Toronto (Kitco News) -- Rob McEwen, Chairman andCEO of US Gold and Lexam Explorations said that with so much papermoney being printed, it is important to protect one’s assets with gold.

In an exclusive interview with Kitco News during the2010 McEwen Capital Reception last Tuesday, McEwen said thatgovernments are printing excess amounts of paper currency and it ischeapening the value.

“Itis making everyone’s bank account worth less, so you need to go out andfind a way to protect it,” he said at the gala in Toronto.
According to McEwen, gold is the answer. He remains confident in hisrepeated prediction that gold will hit $2,000/oz by year-end and$5,000/oz before the gold bull run is over.

“It is up to me and you to protect ourselves by going into gold andother hard assets. It will deliver you multiples on your investments;this is what you need to protect yourself in this type of environment,”he said.

“I happen to like gold bullion and Junior Mining Stocks because they are going to run,” he added.

McEwen noted that not all juniors will run and it is important to choose wisely.

In terms of what he looks for when choosing juniors, he said he likesto see the CEO of the company have a large equity interest in thecompany.

“I don’t like to see him take a large salary and lots of options andhave no stock. I like to see the property be in a place where it is notgoing to be taken away by a foreign government. That they are notpeople with more guns than we have and with no laws, so I tend to go inthe Americas,” he said.

On the topic of the sale of the IMF’s gold, McEwen says it will have nodepressing effect on gold. “When the IMF offers it, it will be gone ina nano-second,” he said.