????如果光彩耀眼的黃金再也不足以抵御金融災難，情況會怎樣呢？

????美聯儲實施量化寬松之初，黃金是主要的受益者，原因是投資者紛紛設法防范可能出現的通貨膨脹。隨后，黃金價格開始持續穩步下跌。2008年12月首輪量化寬松期間，金價為每盎司837.50美元（5167.38元人民幣）。長時間的上漲造成金價過高，2011年9月黃金價格在1922美元（11858.74元人民幣）見頂。當然，這最終形成了依賴性陷阱——到今年4月份金價下跌了30%，部分原因是人們擔心量化寬松行將結束。目前，黃金價格約為每盎司1371美元（8459.07元人民幣），六個月來下滑了20%。

????量化寬松只是金價上漲的原因之一。由于人們廣泛認為局勢不明朗時黃金有保值作用，金融危機以來一直存在的不安全感和災難迫近感推動了金價上漲。反過來講，金價呈下降趨勢時人們必然普遍認為情況已經開始恢復正常。

????對一小部分投資者來說，情況恢復正常讓他們陷入了另一種惶恐狀態。憂心忡忡的主流群體把黃金視為針對短期不穩定局面的套期保值手段，在過去五年中則出現了一系列新的觀點，認為黃金可以防范我們所知的整個金融體系的全面崩潰。受此影響，人們建立了大量黃金倉位，特別是在美國。這種觀點的最出名的支持者可能就是福克斯新聞頻道（Fox News）前主持人格倫?貝克。他一直警告說，美聯儲通過量化寬松等措施為經濟注入流動性并增加貨幣供應量后，惡性通脹、犯罪以及食品價格上漲引發的不穩定局面將不可避免。

????從2008年開始，貝克就幾乎一刻不停地將美國貨幣政策和魏瑪共和國等災難性事件進行類比。無論是本來就有關聯還是因此結緣，貝克碰巧得到了金幣銷售公司Goldline的大力資助（之前在福克斯新聞頻道以及如今在他的互聯網公司都是如此）。陰謀論者亞歷克斯?瓊斯也是黃金的狂熱信徒，他的影響力只比貝克小一點兒，而資助瓊斯的公司是Midas Resources……至于這家公司從事的業務，大家自己去猜吧。

????盡管從很多角度來說格倫?貝克和亞歷克斯?瓊斯都是邊緣人物，但他們都擁有大批擁躉。他們對黃金的狂熱屬于同一種思維模式，而這種思維模式覆蓋了一些真正有影響力的群體，比如以羅恩?保羅為首的美國共和黨自由派，以及甚至更為強大的茶黨團體。坦帕灣茶黨成員諾曼?希羅說：“現在還沒想到美國金融系統將要崩潰的人對我們的債務以及政府無力控制成本的事實都視而不見。這已經不再是會不會的問題，而是什么時候發生的問題。”有了這種想法，無論市場走勢如何，黃金看來都是一個相當好的投資對象。

????長期以來，黃金一直被稱為“上帝的貨幣”。這也在一定程度上表明，這些黃金狂熱者相信，在非常極端、但仍然可以想象的情況下，黃金就是他們的救生筏。五年來，這種觀點在大部分時間里都淺顯易懂——災難預言者也許會見到他們所說的巨大災害，而且還可能從中獲利。他們可以看著黃金的美元價格節節攀升，同時對黃金在一個缺少法制的野蠻世界里的價值深信不疑。在他們看來，本?伯南克的貨幣政策正在為這樣一個世界打下基礎。

????但最近六個月，情況變得更為復雜——各種各樣的黃金狂熱者都蒙受了損失，其中最信賴黃金的那些人現在不得不看著自己所持黃金的美元價值大幅下跌，同時還要堅持認為覆蓋整個美國經濟的真正崩潰即將到來，而且這會讓他們成為笑到最后的人。這種情況告訴我們，無論黃金的價值有多大，它依然和當前人們的經濟體系緊密交織在一起，而且一直持有黃金會產生機會成本。

????What happens when gold may no longer glitter enough to stave off the financial apocalypse?

????The precious metal, a big beneficiary at quantitative easing's outset as investors sought a hedge against possible inflation, has been steadily declining. During the first round of QE in December 2008, the price of gold was $837.50 an ounce. The precious metal's longer term run-up kicked into overdrive, with the price peaking in September 2011 at $1,922. Of course, this ultimately represented a dependency trap -- in April the price dropped 30%, in part on fears that QE would be coming to an end. Today, gold sits at around $1,371, a 20% drop in six months.

????QE was only one contributing factor to gold's run-up. Broadly perceived as a safe store of value in uncertain times, gold benefited from the sense of instability and looming disaster that has persisted since the financial crisis. Inversely, gold's downward trend has corresponded with a tentative but broad-based sense that things are inching back to normalcy.

????For one small group of investors, this return to normal places them in a new, confounding position. While a worried mainstream saw gold as a hedge against short-term instability, the past five years have seen huge exposure, particularly in America, for a set of ideas that sees gold as a protection against the total collapse of the financial system as we know it. Probably the most well-known proponent of this viewpoint is former Fox News personality Glenn Beck, who has persistently warned of the inevitability of hyperinflation, lawlessness, and bread riots in the wake of QE and other Fed initiatives to inject liquidity and expand the money supply.

????Starting in 2008 and with little respite since, Beck has kept up a drumbeat of parallels between American monetary policy and disaster scenarios such as Weimar Germany. Whether by correlation or causation, Beck also happens to be heavily sponsored (both in his Fox News days and now in his internet enterprise) by Goldline, a company selling gold coins. Alex Jones, a goldbug and conspiracy theorist only slightly less influential than Beck, is sponsored by Midas Resources Inc., which ... well, guess.

????Though Glenn Beck and Alex Jones are in many ways fringe figures, they have significant followings, and their goldbug ideas are part of an even larger pattern of thought that encompasses genuinely influential groups including Ron Paul's Libertarian wing of the U.S. Republican Party, and the even more powerful Tea Party faction. "Anyone who is not looking at a financial collapse of the United States right now is not looking at our debt and the inability of our government to rein in costs. It's no longer a case of if, but a case of when," says Norman Cillo, a member of the Tampa Bay Tea Party. With that scenario in mind, gold looks like a pretty good bet, no matter what the market is doing.

????Gold's longtime nickname, "God's Money," captures some of the faith these goldbugs put in the yellow stuff as a life raft for the most extreme, yet imaginable, scenarios. For most of the last five years, this has been an easy enough proposition -- doomsayers could have their apocalypse and profit from it too, watching gold prices rise in dollar terms while also being confident in the commodity's value in the lawless, feral world they think Ben Bernanke's monetary policy is laying the groundwork for.

????For the last six months, though, things have been more complicated -- while goldbugs of all sorts have taken a haircut, the most extreme true believers now have to watch the value of their gold in dollar terms collapse, while sticking with the idea that the real collapse will be that of the entire U.S. economy in the near future, after which they'll have the last laugh. It's a reminder that gold, whatever its transcendent value, remains entwined in a very human economic system in the here and now, and that holding on to rocks has an opportunity cost.