I've tried, but I still don't understand derivatives. Can anyone suggest a good definition?
I agree with Pericles about precious metals, like currency trading, the price of buying and selling is very different, add to that the 'brokerage' and most of the profit evaporates when you sell. However, there's no need to go totally bush, Pericles, a block of land well within coo-ee of a town with a coffee shop that accepts credit cards, is still a good idea, one can grow vegetables, become fit and healthy and create a reasonable buffer, if only psychological.
The USA reserve bank the other day said not to worry about the debt as they would print more money to cover it. And these are the guys who sneered at "Social Credit".
I wonder what will finally trigger the collapse of economies; social collapse due to Global warming, or the machinations of the banksters. [Nice word that, thanks to whoever invented it.] or

Pericles hit the mark with what will a hungry banker do while sitting
on a pile of gold ?
Starve !

Arjay has also made a point that money is all that gets considered,
but money is meaningless. Some economists are finally waking up to the
realisation that it is energy that drives the economy NOT money !
Money is what you use to buy your energy.
During inflation energy retains its value as money loses its value.
If Arjay is right about the derivities, even just partly right, then
we are in for real problems as the value of energy increases and its
availability decreases.

Pericles

I don't think you should buy gold to get rich. All it does is provide an insurance against the debasement of paper currency which has no intrinsic value. Gold cannot offer a dividend although banks get a small return when they hypothecate it. Like land or property or other hard assets it retains its value over time. It tends to buy the same amount, unlike paper which loses it value as it is printed in ever increasing volume (inflation) Gold has the advantage that it is fungible, is restricted in availability (cannot be manufactured) it has no counter party risk and is accepted in every country of the world. If you buy it, buy the physical in allocated form, not the exchange traded funds as they have counter part risk. Another option is to buy the company securities and have a portion of the mines. They are very cheap at the moment. I am sure if you wanted to buy a cup of coffee you would be able to on credit, and then it would be acceptable to pay off the larger amount with a gold coin !

A sovereign contains roughly one quarter of an ounce of gold so the content (disregarding collectors value) might be worth around $400 It wouldn't be hard to find someone to give you the value in kind.

The point of the original gold standard was that paper was backed by gold. Now it isn't.

Pericles, I hate to correct you, but there are only 12 Oz to a pound of gold, not 16.

On the subject of money, when are the powers to be going to wake up and realize that taxing transaction is the answer to many problems.

Under the current tax system, money gets taxed once, and that's if deductions don't make a supposed profit, into a loss, whereas money changes hands hundreds of times, so can collect a VERY SMALL tax, each and every time, for ever long as it is in circulation.

Now, the ting that puzzles me is that in the early/mid 80's, Japan was strong, our dollar was about 75US cents, I think, yet one of our dollars bought roughly 130 Japanese yen. JY.

So here's the puzzling bit, our dollar is now about 102US cents, about a 35% increase,Japan is broke, yet our high dollar buys less than 100 JY.

Why is this?

Snake, we are discussing the "Mother of all economic collapses".
The only thing of value will be food and or energy.
Gold will be useless during the collapse but may be of value after
a recovery of some form takes place.

I suggest that if you want to read some well informed and thought out
fiction on the subject read James Kunstlers World Made by Hand and then
his Witch of Hebron.
It is US orientated but still directly applicable after the collapse.
I found both in my local library, so they are likely to be widely
available or they can get them in for you.

Rechub, it is the inflation from all the US money printing.

I am sure Arjay will enjoy this link and it does show what a nonsense
the US financial system has become.

http://kunstler.com/blog/2013/03/fortress-of-lies.html