Gold surpasses $500. an ounce after a long slumber and it is still one of the worlds greatest bargains. Every day it is becoming more evident that stocks, bonds, and property in America and most of the Anglo-Saxon world are propped up on borrowed money and borrowed time.

In the last half of 2005 alone, U.S. households spent well over $500 billion more than their after-tax earnings. How is this possible? By borrowing of course. About half of that money came from “equity extraction.” The present home owner generation is living off the perceived increase value of their houses. These poor householders are starting to get a clue. They thought they really could get rich by buying and selling each other's houses at inflated prices and then borrowing against it. Well, putting on the dog and out doing the Jones' was fun while it lasted. However, if you can still find a greater fool, now is the time to sell and find a nice inexpensive rental accommodation, or buy one of the rapidly growing heavily depreciated repos now on the market, and invest the rest in gold.

You need to protect yourself NOW from the biggest one year loss of wealth in the history of the world. Does this statement get your attention? Many western economies have participated in this gigantic fraud of escalating house evaluations as evidence of economic growth, relying on greed and bogus money supply to stoke the fires of the greater fool theory and thus give the illusion of prosperity. As a result house sticker prices kept going up and up in most cities, while in reality the true value has actually been going down. Skeptical huh. What is true value you say?

Remember, world economies have been off the gold standard now for over 35 years, ever since tricky Dick Nixon unpegged the US dollar from gold as a means of surreptitiously stimulating a sagging economy of the time. Adhering to the Gold Standard, the medium of exchange backed by gold, forced politicians and bankers to be accountable.

Money today is not based on anything tangible or of intrinsic value. It has only a perceived fungible value at whatever level skittish traders and speculators say it is. Politicians and central bankers since Nixon have been free to print fiat money (a piece of paper with numbers on it) at their whim without control or restraint to keep their game afoot. These currencies have since been played off each other as in a worldly game of monopoly. One clue of impending doom is the fact that every fool with greed in his heart can now trade currencies online.

As the unmasking of the great deception accelerates, countries with manageable debt and natural resources will see their currencies decline slower in relation to the US dollar, but all currencies will decline in relation to, you guessed it, Gold.

Like any expanding bubble, there comes a point where it can expand no more, and the subsequent resizing is shockingly fast. These is no new economic model in play that now guarantees perpetual prosperity or even status quo, despite what vested interests and their spin doctors would have you believe. When push comes to shove, paper and electronic blips won't cut it. As the saying goes, BS walks, and the age old measure of real value called Gold, will be what talks.

If you played this oneupmanship real estate game with your friends and countrymen, your house is worth far less than you know. In fact, your house is losing value daily as you may now realize. When it becomes front page headlines, it will be too late. All the greater fools will have already been fooled with no one left to bail you out. Unfortunately, it will not be just the nouveau rich who will feel the pain. Their shortsighted greed, encouraged by unscrupulous appraisers lenders and politicos, will bring down the rest of the economy as well, precipitating the demise of many types of paper assets.

Americans in particular now owe far more money to far more people than can ever be paid back. They have bigger houses, newer cars, more electronic gadgets and a smug attitude to go with it. But they also have more bills to pay and no more money to pay them with. Much the same scenario as their government that purports to lead.

The U.S. government has borrowed more money from foreigners in the last eight years than all previous administrations since the time of George Washington. During the current US administration, the feds have borrowed more than $1.05 trillion from foreign governments and banks. This is more than all the rest of the nation's administrations put together from 1776 to 2000. Oh, the costs of empire building and the waging of patriotic wars to free people so they can be more like us.

Consider the fact, that despite a flat or even negative earnings picture in overall stocks in recent years, bonuses paid to managers on Wall Street and high salaries throughout corporate America including G.M., are obscene. This is but more evidence that we have reached a late, degenerate stage of an imperial economy. The sun has not set yet, but its final glow is about to descend beyond the horizon.

The companies that make the most money these days are those that shuffle money - not those that make things people want to buy. And throughout the entire society, everyone participates in what has become an orgy of swindle and delusion. The practitioners of this prevarication call it salesmanship. At best it is entertainment. Not value or substance, but mindless triviality, delusion or false expectations. At worst, psychological manipulation to create frivolous desire, leaving the weak minded and undisciplined open to unbridled theft. Just add up how much interest you are paying on your car, your house, your credit cards and everything else you have been induced to believe is necessary for a successful life. The barbarians are at your door and benefiting mightily from your labors. The rich have indeed been getting richer while the consumer blindly signs on the dotted line.

The mantra of the private sector through its advertising is ‘get it while you can' despite the fact that this attitude is crushing the hopes and aspirations of the next generation. Previous generations attempted to leave the world a better place then they found it for their offspring. Now, the young and the unborn are saddled with an insurmountable mountain of debt and who cares. I've got mine you say...but do you really, when the charade unravels? What are you going to do...who are you going to call? Be prepared for painful dislocation and introspection.

It will be the minority of savvy and erudite investors who pause to take notice that the emperor has no clothes. It will be the astute who shed themselves of the attractive burdens they have accumulated and put at least some of what is still marketable into gold. It will be the shrewd and brave who have the resources in the form of universally accepted coin, gold, to live reasonably well during the shakeout and to pick up the bargains for literally pennies on the dollar when the storm finally passes.

The fact is, most people no matter how well meaning or educated, fail to learn from the lessons of History. They go through life with blinders on content with petty self-interest. Nero fiddles while Rome burns. These are among the reasons why gold is going to go up more, no doubt, a whole lot more. Owning gold bullion or gold coins is decidedly a happy thought.