Once a person starts "valuing" things in something of of value other than the dollar, it changes the perception of value. Once a person starts looking at things that we have to consume in our daily lives as the numeraire it starts showing the blatant devaluation of the dollar over many, many years. The very thing that should hold value, our money, is instead loosing value. Precious metals have had the tendency to hold their value over time (with violent aberrations occasionally) so when people look at their price priced in dollars, they view the precious metals as being in a bubble or over priced when in reality they are only showing the declining value of the currency they are being measured with.

It is hard to measure something accurately with a yard stick that the inches are constantly getting closer and closer together. In such a case, it would be better to determine the yardstick broken, rather than the person being measured getting taller. Such is the case for gold.

John