According to a recent report from Bloomberg, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., the third-largest U.S. life insurer, has been buying gold. This is the first time in its 152-year history that Northwestern has purchased gold.

According to Northwestern CEO Edward Zore, “Gold just seems to make sense; it’s a store of value. In the Depression, gold did very, very well.”

According to Bloomberg, Northwestern has accumulated about $400 million in gold. CEO Zore believes that the price of gold could double “or even rise fivefold” if the economy continues to weaken. “The downside risk is limited, but the upside is large,” Zore said. “We have stocks in our portfolio that lost 95%.” But gold “is not going down to $90.”

Despite the rise in “cash for gold” TV ads and billboards, people are still generally skeptical about buying gold as an investment or hedge against inflation. As I’ve said before, I think gold will be the next bubble as people eventually lose confidence in the dollar and US governments ability to repay its debt.

Check out the increase in the money supply over the past year.

A lot of you will protest that it hasn’t really increased and that the banks that got the money from the Fed have just given back to the Fed to shore up their reserves. True, and the Fed is paying the banks interest on this money too. But as some point the Fed is going to stop paying interest, and the greedy bankers are going to start lending this money out. The Fed hopes that this money will work its way into the economy in a slow and orderly fashion, so it takes maybe 5-10 years to enter the system and not rush in all of a sudden, because if it did the result would be similar a massive drug overdose. But in smaller amounts, its more palatable with contained inflation. But it will result in inflation nonetheless. And when it does, gold prices are likely to keep on rising.

If you interested in buying gold coins check out my previous posts on gold/silver and coins, as well as my personal list of favorite gold coins.