Cash used to be king – now gold is the financial God

The national debt clock which ticks away over Union Square in Lower Manhattan, showing Americans the speed at which their country is sinking into the red, ran out of digits on Wednesday. The federal government's debt had tipped over $10 trillion and it will take until next year for the property developers who own the clock to update it. They promise to add two digits so that it can go up to a quadrillion.

Meanwhile, in the city's streets and bars, the talk was all about the one commodity holding value: gold. Whether it's a wedding ring, your grandmother's jewellery or a bar of gold bullion, it's what everyone wants. Cash may be king, but gold is God.

The price of gold has been moving upwards all year as smart investors around the world saw what was happening in the world of paper money. The SPDR Gold Trust, an exchange traded fund which buys and sells gold bullion dependent on investor demand, had 755 tons of bullion on hand last week, the most in its history and more than the reserves of the UK, Japan, China or the European Central Bank. Meanwhile the price of gold relative to currencies around the world has been hitting record highs.

Gold and silver traders are frazzled trying to locate, buy and ship stores of gold, whether coins or bars. With prices so volatile and insecurity so rampant, deals and promises are proving hard to nail down.

Gold Bugs, a curious group of traders who exist on the periphery of global finance, suddenly find themselves smack in the