On Gold...

Gold itself is not a "problem," up or down. It is a barometer measuring the problem. The less confidence people have in the US Dollar, the higher the price for an ounce of gold climbs.

And that barometer is zooming more than you suspect. Gold 10 years ago was roughly $200 an ounce. 5 years ago it was $600 an ounce. 1 year ago it was at $1000 an ounce, and now it's floating between $1,900 and $2000. That is a HUGE spike in just the last year. And it portends bad things for the US currency. For the conspiracy nuts out there, there already exists a "global currency", it's the US Dollar. It is the Petro dollar of choice, meaning crude can only be purchased in US Dollars. It's why Germany, France, the UK, et al all hold billions of USD in reserve. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange has opened up 5 different avenues (in the last year) of crude purchasing power using currency other than the USD. If that becomes a wide spread trend, if we are no longer the reserve Petro Dollar, then why would these nations need to store billions of our currency? Why would our debt be worth holding? What gold's driving price does is send up a warning flare. If we continue to devalue our currency (read: print and spend) to the point that sovereign funds feel it no longer stable enough to use as the globe's Petro Dollar, then it's lights out for us. Gold isn't the problem, it's the screaming symptom of the problem, and thus is very important to monitor.