Which Way For Gold? Up? Down? More Of The Same?

You can either stack gold and suffer with fiat currency, or you can have gold backed currency without being able to stack any gold. You cannot have both.

I think we all know where fiat currency is headed. History always repeats.
Once we have gold backed currency, we won't need to stack. That is, if you trust the government. Gold backing only works if you can exchange those gold back notes or digits on a computer for actual gold you can hold.
We are living in historic times.

I did a napkin calculation, so I will concede that is more accurate and definitely higher than what would allow a return to the gold standard.

barryg, look to silver for a much better return. It is way under valued compared to gold right now. Historically the ratio between silver and gold was 16:1. Currently the ratio out of the ground is 7:1 according to Majestic Silver Corp.. Current spot ratio is almost 87:1. Silver will explode upward when the paper manipulators on COMEX lose the battle.

Can someone explain how the US could suddenly assign a value to gold that is largely different from what the international markets say it is worth?

How does this look? US says USD is now backed by the 8000 tons in Ft Knox. Some calculations are that gold would then be priced at let's say $20,000/ oz. Then new USD is only printed at the rate of new gold acquired and or rise in gold prices. Is that any way to run an economy?

There are no gold backed economies/currencies because it doesn't work. If Japan had a gold backed currency, how would they have handled the 300 billion (USD) economic loss from the Honshu earthquake?

This money printing problem is pretty much worldwide, not just the US. Seems to happen wherever there are humans.

How does the US economy, on a gold standard, compete with everyone else with a flexible monetary policy?

Getting back to the US unilaterally trying to set the price of gold at $20,000. The only way this seems possible is for the US to reopen the gold window that it closed in 1971. So the US, starting next week will defend gold at $20,000 an ounce. The US will buy all gold offered and sell gold to all buyers at $20k/oz. What happens? I think everybody and their uncle sells. All gold producers sell as many forward contracts at $20k as they can. Their cost of production was ~$1500/oz, now they get $20k! I think just about everybody sells. Where does Uncle Sam get the dollars to pay everybody?

This is why I can't imagine any reset in gold price. No one can open and defend a gold window.

glenmorenee, it won't be just the U.S.. The U.S. is the reason gold and silver have been held down. The rest of the world is preparing to go around COMEX and the LME and create their own exchanges. A global currency reset is coming. BRICS is changing everything and will trigger it.

The probability of a reset—whether domestic or global—is higher than zero.