The debate among the "hard money" types about the near future cannot be settled. It is like Yogi Berra said, "It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future."
How can one predict with certainty how a future president or Federal Reserve Chairman will act?
Peter Schiff thinks that they will print money, and then print some more, and then some more. He may be right. Mish Shedlock thinks that they will not do so because this would be stupid and it may not even be possible. John Mauldin thinks that there will be a crisis, but good ol’ American knowhow will prevail. I have no idea and this is the reason I have been talking about the impossibility of making investments. The reason I do not think that Schiff is right is that I cannot see the "powers that be" doing something so against their own self interest as hyperinflation. My thinking is to combine all these viewpoints. Yes, there will be inflation, but it will not be hyperinflation. Yes, there will be a partial repudiation, not of the US debts, but the Social Security and Medicare promises—especially Medicare. There is really no choice.
Here is an argument between Mauldin and Schiff at the Cambridge House conference I attended in February. I saw it live and it was a lot of fun!