Is gold really golden?

One would have thought 5,000 or so years would be enough to decide an argument but it turns out that gold's utility as an investment is still not a settled matter. There's the traditional view of gold, that it's simple and useful investment, a protection against bad times, and all households should invest in it. Those who believe this think that gold is an easily liquifiable form of wealth that can also be relied upon to gain value. Another, more modern view is that gold is a commodity to be traded just like other commodities, which is not of much use to the individual saver. The third view, to which I subscribe, is that gold can legitimately be seen as an i