Nemo,
re: "That is the part i have a hard time with."
The point of buying gold is NOT to buy food with when nobody has any food and desperately needs it. As many people have noted, when one is on the cusp of death due to some sort of deprivation (water, food, air), gold is NOT what will be valued. A man dying of thirst in the desert will give all the gold he's got for a glass of water.
Okay? So, gold isn't for THAT purpose.
Gold's purpose is to preserve wealth until normalcy begins to return.
Let me put it another way:
If the dollar loses its value, that's it. Pffft. It will never take on value again.
If gold loses its value, that's NOT it. Unless the world ends, it's a sure bet that gold will be valued highly once again down the road, when the just-trying-to-survive crisis is past.
And, if it's a crisis for some but not all, gold won't lose its value at all. It will be excellent material with which to barter or even bribe.
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