Below is a gold chart showing the full extent of Gold's bull run so far. Notice how gold has merely broken above its ten year trend line and is consolidating there. The trendline was broken to the upside as the politicians haggled over the debt ceiling and the markets began to realise that there is no political will in the US to balance its budget.
Nothing has changed since the debacle. Gold has merely consolidated above the trend line as the subsequent downgrade was not as catastrophic as feared.
By September 2012 the US Govt will no doubt need to raid its citizens' pension funds to stay afloat. The US fiscal situation is deteriorating rapidly.
Please also note that Gold had risen for eight straight years before anybody had ever heard of quantative easing. Gold investors knew money printing was the inevitable outome of a multi decade debt binge long before our autistic politicians and central bankers had a clue what a disaster they were creating.
We are always vigilant to outliers that could lead to a surge in the USD and a subsequent fall in the price of Gold such as the European debt crisis or Japan's rapidly deteriorating fiscal crisis and demographic timebomb but for now we feel that golds best days lie ahead.