A big-picture look at how some analysts get to a wild $38,000 gold price — mostly a bad-news signal for trust in the dollar-based trade system.

• The $38,000 figure comes from simple division: take China's yearly trade surplus and divide it by how much gold China imported.
• The idea is that if China settled all its trade in gold instead of dollars, gold would need to be far more valuable to cover the bill.
• At today's price, gold is way too cheap to back that much trade — it would take a massive jump for the math to work.
• The number is a thought experiment, not a forecast, but it shows how far gold could run if countries moved away from the dollar.

Outlook: Expect more talk of gold-backed trade as long as big surplus countries like China keep stockpiling gold instead of dollars.