It is interesting that everything we place value upon is founded in confidence primarily. I have a friend who encourages everyone to put their money into precious and semi-precious metals. Where I struggle with his argument is that this advice is offered as a means to retain your wealth in the case that governments undervalue (or steal from the people, as they did in Cyprus with the banks) fiat currency. But what do you do when the level of confidence shifts away from those commodities? Let's say that happens as a result of food or water shortages. All the gold in the world will not have the same appeal to a family that needs to eat in order to survive. We're a fickle species, anrn't we? LOL