why did gold plummet?

Former institutional stockbroker Marcus Padley says he has the answer. "Essentially gold is a 20.4 metre by 20.4 metre by 20.4 metre cube that's all the gold dug up ever in the world," he said. It grows by about 2 per cent per annum, there's hardly any consumption at all, and all that happens is people dance around that cube and decide what it's worth."

This was what the Reserve Bank had to say: "Gold often has a high price because people believe that other people think it's worth a lot," the bank's assistant governor Guy Debelle said at a conference earlier this week.

Perpetual Investment's head of research Matt Sherwood has come up with his own conclusion. "There's probably - other than government bonds - there's no such thing as a safe-haven investment."

My take: Who'd want government bonds as the low interest rate barely keeps pace with inflation. I prefer property and listed Aussie property trusts. Unlike gold, land-based assets pay rents and the rents (and capital values) track inflation caused by government money-printing and debt binges.