20 yrs ago or so, my econ prof said that historically, an ounce of gold buys a nicely tailored suit of clothes, and it has been that way, give or take the swings, for a long time. Take potshots at that if you like, most of my clothes are workclothes and jeans, but I think buying gold now will buy your great grand kids a similar basket of goods in 50 or 100 years. I may be wrong, but I believe that a house will be similar (again, a farm house is likely different). The theory is that an average wage can buy an average house, and if an average house appreciates over time more than wages... the average guy can't afford to house himself! I think the average house now is better than the average house 50 years ago (I wasn't around then) so I would say that gold is a slightly better investment than real estate and cash, but not as good as equities. I can remember the TSE breaking 1000, which means we are 8x that value. I can't remember gold at $100.