To say that events tectonic in scope could be felt in 2014 is not an exaggeration. Enormous pressure is building as incompatible market conditions encounter one another.

Consider what is happening in the gold market.  As we have been reminded in the financial press, gold has turned in its first down calendar year since 2000; its worst year since 1981.

But demand for physical gold is positively booming.  Indeed today, the first trading day of the New Year, while stocks and oil were down, gold jumped on the strength of physical demand from China.

While the price action is noted by the financial press, it misses the significance of the center of action in the gold markets moving away from the West.  A November Wall Street Journal account (one that ran online but didn’t show up in the newspaper itself), noted correctly that global gold trading continues to shift eastward, from New York, London, and Zurich to Dubai, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai.