Relatively speaking, this is bad

Portugal failed to vote through their austerity budget today. The government will likely be dissolved, interest rates are at record levels. Most likely, Portugal will need emergency loans to be able to pay their bills.

The dollar did this.

Japan has a nuclear incident of almost Chernobyl-like proportions, and the middle-east is on fire. Imagine, if you will, what the dollar would be doing if none of this was occuring. I am getting more and more convinced that the crash that so many has warned about during the last few years is now imminent. It won't be a straight line - there will be bounces - but we are about to discover how bad a shape the dollar is in.

You may indeed want to hug your gold tonight.