Gold hasn’t been a consistent measure of the cost of anything. There have been swings both up and down relative to any item you could name. It was $800 an ounce in 1980, in 1980 dollars. It was between $250 and $300 an ounce in late 2001. People look for patterns that aren’t there. Has a suit gotten $400 cheaper since gold fell from over $1,600 an ounce to, what, a little over $1,200 an ounce now? No, it hasn’t. It’s an historical safe haven in times of economic turmoil. It runs up leading into and during such times. It falls when the threat is perceived to have passed.
It has been, if you average it out over time. Example: when gold was $300, would you have been smart to have bought it then? Why or why not?