By Dan Weil, October 16, 2009

How far can it go?

“We don’t think it will end until we get to $2,500, $3,000 or so. And gold could go beyond that,” he says.

That’s because of inflationary economic policy, Tice maintains.

“We essentially are printing money. Quantitative easing is debasing our currency,” he says.

“Congress is spending like drunken sailors. The investigator general for TARP (the Troubled Asset Relief Program) has stated that it’s possible that the cost to the American taxpayer for all the bailouts, backstops, guarantees, etc. could exceed $23 trillion.”

That picture isn’t too pretty. “We’ve never seen anything like this in our history,” Tice says.

Of course what’s bad for the economy and financial markets is good for gold, and that’s why he likes the precious metal.

Some experts are even more bullish than Tice.

"You could easily see for the next several years that prices rise. . . to $5,000 or beyond, as inflation psychology becomes more and more embedded, and people become desperate to have a source of value," Christopher Wyke of Schroder Investment Management told Bloomberg.