The price of gold has been hanging near its historic highs, selling around $1,000 per ounce. In times of crisis — the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the collapse of Bear Stearns in spring 2008 — gold has spiked as fearful investors grabbed for something they could hold onto.

But that’s not the case today. The United States is technically out of its Great Recession, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke recently said, although the jobless rate climbed in September. The stock markets are riding a 50 percent rally since March. And yet, gold keeps going up.

That means a growing number of investors, traders and, most troublingly, foreign governments don’t believe in the strength of the U. S. dollar, analysts warn. People buy gold when there’s fear.

“It’s the fear that the piece of paper in your pocket you call money will devalue over time,” said Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak.

To stave off a liquidity crisis last year, Bernanke’s Fed turned on the money spigot, flooding the system — and world — with dollars. In the short term, that helped avert a second Great Depression.

But in the long term, with each new dollar introduced into the system, each dollar you hold becomes worth less. That’s more than just inflation, which we think of as simply rising prices. That’s debasement of not only our currency, but the globe’s reserve currency. And that makes countries such as China — which holds the greatest percentage of U. S. debt — very nervous.

“It amazes me that any self-respecting central banker is not alarmed that gold is over $1,000 and the dollar is trading at all-time record lows,” Boockvar said.

The massive economies of China and India, as well as several emerging economies, are increasingly hoarding gold, said Michael Dudas, gold analyst at Jefferies Asset Management.

The argument shared by China and by other investors who have been lending money to the United States during this crisis is simple, Dudas said: “They’re looking at us and saying, ‘If you keep printing too much money, what you owe me is not worth as much.’ ”

In periods of intense crisis, it’s probably best not to use a gold-price spike as a barometer, as people do not act rationally in a crisis. But in nonpanic situations, such as the one we’re in now, gold is a more useful barometer. And here are two readings from the barometer: The U. S. Mint has sold out of gold products in the past year. More importantly, noncommercial net long positions on gold are at an all-time high, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said recently.

Translation: Investors think the price of gold will keep rising.