One just has to look at the world economic crisises to get a good piciture of where gold and other precious metals will go. With major countries like Russia and China buying gold and calling for a move away from a single currency (US) for world markets I think their plan is to back it with Gold. The fiat money system is failing and all the US can do right now is print money and we all know where that leads.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/07/AR2010070705100.html?hpid=topnews
So this puts companies in a great position to push forward and take control of their finds ensuring that they either A. Take it to production or B. Do EVERYTHING in their power not to have it ripped away from them and get a great buy out prices.
I thought a weekend cartoon would be in order.. lol

D