Wow, that is by far the highest price target for gold I have heard yet. At that price, you obviously believe the dollar is gonna crash big time. If things really got that out of hand, wouldn't you also believe that we would have a hard time even cashing in our chips ie. liquidity problems, financial meltdown, and clearing house insolvency. I may hold a thousand shares of GLD but if Goldman and Bank of NY go belly up, what's the probability that I would even be able to redeem my shares.

I think you're right about where the dollar is heading. The news reporting in Europe on the state of the US economy is a little less biased than the coverage in the US (read: the US population is kept in the dark on this one) and I've heard several things similar to what you read in the Financial Times in the last couple of months.
We can be certain that many “powers that be” have already assessed the situation and have their plan B ready for when the general public will start worrying about this. For instance, the OPEC has been thinking of quoting the price of crude oil in Euro instead of USD since 1999. They never got around to doing it (except Iraq in 2000 but Saddam probably did this to make a political statement more than for economic reasons) but the thought did hit the news again 2 months ago so they're still seriously thinking about it. If this change were to happen, this would have a major impact on the USD.

Overall, I think your assessment about the future of the US dollar is correct.
Moving part of you assets into gold is certainly a possibility but it locks those funds from being used for trading or investing.

As a trader from Europe trading the US markets, I have looking into some other possibilities and took certain precautions to avoid having my trading account in USD. Because I spend my money in Euros, a major drop in the dollar could potentially take away a serious amount of my profits. So, I have a trading account in Euro with most of my trading funds in it and a small account in USD which is used to settle the trades I do on US markets. On a very regular basis, I convert my profits to the Euro account.

Although US traders might not use this approach since they have to spend their money in dollars anyway, but it would not be a bad idea to consider this possibility even if you live in the US.
You just have to negotiate with your broker to get a small spread on the USD/EUR exchange transaction so this approach is almost free of charge and covers the potential risk of a US dollar drop.
I know this doesn't protect you from inflation as such but you end up with more dollars in your pocket to cover the higher prices in the end.

Take care,
Walter

This is a reply to Walter. From what I know of Europe's economy, it faces serious challenges over the next decades (mainly the bloated welfare state, which is what Kotlikoff's analysis is mainly about) - and they do not have the dynamist culture and the immigrants that the US has. I do not think Euro is going to be in that much better shape than the US$.

Having said that, does anybody know of any economic analysis of Europe's future (like what Van posted) by any credible body? I'd really like to know.

Thanks,
Manoj