A financial foundation of sorts has been restored to the world economy. But the U.S. is running 8.5% unemployment overall, which translates into about 15% unemployment in the 'for profit' sectors. And even CNN has caught onto the fact that public sector payrolls are continuing to mushroom, based on the presumption that governments should never reduce operations, even when insolvent. Obama's next Act , to reduce that record unemployment, will not occur without huge stimulus to end demand for goods and services generally. The pressure is extreme and progress will be slow, but the market is predicting that successive rounds of monetary stimulation will prevail over the European 'inflation control at any price' model. So, the US dollar will prevail and survive in a slightly weaker state, as the real economy strengthens and both metals demand and prices improve steadily. Copper and gold have never been oversupplied, so the price action should be fairly pronounced at a relatively early stage of recovery. While US housing will remain weak for years to come, keep in mind that copper demand has not had the benefit of any significant housing usage for over 2 years now and autos for the last 6-9 months as inventories adjust. Nowhere to go but up.