What factors effect the price of gold?

What are their relationships with gold price? To what degree do they effect the price of gold, in comparison to the other factors?

Public Comments

1. Believe it or not Oil supply/prices. This is because it directly effects the buying market in general. This is a classic case of Supply and Demand. My second source has some other good reasons as well.
2. Gold is correlated with level of war, globally. It is also correlated with productivity and national indebtedness. It is an alternate currency. Likewise, it is inversely related to central bank gold stocks. High gold stocks risk sales by the central banks, low gold stocks may trigger buying. Gold prices have risen, imho, because the dollar, yen and euro are overvalued, but there is no alternate currency of sufficient strength, to invest in. The current American administration is borrowing extraordinary sums. Based upon calculations by the Treasury, before the last tax cut and the Medicare drug benefit, on a present value basis, the United States is insolvent in the absence of material cuts in services and increases in taxation beyond those scheduled. Jagadeesh Gokhale has provided a good academic discussion on this and seems to be leading the academic community in measuring the problem. If you are academically inclined, you may want to read http://www.aei.org/docLib/20030508_gokhale.pdf