John Exter was a member of the Board of Governors of the United States Federal Reserve System. This is a modern version of Exter's Pyramid. From Wikipedia...
In Exter's scheme, gold forms the small base of most reliable value, and asset classes on progressively higher levels are more risky. The larger size of asset classes at higher levels is representative of the higher total worldwide notional value of those assets.
For people wondering why big money is flowing into gold, this is one possible explanation. When the financial system starting falling apart in 2008, (you could argue 2000), there was a sudden realization that mortgage and asset backed securities, the highest level of derivatives on the pyramid, were not money good. They defaulted en mass. To prevent losses, money fled down the pyramid to stocks, bonds, and cash.
The crash of mortgage derivatives and general debt saturation led to falling real estate values which led to more capital fleeing down the pyramid in search of stable returns and preservation. As the bust affected the broader economy, it led to lower profits, layoffs, and a stock market crash. At this point, a lot of big money had fled into treasury bonds. Now, the US has been downgraded, many sovereign countries are on the verge of default, and there is only one place left to go.
Update: The size of the top layer of the pyramid, financial derivatives, is estimated to have a notional value from 500 trillion to 1 quadrillion. A lot of that is supposed to be netted out, but the problem, as we saw with AIG, is that if one counter party can't meet its obligations, one side of a big net position blows up, and the whole chain detonates. A lot of that phantom money just disappears.
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