Ookpick, there is the perhaps common misconception that "everyone runs to the US dollar" when ever there is a bump in the world economy. in reality the US dollar is the world's trading currency, and the US is already beginning to lose that position in that large countries (e.g Russia, China) that are self-sufficient enough can bypass that previous US dollar position. (at least for them). The US government has to come to an agreement by tomorrow, or trading in US dollars and the US dollar value will be in further long term jeopardy. If this "world currency" payment in US dollars is lost, the US currency will take a vertical nose dive, as will their economy, and gold will explode. This is unlikely to happen at this time (IMO) but erosion of confidence in any event will lead to further dropping of the dollar and accelerate gold sales even more quickly.

U.S. credit rating agencies are basically unconcerned about the U.S. debt level with the exception of Weiss, and his research agency has downgraded it within the last couple of weeks to a C-

The US debt position relative to their GDP is about the same as Portugal's, and the remainder of the rating agencies such as Moody's, S & P etc. rate Portugal as junk status.

The problem facing the US is that spending cuts will impact revenue, jobs, etc and that in turn will lead to more revenue cuts, more job losses as the vortex spins faster. If more money is printed, interest expense rises, less money for essential processes, more job losses and the vortex also spins faster. Do you want an inflationary depression of a deflationary depression?

There is absolutely no solution; payback for years and years of overspending someone else's money. Going off the gold standard has been the devil's golden bat and we're in the bottom of the 9th inning! This is why some economists think that eventually all countries will have to default their debts and get back to the gold standard, and why gold will be $8000.00+ per ounce at that time. So the older you are, convert your other stocks and buy more gold, silver and a bit of oil.

I heard some idiot on T.V. say that buying gold was not in the best interest of the country! I suppose he wants to get elected again. He would like all of us to turn in our SLI shares and buy government bonds! Anyone holding SLI shares has the best protection against the dark storms ahead than one could ask for, in my opinion. (Don't confuse this dark storm with Kherson's perfect storm)