Gold bugs are now even more bullish on bullion, more bearish on the United States, and generally scared silly about the future of the U.S. economy.

Inspiring a new wave of gold buying was a recent Federal Reserve move to start buying U.S. government debt with U.S. dollars.

That money was "created out of thin air," notes online gold market watcher, Australia's The Privateer.

Presto! Monetary magic, direct from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's hat.

In the wake of what's seen as the government's shaky buy-sell deal with itself, major gold buyers are beefing up their positions, including Dow Theory Letters' Richard Russell.

"I believe gold is in a major or primary bull market," said Russell, quoted in MarketWatch.com.

"I believe the gold bull market is currently in its second phase. This is the phase where sophisticated and seasoned investors and the funds enter the market."

There's only one bull market these days, according to Russell — gold.

"I believe the bear market in stocks will continue erratically and the deflationary trends will persist. ... Bernanke will stop at nothing (including massive printing of dollars) in his effort to halt deflation."

Dennis Gartman, who writes the daily Gartman Letter on global capital markets, says he was recently thinking about shorting gold. Instead, he has increased his position in the precious metal.

"We thought 'quantitative easing' was a matter of time, a matter of 'when, not if.' [Recently] 'when' came," Gartman says.