That's true - but many bonds and stocks have yields higher than inflation. I see no reason why gold prices will rise above inflation - it's use doesn't increase. Yes, there has been a slowdown in technological growth in the 21st century and the rapid increase of technology in the 20th century will likely never be repeated. But hopefully interest rates will eventually rise (yield curve is pretty dim tho) and productivity growth will improve (and therefore stocks as a whole).
RE: Why Invest in Gold and Silver?
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Why Invest in Gold and Silver?
"...there has been a slowdown in technological growth in the 21st century..." Have you heard of blockchain technology? Or Artificial Intelligence? Even the internet has had more impact on society in the 21st even though it first arrived in the 20th century. We are just getting started here and the rate of technological advancement is only getting faster. I can already hear the screams from the Luddites who want it all to slow down!
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Why do you think technological advancement is getting faster? Productivity growth is down in developed countries. The innovations you mention have less effect (or at least currently do) than things like refrigeration, antibotics, central heating, flight, phone, computing. In terms of happiness, the 21st century hasn't really had any technological advancements (bar medical ones) which improve happiness (unlike central heating or refrigeration which markedly improved living standards) - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easterlin_paradox. Do you think that productivity growth will soon increase in the future suddenly despite the trend down?
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"Happiness Economics" sounds a bit like lefty pseudo-science to me so you'll have to forgive me for not buying into that.
Productivity is down in developed nations due to globalisation and the shifting of production into the developing or 3rd world. It has been going on for decades now and it is the reason for stagnation in the living wage in the West. Look at global productivity rather than a subset of it and you should see a better trend.
Plus, we are suffering from the increased "Financialisation" of our economies which is not helping productivity OR wages in the developed world. We've actually had anaemic growth since the GFC and have never truly recovered.
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Calling something "lefty pseudo-science" isn't an argument - they use logical reasoning and support it with empirical data. For sure, developing countries productivity growth is much higher. But globalisation should bring increasing productivity - more options for trade. Not sure about financialisation although I'd lean towards agreeing with you. This guy puts the technology point quite well - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Summary-Rise-Fall-American-Growth/dp/1683780485/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1515180995&sr=1-1&keywords=rise+and+fall+of+american+growth
But intuitively, early twentieth century had incredible changes compare the 21st century invention of a smartphone with the invention of phones and telecommunication. Before the phone, people lived in a world confined to their village or town.News spread very slowly. A smartphone is an improvement over a phone, but it's not a completely different uphaul of society (obviously quite hard to define what an "uphaul of society" is though!).
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