Bigworld, Jim Rickards is right about gold eventually, but predicting when it will actually happen is the problem.
In his scenario he says the big gold runup will start "as soon as paper gold contract holders demand physical gold in settlement". But the big imbalance between paper gold and physical gold (100 to 1) has been around for years without triggering a stampede of demands for physical gold at settlement. With your brother being at the CME, you might be able to get a heads up in the early stages when the stampede begins.
But a key factor going against gold in the near/mid term (besides the usual central bank suppression) would be a more hawkish Fed and resulting higher dollar. Last week Rickards posited the argument for the new Fed Governors being even more hawkish on raising rates than the current hawkish Fed. So the dollar would presumably resume its rise and be a headwind for gold, all other things being equal.
But the 'all other things being equal' part is the big question. Trump has been lurching from scandal to scandal, but soon it could be from crisis to crisis. At the rate things are going, how long before Trump finds himself engulfed in serious chaos overseas to go along with the growing domestic chaos.
The best approach is probably to just be diversified, since no one has a crystal ball. Rickards only recommends 10% in gold, though he has mentioned possibly raising it to 15%. He has the rest in other real assets like land and art, and recently mentioned jewelry and diamonds.
I'd say having some paid for real estate would be preferable to paper assets when it all hits the fan. Real estate may be inflated in some parts of the country, but at the end of the crisis you'd own the exact same building as before, and would thus have preserved your wealth at a time when paper assets are evaporating.
