Bonds are saying inflation is manageable, but gold and commodities are saying inflation is going to be a very serious problem. Check out Jerry Bowyer's excellent article (“The Financial Paradox of Our Time?”) which attempts to get to the bottom of this important issue.
A snippet:
“My friend Rich Karlgaard, the omnivorous and 'air-apatetic' publisher of Forbes magazine has declared that the simultaneous existence of a flat (and, sometime, inverted) yield curve and high gold prices is "the financial question of our time." I agree. Supply side economists who have lived in blissful peace with one another (at least as far as economic issues are concerned) are now split. They have fundamentally different views on the state of our economy, and what the Fed should be doing. Since the days of Ronald Reagan the supply-siders have been driving the policy debate and have, generally, forecast the pants off of the Keynesian establishment. But now they're forecasting different things. Some of those think you should focus on the gold market and some put more emphasis on others markets; bonds, for instance.
In the past it hasn't really mattered whether you are a gold watcher or a bond watcher, because these markets have been saying pretty much the same thing, but lately they haven't…”
