While you're certainly right Woteva about the long term...

While you're certainly right Woteva about the long term rationale for gold's inevitable rise... short term I doubt that you're right...

Confidence in the financial system is actually rising at the moment - as crazy as it actually is. Don't confuse our perception of the horrible structural state of the US economy with the majority of folks out there who do the trades.

If they were all so able to come to the right conclusion so quickly, then it never would have gotten so bad.

Calling timeframes is always a mug's game. Nevertheless, I put my money on a 6-18 month reflation timeframe, which I called late last year. That call isn't looking too bad at the moment. The question is what happens next?

The question going forward is whether or not there is any room for the powers that be to sustain another bubble. Many are saying it's end game now because of the indebtedness of the American consumer. If there is a going to be another bubble - then it has to be a bubble in something... What is it going to be? If they pull it off then perhaps Faber is right in saying the next crisis - the true end game is 5-10 years down the track.

On the other hand - without some kind of bubble, stagflation is looking increasingly likely. Deflationists assume that governments will allow debt to be wiped out. But they can't afford it. At the same time, everyone is maxed out debt wise, so as ctindale points out, there is no mechanism for distributing the printed cash.

However, with stagnant production + population growth and increased size of government, that still adds up to a likely inflationary environment... slow but steady for quite some time - and that's even with the credit distribution method totally locked up.

So we got a slow and steady rise in the price of gold over the next few years to look forward to. US collapse will be hastened by another bubble, otherwise it will be slow and tedious - another generation at least.