Honest question: Why is gold considered a good investment?

[Capitalocracy]

6. If you bought gold a few years ago, you would've made a hefty profit.

It has gone up quite a bit. But it's definitely not a stable or safe investment... as a matter of fact, it's likely that one of the major reasons it's gone up so much is because of its popularity among people who don't understand how it works.

People think gold will be the only valid currency when everything turns to shit, apparently. And recently I discovered what might be one of the reasons why: apparently there are some who believe God has given gold and silver an intrinsic value as currency. This means nothing in the current economy, it's just another commodity on the market that goes up or down, and often quite drastically quite quickly, which makes good money for speculators but certainly not a safe long-term investment, but there's a lot of money to be made scamming people, like Glenn Beck and Goldline have done, marketing gold coins at a cost well above their melt value while "advising" customers that they are a good investment.

Here's a gold seller talking about how God declared that gold and silver will always have value as currency even during the End Times on The David Pakman Show, w/transcript and video: http://subscriptorium.com/557/2samples/1pakman