Loved your article but a question to dollarvigilante, did you add the dividends payed by DJ to your calculation?
On December 31st, 1999, gold closed at $290.25. As of today it is trading at $1327.80. That is a percentage gain in the last 16 years of 357%! Compare that to the Dow Jones, which closed the 20th century at 11497 and currently is at 18085 for a gain of only 57.3%.