Jeff Clark of Doug Casey's "Big Gold" got together some familiar names for a roundtable on the U.S. economy, inflation, the greenback and gold. The participants included Peter Schiff, Jim Rogers, John Williams of ShadowStats, Jeffrey Christian and Bill Bonner. On the U.S. economy, almost all of them were bearish. Jeffrey Christian was the only one to explicitly forecast recovery, at a fairly tepid rate of GDP growth; most others saw real trouble this year. On inflation, most expected it to accelerate. Again Jeffrey Christian demurred; he expects the Fed to sell bonds to damp down a recent increase in the monetary aggregates.
On the subject of the U.S. dollar, most demurred with the caution that it will be volatile this year. Some, mainly the lesser names, predicted an outright fall. Jim Rogers didn't expect a major drop this year, but later. With respect to gold, almost all expected gains but were vague as to the amount. The idea that gold was in a bubble was generally scoffed at. When asked for their best investment idea, only a few said gold. Jim Rogers recommended the renminbi. John Williams recommended gold and silver.
Despite the fact that several known goldbugs were in the mix, the boosting for gold was fairly muted. No long-range forecasts of $3,000-$5,000 were made.
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