The one aspect that I have not seen anything written about is the number of products that are derivatives of oil. Nylon, for carpet is directly extruded from oil. Has anyone by chance in here bought any carpet lately? The prices have risen astronomically in the last 2 years.
I mention this only to illustrate that there is widespread inflation. The Fed will keep raising rates to try and stop this. I have been of the opinion for awhile that they were going past 5%. The unwind of the carry trade as poway mentions in the thread has already begun. If you are not sure, just look at a 10 yr or 30 yr bond chart. I will post these in my blog tommorrow.
I think at this point everyone has had the ad nauseum on the COT folks and their timing for commodities. They are just for timing and general direction. However, from my research, the one primary historical factor that CAUSES gold prices to rise, is inflation. I have found no other strong correlations that have direct causation. I have not found direct relationships that are consistent, between gold and the us dollar in my research.
What this tells me aside from anecdotal evidence of inflation, is that we have a ton of underlying inflation as well.