Out there in the world today, a cabal of western central bankers is secretly determined to manipulate the world’s markets. They are doing this not via interest rates, but by rigging gold prices. More specifically, they have kept bullion prices artificially low in recent decades to ensure that our so-called fiat currency system – that is, money created by central banks – continues to work. For if the public ever knew the “real” price of gold, we would finally understand that our currencies, such as the dollar, are a sham … hence the need for that central bank plot.

Does this sound like the ranting of a Tea Party activist? A Hollywood screenplay? Or could there be a grain of truth in it? The question has been provoking hot debate among a small tribe of investors in America for many years, particularly those owning gold mining stocks. Right now it is also leaching into the more mainstream American political world.

As Republican candidates jostle ahead of the 2012 election, the question of whether America’s central bank has been debasing its currency – and how that is (or is not) linked to the value of gold – is cropping up with new force. Herman Cain, the former pizza executive who is now a popular Republican contender, hinted last month that he would like to return to a world where “a dollar is a dollar” and added that “yes, we do need a gold standard for that”. More recently, Newt Gingrich has voiced the same idea. Ron Paul, an outside Republican contender, has been lambasting the Federal Reserve for years over its easy money policies. He is now darkly warning of plots.