If you do any reading on the topic of the year 2000, you'll see a lot of very "informed" people telling you to convert all of your assets into barter goods (which is a fine idea) and gold or silver (which is not such a fine idea). Gold? Silver? The idea, of course, is that paper money and coin have no inherent value, and with the collapse of the Federal reserve system, such currency will be worthless. Gold and silver, apparently, have natural worth.

Hey, wake up people. If you can't eat it, drink it, wear it, or otherwise use it in some practical manner, it has no inherent worth. A thing only has value to a person who believes it has value. A comic book may be worthless to you, but a collector may pay $50 because of its rarity. A .45 caliber bullet is useless to a man with a hunting rifle, but a .308 cartridge may just save his life. People now trade gold because we all agree it is worth something. It's rare, heavy, soft, shiny, and makes nice jewelry. None of these qualities make it really worth anything! And who will decide on the value of gold if the global economy crashes? How is the average person supposed to easily determine the purity of gold offered for trade?

I'm not saying that that paper currency has any more inherent value. Less, actually. But people have spent their entire lives valuing the all-mighty dollar... don't expect that to end just because civilization collapses! With money, at least everyone can attach a number to it. A ten-dollar bill is ten dollars, pure and simple. While not everyone may agree on the value of a dollar after "global chaos", I guarantee you'll get a lot more consensus than on the value of an ounce of gold.

If you want to invest in gold to circumvent the possibility of inflation in the year 2000, then sell when the dollar stabilizes, fine. But don't do it in anticipation of the total collapse of civilization.