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"[U]nder the placid surface, there are disturbing trends: huge imbalances, disequilibria, risks -- call them what you will. Altogether the circumstances seem to me as dangerous and intractable as any I can remember, and I can remember quite a lot. What really concerns me is that there seems to be so little willingness or capacity to do much about it." Former Fed Chairman, Paul Volcker

This mini-study which first appeared some nine years ago in my book, The ABCs of Gold Investing, explains in a nutshell why anyone would want to own gold. The world economy is on a collision course with the dollar. There will come a time in the not too distant future when investment portfolios will be judged on a single criteria -- whether or not physical gold in the form of bullion and coin is represented. When that day arrives, whether "the reckoning" comes in the form of an explosive one-time event like a financial crash, or in the form of a slow, but sure, economic withering, there will be few avenues of escape for the ordinary investor. Already, the gold market's steady four-year up trend has demonstrated that something has changed in the composite international economic psyche. Where recently the dollar alone had been king, gold is retaking its traditional role as the primary repository of international wealth.

So, is buying gold now comparable to buying it at $35 in 1968? Are the right elements in place to fuel a rise comparable to what happened in the 1970s when gold rocketed from the $35 benchmark to almost $900 per ounce?

Many top notch analysts say that it is:

"We are raising our mid-cycle gold price estimate to $900/oz from $750/oz and see the possibility of a spike to $2,000, or higher." - Credit Agricole Chevreux, French banking giant

"Like a gorilla with a gun, gold can go anywhere it wants. With the quest for yield, the need for portfolio diversification and the huge appetite funds have for risk, all commodities are certain to rock for a lot longer. It's not a bubble about to burst." - Peter Hillyard, ANZ Investment Bank.

While we expect gold prices to be increasingly volatile, we believe that the primary risk is to the upside, and our commodity group has already pointed to the potential for slowing Central Bank sales to drive gold higher towards $800 an ounce." - John Bergtheil, JP Morgan Chase

"Investors want to own gold as a non-political, non-national currency." -- David Rosenberg, Merrill Lynch

"Gold is the trade of the decade. . .Therefore, go to the gold window and trade overpriced US assets for gold." - Bill Bonner, Daily Reckoning

"Against a backdrop of corporate scandals and plunging stock markets, the price of gold has climbed by about 20 per cent in the past 18 months. Mining companies' profit margins have grown and anyone with a nest egg of bullion bars is feeling a little safer." - Financial Times

"This is a new era for gold. Investors in gold have been waiting for 30 years for this development. . .a signal last seen in the early 1970s, before the last great gold market." - Market Analyst Ned W. Schmidt

"Gold is the buy of a generation." - Walter Murphy, Merrill Lynch chief analyst

"Gold has been the only real money for 5,000 years and there will be a frantic move to buy it. We are at the very early stages." - Richard Russell, Dow Theory Letters

Here then are the Disturbing Trends likely to push gold even higher in the years to come-- the compelling reasons why Americans need gold now and for the long run. Since this table first appeared, the only thing that has changed is the pace of the negative trends; they are accelerating. Take particular note that after all the rhetoric and negative press about gold, it's performance is roughly equivalent to that of the stock market over the 36 year period of the study. At the same time, as noted by the analysts above, gold is in the beginning stages of a primary bull market while returns in the stock market overall remain uncertain.