Nervy investors spur rush at Swiss gold refiners

Sealed off by grey concrete walls and barbed wire, the workmen in protective glasses and steel-toed boots at this smelter cannot work fast enough to meet demand from the nervous rich for gold.

You gotta love statements like this:

"The fascination with gold has been there since the beginning of civilization," said Schnellmann. "It cannot be explained: you can't eat gold, you cannot build anything resistant with it and yet people want to hoard it."

Oh yeah, smart guy? What's the fascination with paper money then -- that somehow, while having a natural function fitting only to wiping one's bum -- people want to hoard it? Tough contest for gold, which is actually durable and takes a high quantity of labor to produce!