i'm not ruling out manipulation. but i think there are just more reasonable explanations.

for example, today the market tanked. if you assume people should run to gold as a safe haven, then gold should go up.

but maybe that's a faulty assumption, as people just want to dump everything. i've said this before, but i work in finance and i build trading systems. and when its time to sell, its time to sell. that's just the times we live in.

another possibility is that people are ignorant and they don't understand gold. they only understand treasuries. this is not the fault of the fed. its the fault of people's ignorance. and maybe our education system. i'd even go so far as to fault our society.

nevertheless, that's the context within which we're all investing.

to be totally honest, i don't think the fed or u.s. govt want a strong dollar. they need to pay off these bad debts with cheap dollars. and they need to get jobs back into the united states. and they need exports up, not down. they would love to have a weaker dollar. the price of gold is an after thought to them.

everybody is going gaga about how ben said the central bankers talked about selling gold. i'm sure when they were talking about it, they were drunk off their asses with expensive wine and just making random drunk talk. i don't believe that carries into official policy as anything more than a footnote.