Him: Are you still into Euros?

Me: Yes, why?

Him: Well, the value of the Euro against the usano dollar has dropped 15% in the last few weeks.

Me: Yup.

Him: Aren't you concerned?

Me: Yes, of course. In retrospect I wish I had bought gold, silver or Australian dollars last year but being a usano living in the middle of nowhere, that hasn't been an option.

Him: Huh? I don't understand. What does gold have to do with anything?

Me: Well, let's say the value of gold is what we used as a "constant". Let's say I had $100,000 to play with in January 2002.

• If I had bought gold I would have something worth $428,000.
• If I had bought Euros I would have $135,000.
• I had ought Australian dollars I would have $167,500.
• If I had bought a house in the US in 2002 I would have something that I probably couldn't sell but, if I could, maybe I could sell it for $100,000.
• If I had bought a new car in 2002, today I might have something worth $40,000.

The only really sad thing is that I did have $100,000 to play with in 2002 and I didn't buy gold. How did you do?