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- in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #4047
I was told today that the US
has around 8000 tons metric
stored at FT Knox, KY. and
may have more gold than any other nation, including China.in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #4046I’ve been informed today from
CNBC that the gold price went
up because India was thinking
of or may have bought more
gold, maybe another 200 tons
metric from the IMF today.in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #4042The report of counterfeit bullion bars made of tungsten then plated with gold lacks authority. Why would people spread this story? Take your choice: pro gold followers to show a weakness in supply or anti gold followers to discredit those who express sometimes wild ideas about monetary exchange rates for $$$ and bullion.
Simplifying the brains and abilities of those who actual deal in mining gold and making bullion into saleable products is a mistake. Never underestimate our knowledge about our product, especially with the large volume purported to be bogus. I have a variety of suspicions about the gold market but believing that over a million 400-ounce bars of tungsten worked their way into the treasure chests of gold holders is a stretch for me.
If wrong, I’ll laugh out loud.
“A fool and his money are soon parted”-English Proverb.
“A wise man will not reprove a fool. Better die than turn your back on reason”-Chinese Proverbin reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #4044A rod of tungsten 1 inch in diameter by 12 inches long sells for $400 or $500 depending on being polished. To gold plate tungsten is a rip off of value, unless this is a plot to corner the market on this metal. Which is highly unlikely. I know of one tungsten mine in Nevada that closed down due to the low price of tungsten.
in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #4043I’ve been emailed from skeptic fringe survivalists about this purported fraud and the supposed vacant Fort Knox of true gold holdings.
Why isn’t this same skepticism even aware of the most volitile and telling fraud surrounding the global warming hoax exposure, far more revealing in its monetary fraud potential.
Are you scratching you head? Google Nature.com “Storm Clouds Brewing Over Leaked Emails”, or “Climategate”, or best “CRU” to discover for yourself. Follow the money, whether it’s gold or tungsten.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4041Last on gold is $1165.00 after hitting an earlier high of about $1175.
The following is very important:
This is a must read–red colored emphasis mine:
China quietly introduces new financial system
Benjamin Fulford(Editor’s Note: The following missive, from Mr. Fulford, portends some radical changes ahead, Not only are they radical, he also suggests that they are imminent. Do your own “due diligence” but stay open to the possibilities. – JSB)
China has stealthily introduced a new financial system based on the renminbi which is well on its way to becoming fully convertible, according to a high-level Chinese source. In addition, China is purchasing 10,000 tons of gold to back up a new fund designed to develop and market heretofore forbidden and suppressed technologies. The fund will be based outside of China and will be controlled by prominent members of the Chinese overseas community. The gold purchase will take some time because of the logistics of transporting it and the Chinese wish to test it thoroughly. Both the Chinese government and MI6 now confirm reports that much of the gold sold by the Federal Reserve Board over the past decade is in fact gold plated tungsten.
For its part, the renminbi is now convertible with South American currencies, the rouble, Middle-Eastern currencies, the yen, South East Asian currencies and African currencies. “We will slowly introduce our new financial system in parallel with the old one and hope that people steadily migrate towards it,” the Chinese official says.
Meanwhile, the latest G20 meeting ended in acrimony and chaos. The leadership of the West is in total disarray and will remain so until the Federal Reserve Board’s bankruptcy becomes visible even to brainwashed section of the Western public. This is now expected by January or February. Both MI6 and a senior Chinese government source now predict the collapse of the Federal Reserve dollar by that time.
We are also hearing various reports that many Pentagon and other US alphabet suit agency figures with both US and Israeli citizenship have recently fled to Israel. Things are coming to a head.
China is proposing to replace the US dollar with the Hong Kong dollar
At a top secret high-finance meeting scheduled for this weekend, China will propose that the US dollar be replaced by the Hong Kong dollar, according to a senior MI6 source. The proposal is under serious consideration by the backers of the new financial system.
As we have previously reported most US dollars ever created are now backed by gold at the rate of 1/28th of a gram per dollar. The fraudulent Federal Reserve Board fiat dollars issued after September, 2008 are not. Nor are any dollars derived from fraudulent “derivatives.” So, to replace the US dollar with the Hong Kong dollar all that would be required would be to rename the gold-backed dollars. Any new Hong Kong dollars issued would be backed by the Renminbi, according to the Chinese proposal.
The Federal Reserve note will fall to 0.03 cents by January
It can now be stated that all the US dollars connected to legitimate commerce are backed by gold at the rate of 1/28th of a gram per dollar. The remaining Federal Reserve Board debt notes will soon fall in value to 0.03 cents, according to extremely high level financial sources. This means all legitimate businessmen and workers paid in US dollars have nothing to worry about. However, high level con-artists selling financial “derivatives,” will be left with 0.03% of what they thought they owned.
It is amazing to see how many intelligent “well informed” people still do not have a clue about what is going on. If you connect the dots in the corporate propaganda media, you should be able to see for yourself without going to so-called “conspiracy” news sites. Among countries that have publicly said they will no longer use dollars for trade with each other can be found: China, Russia, Japan, South America, the Arab league, Turkey, Iran etc.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4040Last of gold is $1166.00.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4039Whoopee, last on gold is $1160.60. Physical gold is king, while the days of paper gold are apparently coming to an end.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4038On a last sale today of $1150.90, gold has established an all-time high weekly close.
Below is a link to the short article from the NYSE to its listed companies and members explaining in their view why owning gold might not be such a good idea. The story was linked from the jsmineset.com site.
You have to understand Wall Street hates gold and generally has the same moronic stance as do some of their media companies when it comes to reporting objectively on the positive substance of reasoning behind gold’s strength.
http://www.jsmineset.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/november2009-Medley-pdf
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4037On a last sale today of $1150.90, gold has established an all-time high weekly close.
Below is a link to the short article from the NYSE to its listed companies and members explaining in their view why owning gold might not be such a good idea. The story was linked from the jsmineset.com site.
You have to understand Wall Street hates gold and generally has the same moronic stance as do some of their media companies when it comes to reporting objectively on the positive substance of reasoning behind gold’s strength.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4036Last on gold is $1138.90.
Last on Silver is $18.25
The following link is to a well written story out of South Africa concerning silver and its future.
http://www.miningmx.com/news/gold_and_silver/is-silver-salvation-upon-us.htm
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4035Last on gold is $1143.70.
Check out Dan Norcini’s staircase gold chart at jsmineset.com.
Below is the link to an unusually bullish interview that was permitted to be broadcast on CNBC.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4032Good ideas, Bluejay. I just now spoke with Mike and encouraged him to consider a broader net-work…specifically suggesting creating a FaceBook page, which, as of noon today is up! This may spur activity…let’s all get involved.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4031Last on gold is $1144.90(whoops now $1142.10) on higher than expected CPI figures. Earlier it hit about $1154 and appears to have reached a short term high.
Rick, I am always open to new ideas as they are the forerunner of solutions and inventions.
One slight problem for potential investors of the Company is, where do they go to buy shares? Do they go to the gray market which is a butcher shop or do they call the Company?
First, investors want visibility and liquidity in markets and really wouldn’t wouldn’t want to call orders into the company unless historical stories or press releases were quite compelling. They are accustom to dealing with brokers and seeing their positions on monthly statements.
Although we could advertise the company on kitco.com along with mentioning that for ordering certificates out our rates are the cheapest in the industry as some of them charge upwards of $250. This could be appealing to some investors but our last sale on the gray market at $0.0002 doesn’t speak too highly of us in market language.
I think that if enough shareholders put in bids below asset value and significantly higher than our last OTC sale in NY then the liquidity concern could be half solved.
Of course, being listed somewhere on an exchange or a having a higher OTC creditability level would compliment nicely any submitted news articles of the mine or advertisements submitted to kitco.com.
Keep thinking.
Mike is a one man show and is really overwhelmed with responsibilities. I would think that having a one week seminar in Alleghany, weather permitting, between concerned shareholders for a general “think tank” experience would greatly assist him in.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4034Sorry, forgot to link the article in the previous submission, here it is:
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4033Last on gold is $1145.90.
The below linked article, in case folks missed it at kitco.com, “Zinc Dimes, Tungsten Gold & Lost Respect” by Jim Willie is an extremely enlightening story concerning current events effecting gold.
If you have time to read this, you’ll be in the minority of well educated people. As quantitative easing permits the bankers to pump up the general averages for trading profits, as they goose us all on increased card interest charges, the average citizen has absolutely no idea of the consequences heading their way if they continue to have gold absent from their wealth holdings.
in reply to: Clips from Alleghany #4028This was a good year for fruit production in Alleghany. A few apples are still dangling on the trees around the office.
No snow yet. WE’ve had two nights down to 28 degrees F. (our low so far).Later this week snow is in the weather prediction.
An MSHA inspector visited the mine a couple weeks ago with no citations issued.
Not much to report from the mine.
A board of directors meeting is scheduled for Monday.
We finally heard from the producer of the “Origin of the Earth” episode that features the Sixteen to One. It should air on the history channel on February 22, 2010. The series starts next week.
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.
in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #4027Aram Shishmanian is chief executive of the World Gold Council. On November 11,2009 he answered questions about gold’s record run and how investors can exploit high gold prices. One questioner asked, “What about gold reserves for miners? How much gold is there out there, how do we know and is it likely that we could ever run out?
Mr. Shishmanian answered, “Gold remains a very scarce resource. There have been few major gold discoveries in recent years and many of those finds are in more difficult areas, which is likely to mean higher costs of production. Global gold mine production has been in decline for some years and it is thought that over the longer term this trend will continue.”
It is gratifying when world leaders corroborate what we know from personal experiences.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4030Bluejay, or anyone else following this topic. Kitco.com is a great web-site, which I visit a few times a day, minimum. How can OAu post news, opinions, potential, historic production figures, and all that is in Allegany on the site?
in reply to: Miscellaneous #4029I also heard a story sort of like this a while back. It was along the lines of people finding gold during the time Oroville Dam was built. I could be wrong, but I think they were finding it in the lake bed, and also in teh piles of removed dirt. Fascinating stuff.
Also makes one wonder if they could do any good with a metal detector, now that the lake level is very low…
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4026Last on gold is $1131.40 while being higher earlier above $1135.
Last on silver is $18.22 up $0.80.
Years ago while I was working on an Exchange trading floor Forbes magazine published one of their issue with the title, “The Death of Copper” on their front page. The article inside explained why, basically, copper’s future held little promise. A significant low in copper was established about the same time of this big splash against the metal on their front page cover.
Since dicing silver on Friday the metal is up nearly $1 or just over 5%. If you want a fast ride to the poor house just keep believing in the media’s negative lean towards real money, gold and silver.
in reply to: Miscellaneous #4025interesting but true story:
My grandfather, a civil engineer, was one of the contractors that won the Oroville dam contract (at the time, the largest earthen dam in the world). He was also involved in the bidding of contracts and won many interesting contracts worldwide. There are a number of interesting facts connected to the building of the dam, but the one I’ll mention now was one he experienced first hand as one of the top engineers on the site. There was a guy who had been hired to haul dirt from the quarry site to the dam site. Not an exciting job by any means. The company was impressed with his work and several times wanted to promote him to a foreman type position but instead he kept turning it down. Finally the company got smart and found out why he kept turning down opportunity. As part of his normal job he was required to ensure he got a full load of dirt with each haul, so after dumping a load of dirt it was common to wash down the part of the truck carrying the dirt. Well my grandfather found out that in the hosing down of the dirt, that often gold nuggets, etc were found in the bottom of the truck.
I never heard what happened after that, but I do know my grandfather was well liked by everyone.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4024Last on gold tonight in Asian markets is $1128.50.
The following comments concerning silver are from the precious metal’s unfriendly Forbes magazine which seems to be pushing these planted words for the big silver short, J.P. Morgan:
Silver gained 16 cents per ounce, rising to $17.34 after a bit of a wobbly start this morning. According to Forbes, some analysts warn the fundamentals for silver remain a cause for continued concern. “Silver is really struggling to keep up with gold at the moment because this is a gold story, it is not a silver story,” RBS analyst Stephen Briggs said. “Silver is only a geared play on gold, its own fundamentals are not great. If it weren’t for the ETF buying the market is in surplus.”
Last on silver tonight is $17.63 up $0.21.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4023Last on gold is $1124.00
The following is from Chris Powell of GATA.
Great links to interviews with “The Einstein of Money,” Antal Fekete recorded in New Zealand in late October.
Antal Fekete explains free coinage of gold — to New Zealanders
Section: Daily Dispatches
10:40p ET Thursday, October 29, 2009
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
OK, maybe American broadcasting and cinema have not been concocted by the Federal Reserve to anesthetize the country and most of the world to their expropriation by the New York financial houses. But it seems that you still have to go to tiny (if incomparably beautiful and strange) New Zealand at the bottom of the world to hear the economist and monetary historian Antal Fekete talk about what’s wrong with the world financial system.
On his way to a presentation at the Gold Standard Institute in Canberra, Australia, Fekete gave a couple of interviews in New Zealand this week — one on Radio New Zealand, the other on the New Zealand national television station TV3. He argued not for a gold standard but for free coinage of gold, whereby the government mint would receive raw metal from anyone and return it to him in untaxed coin, thus facilitating the transfer of the public’s wealth from fiat currency into commodity currency whenever the former seemed likely to lose value. Fekete’s idea seems pretty close to what GATA has long advocated, a free market in the precious metals.
Fekete’s interview with Radio New Zealand is about 12 minutes long and you can listen to it here:
http://www.radionz.co.nz/audio/national/sunday/2009/10/25/professor_anta…
Fekete’s interview with TV3 is about five minutes long and you can watch it here:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Aligning-currency-with-a-gold-standard/tabid/369/…
TV3’s program schedule discloses that among the station’s other offerings to New Zealanders are “CSI Miami,” “The Simpsons,” and “America’s Next Top Model.” This really is going too far. Don’t they have any pretty girls of their own Down Under and Off to the Side?
CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4022Last on gold is $1123.80 and is making new all-time highs again. The time is getting closer when the temptation for big money to invest in our properties will be irresistible.
If anyone knows of any more fools out there that want to sell our shares at any price, I will take a million at $0.01.
in reply to: Miscellaneous #4021I read where the gov’t of India
has bought 200 metric tons of
gold boullion from the Intn’l
Monetary Fund.
Also, There is a well known
Sacramento contractor namely
A. Tiechert who now is meeting
payroll for the entire firm
because of the high gold value
and from the gold they are
mining from their rock quarry
east of Sacramento and south of
US 50.in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4020Saturday, November 14, 2009
Bullish Signal:
Interesting Step Pattern Developing in Gold
Posted by The Firecracker Report at 4:01 AM
An interesting bullish staircase pattern is visible in gold prices. Jim Sinclair calls this pattern the swiss staircase and he views the pattern as an indicator that prices are headed much higher. We enclose a graph(sorry couldn’t post the chart- it’s at http://www.jsmineset.com)of this step pattern posted by Trader Dan Norcini on Jim Sinclair’s website below. Since the price of gold on the right axis is not visible in Dan’s chart we have posted the first chart as a reference for our readers.
Money Morning explains the technical rationale behind this step pattern formation:
As asset prices rise, they often initially overshoot. Then they correct – fall back a bit. Then they consolidate, or trade sideways, usually for a period of six to 18 months, but sometimes for even longer. It’s this period of sideways trading that creates the horizontal step – a technical-analysis tool that lets us see the foundation for the next step up in the long-term uptrend.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4018Gold closed out the week at $1118.50.
The following link takes you directly to one of Jim Sinclair’s best ever interviews. This interview by far is the best thats been available for educational purposes in our market for some time.
The interviewer is Eric King of KingWorldNews.com
[audio src="http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2009/11/13_Jim_Sinclair_files/Jim%20Sinclair%2011%3A13%3A2009.mp3" /]
or go to http://www.jsmineset.com
in reply to: Miscellaneous #4019An interesting fact that is surprising:
Although Idaho produces little gold, the United States Bureau of Mines says that Idaho has more mineable gold than any other state. In recent years, as the price of gold has risen, many old mines have been reopened and the value of gold produced in Idaho has grown steadily.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4017Last on gold is $1108.50. In the past few days gold has been retreating. The metal was jerked higher over $1120 on comments from Barrick Gold’s president that world gold production had historically peaked. The next day the same source stated that gold was over-priced for the short term and weakness in the market soon followed.
It’s evident that Barrick still believes they have some remaining control over the gold market to effect price change. Remember these are the same guys who made money for their shareholders and hurt other miners while acting as the government’s agent in surpressing gold prices. It was Barrick that indirectly put pressure on our company by forcing gold lower until 2001 as they canabalized the industry by raking in metal profits shorting it and in the process of this maneuver took over other mining companies at below realistic values from shareholders that didn’t know any better.
It would seem that the controlling interest at Barrick is greedy and stubborn which proved to be dilutive to shareholder percent ownership when they were given advice from a gold expert to cover their hedges when gold was much lower in the $300 area and below. Barrick recently had a secondary offering to bring in what they about lost in a massive blunder of letting their short positions run against them when they were forewarned in 2001 by one of the top gold analysts in the world, James Sinclair. Now Barrick is talking about covering their last remaining hedge positions with gold over $1100.
in reply to: How to Approach Thin Veins & Cost #4016Last on gold is $1120.30, another push into all-time high record territory.
Hoping to remove the cheap spam with an intelligent thought process from one of the masters of Wall Street.
Yra Harris Shares His Wisdom
Posted: Nov 11 2009 By: Jim Sinclair Post Edited: November 11, 2009 at 10:10 pmFiled under: General Editorial
Dear CIGAs,
Aussie unemployment numbers just came out and were much better than expected!
DEBT,DEBT,DEBT for that theme was alive and well in the world today.
Hirohisa Fujii the finance minister of Japan was raising concerns about the recent sell off in JGBs as the rates on ten year Japanese debt have risen 20 basis points over the last 2 weeks. There is growing concern that Japan will have trouble financing their growing national debt that is now over 200% of GDP. This is not a new story but one that has been kicked around for several years and seems to be gaining adherents in the world because of all the other government debt that has been floated since the global recession has deepened. We will pass this off as a concern of crowding out – as the low yields on JGBs cause them to be replaced by other sovereign debt.
Yesterday that great luminary of credit analysis, FITCH, raised a warning about British gilts being downgraded from AAA which caused the sterling to be sold off.
We will note that this that warning the gilts have been up for 2 days so something else must be bothering the pound, like resistance, so we send you to the charts to see if the sterling can hold support.
The Greek government has also come under attack for budgetary malfeasance but that is a problem for the European Union so its impact is diluted. But if these DEBT concerns rattle the Japanese and the BRITS, what about the U.S. budgetary morass? Anybody want to buy 30 year treasuries? And the talking heads proclaim that GOLD is devoid of reality.
We also remind those who are quick to criticize the Japanese that 95% of JGB’s are held domestically while the holdings of U.S. debt are global. We are back to good old John Connelly – it is our dollar but your problem but with Mr.Obama in Japan and China next week we will see for how long this tired old phrase holds.
There was an interesting story out on Tuesday that the Chinese Investment Corp [CIC] has agreed to purchase a 15% stake in the large U.S. energy company AES. The agreement also includes the buying 35% of the firm’s wind power unit for another $570 million for a total investment of 2.1 billion dollars. This may not be deemed a significant amount of money but its importance lies in the concept that the Chinese are testing the Americans to see if they will block this deal under the auspices of CIFIUS.
Remember the last few times the Chinese have attempted to buy into U.S. assets they were rebuffed under the guise of strategic value to the U.S. With Obama in China pressing for possible appreciation of the Renminbi? The trade off may well be allowing the Chinese to purchase high technologically valued assets in the U.S. If the CIFIUS committee were to block this deal, we won’t know for a while, look for great friction to develop between the U.S. and China
Also out of Asia, tonight the Taiwan central bank announced that they are banning foreigners from putting money in bank time deposits. This is a new type of effort to place constraints on capital flows like the Brazilian 2% tax announced last week. We must stay alert to more of these actions as emerging markets attempt to halt the rapid appreciation of their currencies. The impact on the Brazilian REAL has been negligible but we can look for continued efforts to do so. If this becomes contagious the equity markets will be the recipient of that pain.
From the realm of the absurd we have our man Timmy Geithner in Japan reiterating his strong dollar mantra. Do they ever tire of looking like idiots on the world stage? The last time Geithner was in China college students openly laughed at him in a Q and A session he was having and that was in June.
What exactly has the Secretary of Treasury done to put any bite in that statement? We want to report that the Rick Mishkin piece in the FT elicited a couple letters to the editors that followed upon our criticism. One was written by an economist we admire greatly, Andrew Smithers, who noted that of course you can discern a bubble. Smithers has done a great deal of work on valuing Wall Street by using Tobin’s Q theory so when he is critical you should take notice. There are no good bubble periods for they only create pain further out in time as we saw with the bursting of the Dot.com bubble. The Fed held rates far too low for too long and created the housing bubble. Enough said. And then his eminence Sir Alan followed Mishkin with a speech in which he discussed how the recent equity rally was smoothing the way for recovery. Oh the rehabilitation of Greenspan is a work in progress. Reminds one of Lin Piao.
Yra Harris
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4015Last on gold is $1117.90 as the media nay-sayers are proven wrong again.
Included below is an article by Alf Field, predictor of $5000 gold, discussing Zimbabe and their experience with hyperinflation.
in reply to: Stock exchange listing #4013To Investor:
I kind of thought the same thing years ago, as far as “fake” gold companies. But then I bought some shares and went to the annual meeting. If you make it up here, be sure to attend the meeting. You can tour the gold mine and it is an experience that you will never forget.
They also own the Brown Bear mine, which is not in operation, but used to produce quite a bit…in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4014last on gold tonight is $1108.30.
Aside from price predictors taking their turn at forecasting gold prices, the following article completely represents what is mainly wrong in this land of ours and why we must hold gold to guarantee our financial safety.
Paul B. Farrell
Nov. 10, 2009, 11:03 a.m. EST · Recommend (29) · Post:
Financial innovation is Wall Street’s new ‘soul sickness’
Commentary: New mutant American capitalism has no moral compassView all Paul B. Farrell ›
‹ Previous ColumnWarning: Your brain is killing American capitalism
First Take ›Retail’s glass half-full
Story Comments Screener (298) Alert Email Print By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Could our headline just as easily read: “Financial innovation: Wall Street’s biggest con game?” How about: Rip-off? Joke? Oxymoron? Maybe “Wall Street’s big lie?” Or something darker: “Financial innovation: Wall Street’s deadliest sin, greatest evil, even soul-sickness?”In fact, they all fit. Each reveals Wall Street’s dark side: Why are they at war to keep financial innovation secret, hidden, without public transparency? And why is Wall Street spending millions on lobbyists to kill financial-regulation reforms? Why? Because Wall Street rakes in tens of billions of dollars annually from their financial innovations, gambling in the shadowy $670 trillion global derivatives market. And Wall Street does not want government, investors or competitors digging into their “financial weapons of mass destruction,” as Buffett calls them.
Swine-flu uproar on Wall StreetGoldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup are among several large New York City employers that got doses of the H1N1 vaccine, which remains in short supply. WSJ’s Betsy Mckay discusses Wall Street’s latest public relations nightmare on The News Hub.
Remember, financial innovation is just a Wall Street code word. Translated it simply means derivatives and other proprietary secrets like the high-frequency trading algorithms used by their quants. Yes, Wall Street wants you to believe that financial innovations also help Main Street, but that’s just Wall Street lobbyist propaganda to mislead the public, regulators and legislators. Remember when Washington proposed standardized mortgages as a way to help consumers? Wall Street attacked, spending millions to kill it.Wall Street has no interest in helping Main Street. Time magazine’s Justin Fox, author of “The Myth of the Rational Market,” said it best in his “Curious Capitalist” column. Most so-called financial innovations are “just new ways to fleece customers or hide risk, and all major financial crises have been associated with some financial innovation.” Even credit-card innovations are used against customers as marketing tools to increase fees. The truth is: Wall Street’s greed-driven financial innovations fuel our bubble/meltdown cycles in many ways.
Hard-core Reaganomics is back
Wall Street’s obsession with unregulated financial innovation also signals a resurgence of Reaganomics, the conservative ideology that killed Glass-Steagall in 1999, created “too-big-to-fail” banks, and set the stage for the 2008 meltdown. That 60-year-old law protected Main Street by separating low-risk retail banking from high-risk investment banking gambling with high-octane financial innovations.Former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker and Nobel-Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz warn: We need a new Glass-Steagall to rein in Wall Street. Or prepare for a new meltdown. At a Senate hearing last summer financial-innovation pioneer Richard Bookstaber, author of “A Demon of Our Own Design: Markets, Hedge Funds & the Perils of Financial Innovation,” said: “Derivatives are the weapon of choice for gaming the system.” They are “vehicles for gambling … side bets on the market.”
Get it? Derivatives put all markets, investors and taxpayers at risk. These “side bets can pose risks that extend beyond the losses to the person making the bet,” because they actually “change the behavior of the market.” In short, financial innovations only serve the interests of Wall Street’s insiders, not the public interest, not Main Street investors, not American taxpayers, and not retail banking customers. Without transparency and regulation reform, a new meltdown is guaranteed.
Unfortunately, Wall Street has no incentive to help the public good. Quite the opposite: They want to get very rich, very fast. And our laws encourage their greed. Bookstaber and other critics warn that Wall Street’s goals are clear: Design financial innovations that evade securities laws, avoid taxes, minimize capital requirements, increase leverage, hide speculative risks, maximize short-term profits, and avoid stockholder disclosures. In short, Wall Street is back running the same con game that triggered the 2007-08 meltdown, which is why they’ve amassed a record bonus pool so fast. They have no conscience.
Historical evolution of a new ‘American capitalism’ mutation
Yes, Wall Street’s behavior has the feel of a socio-pathological disorder and a strong hint of a secret conspiracy to defraud America, a cultural “soul sickness.” Now visible: An emerging new mutant American capitalism. In fact, Matt Taibbi’s description of Goldman Sachs fits the entire banking industry: a “giant vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity.” Look closely and see clear signs of immoral, even criminal, misconduct fueling Wall Street’s obsession with unregulated financial innovation. To fully understand why, you need to see financial innovation in the broader, historical context of the emerging new American capitalism.1. In the beginning, Adam Smith’s ‘Wealth of Nations’
“Every individual … necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can.” But he “neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. … he intends only his own gain … led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.” The public good is collateral damage from the aggregate economic activities of greedy individuals all acting solely in their own narrow selfish interests. That’s pure capitalism. Today the equation survives and thrives as the “efficient market hypothesis,” where the collective behavior of 95 million irrational investors is assumed to create a totally rational capitalist stock market.2. Greenspan and Ayn Rand, author of ‘The Fountainhead’ and ‘Atlas Shrugged’
Rand was Greenspan’s guru and mentor. For decades they had a profound impact on American capitalism. Rand was dogmatic: “When I say ‘capitalism,’ I mean a pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism, with a separation of economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as a separation of state and church.” Why? “Capitalism is the only system that can make freedom, individuality, and the pursuit of values possible in practice because capitalism demands the best of every man — his rationality — and rewards him accordingly. It leaves every man free to choose the work he likes, to specialize in it, to trade his product for the products of others, and to go as far on the road of achievement as his ability and ambition will carry him.” Rand captured the conservative spirit of the emerging American capitalism, and through her disciple, both demanded total, unrestricted freedom for Wall Street.3. Reaganomics and Milton Friedman’s ‘Capitalism and Freedom’
Reaganomics defined conservatism after 1981, grounded in Nobel Economist Milton Friedman’s conviction that “the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.” He hated FDR’s New Deal and Keynesian economics, preaching hard-core Adam Smith capitalism. Naomi Klein, author of “Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” summarized Friedman’s “three trademark” principles of conservatism: “Privatization, government deregulation and deep cuts in social spending.” That ideology gutted Glass-Steagall. And as Thomas Frank put it in “The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule:” “Innovations in governance” meant take “jobs away from career civil servants and hand them over to the big federal contractors.” Reaganomics led to an Iraq war fought by more profit-hungry private mercenary contractors than committed volunteers. Ironically, it created bigger government.4. New ‘mutant’ American capitalism must kill financial regulations
American capitalism generally, and Wall Street’s mindset specifically, reflects the 234-year history from Adam Smith to Friedman, Reaganomics, Rand and Greenspan. Today however, it is resurfacing in a new disguise: Wall Street’s blind obsession to kill all restrictions on financial innovations, whether in the SEC, FDIC, CFTC, or proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Wall Street’s cash got Obama elected, got their Trojan horses in his cabinet. Now their millions flow the opposite way, as their lobbyists sabotage Obama’s financial-regulation reforms. And no matter who gets elected, Wall Street runs the game.Wall Street’s soul sickness feeds on mutant American capitalism
So tell us: Which headline did you pick? “Financial innovation: Wall Street’s biggest con game?” Or maybe: Hoax? Rip-off? Scam? Joke? Oxymoron? Or was it Wall Street’s biggest lie? Perhaps “Financial innovation: Wall Street’s greatest evil?” Mortal sin? Soul sickness?You think “soul sickness” is too heavy? Not really. Since the Enron scandals, critics have been warning that Wall Street has lost its moral compass. However, in the new mutant American capitalism, Wall Street doesn’t need a moral compass. Get it? Ethics and morals are irrelevant in the emerging new American capitalism, the latest mutation of Adam Smith’s capitalism.
That means Wall Street’s blind “anything goes” obsession with financial innovation is totally consistent with the rules of the new American capitalism. Morals, ethics and the public good are irrelevant in the rules of Wall Street’s new mutant American capitalism.
Wall Street’s only restriction is to obey the 11th commandment: “Thou shalt not get caught.” And when you compare the number of indictments from the 2008 meltdown to earlier ones during the Enron-era scandals and the S&L frauds (plus add in the $23.7 trillion debt those same “too-greedy-to-fail” crooks scammed from American taxpayers), you can easily see why Wall Street is clearly living within the rules they created for the new mutant American capitalism.
And that, folks, is why my final headline pick is: “Financial innovation: Wall Street’s soul sickness.” Why? Because this is a grave moral issue for all Americans, but Wall Street doesn’t get it. Unfortunately, neither does Washington. Worse, neither do the American people, but that’s what a cultural “soul sickness” does — it blinds us to moral issues and leaves us wandering, lost, in the fog of Wall Street’s self-destructive new mutant American capitalism.
in reply to: Stock exchange listing #4012Mr Miller,
thank you for your new message. I am very positively impressed about what I see here. This very vibrant forum shows the good substance this company has, instead of some other companies, which, even better evaluated, are just “fake” companies. Your very expressive message also make us to think about it. I will certainly stay involved.
Best regards,
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #4011Last on gold is $1098.30.
In The News Today
Posted: Nov 09 2009 By: Jim Sinclair Post Edited: November 9, 2009 at 10:50 pmFiled under: In The News
Dear CIGAs,
My friend, former partner, respected colleague and ace floor trader Yra Harris today said:
“Oh the birds are singing, the hills are alive with the sounds of music and the carry trade is in full swing. Today was the paradigm of the easy funding for the world for if you were an asset class that could not rally you must have been tied to causing the existence of flesh eating bacteria. With the G20 shown to be a paper tiger, the IMF giving its seal of approval to the debased dollar carry trade – the animal spirits ran wild. The dollar was down against everything but the yen for the yen is the second favorite funding currency with similar fundamentals to the dollar.”
My comment is simple.
The floors of the dollar’s downward elevator are about to open up wide.
The freefall is near. Armstrong’s few days are just around the corner.
The Winter is going to be very cold for the US dollar Be advised. Take precautions immediately if you have not already.
in reply to: Stock exchange listing #4009To Investor,
Thank for your added comments yesterday. My brother lives in Quito, Ecuador and is here with me in Alleghany for a short time. I’ve traveled in his home country for thirty years minus eight years when he return to San Francisco. I also visited Chile, Argentina and a brief stop over in Peru. I was invited to take part in a gold mine 25 years ago. I declined for several reasons, including labor concerns and security matters. Foreign operators in Bolivia and Peru have had problems with the mines. You live in a great country with much to offer future generations. I’m glad you found this company and you are fortunate to have purchased so many shares for next to nothing.
While the United States, especially California is over reacting to self centered environmentalist and the Sixteen to One faces unreasonable challenges from time to time, our situation is quite positive overall. Some of my mining friends agree that California is the most proven gold belt with the least mining activity in the world. That’s a reality worth considering for careful investors.
You are right: few people know about the Sixteen to One. I do like Wall Street and know its importance to our culture and society. The Company was set to join the American Stock Exchange with Spear Leeds as its specialist years ago. We were quite excited but an unusual fabrication was presented to the SEC about one of our most famous gold specimens, “the Whopper”, which led to an SEC investigation. Nothing was wrong but it clouded our admittance to the exchange. The SEC never answered our requests for the identity of the liar who caused us the problem. So, Wall Street should be our friend.
Analysts, stock promoters, investment advisers and brokerage houses are very useful to all companies. We chose years ago to play the game straight up. It may hurt our public marketing program but it continues to be the preferred way we conduct our business. I could tell you numerous stories (true, of course) about the junior gold paper pushers, which serve us no purpose. Honest promotion is well respected in old school mining teachings. It is a necessary part of the management for there are times, such as now for the Sixteen to One that an infusion of working capital is necessary to pick up the pace for gold production. The company with 82 million outstanding shares is being manipulated. Buying stock low and selling it high may be the only reason some investors plunge in. We really are gold miners. We’re gold miners because our gold mining properties really have gold. It may take a little longer but when we are funded, even with the modest amount currently sought, the results should sprint past all those gold companies pushing moose pasture, uneconomical “reserves”, and bought analysts, promoters and newsletter writers.
I have contacted Investment Bankers, venture capitalists, natural resource brokerage houses and start up companies with cash and no property worth a nickel. Whether is is uncertainty, or some other reasons, I cannot gain an interest to even check us out. Something is wrong with the present and future for gold and specifically our Company for the lack of interest. It could well be our approach. It could well be our management.
Like you, I too would like to see OSTO “more actively marketed in financials”. No, “people have just forgotten it” as you close your last entry. People just are not aware that it exists. People who know the Sixteen to One usually never forget it. Stay involved.
in reply to: Stock exchange listing #4008Thanks
No need to be rude,just wanted to know the Country so I could see if you had any gold mines in your neck of the woods to take advantage of.If you make a killing off my Country and State good for you,I am making a killing right now off of JAG,COLUF & a few others in your Country.I like Brazil and plan on traveling their in the future.More power to you,but if you spent some time researching the mines in your Country you might have been better off,California will not let us mine our gold without a fistfull of lawyers your Country will.
Again more power to ya.in reply to: Stock exchange listing #4010Very interesting that the last large trade was a non-USA investor. Thanks to this person for letting us know what is going on. Can’t blame him/her for buying, if the firm filled the trade isn’t the investors fault… INVESTOR-I respect your right to keep the brokerage information private. It really would not matter much. I was able to buy shares once at .05-10 per share a few years ago…
At some point I will get around to seeing if I am able to issue the shares out.One thing I noticed, per Bank of the West’s 2nd quarter 13f filing, is that they are sitting on 22,500 shares. These shares were not on thier filings from a year or so ago, so it must be a relatively new holding. I am waiting for them to post the 3rd qtr filing, to see if the shares are still held.
Anyone can look up this public information on SEC.GOV website.Reason I bring this up is that, a few years ago, Bank of the West had a large position like this, and dumped it. But we do not know what price, or when they sold. Other reason I bring this up, is that Bank of the West is owned by BNP Paribas… Not trying to infer anything here, it is just a interesting observation on my part.
in reply to: Stock exchange listing #4007I am not interested in what you are thinking.
No problem in telling the country: Brazil.
The brokerage firm I will not disclose.
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