Gold was valuable when the first paper currency was created and when it died. Gold is still valuable today, 600 dead currencies later.

A history of fiat currencies showed that nearly 600 paper currencies no longer exist. The usual reason was that those currencies were printed to excess by governments or banking authorities. If you live in the United States, Europe, Japan or the UK this might sound familiar.
As a side note, gold was valuable when the first paper currency was created and when it died. Gold is still valuable today, 600 dead currencies later.

If the financial and political elite could increase their wealth and power more effectively with a gold standard, then the gold standard would still be in use, paper currencies would not be printed to excess, and money would remain controlled and honest. Obviously the powers-that-be prefer the current financial system.

The financial system is unlikely to materially change without trauma. Catastrophic failure is possible. Don’t expect gold to crash in price or disappear. About 3 Billion Asians and their governments will disagree if you think gold is no longer important. Note the following graph which shows gold demand in China and India.
image: http://goldsilverworldscom.c.presscdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/chindia_2008_June_2015.png

http://goldsilverworlds.com/economy/gold-versus-the-status-quo/

Gold: The US sets the price but Asia does the buying

It seems illogical that gold price movement seems to be dominated by US internal factors while most gold trade is elsewhere.

LONDON – What’s driving the gold price? At the moment it seems to be a succession of knee-jerk reactions to U.S financial data which push the gold price up or down, depending on the perception as to whether the data will likely bring the US Fed’s proposed interest rate rise programme forward or move it backwards. It really isn’t a logical situation – but where’s the logic in the precious metals markets anyway? To many, gold is a relatively underutilised metal which works well as jewellery, but nowadays has little else going for it apart from a long history of monetary usage which nowadays may have had its time. Bankers and economists discount its usefulness as such.
But much of the world still sees gold as the ultimate money and wealth protector and curiously, given the amount of bad press and supposed economic downgrading suggested by much of the financial establishment, the world’s top economic institutions – namely the world’s central banks – are still loath to part with it. The central banks of the US, Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands – even Greece, Venezuela and Cyprus– hold over 50% of their foreign exchange reserves in gold according to IMF official statistical data. Indeed the US holds some 73.7% of its reserves in gold. Meanwhile some central banks which now see themselves deficient in the amount of gold they hold – of which perhaps the most significant is Russia – are buying gold to add to their reserves. Not bad for a metal apparently with no monetary purpose nowadays.

http://www.mineweb.com/news/gold/gold-the-u-s-sets-the-price-but-asia-does-the-buying/

Time to buy gold and silver as central bank data finally shows inflation is coming
http://www.arabianmoney.net/gold-silver/2015/06/11/time-to-buy-gold-and-silver-as-central-bank-data-finally-shows-inflation-is-coming/
Breaking from the Gold Standard Had Disastrous Consequences
image: http://67.19.64.18/news/2015/6-11fh/image002.png

http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1434038487.php