What the major trading countries hold in gold is anything but "minuscule."
You are cherry picking again by picking what the Apple Computer company is worth.
I repeat: If someone buys gold or silver bullion and simply holds it for decades or even many years then they are more than likely to lose.I agree with you about that. However if they were to buy just one futures contract, because of the leverage involved they could make more in a month or less than someone buying real estate could make in years. eg. a movement of only 20 cents with one silver futures contract is 1,000 USD. I'm not recommending this as they will lose 1,000 USD if the price goes down 20 cents. My point in saying it is, you base your argument on just holding PMs for a long time.
There is also leverage involved in PM shares. Investors can hold them and do well. There is a lot less correlation in the smaller stocks and explorers than the big PM miners but it is still a way of holding something with PMs than just holding bullion.
