1, These gold bugs think you want gold standards, because they impose discipline, but who can complain?

2, As James Grant, gold bug and publisher of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, a newsletter, points out, in recent years the huge glut of government debt has not stopped a sharp rise in its price.

3, James Grant, the newsletter writer, author and gold bug par excellence, asserts that gold money is superior to the "fiat" money of the Fed.

4, The gold bug label itself goes back to master of the supernatural Edgar Allen Poe and his story of that name, a tale of golden beetle whose bite sends the hero to a chest of gold and jewels.

5, But the quintessential gold bug is an investor who expects every form of paper wealth to collapse, along with civilisation itself.

6, Before you jump up and down, if you are a surviving gold bug, let me hasten to add that this does not imply a raging bull market the day after tomorrow.

7, Congressman and former presidential candidate Ron Paul—also a major gold bug—likewise sees the price of bullion rising from today's levels.