Which is why the price of gold is manipulated.
Just wait for the coming recession of 2017 and you'll see what I mean.
The Fed is pulling out close to $2 Trillion from the money supply.
Wall Street is in for a rude awakening.
Digital currency (crypto currency) may be the only answer, but the problem with that is that it is merely peer-to-peer valuations with a limit of $43 billion. (Bitcoin) All gold ever mined is worth around $7.5 to $10 trillion, although estimates vary. As for the U.S. dollar, just the M2 measure of bank money, including checking accounts, puts its worth at $13.5 trillion.
I'm still on board with at least 20% precious metals, for the foreseeable future.
But gold cannot be replicated at will and therefore is a better way of exchanging value over time. One dollar bought almost 20 bottles of Coca-Cola in the 1930s. It now buys less than one. One ounce of gold bought 700 bottles of Coke in the 1930s; it now buys almost 800.