International Man: Gold has recently reached a new all-time high.

What are the underlying factors pushing the gold price higher?

Doug Casey: Three emotions typically move the gold price: prudence, fear, and greed. At the moment, only prudence is dominant, and certainly not greed. Or even fear, even though there's plenty to be afraid about. The public seems quite unaware that gold is pushing all-time nominal highs. The gold bull market will likely remain intact, at least until the public is clamoring to get in. We're no where near that stage.

Public ownership of gold is trivial. They're just not interested in it. I suspect that's because they're concentrating on the stock market, where greed kicked in years ago. Stocks have treated them well for over 40 years; they figure the bull market is perpetual, with just minor retrenchments. Everybody has a Robinhood account, where they're trading options and meme stocks. They see gold as an asset for fuddy-duddies and gloom-and-doomers. I think their sentiments will soon reverse, and fear will take over. Fear will draw their attention to gold.

Currencies, including the US dollar, are just the unbacked liabilities of bankrupt governments. The US, in particular, is overindebted. The country has borrowed capital accumulated in the past and is mortgaging future earnings to finance an artificially high current standard of living.

We've gone from a time when, as late as the '60s—before the devaluation in 1971—you generally saved up and bought a car for cash. Believe it or not, people actually saved up to buy a house for cash.

After 1971, we had, at first, two-year financing for cars. Then it went to three, five, then seven years. Now, many people lease their car. A car has gone from being a minor asset on your balance sheet to a big liability. People rarely have equity in a car, even though it can easily cost twice what the average house did pre-1971.