Economist and former banker Alasdair Macleod, writing at GoldMoney, says that with the U.S. economy weakening, the Federal Reserve's options for reflating it and financing the U.S. government's debt are narrowing. MacLeod, who will speak at GATA's conference in London in August (http://www.gatagoldrush.com/), writes:

"It is the Fed's problem, rather than Greece's impending financial collapse, that should be closely monitored by gold bugs. This is not to belittle European difficulties and those of the European Central Bank. But in a strict monetary sense, the ECB is not so far down the monetary inflation route as the Fed -- yet. It is the Fed that has already expanded its money quantity explosively and is struggling to find further monetary fuel to lift the economy. It is the Fed that is locked on a course of accelerating monetary inflation, as those monetary base statistics show."

Macleod's commentary is titled "Catch 22 for the Fed" and you can find it at GoldMoney here:

http://www.goldmoney.com/gold-research/catch-22-for-the-fed.html?gmrefco...