* because you need USD to repay your USD debt * because without additional fiscal/monetary easing, the nuclear meltdown is deflationary
Gold is tanking because it's a liquid asset and a lot of Japanese are selling anything they have to cover their stock losses. Japanese selling triggers stop loss cascades in all asset classes including Gold. At first the selling is primarily Japanese; then it becomes global.
Commodities are down across the board. Nice pullback. What one does during moves such as these separates the pros from the shmoes.
When people/funds sell stocks or bonds, the other side of that trade is that they are buying dollars as a result, putting upward pressure on the dollar, and therefore downward pressure on the price of gold. In addition, some of the stock holdings people have are in gold etf's, which if sold, would also pressure gold downward. I think its just a short term pullback. The printing presses are running 24/7.