“Financial innovation in the last few years has been extremely strong and powerful,” as Gilles Gilcenstein, head of asset management at BNP Paribas, put it in late 2006. We’ve now seen this bubble in complex and novel investments bite back.

The global credit crunch first bit when the alphabet soup of MBS, CDOs, CDS and ABCP turned sour as the US mortgage market turned down.

These instruments thrive in the opaque, off-balance-sheet environment of modern financial engineering.

But transparency is important. The modern world has audited accounts, and open exchanges, and ‘public’ companies for a good reason: because previous generations understood that when investment stops being open and transparent, and reverts to cosy secret deals, complex contracts, and big executive bonuses, then it is general investors who get cheated. Transparency helps stop these problems developing.

In stark contrast to the burgeoning complexity of modern securities markets gold investment remains uniquely simple, and – dealt the right way – uniquely transparent.

A solid gold investment sets you free from the risk of credit default or banking failures.