This is the best tutorial I’ve ever found on gold as an investment.  So I thought I’d share:

“Gold is a huge favorite of investors who fear almost all other assets, especially paper money.  But what motivates most gold purchasers is their belief that the ranks of the fearful will grow.

“The world’s gold stock is 170,000 metric tons.  If all of the gold were melded together, it would form a 68-foot cube – and fit in a baseball infield.  At $1,750 per ounce … [last year] its value would be $9.6 trillion.  Call this cube pile A. 

Now create pile B.  For 9.6 trillion, we could buy all U.S. cropland (400 million acres producing $200 billion annually), plus 16 Exxon Mobils (the world’s most profitable company, earning more than $40 billion annually).  After these purchases, we would have about $1 trillion left over for walking-around money (no sense feeling strapped after this buying binge).  Can you imagine an investor selecting pile A over pile B?”
[Photo credit: Fortune Live Media via photopin]