Rico, whenever european markets tank, the USD goes up and gold drops. A complete meltdown of the euro zone would be bad for gold in theshort term butwould also create an awesome buying opportunity as the money printing continues.

Long term, I think the US will surprise with an economic resurgence over the next few years. Manufacturing in the US in now globally competetive again for the first time in decades. There have already been a few plant openings in the southern states. Look for US companies to abandon producing in China and repatraiting to the US over the next few years. In the long term that points to lower gold prices as well.

Having said that, There is still a lot of crap that needs to work it's way through the markets, Europe, slowdown in China and EMs (which is bad for commodities in general, and Canada) and also the end of the bush tax cuts in Dec. Couple that with the systemic deleveraging that's going on and there's a possiblity we'll have a gold spike similar to 1980.