I prefer the market setting the values of any commodity, good, or service over some central committee in some far off city.
Gold prices like just about everything else, are almost certainly being manipulated by governments and central banks.
http://www.hardassetsinvestor.com/interviews/1604-bill-murphy-manipulation-of-the-gold-market.html
Even with the manipulation, market swings, and etc. Gold and silver are far better mediums of exchange than fiat currencies. The only thing better might one day prove to be cryptocurrency.
An ounce of silver buys 60% less than it did a bit over 2 years ago. Gold, about 37% less over the same time-frame.
Big deal, how much has the price of gasoline swung since O has been in office? 100%? In the long run, PMs have maintained their purchasing power far better than any fiat in existence, including the dollar.
In the above '38 COL price list, one dollar (worth 1 ounce of silver - which btw, I think should be in "weights" instead of some arbitrary value) purchases TWO gallons of milk. Today, it takes about $5 to buy 1 gallon of "milk". That's 1/10 of the dollar's milk (btw, cheap mass produced watered down milk) purchasing ability. A silver dollar today buys four gallons of today's cheap milk.
The above tells me all I need to know to figure where the fiat dollar is headed. A couple of 50% price swings in PMs doesn't begin to compare with how much the dollar has depreciated. But then using argument to make your point was disingenuous at best and pretty much how you been pushing you vaulted fiat system.