Yes, I've looked at gold also. Of course, if it gets bad enough, the government will execute another type of Executive Order 6102 as they did during the Depression. But, it certainly does help in the interim.
http://www.itulip.com/forums/archive/index.php?t-495.html
No one knows for sure what might happen during the next recession, but here’s a scenario. Let’s say there is a crisis that causes a sudden drop in consumers' access to credit and a corresponding decline in demand. A U.S. war with Iran and sympathetic withholding of oil by Venezuela that causes a spike in the price of oil to $200 a barrel would do it. Interest rates will rise and credit will tighten, reducing the flow of credit to the median household that has come to rely on it to compensate for loss of wage income. We’d then have a situation not unlike the early 1930s, with an economy comprised of a few million rich unable to generate sufficient demand in the economy to employ several hundred million without access to the credit they use to pay the bills.
When FDR took over in 1933, he had a similar problem. Thousands of very rich buying super cars cannot generate enough demand to employ millions of workers. The problem was not unique to the U.S. but was global, just as housing and other related credit bubbles today are not unique to the U.S. Both eras’ stock market and credit bubbles produced wealth inequality. The economic crisis that followed turned this inequality into a political nightmare. The way it was addressed in parts of Europe was the wholesale redistribution of wealth in Communist movements. There was a period in the early 1930s when many were convinced that a Communist movement was all but inevitable in the U.S. In his memiors, Alistair Cooke noted that he came to the U.S. from the UK to cover the Communist revolution that was at hand, seeing this as a once in a lifetime career opportunity for a young journalist.
Political developments overseas made FDR’s solution an easier sell to the wealthy elite in the U.S. when he came into office. The U.S. president that follows the administration that follows the Bush II administration, take note.
FDR offered the top 1% in American society a better option than Communism: "Turn in your gold and the government we will pay you in currency which we will then inflate. The impact will be that your money will be put back into circulation to get the economy moving and we’ll get the banking system working again. Everyone wins, and it’s a better deal than the creditor class is getting in, say, Hungary. This will cost you only 30% of the purchasing power of your wealth."
Most responded by voluntarily turning in their gold to the government in exchange for currency. To take care of stragglers, Executive Order 6102 was issued in April 1933 (repealed in 1975), making private gold ownership illegal in the U.S. This law was intended to keep bankers from cutting deals with their wealthy clients. Once the government had the gold, they marked it up from $20 to $35 an ounce. At once, a 30% inflation occurred to halt the deflation that had been crippling the economy.