If you haven't already, when you have spare time read this article at Casey Research (A Short History of International Currencies) and this one by Ron Paul (The End of Dollar Hegemony).

A short one follows, it's a commentary by Paul Van Eeden on June 4, 2006. This is the link to the Commentary. He stopped writing free commentaries last October.

Waiting Patiently - June 4, 2006.

The problem with writing a weekly commentary is that I don't always have something new to write about every week. At the moment I am just patiently waiting. The weakness in the US economy is becoming more apparent and with it increased probability of a global economic slowdown. Emerging markets have fallen sharply and I believe it is only a matter of time before the next major devaluation of the US dollar commences. Given a worldwide slowdown of economic activity I remain bearish on commodities (including base metals).
 
During the past several months the gold price had risen in sympathy with base metals as institutional money looking for hard assets bid prices up across the board. Now gold is suffering from the same indiscriminate trading and giving up some of its gains along with over-bought base metals. At some point I believe that the gold price will decouple from base metals since reduced economic growth implies reduced demand for base metals but not reduced demand for gold. So while base metals prices will remain under pressure, there should be no such pressure in the gold market other than from short-term institutional investors who do not understand either market.
 
On the positive side, economic woes could well increase demand for gold as investors seek a financial asset that is not correlated to the stock market, the real estate market or the bond market and that can offer protection against a decline in the purchasing power of their favorite fiat currency. Gold is the only asset that fits that bill.
 
While a falling US dollar exchange rate would cause all metal prices quoted in US dollars to rise, the lack of demand contraction in the gold market (as opposed to base metals) should cause the gold price to outperform the other metals going forward.