: i agree completely because i know but just another thought: if
: you would have invested 20 years ago in good conservative
: usa or european stocks you would have gained much more than
: with a gold investment in this time. with a gold deposit
: you would have had only costs of the custody in your bank.

Yes.

: the wise man would sell now a good part of stocks and buy gold
: / bars and coins and gold mine shares, 15 - 20 % of the
: assets. because the gold price is very low, you are right.

: but do we know really how much gold is available?

Oh - potentially, quite a lot, I would think. However, while the price has been held low, it has been not profitable to mine it, they say. The value of an ounce of gold has been the same as or lower than the cost to produce an ounce of gold, during the past years.

Strange - now that mention it, I realize I've met -2- people in cyberspace, each with his own gold mine. :) One is a friend I've known for several years, the other is someone who popped up during y2k conversations.

(Related questions: How much platinum is there? How much palladium is there? I understand Russia has enormous quantities of unmined palladium.)