Actually gold is generally regarded by most economists as an expensive luxury. While it is a flee resource (something that people buy when they are nervous so they invest in something that is "safe" and permenent i.e. gold) and useful to individuals and companies. At the macro economic level building up a realistic gold reserve is massively expensive (e.g. the US would need to buy up 2/3rds of the world supply of gold to get back onto the gold standard, impossible) and wouldn't be all that useful in a a crisis.