If you had $1.50 in 1945 and held it until today, you'd have $1.50. Problem is, in 1945 it would have bought you lunch for a week, and today it would buy you one miniature fast food hamburger.<p>My parents tell me tales of my great grandparents who didn't trust the banks and probably buried money in the yard near where I live. If they buried it in cash, well, it wouldn't be a very impressive sum today.<p>That same $1.50 invested at 3%, you'd have... $12.22 today. A little better, but inflation's still pretty rough. You'd have been better off buying that pair of overalls in 1945.<p>Now, $1.50 worth of gold in 1945 would be worth $57-ish today, so if my great grandparents didn't trust the greenback either, then that theoretical coffee can is worth something. But don't take that as investment advice; the dollar price of gold went through the roof when the dollar was taken off the gold standard (go figure) and that's not going to happen twice.