gw, there are a million different theories about where the economy is headed and why. most theories i'm hearing from the serious gold bugs suggest huge moves upward in gold (suprise) and a huge drop in US$ valuation...

it always strikes me that the doom and gloom crowd never mentions that the US has the largest physical reserve of gold...by far.

in simple CJR reasoning: if the world economy takes a major (worse than we have now)dump and gold prices skyrocket.....would'nt this actually prop up the dollar...

basically, i'm convinced as ever that the economy is completely based on perception and BS....

1	United States	8,133.5	78.9%
2	Germany	3,412.6	71.5%
3	International Monetary Fund	3,017.3	-
4	France	2,487.1	72.6%
5	Italy	2,451.8	66.5%
6	China	1,054.0[7]	0.9%
7	Switzerland	1,040.1	41.1%
8	Japan	765.2	2.2%
10	India	757.7[8]	6%
11	Netherlands	612.5	61.7%
12	European Central Bank	536.9	23.7%
13	Russia	523.7	4.0%
14	Taiwan	423.6	4.2%
15	Spain	416.8	42.5%
16	Portugal	382.5	90.2%
17	Venezuela	363.9	35.5%
18	United Kingdom	310.3	18.7%
19	Lebanon	286.8	30.0%
20	Austria	280.0	50.5%
21	Belgium	227.5	42.5%
22	Algeria	173.6	3.6%
23	Philippines	153.9	12.3%
24	Libya	143.8	4.5%
25	Saudi Arabia	143.0	12.4%
26	Sweden	135.9	14.2%
27	Singapore	127.4	2.2%
28	Bank for International Settlements	125.0	-
29	South Africa	124.7	11.0%
30	Turkey	116.1	4.7%
31	Greece	112.5	92.8%
32	Romania	103.7	8.4%
33	Poland	102.9	5.0%
34	Thailand	87.4	2.2%
35	Australia	79.8	7.3%
36	Kuwait	79.0	11.9%
37	Egypt	75.6	6.4%
38	Indonesia	73.1	4.3%
39	Kazakhstan	72.0	11.6%
40	Denmark	66.5	4.7%
41	Pakistan	65.4	20.3%
42	Argentina	54.7	3.4%
43	Finland	49.1	17.6%
44	Bulgaria	39.9	7.6%
45	West African Economic and Monetary Union	36.5	11.8%
46	Malaysia	36.4	1.2%
47	Slovakia	35.1	81.6%
48	Peru	34.7	3.3%
49	Brazil	33.6	0.5%
50	Bolivia	28.3	10.3%
51	Ecuador	26.3	11.6%
52	Ukraine	26.2	2.0%
53	Syria	25.9	-
54	Morocco	22.0	2.2%
55	Nigeria	21.4	0.9%
56	Belarus	20.3	11.6%
57	Jordan	14.8	5.2%
58	South Korea	14.3	0.1%
59	Cyprus	13.9	29.7%
60	Czech Republic	13.2	0.9%
61	Netherlands Antilles	13.1	31.4%
62	Cambodia	12.4	12.9%
63	Qatar	12.4	2.6%
64	Serbia	12.2	2.3%
65	Laos	8.1	23.1%
66	Latvia	7.7	3.3%
67	El Salvador	7.3	8.2%
68	Economic and Monetary Community of Central Africa	7.1	-
69	Guatemala	6.9	3.9%
70	Colombia	6.9	0.8%
71	Macedonia	6.8	7.6%
72	Tunisia	6.8	2.1%
73	Lithuania	5.8	2.3%
74	Ireland	5.5	16.3%
75	Sri Lanka	5.3	3.8%
76	Mongolia	5.2	10.9%
77	Bahrain	4.7	-
78	Bangladesh	3.5	1.6%
79	Mexico	3.4	0.1%
80	Canada	3.4	0.2%
81	Slovenia	3.2	7.2%
82	Aruba	3.1	17.1%
83	Hungary	3.1	0.3%
84	Mozambique	3.0	4.6%
85	Kyrgyzstan	2.6	5.3%
86	Luxembourg	2.3	10.8%
87	Albania	2.2	2.6%
88	Hong Kong	2.1	0.0%
89	Iceland	2.0	1.9%
90	Tajikistan	2.0	-
91	Papua New Guinea	2.0	2.1%
92	Mauritius	1.9	2.4%
93	Trinidad and Tobago	1.9	0.6%
94	Yemen	1.6	0.5%
95	Suriname	1.4	7.0%
96	Cameroon	0.9	-
97	Honduras	0.7	0.7%
98	Paraguay	0.7	0.6%
99	Dominican Republic	0.6	0.7%
100	Gabon	0.4	-
101	Republic of the Congo	0.3	-
102	Chad	0.3	-
103	Central African Republic	0.3	-
104	Uruguay	0.3	0.1%
105	Estonia	0.2	0.1%
106	Chile	0.2	0.0%
107	Malta	0.2	0.8%
108	Costa Rica	0.1	0.0%