Gold

"We have gold because we cannot trust governments." President Herbert Hoover's statement in 1933 to Franklin D. Roosevelt foresaw one of the most draconian events in U.S. financial history: the Emergency Banking Act occurred that same year, forcing all Americans to convert their gold coins, bullion and certificates into U.S. dollars.

While the Act successfully stopped the outflow of gold during the Great Depression, it did not change the conviction of gold bugs, those who are forever confident in gold's stability as a source of wealth.

For 5,000 years, gold's combination of luster, malleability, density and scarcity has captivated humankind like no other metal  ... gold is so dense that one ton of it can be packed into a cubic foot.




Source:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2011/07/27/f-gold-standard.html