Fun with Charts

Here's a chart I created that reproduces the chart in this article. If you bought both Gold and BRK-A in January 1998, the comparative gains would look like this:
 

 
However, if you had bought Gold and BRK-A in January 1990, the comparative gains would look like this:
 

 
Obviously, choosing your date ranges makes for significant differences in performance. Gold bugs will want to focus on the first chart. The anti-gold faction will prefer the second.
 
But what if we turn things on their head a bit?
 
"Gold Bugs" may be separated into two groups: gold investors and hard money advocates. The investors will be disheartened by the second chart above, but hard money advocates will not be impressed with either since they're not relevant to the issue that concerns them.
 
What if we think of it this way: suppose we took all our investment capital in 1990 and bought gold at $410.49 in January. Every subsequent year, we decide to purchase a share of Birkshire Hathaway if the value of our gold is not greater than the USD price of BRK. If a USD investor bought a single share every year, whose portfolio would be better off?