I am so glad your head is not in the sand Philip S and you have exactly the right ideas over holding Gold as the one secure holding. The problem Arjay with opals and diamonds is that they are much harder to cash in and they cannot be divided into smaller parts.
More serious is to try and think what will be the trigger for the collapse. Will it be the default of Greece or bankruptcy of one or other of the minor oil economies like Venezuela or perhaps Nigeria. Or a new Arab Spring. Or will the Chinese decide that they are fed up with being the manufacturer for all the worlds goods and currently being paid in fiat currency that can be printed at will. When they have accumulated enough gold,will they turn round and make the renminbi convertible.

Your guess is as good as mine as to what the trigger will be.

Everyone with half a brain knows something is wrong, but the bankers, puppet politicians and paid for credit ratings agencies are so good at making a pile of crap look good all one can do is sit back and wait.

With the G20 bail in rules I see it sooner than later.

The Chinese currency in convertible with a few of the Major currencies now.

According to Dave Hodges the banker "bail ins" have already begun.
http://www.thecommonsenseshow.com/2014/12/30/american-bank-bail-ins-beginning/

The basic rules of capitalism have been distorted ever since Britain changed from the system to pay for the 1914 war and Winston Churchill failed to put it back in 1926 at the right rate and made the depression worse.
The basic rules of capitalism cannot work if some people, in particular central bankers are allowed to print unlimited amounts of fiat money. Lord Keynes would be appalled if he could see how what he envisaged as an only temporary experimental increase in money supply has been stretched. There has to be an independent arbiter controlling the quantity of whatever we use as ‘money’ to facilitate the exchange of goods. Something as intrinsically valueless as gold fills the bill pretty well. It is not particularly fair to the rest of the world as Australia is digging up appreciable new supplies every year but to paraphrase Winston’s comment on democracy “It has been said that the gold standard is the worst form of money except all the others that have been tried”.
The nineteenth century was the century of the ‘Gold Standard’ and yes it had its fair share of booms and busts but there was practically no inflation and one pound had broadly the same purchasing power at both the beginning and the end.

Dickybird, if that's what the basic rules of capitalism are then we're much better off without them! The gold standard only keeps people in poverty, and results in huge amounts of resources being wasted on acquiring gold. Far from being appalled at the increasing money supply, Keynes would have been appalled that countries are again implementing austerity policies at a time of high unemployment.

Money is a great servant but a terrible master. Linking it to gold hampers its ability to serve you and forces you to adjust your policies to serve it.

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Arjay it's your own cognitive dissonance that you need to work on curing.

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Philip S, while you're reliant on the misinformation of conspiracy websites, your denial that your head is in the sand is not plausible.

QE is a very inefficient way of getting money into an economy, but it's better than nothing. Government spending of course a much better approach. But to say they could just print the money is a bit misleading: to control the inflationary impact of their spending, the government (or the central bank, which is in government ownership) will have to pay some interest). Except maybe if their spending is so low and their stimulus so ineffective that they're having to run a zero interest rate policy.

Why, and how far, do you think the US dollar would crash if the gold price rises?

Aidan you appear to have got it all the wrong way round. What evidence do you have that the Gold Standard “keeps people in poverty” In fact the nineteenth century was enormously successful in lifting people out of poverty. Probably if you take inflation into account it was better than the Twentieth. Where are your “huge amounts of resources being wasted on acquiring gold” If the Fed Reserve had been forced to buy gold to match their printed fiat dollars, the price of gold would be around $40k per Oz. Of course in the unlikely event that they will be forced into covering their errors then you might be right !
Your last para starting with “QE” indicates that you may be falling into socialist errors
“ the government will have to pay some interest). Except maybe if their spending is so low and their stimulus so ineffective that they're having to run a zero interest rate policy.” We are already suffering from incredible excess of spending in the form of fiat money being created, not for any quasi legitimate purpose on improving infrastructure, but on bailing out (or In, whichever you prefer) financial outfits which should have been left to collapse like Lehman Bros and LCTM.