Alan Greenspan said this to Congress in 2001:
"….. gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world. It's interesting that Germany could buy materials during the war only with gold. In extremis fiat money is accepted by nobody and gold is always accepted and is the ultimate means of payment and is perceived to be an element of stability in the currency and is the ultimate value of the currency. And that historically has always been the reason why governments hold gold."

Gold is timless yet a timely investment, Nations may rise and fall, currencies come and go, but gold endures. Gold is a long-established monetary asset that represents an alternative to paper money

In today's uncertain climate, many investors turn to gold because it is a "currency without borders" - an important and secure asset that can be tapped at any time, under virtually any circumstances.

The Why Gold List:

• It's a hedge against geopolitical turmoil.
• It's a hedge against global political risk.
• It's a hedge against deflation.
• It's a hedge against inflation, which will rear its ugly head once efforts to stimulate the economy take hold.
• It's a hedge against a falling dollar.
• It's an ideal diversifier.
• It's a commodity and money.
• It's highly liquid.

Gold is an ideal diversifier, because the economic forces that determine the price of gold are different from, and in many cases opposed to, the forces that influence most financial assets.

The addition of gold to a portfolio brings significant benefits in risk/reward terms. This is because returns on gold tend to be negatively correlated to other financial assets. It therefore provides investors with a powerful risk management tool. Including gold in portfolios is likely to enhance the consistency of performance by reducing overall portfolio volatility, particularly during periods of stress in the financial markets.

Gold is the perfect investment to protect a foundational portion of your portfolio from an inherently unpredictable future. Owning gold in your investment portfolio is like a small but crucial insurance position on your financial future. Gold is the insurance part of an investment portfolio because gold itself will always maintain at least some value, no matter what "disaster may happen on earth" as King Solomon warned. Gold may rocket up to thousands of dollars per ounce in the coming gold rally or it may struggle and fall lower, but it will always be worth something.

As the NASDAQ bust has painfully taught us all, any stock, no matter how mighty it seems at the time, always has the potential to plunge to zero. This will never, ever happen with gold, which has timeless self-intrinsic value not contingent on someone else's mere promise to pay. Chances are any gold you buy today will be able to command at least the same amount of real goods for your great grandchildren a century or more into the future as it does today.

Owning gold is owning an option against an unknown future. It provides a form of insurance against some improbable but, if it occurs, highly damaging event. Such events might include war, an unexpected surge in inflation, a generalised crisis leading to repudiation of foreign debts by major sovereign borrowers, a regression to a world of currency and trading blocs, or the international isolation of a country.

Gold is also said to be a "store of value" that holds up better than financial assets during periods of deflation and rampant inflation. The values of all other financial instruments change, but gold itself is immutable and unchanging and will always hold real value.

Gold Bars!

Gold bars may be bought in a variety of weights and sizes, ranging from ten tola (TT bars) to Kilo bars to the internationally traded "London Good Delivery" bar (1 kilogram is equivalent to 32.1507 troy ounces).

For international acceptance the bars have to meet the required standards of the London Bullion Market Association or of one of the recognized futures exchanges such as the Commodity Exchange division of the New York Mercantile Exchange or the Tokyo Commodity Exchange. In addition they should bear the marks of an authorized melter and assayer. These bars are also stamped with the purity of the gold content which is generally 995 (that is 99.5 per cent pure) or 999.9 (that is 9999 parts per thousand). A number of other weights are commonly traded in regional markets and include for example the Tael (China; 1.2 troy ounces), ten Tola bars (The Arabian Gulf and India; 3.75 troy ounces) and the Baht (Thailand; 0.47 troy ounces).

The market value of bullion coins and bars is determined by the value of their fine gold content, plus a premium or mark-up that varies between coins and tends to be higher for smaller denominations, as one would expect.