"I would rather the worlds citizens were smarter voters in the past, had better economic futures, and that my chosen investments were biotech or technology companies, or someone making something useful for mankind in a pay as you go economy"

-- imho, many people are still like Mr. Buffet, thinking gold is just something digged out earth and put back into another hole, in another word, useless. These people don't understand that an advanced country/society need not only physical goods, but also a complex,balanced, and evoluable social system - which is the major difference of an advanced civilization and a barbaric one. Gold plays a critical role as currency, and the monetary policy and system is a corner stone of any economy. Without a sound monetary system, such as ignoring and surpressing the role of gold for someone's greedy/political purposes, the whole economy is exposed to inevitable disasters, like what we are experiencing now.

PPT is powerful in short term, but it has it's limit, especially in long term, such as POG has been soaring for 10 yrs and DJI 10 yr return is negative. The global economy now has more influences from emerging nations and other parts of the world that PPT can not fully control, and a reflection of the power and wealth re-distribution reality is that dollar/euro is weakening and accordingly, gold is strengthening. Smart retail investors can understand this long term trend and invest accordingly, so they can beat the majority of the so called pros.

JMT.