The United States debt is over $14 trillion and growing, making it the largest debt in the world. CNNMoney has recently released a report saying that the United States Treasury is forecasting that the national debt will exceed the size of the US economy in 2011 for the first time since World War ll. Just one year ago, the Treasury estimated that this would not be achieved until 2014, yet now, the total debt to GDP ratio will top 102% of the US economy as a result of massive tax cuts and stimulus packages. This is causing financial upheaval as American citizens prepare themselves from what could be just the beginning of the US Dollar’s collapse.

History has proven that the United States Government tends to spend its way out of debt, and currently they’re only paying the interest on the base $14 trillion debt, not including the gigantic debt owed to separate entities like Social Security and Medicare. The government already takes 42 cents out of every dollar to pay the interest on current debt, and in the long-term this has caused significant devaluing of the United States Dollar. As debt continues to skyrocket, more investors are moving away from weakening dollar-backed assets in exchange for safe-haven investments like gold bars and coins that have proven their ability to thrive when currencies flounder.

Gold and the United States Dollar are known to have an inverse relationship because when the dollar loses value, investors tend to purchase gold as a store of value. No other investment in the world holds the safe-haven properties that gold has, thus as currencies continue to weaken, it’s no surprise that the metal has skyrocketed more than 700% in the last decade amidst one of the worst financial crises the United States has ever seen.

John Halloran, gold price analyst at the Certified Gold Exchange (CGE) has updated his 2011 gold price projection to $1,780 per ounce, saying that "the metal’s upward trend is being driven by inflation, astronomical debt and overall higher demand for gold as a store of wealth."

Many investors are protecting their portfolios and spending power with physical possession gold bars and coins. These assets could offset losses from an unstable economy, while increasing in value with gold’s demand.