Could be that he was reading Barron's last week, too.
There is a credible argument for higher prices, but it's predicated on the continued deterioration of the US$.
If you have faith in the US$ despite massive trade deficits, government deficits, and ballooning household debt levels, it's only natural that you think that gold prices will collapse.
However, if you think that, eventually, deficits matter, suspect that foreigners will tire of keeping their trade balances in US Treasury securities, and observe prices in other commodity markets, recent trends in gold prices don't look all that strange.
I guess that depends on how you feel about the massive capital account surplus, government deficits that, as a percentage of GDP, are less than they were under Reagan and a household net worth (that's assets minus debt) that has more than doubled since 1995, and now stands at a record $52 trillion. It's hard to claim we're mired in debt with our net worth growing so rapidly.
suspect that foreigners will tire of keeping their trade balances in US Treasury securities
The fact that all this capital is flowing into the US is a crystal clear market signal that our economy is solid and is presently the best place to invest. Money flows to where it's treated best. What else are they going to do with their dollars? Where else will they invest? China? Japan? The EU? Those are not places I'd be investing but to each his own.