Far from an expert — but (perhaps displaying my naiveté. again):

A “thing”, be it a guitar, a bar of gold, or a dollar bill is only worth what someone will give you in trade for it — that dollar bill is worth $1 because we have collectively decided to accept the value assigned to it by our government. (The fact that “value” is a bit subjective and not absolute escapes most of us.)

So-the banking system melts down, doomsday preppers are proven right and your mom digs up that bundle of gold and paper money. Now what? I’d like to buy a cup of coffee, 10 pounds of flour and box of shotgun shells. What value does the hunk of metal and pieces of paper have now?

I’m certainly not all in on blind faith in our financial institutions — except for the uncanny abilities of those who run them to always come out on top — but it seems that if one is preparing for the apocalypse that one should be “investing” in items that will have value in the new order of things.