Gold is a very popular metal because it has value and it can easily be converted to the currency of any country on Earth. So too, because of the ever growing population of people on Earth, gold becomes more valuable as time passes. In other words, the demand for gold exceeds the supply of gold in the marketplace at any given point in time, causing the value of gold to increase as time passes.
During an economic recession or an economic depression, the value of gold increases at a faster rate because the value of paper money within a country that experiences an economic downturn becomes less valuable. As an example, in the USA before the recession of 2008, the value of gold was about $350.00 per ounce. In 2013, that gold value has been as high as $1,800.00 per ounce. The reason being is that the U.S. is still in a recession so the average value of gold continues to increase.
Will the value of gold exceed $5,000.00 per ounce within ten years? If the current U.S. recession becomes an economic depression, then the value of gold can exceed $5,000.00 per ounce.
On the other hand, if the 20,000,000 currently unemployed people within the U.S. again become employed and the rate of unemployment decreases to less than 5 percent, then it is quite likely that the value of gold will also decrease, as well as the value of silver and other precious metals.
During the Arab oil embargo of 1973, the value of gold increased to about $800.00 per ounce at a time when it was illegal to own gold coins in the United States of America. The value of silver also increased to about $40.00 per ounce.
If you have not already guessed, jewelry that contains gold and/or silver became very popular. These days, some of that gold and silver jewelry was converted to cash because of the rather fast increase in the value of gold and silver. The point here is that the ownership of precious metals is a hedge against inflation and a safeguard against the depreciation of the monetary value of the currency of any particular country.
As the USA becomes more indebted to other countries, the value of its currency becomes worth less. More dollars are requited to purchase the same amount of products from other countries.
The U.S. recession will not end until those products are made domestically, and until those 20,000,000 unemployed people within the country go back to work. That is a fact that cannot be disputed by anyone.
It is also a fact that the balance of payments deficit will continue to increase until legislation is passed by the U.S. Congress. Doing so will force multinational corporations to again produce products in the U.S., and also subsequently sell that merchandise to Americans.
In the meantime, the value of previous metals continues to increase while the value of the dollar continues to decrease. The recession will not end if action is not taken by the U.S. government to bring back those jobs that were outsourced to people within foreign countries, most of which went to China where the cost of labor is about the lowest on Earth.