why is the price of gold so high?

I am doing a short essay on Why the price of gold is so high these days. What causes the price to be where it is?

Public Comments

1. It is becasue the demand of gold is much higher than the supply the buyers of gold will compete by offering to pay more for a unit of gold. This makes the price higher.
2. It is not so much gold that is high, it is a seriously devalued dollar & inflation associated with the cheap dollar. When the dollar decreases in value, then the price of commodities the dollar is used to purchase will appear to rise.
3. Gold has always been a safe haven for investors unsure about the stock markets, real estate, and the weakening dollar(sounds like the US today doesn't it?). Bad news in these sectors tend to cause gold prices to rise (which makes speculators like me very happy). The law of supply and demand causes the price to rise as investors buy gold. In places like India and Dubai, people love to wear gold and since their economies are booming due manufacturing and oil, the population buys more jewelry which further drives up the prices of gold. Gold, unlike silver and other base metals, doesn't have much of an industrial use. (Silver prices suffered due to Kodak's declining sales as consumers switched from film to digital cameras). Gold used to back currency. Today, it is used as a means of storing personal wealth.
4. Actually it is low . In 1984 gold reached 850 dollars an ounce . Now figure in inflation sense then ? I get some where around 2500 an ounce . It has been manipulated for a numbers of years . Watch it when they can no longer manipulated the price of gold .