catalytic substitutes for platinum -- as well as several promising ways of reducing the amount of platinum in catalytic units to tiny amounts -- are coming on fast.

Gold is not so much an investment, as it is a stable repository of wealth -- although a lot of people have done much better than the stock markets via gold investments recently.

If you had invested in gold when I first mentioned it, you would have done very well. If you scoffed, you lost. At this point, gold will only drop dramatically if Obama completely changes his approach to governing, loses his anti-market bigotry, and dumps his blood-sucking friends in public sector unions, the faux environmental movements, and abandons the radical left.