Mr CJR,

I would agree with the analysis you make in your post.

We effectively saw the same thing happen with the price of crude oil in 2001-2008.

The price of oil started to climb shortly after 9/11, going from approximately $25/barrel to approximately $97/barrel.

When the 2008 world financial crisis hit, it sank to just over $53/barrel (no lower) and has since shot back up to the $90/barrel range.

Prior to all this, the last time we saw the price of oil skyrocket was during the Gulf War.

The old days of plentiful light sweet crude oil are clearly gone. Any oil found now is either in deep sea oil beds that are difficult and expensive to access, or in the tar sands of Alberta and Venezuela, which are also difficult and expensive to extract and refine.

As you mentioned, it would appear that easily accessible gold has also become a thing of the past so the race to access new deposits will involve many players in many places, considering that most (if not all) of today's world currencies are no longer worth the paper they are printed on.

I would agree entirely that, like oil, the price of gold has found a new base/floor/range and will likely scale higher from here for years.

Here's a link to an interesting article published a year ago, highlighting a report that we have approximately 20 years of gold reserves left:

http://www.energydigital.com/global_mining/no-more-gold-mining-reserves-to-run-out-in-20-years

-Dragon50