Wall Street is on its knees this morning. Lehman Brothers (NYSE:LEH) is out for the count. Merrill Lynch (NYSE:MER) has been sold for a song. And AIG (NYSE:AIG) is living on borrowed time after its stock was pummeled in Friday’s going.

Worse still, according to William Patalon III the wider US economy is sliding into a deep recession.

While fear may from time to time play a role in creating price spikes in gold, the underlying bull market has been driven by solid fundamentals. Those who have been too afraid to buy simply do not understand the underlying dynamics and have instead decided that the market is irrational.