precious metals will always be precious, and therefore always valuable.
I think people are becoming inured to crisis after crisis.
Each day there is a new reason to panic - and then nothing really bad happens.
So people don't feel the need to squirrel money away on gold - or they don't have any spare cash to squirrel away.
If I were you, and had money to squirrel away, a few hundred gold bar buried in the garden would give me some peace of mind in terms of financial security.
But I'd be super paranoid that someone would come and dig them up in the night hehe.