Invest in paper if you want to make money. Buy gold and keep it on hand if you want financial security. It's the only thing that has survived every time of discord for thousands of years. It has always had a high value to volume ratio. Governments, try as they might, can't make it worthless, and that's why they hate it.
But ... it IS virtually worthless. The entire valuation system is a charade. It's a manipulated market. If every governmental bank that is currently stocking gold decided tomorrow that they were going to exchange every ounce of gold metal they own for one pound of pig dung ... pig dung would be worth $314 a pound and that valuation would be every bit as valid as the current valuation of an ounce of gold today. Pig dung has no rational basis for commanding $314 for a one pound mass. But, if pigs stopped dunging and the supply of pig dung was tightly controlled by economically reckless entities (governments) ... that price would hold. So ... let's go to a pig dung currency standard!!! The Vatican and Queen Mother are up to their eyeballs in it! It's ridiculous to me, but I admit that I do not get macroeconomics ... money supply etc.