The gold express pulled into the station back in December, merely a pause to consolidate its 9.3% gain for 2011. It let some passengers off and let others get on board before it rolled again.

Now it’s about to leave the station again.

It’s new destination? $2,500? Or higher?

Let’s take a look at some of the powerful engines driving the price of gold.

Catalyst #1: Spend & Print

The new year got off to a reckless start for both U.S. monetary and fiscal policy. If you recall, on Jan. 25, the Federal Reserve committed to three more years of its zero interest rate policy. The Fed intends to maintain its Fed Funds Rate target of 0%-0.25% until late 2014.

You and I both know this deserves a moment of attention.

The Fed cannot maintain low interest rates by simply closing its eyes and clicking its heels together. For the Fed to maintain these rock-bottom rates, it will have to buy more U.S. Treasury bonds. That’s more debt monetization. That’s more money printing.

If you’re looking to grab a few easy bucks on your savings, forget about it. This policy means there will be little interest rate return to be found for your money for years to come.

Simply put, the Fed is driving Americans to spend, not save.

And spending is already out of control here in the U.S. Look no further than the burgeoning U.S. debt. Senate action in late January quietly let the national debt ceiling climb by another $1.2 trillion, up now to $16.4 trillion.

More Federal debt means a cheaper dollar.

But what’s even worse for you and me is that the Fed’s ultra-low interest rate policies don’t just equal no return on our savings … it also means more inflation … it means you and I are will pay a lot more for everything we buy in the months ahead.

Are you prepared for $9 milk, $13 bread and $10 gas?

Runaway inflation is by far one of the biggest threats to your family and finances in the months ahead. But you can prepare today. Join me for a FREE online seminar to discuss how to protect yourself from runaway inflation and an economic meltdown. Click here for more details.

Catalyst #2: Global Printing Presses

The central banks of the world have all loaded up on new inkjet cartridges.

The Bank of England and Japan have fired up the money printing presses. China’s money printing has been massive. And even Switzerland began printing money to lower the value of the Swiss franc against the euro.

But here’s the one you really need to worry about …

The European Central Bank is orchestrating huge increases in the euro money supply to bailout sovereign European debt. It has shoveled the money out to hundreds of banks at 1% interest for three years. Altogether, it’s a $660 billion European money printing operation.

Do you understand what this means for Americans like you and me? For our answer, we need to look no further than the Fed’s massive debt buying operation, QE2, which was similar in size to the ECB’s current operation?

It helped drive gold to new highs in 2011.

This race to the bottom, as central banks rush to destroy the value of their currencies, could make 2012 history’s first year of worldwide inflation.

Runaway inflation and the impending Eurozone collapse are just two of the biggest threats we face in the months ahead. You must act now to prepare and protect yourself from the fallout. Learn how.

Catalyst #3: Gold for Oil

We all know that global oil trade is priced in dollars. But thanks to the Fed’s 24/7 money printing press, this won’t be the case for much longer.

As I discussed at American Breaking Point, a news source in Israel reported that India intends to bypass the U.S. and European Union sanctions of Iran. India needs to import three million barrels of oil per day, and with this new agreement with Iran, India will purchase its oil for … gold.

And India is not alone. China is expected to begin using gold for oil purchases from Iran as well.

This all adds a powerful dynamic to the gold market. It promises substantial new world demand for gold to facilitate the oil trade. It also represents the global remonetization of gold as a key dollar alternative.

The changing role of the dollar in the oil market is eerily familiar. The world’s oil used to trade in British pounds. Even until the early 1970s, a fourth of the global petroleum trade was still conducted in the British pound sterling. But serial devaluations of the pound finally made it so unattractive that OPEC abandoned the pound entirely and implemented its policy of 100% dollar pricing.

What’s past is prologue.

Catalyst #4: Failing Banks

Just days before MF collapsed and $1.2 billion in client money went missing, its chief financial officer told Standard & Poor’s that it had “never been stronger.”

Maybe so. Maybe during its entire existence it was never to be trusted at all. But three years after the mortgage meltdown, it is an incident that should focus the mind: the risk of failing institutions — banks, funds, brokerages, insurance companies — remains as high today as it was in 2008 when they were falling like flies.

Since banks don’t mark their assets to the market, we don’t know the value of the assets on their books. They are awash in derivative risk, and the largest have dangerously large exposure to the European debt crisis. And the largest financial institutions of our time have demonstrated themselves to be utterly incapable of managing their own affairs.

As people begin to realize that banks are not the paragons of stability that they may have been in another era, they will continue moving their hard-earned wealth to gold.

Over the last year, the University of Texas endowment fund, the second-largest such fund, added a billion dollars’ worth of gold to its portfolio. This would have been unthinkable in an earlier era when conservatively run endowments invested in nothing but blue chips.

More astonishingly, the fund chose to take delivery of the gold. Kyle Bass, the Dallas hedge fund manager who advised the endowment in the transaction, told Bloomberg news that an assessment of institutional risk played a role in the decision. “If you own a paper contract where they can only deliver you 10 cents on the dollar or less, you should probably convert it to physical,” said Bass.

Gold Is Chugging Up the Track

When you and I — and all Americans — take a sober look at the risk of today’s financial system, the spending of governments enabled by the money printing of their central banks, and the quiet but accelerating movement away from the global dollar standard, we will seek an alternative — an alternative that cannot be printed or is not dependent on the promises of a financial structure that is evidently crumbling under the load of its debt.

There is only one such monetary commodity. It is gold.

The train is about to leave the station. All aboard!

Gold is just one of the investments I will be talking about during a special online briefing, American Breaking Point: 7 Deadly Threats to Your Family & Finances in 2012. I urge you to join me for this FREE action-packed event to prepare for the very real, very dangerous threats we face. I guarantee it will be one of the most important steps you take all year to safeguard your family and your finances. Reserve your spot now!