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This isn't just a pie in the sky hope; there are real conditions that are making the yellow metal's rise ineluctable, suggests Jeff Clark of Casey Research.

While many of us at Casey Research don't like making price predictions—and certainly ones accompanied by a specific date—it's hard to ignore the correlation between the US monetary base and the gold price.

That correlation says we'll see $2,300 gold by January 2014.

There are plenty of long-term charts that show a connection between gold and various other forms of money (and credit). Most show that one outperforms until the other catches up. But let's zero in on our current circumstances, namely the expansion of the US monetary base since the financial crisis hit in 2008.

Here's the performance of the gold price compared to the expansion of the monetary base since January 2008.

Click to Enlarge

You can see the trends are very similar. In fact, the correlation coefficient is an incredible +0.94.

Since the Fed has declared "QEternity," it's logical to conclude that this expansion of the monetary base will continue. If it grows at the same pace through January 2014, there is a high likelihood the gold price will reach $2,300 at that point. That's roughly a 30% rise within 15 months.

And by year-end 2014, gold could easily be averaging $2,500 an ounce. That's 41% above current prices.

Some may argue that there's no law saying this correlation must continue. That's true. And maybe the Fed doesn't print till 2014. That's possible. But it's not just the US central bank that's printing money...

• European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi has declared that it will buy unlimited quantities of European sovereign debt.
• Japan's central bank is expanding its current purchase program by around 10 trillion yen ($126 billion) to 80 trillion yen.
• The Chinese, British, and Swiss are all adding to their balance sheets.

The largest economies of the world are all grossly devaluing their currencies. This will not be consequence-free. Gold and silver will be direct beneficiaries—along with mining companies—starting with rising prices.