Now everything's a little upside down,

as a matter of fact the wheels have stopped.

What's good is bad, what's bad is good.

You'll find out when you reach the top

you're on the bottom.

- Bob Dylan, from Idiot Wind 

Just when we thought it was safe to ignore Cyprus, chief European banker, Mario Draghi, blurts out. Five-year-olds blurt. Teenagers blurt. Lovers in a quarrel blurt. Responsible people in enormously powerful and sensitive positions do not blurt, should never blurt.

Perhaps in the aftermath of a very large and very deep recession, we should be expecting contradictions in all kinds of markets, from gasoline to food, from pork bellies to gold to currencies.

We indeed are getting them. This may sound philosophical, but there are the actual contradictions, then there are the radical reactions to such contradictions. Even Goldman Sachs, which has downgraded its gold price outlook twice in the last 45 days and continues to talk it down, very clearly says in their analysis of gold that economic growth in the United States will be modest for the rest of this year and into 2014. That would mean unemployment will stay high for a longer time than hoped for, which should mean the Fed will keep priming the pump. But gold gets no lift under its wings for that. 

Yet another strange contradiction occurred in markets today. The S&P 500 normally moves in opposition to the price of gold. Today, however, the S&P is down almost as much as gold (the former 4.5%, the latter 5%). And, as if wonders will never cease, U.S. treasury issues were trending down for the week until today. So, gold is not a safe haven, government paper is not a safe haven and equities are shaky. Is all this money going under rocks somewhere? Under a mattress? The most important thing that can be said about today's plunge is that as gold and silver float lower, we can be first in line to ride it right back up.