INTERNATIONAL. Renowned Wall Street financial forecaster and economist Peter Schiff, the president of investment firm Euro Pacific Capital and author of 'Bull Moves in Bear Markets' said gold prices are poised for a "spectacular" and prolonged rally as the recession deepens and investors finally become disillusioned with the US dollar.

Schiff, who warned of the October 2008 stock market crash and accompanying recession as far back as 2006, has predicted a gold price of US$2,000, and rising as high as US$5,000 as inflation takes hold.

Speaking at a recent interview with Business News Wire, Schiff suggests that the looming prospect of a hyper-inflationary environment in the US will severely debase the US Dollar over the next few years.

"The global investment community will realise that gold represents the ultimate "store of value" as a safe haven replacement for a discredited dollar," Schiff said.

"If you really want to grow your wealth, you should own gold in the mining sector," he adds, while also suggesting that gold equities (companies that are already in production) offer the greatest leverage to rising gold prices.

"With gold stocks, there's obviously a lot of leverage to higher gold prices. As millions or billions of people discover gold as a store of value and as a way to escape inflation, there's going to be tremendous demand and somebody's going to have to supply that demand. It's obviously going to have to be mined," he says. "So the companies that have gold and mine it are going to see profit margins explode."

"Mines are not as productive as they used to be. Supply is very constrained. So if we get a big increase in demand, there are really no significant new gold deposits that are going to come on-stream any time soon. So the companies that are already producing are simply going to be able to get a lot more money for the ounces that they pull out of the ground," he adds.

The other key consideration is an inevitable return to the ‘Gold Standard' as a way for the world's central banks to attach a meaningful valuation to each of their country's currencies, Schiff says.

"The only solution to the economic problems that we have today is a return to sound money... The world is ultimately going to have to move away from the ‘Dollar Standard' and back their currencies with something real. I think gold is the best thing to use. Gold has been money for 5,000 years," he said.

"One of the reasons that gold isn't stronger is because of this temporary strength of the dollar. This is keeping the gold market in check. And the dollar is getting some of the safe haven money that should be going into gold," Schiff added.

"At some point that will stop. The people who are buying dollars will realize that there's no safety in dollars. Because the central banks are going to try to pay for the economic bailouts and stimuli by looting the world's savings and by printing money and debasing it."

"So, if you want to escape that, you hold gold, which is something that the government cannot debase," he concludes.

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