I agree GLD is manipulated. I imagine it's pretty hard to manipulate physical gold once you take delivery, I suppose it could be stolen which won't affect the market price.
My point is that gold itself can't be manipulated, like land they aren't making any more of it.
They aren't making more of it... did all the gold mines close overnight?
Gold can be manipulated. The purity can be tampered with, supply can be choked, gold rich nations who choose not to trade would suddenly be full of terrorists justifying invasion by the US and NATO.
Gold prices fluctuate the same as any other commodity.
Currencies are tracked against each other, economies do not experience crashes simply because their currencies aren't linked to gold. If this were the case then the great depression would never have happened.