The gold bugs are on the loose. Today gold shot up to another new high of $1,212 per ounce. So far this year gold has risen 34%.

Investors are looking for a safe haven and are running headlong into gold. Governments around the world are buying more gold, with India buying 200 metric tons from the International Monetary Fund. The US Mint has run out of gold coins. The situation in Dubai is up in the air.

It's ridiculous for the U.S. Mint to be honoring every U.S. president with a gold $1 coin. Very few of our presidents deserve it, and some deserve much better.

Do we need to honor Andrew "Reconstruction" Johnson. Warren "Tea Pot Dome" Harding or William Henry "one month" Harrison? What about the endless parade of guys with full length beards who no one can quite remember once they've graduated school? Should they be placed on the same pedestal as Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy?

I don't think so.

Maybe the value of the coins should equal to the success of a president's administration.

We should make the George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln coins worth at least $100 for their respective accomplishments were at least 100 times better than the average president. Other coins should have their values adjusted accordingly.

Deduct 80 cents from Richard Nixon for Watergate and add another 15 cents back for opening up relations with China. Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter are worth 50 cents tops. Ronald Reagan deserves a solid $1.

George H. W. Bush is a tough one. On the one hand, he did win the first Gulf War. But that war resulted in the current one. Let's say 70 to 80 cents.

The Bill Clinton coin should have 50 cents knocked off for the Lewinsky scandal and impeachment and another 75 cents added back for the value of the bull market of the 1990s.

By the time the current president's coin comes into circulation, the Mint will be lucky if can recoup its costs.