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What is the byproduct of gold. Is it earnings, dividends, interest? No?

Well, then for the same reason as buying gold, you might as well by used bricks, gravel, copper, cords of wood, rubber bands, or whatever.

The only allure of gold, is the mystique behind it. Like any commodity, it only appreciates via inflation, supply, demand, or currency loss of the nation which you live in.

With a rental property you get income, stocks you get ownership and dividends, bonds you get interest. But with gold you just get an object...

Granted, you could buy a goldmining company, that makes its business in selling objects, no different than buying a gravel company.

What is the byproduct of gold. Is it earnings, dividends, interest? No?

No, no no - the entire point of a diversified portfolio or benefits of asset allocation correct? In some way its absurd - investing in money? Isn't that what gold is? Or currency speculation, then. But wait - excepting gold isn't money anymore, which is presumably why banks keep it locked up underground. Hm. Being nominally stripped of any monetary role, then I suppose it is pointless to try and make 100 per cent sense out this (ha ha) To be fair it should be pointed out that gold certainly paid interest far longer than not. It was only upon the US leaving a coin standard in the 30s (along with everyone else) though it was actually illegal for Americans to posess monetary gold. "Gold Bonds" became illegal as well. Presumably it is lawful to pay gold interest or enter into contracts payable in gold. What people are saying when they want to "invest in gold" is essentially saying they want to keep their money in a form other than USD or EU or YEN or whatever. Stupid, maybe, but it's not really an investment as such. What we are talking about, stripped of the jargon, is the unit of account, so that a transaction/contract has meaning over time in particular. "I'm investing in the metric system" is just as valid a statement in that sense. The conspiracy nutjobs jump the shark, not because they are necessarily mistaken about some aspects of modern finance, but simply because they are reneging on debts they have already contracted for, which is bad form no matter what! There's an interesting story that you can look up on findlaw: "On June 27, 1917 John Trostel entered into a lease agreement with Morris and Jacob Joseph for commercial property in Des Moines, Iowa.(1) The second paragraph of the lease set the amount of annual rent at $12,000 for the first five years of the lease, $15,000 for the next 49 years, and $18,000 for the remaining 45 years. It also provided that "at the option of the lessor, all payments under this lease shall be made in gold coin of the United States of America, of or equal to the present standard of weight and fineness." "In a separate paragraph, ninety days written notice was required as a condition precedent to the right of the lessor to demand payment in gold. Prior to the Depression era, gold clauses such as this were often included in long term rental agreements as a sort of price- indexing mechanism to protect a lessor from the effects of inflation." The plaintiff or whatever won - somebody paid attention to the lease, the fine print - $18,000 yearly rent for an entire building isn't quite the same today as it was in 1917, is it? In this instance, gold acted perfectly in maintaining the gist of the contract don't you agree?