As per his reply to Ed Steer re ECB rate cuts: " ... And, if the deflation is exported to the U.S, how on earth can the Fed raise rates without making that situation worse? They probably can't, and may even have to fight back with QE4 in 2016. That could be bearish for gold in the short run (as deflation prevails), but bullish by late this year (as more Fed ease appears on the horizon). Fasten your seatbelt!"

After reading so many opinions over the years of how gold has performed well during deflation or inflation I am left confused. Again, Mr. Rickards appears to be a gold bear in and overlooking the fact that there is both asset deflation (commodities) ... and a tremendous cost of living inflation (Williams contends inflation is over 7% for some time now) not so cleverly masked re 'basket of goods' tomfoolery, wage stagnation, fabrication of statistics, etc.

With all this we have a global currency war in late stages, $trillions of taxpayer bank bailouts, totalitarion pressures, global economic slowdown (see Baltic Dry index), debt reaching such levels that interest can barely be ... and in many cases cannot be ... adequately addressed by rolling it over.

And Jim tells us that gold may be bearish. So does that mean the bad crowd is now and has been accumulating the stocks and bullion for some time now but they need more time and will ... or hope to ... constrain both well into the Fall? Sounds likes that's the plan to me. Will they succeed? Red flags and black swans abound.