In times of falling equity or commodity markets, rising bond yields, inflation or increasing risk aversion, gold shines.

FORBES: FOCUS: Financial Market Break Revives Memories of 2008

In fact, so ingrained is the aversion to inflation, that some economists argue that the credibility of central bankers is the problem.

BBC: Budget 2013: Radical options for the UK economy

With health-care inflation outstripping the ordinary kind and an increasing aversion to higher taxes, Britons' extraordinarily low level of private spending on health may have to change.

ECONOMIST: Health-care reform