digga please! "there's only so much money alloted to ventures"...

there's never a "finite" amount of money "alotted" to anything. people buy what they percieve to be of value and they'll continue to buy it until they think it's not of value...

so your reasoning has to be based on the price of gold retreating. right now, all the articles from kitco/mineweb/etc are at odds with eachother because of the very recent correction (or pullback). some say "gold will retreat on recovering economies" while others say "29% increase in gold for 2011' "....

while this recent pullback may even worsen over the next couple weeks i believe we are near an end of the "correction" and are actually seeing a repeat of the "last correction period" which occured from about april-august and set us up for the best gains of the year. check out a 1 year chart for gold.

my personal view that the POG will continue to rise is based on a few facts:

- gold is getting much harder to find in easily accessible quantities.

- if the world demands "more new gold" the price will be forced up to meet the increase in production costs. explorers with the best deposits in the best locations will be rewarded. (i can see where "location" will actually become much more important than grams per ton in the near future).

- many countries are seeing the need to increase thier own reserves (china comes to mind) in order to avoid a "real" currency war. like the US going back to the gold standard. i dont see this demand ending any time soon.

anyway, that's my two cents..