Paul Wong believed in the Golden State Warriors when few other people did.

That’s why no one took the 35-year-old Alameda restaurant owner seriously when he started handing out signs at the Oracle Arena in Oakland that read, “We Believe.”

Now the fans do believe and Wong’s two words have become a mantra. Thousands of people now sport bright yellow T-shirts emblazoned with “We Believe” across their chests. They hold up signs and collectively chant the phrase as they cheer on the Warriors through the playoffs.

“I feel really proud, to be honest,” Wong said. “Everyone’s sharing that thought. The more people who have the same thought cheering on the Warriors, the further this team will go.”

Wong’s own faith in the Warriors has been tested since he became a fan in 1980 and as a season-ticket holder for eight seasons. He has watched them go down in flames enough times to know that it can happen again. Yet he keeps coming back, rooting for the Warriors as if the past doesn’t matter.

It was after a win against the Detroit Pistons in March when Wong slapped together a sign that read “We Believe Playoff” and held it over his head during a home game against the Denver Nuggets.

In subsequent games, he handed out “We Believe” signs to anyone who would take them. Few did, and some even handed them back to him. Wong started seeking out children because they seemed to be the only ones who responded.

As the Warriors advanced to the playoffs for the first time in 13 years and toppled the top-seeded Dallas Mavericks against all odds, “We Believe” suddenly caught on. Wong no longer pushed signs into people’s hands. Instead they sought him out in Section 121 of the arena.

“All the fans, they’re like a stove with a pilot light and I was the match,” he said.

Wong went from printing 150 signs for one game to 300 signs for another to 4,000 by the end of the regular season. He designed 50 T-shirts with the “We Believe” logo and then upped the count to 150. All told, he has spent $5,000 of his own money and turned down an offer by the Warriors organization to compensate him.

“I wanted this to be strictly through a fan’s perspective,” Wong said.

Comcast cut a deal with the Warriors to distribute a fancier version of the “We Believe” T-shirt in a deeper yellow with the company’s logo on the back. The free T-shirts went out to 20,000 fans at each of the two home games against Dallas. They are being handed out to 20,000 more at each of the home games against the Utah Jazz.

“We’re just excited,” said Lorena Hernandez, a spokeswoman for Comcast. “It’s just incredible to see this sea of golden shirts.”

Kristin Conte, a spokeswoman for the NBA, said the Warriors official playoff T-shirt is now the top seller at the NBA online store. The amount spent on Warrior gear is up 126 percent in the playoffs compared with the regular season.

But the purists have flocked to Wong’s restaurant, the Hawaiian Drive Inn in Alameda, where he sells his original T-shirt for $15. It bears no logos, just the words, “We Believe” and “Go Warriors” on the front and “Playoffs” on the back. He has a waiting list of 75 people.

“I feel guilty as it is, but I had to pay for the cost to get it done,” Wong said.

He calls his restaurant Belief Central, decking it with Warriors paraphernalia. And he shows up to all the Warrior home games with a new sign in hand. In Game 6 against Dallas, he held up one that read, “It Ends Tonight,” convinced that there would be no Game 7. And there wasn’t.

Wong said fans around him now look to him for inspiration. “I’m like their little lucky charm,” he joked.

On Friday, he planned to carry a sign with the words “We Will Prevail” as the Warriors tried to pull themselves out of a hole against the Utah Jazz.

A die-hard fan, Wong will not even consider the possibility of defeat even though he has seen it happen many times before.

“In this series, it’s not if we’re going to win — it’s when we’re going to win,” he said. “I think this journey is going to end at some point, but until it happens, I don’t have to worry about it.”

E-mail Pia Sarkar at psarkar@sfchronicle.com.

March 2, 2008 — At a time when major airlines are charging $7,000 for first-class flights from New York to London, a pair of smaller carriers are betting they can fly high with prices one-fourth of what the majors charge.

SilverJet and Eos offer flights from New York-area airports to terminals outside London, and feature such posh amenities as menus designed by fine restaurants, suites with seats that can be fully horizontal and free showers once you arrive in the UK. The cost: around $1,800 round-trip.

But offering the biggest bang for the buck brings with it a lot of turbulence.

Both airlines offer just two flights a day to London, while the majors have as many as 10 daily flights.

SilverJet CEO Lawrence Hunt says that rising jet fuel costs have led to higher fares, but he said he expects SilverJet’s load factor should reach 70 percent in March. The airline needs an average of 65 percent of seats filled in order to break even.

But a larger issue for both SilverJet and EOS could be the track record of niche airlines - which is enough to make anyone airsick. Over the years, a number of start-up airlines have come and gone with plans for catering to high-end travelers, only to find themselves grounded by the realities of a very competitive marketplace.

The most recent casualty is MAXjet, which pitched itself as an airline offering business-class flights between the US and UK for a fraction of what the big guys charged. MAXjet shut down in December - due in part to fuel costs.

March 2, 2008 — As both individual and institutional investors get scorched by the choppiness of the stock and bond markets, many are turning to that which glitters - gold.

And who can blame them?

With the threat of so-called “stagflation” - a condition when the economy slows down at the same time that inflation rises - emerging for the first time in 30 years, traditionally safe places to put one’s money are becoming fewer and fewer.

Even real estate - once considered the safest investment - is now free-falling with no end in sight, as what was once considered a vibrant “market” of buyers and sellers has all but dried up.

Gold, meanwhile, has seen its appeal soar, much as its price has done in recent weeks.

In fact, gold is now at a 25-year high, closing at $975 an ounce from a low of $252 an ounce in 1999. On Jan. 1, 2007, gold was $639 and rose to $833 by year’s end - an increase of 30 percent.

The 16 percent gain in the price of gold this year means the precious metal has beat the major US equity market indexes, all of which are negative for the year.

The spike in gold prices can be blamed on growing inflationary fears.

Oil prices closed at $101.61 yesterday, off 98 cents from its Feb. 28 high of $102.59 per barrel.

Meanwhile, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) - the government’s statistic on inflation each month - released the same day, showed an unexpected increase of 0.4 percent for January.

That, combined with a falling dollar, makes US dollars worth less, increasing the demand for gold.

Indeed, gold seems to be the one sure investment that is universally recognized and valued.

Gold has been used for jewelry, decoration and as currency for thousands of years, and since everyone recognizes the value of gold as a common means of payment, it is a coveted and powerful commodity when there’s economic uncer tainty, geopolitical instability and questions about the value of more contempo rary investments.

Gold has been espe cially appealing to Mid dle Eastern investors looking to diversify out of the falling dollar. They are reportedly going to gold- mining companies directly in order to purchase their gold before it is sold through other channels.

For it’s part, Wall Street seems to be bullish on gold after a long hiatus.

In a recent report, Goldman Sachs analyst Oscar Cabrera wrote, “We now expect the first decade in 2000 to exit with a $1,000/oz gold price.”