I have so many bets on the go with gold bugs like Porter Stansberry (Stansberry Research) and Jeff Clark at Casey Research… and I just keep winning ‘em.

That’s something to be happy about, right?

But I’m more pained than happy about it because, when I debate these guys (including Peter Schiff), we all agree that we’re in an unprecedented debt and financial bubble with QE adding kerosene to the fire. We all agree that things are about to end very badly.

But we disagree on the outcome of this bubble burst.

They see the dollar collapsing and gold going to $5,000-plus.

I see the dollar strengthening and gold going to as low as $250 an ounce (at the lowest).

This leaves worried investors like you throwing your arms in the air: do you buy gold, or sell it?

My research says to stay away from gold until at least 2023 or $250-$400, whichever comes first. And today I wanted to share just one of my reasons for saying so…

What sets my research apart from those gold bugs I battle is that I study longer term cycles, from where I can see clear oscillations between inflation and deflation – like the extreme deflation of the 1930s and the extreme inflation of the 1970s.

Both extremes, along with demographic downturns in spending, create financial crises and long-term downturns in the economy.

Gold bugs think gold responds in kind to each. They’re wrong. It responds differently.

The two great illusions in the gold camp are that:

The real truth is that gold is the very best inflation hedge.

Look at this chart…

As you can see, gold correlates more than anything else with inflation. It was one of the very best investment during the inflationary crisis of the 1970s, when gold exploded nearly 10 times in value.

And gold bugs think we’re heading for more inflation.

That’s where we differ. I don’t see inflation on the horizon – I see more deflation, where we’ll see the deleveraging of massive debt and financial bubbles. This follows every debt bubble in history.