[fabsroman]

Gold would have been a terrible investment if it was at 200 in the 70's and it is only at 430 now. That means that over 30 years you barely doubled your money, which according to the rule of 77, you barely made more than 2% on your investment over those 30 years. If a person gets a 7% return, he should double his money in 11 years and quadruple it in 22 years. In 33 years, his initial investment should be 8 times what it initially was. That means that gold would have to be at $1,600 an oz. to be worth something.

When the stock market goes bad, a lot of people invest in real estate. My brothers bought a place together almost 7 years ago and it has doubled in value over that time. They spent $195,000 for it and it is worth over $400,000 now. So, they got about a 10% return on their investment over the 7 years. Problem is that they live in the house and cannot realize the gain. The other problem is that real estate is just like the stock market. It is probably on a bubble right now as people are willing to invest more in the market because if the market goes any lower the entire country will be in trouble. Plus, real estate is rather risky now because it has been going up way too fast that normal people cannot even afford a house to live in, much less invest in rental properties or investment properties.