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Today Fox News provided more evidence for why the odious relationship between the right wing media and gold sellers deserves some serious investigation. Despite endless shilling from Glenn Beck, it seems that even Fox doesn’t know if gold is a safe investment. Over the course of two different programs Fox said that gold will collapsed but also promised a 30% increase. Way to play both sides, Fox News.

Here is FNC’s Jonas Ferris predicting a collapse in gold via Media Matters:

Ferris said, “Have I been a little off on gold for the last 5 years sure, but let me tell you something, gold is my super bubble this week, and I can prove it. The US dollar is up, inflation’s down, those are things that should be bad for gold, yet gold is up every day, because it is in a crazy insanity mode just like the NASDAQ in early 2000. It’s going to collapse and it’s going to collapse big time, 50% or more.

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Eric Bolling on FNC’s Bulls and Bears offered the exact opposite prediction:

Bolling said, “I like gold. States are going to get bailed out. Gold’s got to go up. You have to have to print currency…gold’s going to go up 30%.”

The conflicting predictions on Fox News run counter to what Glenn Beck has been telling his viewers and listeners. At various times Beck has said, “I’m not recommending gold as an investment strategy. I am recommending gold because when this country falls apart, gold will be the only thing worth anything.” He also urged his listeners to, “think like a German Jew” during the period of Nazi ascendance. “I think people are running out of options,” he said, “of something that could be worth something at all.””

If Beck’s urgings sound a lot like endorsements from a paid pitchman, that’s because they are. Beck is helping to fuel this gold bubble with his dubious claims about the safety of gold. Bolling’s analysis is either wishful thinking, or he owns a whole lot of gold that he plans to be selling soon. Contrary to all claims of the paid right wing media, nobody knows what gold is going to do, and historically speaking when gold goes on a run during a recession, when the economy gets better, the bubble bursts. That is the part that Beck and Bolling tend to leave out.

Beck has been using scare tactics to get his audience to buy gold, while he is getting paid to convince people to buy gold. This is not only a conflict of interest for Beck, but he is also misusing his position in the media to help inflate a market.

This week Rep. Anthony Weiner accused Goldline of, “aggressive sales tactics, conservative spokespeople and rhetoric to sell over-priced gold coins to unsuspecting consumers.” This is a cozy little relationship that deserves investigation, especially when Fox News is unintentionally providing evidence that gold isn’t nearly as safe as Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, G. Gordon Liddy, and other paid right wing shills are making out to be on their programs.