Fear of a Dollar Collapse

The manifestations of this free printing press are many: Any commodity priced in plentiful dollars will cost more. Crude is now $82; and Inflation Fears Send Gold to 27-Year High.
Why? One way to think about it is supply and demand. Print A LOT more dollars and each one is worth a little less. Or, consider it this way: Extracting Oil or Gold from the earth ain't easy: We have to explore for Oil, determine where it is, how deep, what quality, etc. Then we have to use lots of heavy machinery to extract it, ship it to where it gets processed, refined, used in chemical manufacturing. Some of it gets refined into gasoline, and it is then transported to a network of gasoline stations, and it gets pumped into your car -- all for less per gallon than diet Coke or peach Snapple!
For gold, the process is not all that dissimilar.
Just crank up the printing press: It's cheap and easy. But why should us gold and oil producers exchange our hard won commodities (it's hard work) for pieces of paper you people are simply cranking out for free? Either give us something of real value -- or instead, we will insist on more of your crappy little pieces of green paper.
Thus, the inflationary repercussions of a "free money" policy. In fact, every commodity that is priced in dollars can potentially see much higher prices: Gold, Oil, Wheat, Soybeans, Copper, Timber, Corn, etc.
It's easy to understand why inflation has been called The Cruelest Tax.