The market is telling us that the dollar is finished

Fast forward to today. Mubarak. Gaddafi. Khalifa. Al Said. Ben Ali. Etc. There is no shortage of turmoil right now… yet we are seeing the dollar get clobbered while gold, silver, and smaller currencies like the Swiss franc rise. This represents a major shift in the way that the market views risk.

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I am not a gold bug, but the regular lamentations by the PM bears (gold is just a paper weight that has no function, you cannot eat gold, you cannot fill your gas tank with gold, there is no way to value gold, etc.) may turn out to be beneficial.

It is simply BECAUSE you cannot eat gold, cannot fill your gas tank with gold, etc. that governments will be more concerned about regulating high oil, wheat, and soy prices. If gold has no real benefit to the masses, the political consequences of high gold prices are less significant.