In August of 2005 I wrote an article entitled Waiting for Goldot. It seems silly now but the mood of the time was one of frustration for many gold bugs as the S&P 500 was on a robo grind upward and gold was seemingly going nowhere. The theme of the article was to have patience, gold was just fine. Of course, that period was in the midst of a more traditional inflation, when gold and commodities out performed stocks. So any measure of patience then was a tiny thing compared to what is needed today.

The bear market in which gold resides today is a complex thing, with global inflation and deflation interacting and producing among other things, a Goldilocks environment in the US and rock solid confidence in the Bernanke and later Yellen Feds. Greenspan was continually derided as he allowed a dangerous commercial credit bubble to expand right along with stock prices and the economy.

Today it is government credit that is expanding out of bounds.Maybe the fact that government can expand credit (debt) at will plays into the reasons that this thing is more intense and long-lived than the commercial credit bubble. After all, as lax as the situation got under Greenspan, market forces eventually bubbled up to the surface and knocked the thing down. So far in the current situation, nothing has even hinted at dissuading the still-expanding bubble. From Floatingpath…

Moving on to gold, I hope the monthly chart below puts the patience needed then and the patience needed today in perspective.2005 was a simple flat consolidation immediately prior to the next big leg up in a massive bull market. As my above-linked article implied, people just needed reasonable levels of patience and perspective (P&P) and all would be fine. Today gold is in the 5th year of a bear market and people need exponential levels of P&P to see it through.

Unfortunately, the worse the bear market has become, the more defiant those with interests in exposing the mechanics of the bear market (a veritable cottage industry) have become. Every bounce (as seems possible now) is seen and hailed as the next big opportunity to vanquish evil.