...those scenarios.

My parents had told me repeatedly of those hyper inflationary times back in Europe when stores (the few that bothered to open) would not sell food for money, only for gold and silver. That, because the money would worth half of its value between any given morning's store opening and evening closing. If you did not own gold you were either left to starve or to scrounge the garbage bins. Such experience had thought those Europeans a sense of "security" in always being prepared and always having some gold in reserves.

Runaway or hyper-inflation can not be discounted under the present financial crisis. I could not find, even if I looked, very many financial experts who would deny the possibility of sizable near-future inflation.  Is hyper-inflation likely? Hopefully not. Is it prudent to insure yourself against such event, just as you pay to insure yourself against un-probable car accidents, natural disasters, health issues...etc...? I think so.

Aside from doomsday scenarios, there is a sizable segment of those "usually wrong" financial analysts now do advice some gold positions.

Albert