You are absolutely right that QE1 and 2 have been failures and QE3 thru Z will be too but they will continue to do it for 2 reasons.

1./ Bernanke is a Keynesian historian of the great depression and has made it clear in all his speeches that he believes that the only reason the policies of FDR did not work is because they did not continue long enough.

2./ When Lehman collapsed it was the derivatives that caused the real problem. The counter party risk is to the entire financial system and was exposed on a small scale. They can not let anything fail or it all will.

There is no quick fix for this so they will kick the can down the road until they can't.

Gold is not used in manufacturing. It is the one commodity that can rise drastically in price without causing inflation. In so doing it can be used to extinguish debt.

I am thinking that they eventually will have to monetize the physical metals for a replacement currency and that will restore confidence (at least for a few decades).

http://usawatchdog.com/is-america-going-back-to-a-gold-standard-someday/

http://fofoa.blogspot.com/2011/05/return-to-honest-money.html

They will only do this when they run out of other options.

If not and things get real ugly then spending/holding gold and silver assets will be real dangerous when no one else has any.