what is bernanke's game plan ?

Ben must have something more going for him than helicopters.

There amongst a pile of "must read printout" was commentary from the "venerable Richard Russell"

you have to subscribe but since I'm reporting on reporting - I guess its public domain

anyway his thinking also gets up with other commentary that has been reported here (hopefully not this RR post!)

"Could Bernanke be thinking: "If I unilaterally raise the price of gold to $5,000 or more an ounce, it would be inflationary and we'd get out of this deflationary mess. And after all, who'd object if I raised the price of gold? And if I backed the dollar with gold, the dollar would still be the worlds reserve currency. If the dollar was backed by the world's largest hoard of gold, what fool would be able to talk down the safety of the dollar." "

That rather does it for me pushing up PM's as against cash on my shaky risk continium - Richard has not missed a newsletter since 1958 (that's some experience!)

Debt default? War? maybe - but the word may be slowly getting out that the only way out is a return to some form of gold standard and I guess you would want to buy the rumour if you can