Forum Replies Created
- AuthorPosts
- in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3755
The last on gold is $938.10.
Homestake and the 30’s depression, will history repeat itself?
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3754Last on gold is $938.30.
Concerning the CFTC’s lack of interest to police the two or three large US banks that are heavily shorting gold and silver, precious metal holders should remain confident that sooner or later, on a daily bssis, this phantom selling campaign will end.
THE CASE FOR GOLD
A RECIPE FOR DISASTER
June 12th, 2009 by Egon von GreyerzTake the following ingredients:
A banking system which is on the verge of collapse
Add a few $ trillion of government liquidity and guarantees
Inject $ 100’s of billions in loans and capital
Keep all the bank management that have caused the crisis
Pay them astronomical bonuses because otherwise they might be snapped up by a bankrupt competitor
Change the method for valuing the banks toxic and worthless assets so that they can publish hocus pocus increases in profits
Construct a stress test that all banks can pass, some with minor capital injectionLet some of the banks repay the government money to make the markets believe that the banking system has been saved and is sound
And what do you get?
A BANKING SYSTEM WHICH:Is still on the verge of collapse
Is leveraged 25-50 times
Will go under with a 2-4% write off of total assets
Has loan books that are deteriorating at an alarming rate
Is not recognising or extrapolating the rapidly rising default rates
Has a high percentage of prime residential mortgages in negative equity
Has not provided for commercial property loan defaults with property values falling 40-50%
Has a high level of personal loans and credit card loans which will never be repaidHas worthless paper assets which are valued at fantasy prices with the blessing of the government
Has $ 100’s of trillions of derivatives for which there is no market and with no reserves for losses
Is too big to failWill soon require more support
Will need $ trillions and probably tens of trillions to survive which governments will of course print
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3753Gold $955.80
Silver $ 15.19You think we have free markets, think again.
Some years back when Warren Buffett started to acquire a large position in silver through a Connecticut broker the shorts in the market cried to the CFTC about a growing concentrated position being manipulative and the CFTC took action. Now with three or fewer banks holding a concentrated and manipulative position in silver and gold the CFTC is fast asleep. I guess we know who is working for whom.
Bad News, Good News
By: Theodore Butler
copied from http://www.silverseek.comThe most recent Commitment of Traders Report (COT) was almost a replay of the prior week’s report. Very little net new speculative buying/dealer selling in silver, massive net speculative buying/dealer selling in gold. As of the close of business June 2, both COMEX gold and silver futures are at the largest total commercial net short position levels since last summer. While the silver concentrated short position is still at world record levels, the concentrated gold short position is more than notable.
According to the COT and the Bank Participation Report issued Friday, the level of concentration on the short side of gold increased dramatically. In fact, the Bank Participation Report indicated that three or fewer US banks held the largest concentrated net short position in COMEX gold futures on record, at over 123,000 contracts (12.3 million oz). Let me repeat that, three or fewer US banks held the largest short position in history. Let me tell you why that’s bad news.
For the umpteenth time, concentration and manipulation go hand in hand. You can’t have manipulation without a concentration. Period. Concentration is also dangerous to everyone; the markets, the regulators, innocent participants, even to the US banks so heavily short. That was the problem with AIG in the credit default swap debacle that almost sunk the financial system. They had too big of a concentrated position. This COMEX gold and silver short position is not on the same scale as AIG’s CDS position, but it is way too big and concentrated. It shouldn’t be allowed, especially by US banks, considering what havoc they have already wrought.
To those who insist that all this concentrated shorting by a very small number of US banks is just some type of aggregation of accounts doing legitimately hedging, let me explain why that is nonsense. The gold concentrated short position increased to a record level in just one month. At the exact same time, the published gold miner hedge position is at its lowest level in a decade. You can’t have a record large concentrated short position being a legitimate hedge when the hedge position is at a record low.
Let’s be honest. This record short position by two or three US banks was put on as an offset to speculative buying by technical hedge funds on the COMEX. It was no hedge, just a plain vanilla speculative short by the 2 or 3 US banks. They sold short because they were convinced they could eventually get the tech fund longs to liquidate at lower price levels and make a profit in the end. Normally, that might not be a problem, just some big speculative bets being made by big money institutions. But these aren’t normal times or normal conditions. The short selling by 2 or 3 big US banks has become so concentrated that it has crossed the manipulation line by a wide margin. Who died and left them the kings of price control?
Transparency is one thing, honesty is something else entirely. It’s laudable that the CFTC is so transparent in publishing the data that I reference. But what good is publishing the data if they are not going to be honest about what the data signifies? It is time for the CFTC to speak out on this issue. They have been investigating this issue of concentration for more than ten months now, their third silver investigation in five years. If they find nothing wrong in silver this time, unfortunately as the odds favor, there will be no additional silver investigations – until the silver market blows up. Then there will be a final silver investigation, trying to uncover why they didn’t see it coming.
That’s why it’s important to bring your concerns to the new chairman of the CFTC, Gary Gensler. Please give him the benefit of any doubt you might have about him fixing this problem. I have studied his public testimony and his background. He looks like the real deal – smart and aware of the important issues, like manipulation and speculative position limits. I just hope he can see that speculative position limits must apply to the big banks as well when they are, in fact, speculating. He is not responsible for the current manipulation in silver and gold and must be given a reasonable amount of time to resolve it. I’m sure he knows, better than anyone, that his time to resolve the problem is not unlimited. At some point fairly soon, if he doesn’t address this issue, it will become his problem.
There was some other interesting data in the recently released CFTC reports over the past three weeks. I was struck by the disparity between the increase in both the total net commercial short position and the concentrated short position of the largest traders in gold, and the lack of increase in both categories in silver. I get the feeling the big boys (JPMorgan) are very reluctant to expand their short position in silver, but have no such qualms in gold. At least, that’s what the data suggest to me. What does this mean?
Again speculating, my sense is that this is no accident. It has become increasingly obvious that the large concentrated short position in silver is manipulative and must be addressed. I can’t know if this has been initiated by JPMorgan or the CFTC or the exchange, but that’s not the important issue. Regardless of who or what may be prompting a move away from more concentrated short selling in silver, the results could be profound. If true, it would signify no less than the end of the manipulation itself.
That’s not to suggest that the big manipulative shorts are about to roll over and play dead. They are still powerful and dangerous and their short positions are large.. If the script plays out as usual, they will try to rig a sell-off and get the tech funds to puke up their long positions. Only this time, the big shorts seem to be relying more on gold price pressure to drag silver lower, rather than to load up on silver short positions to the extent they have in the past. I still don’t know if they will succeed or something may come along and blow up in their faces, but I’m pretty sure what they want to do.
It will be bad news, in one sense, if the big shorts succeed in manipulating gold and silver prices lower, forcing leveraged longs from the market. It’s like bullies in a school yard getting away with beating up the little kids. But it will also be good news if they clean out the tech funds, as it will present us with a low risk entry point, maybe the last one for a while.
in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #3752The provided link below is to an educational article by Martin Armstrong of Armstrong Economics entitled, The Coming Great Depression, Why Government Is Powerless.
http://www.jsmineset.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/martin.armstrong.pdf
in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #3751I currently find snippets in articles about investments that brings back memories of the fourth global American gold rush and the only one during my lifetime. The first great gold rush (1849) to the newly discovered California wilderness united our vast continent under one rule, language and currency. Historians claim it was the largest human non-warring migration (figures as high as 200,000).
Alaska was the site of America’s second major gold rush (1986-1899). What a struggle it must have been.
President FDR drove the politically initiated third American gold rush (1934). Writers always report that was when the fixed price of gold rose from $20.67 to $34.00 per ounce. Output production records rather than a mass movement to “discover” fresh gold deposits for exploitation best defines the rush. WWII killed the gold mining industry and post war inflation smothered its return to pre war conditions. What no one remembers and what I never learned in school also happened with the 1934 legislation. Americans were prohibited to own gold other than gold in coinages. Even as an Economics major at UCSB, that tasty item of western free market capitalism was ignored.
The fourth American gold rush was based on the politically driven decisions of 1934. President Nixon did not arbitrarily increase the “value” of an ounce of gold; the government cut the shackles of restrictive ownership by our citizens. In other words gold was set free to reach an exchange value with dollars and it quickly surged to new heights.
Bingo! Our local papers, the Downieville Mountain Messenger and the Grass Valley Union featured the spot price of gold on its front pages…with every edition. It was big news because this is gold country. Grass Valley is the location of California’s largest gold producer, the Empire Mine. Sierra County is the home of the Alleghany Mining District with the oldest gold Company and longest producing mines. Everywhere people gathered the biggest topic of conversation was gold. The year was 1975 and the rush lasted through the early 1980’s. Manic investors, miners and con men tromped north and south along the 200 mile California gold belt in the Sierra Nevada Mountain range. It was exciting.
One of my favorite recollections that depicts a prevailing attitude during America’s awakening to the value of gold happened in Alleghany. The Sixteen to One was looking for working capital. A Sacramento bank president drove up to see the mine. During our conversation the price of gold came up. He wanted to know my opinion. Will it go up or down? I don’t know the answer to that question. He said something about the all time high in 1980. “Those in gold production thought it was an anomaly, an over zealous feeding frenzy”, was my reply. I vocally wondered who were the buyers during the January spike. Well, he told me that he was one and bought gold at its high. He waited for months, hearing about gold, watching it steadily increase in price and jumped in at the top. Was he an anomaly or does he represent the bankers and other cautious investors?
The stage is set for another rush. Think about it. What will it take for serious people to test their mettle with gold. Maybe it is mining the stuff or speculating on its present/future price. Maybe it will be viewed as a safe haven for previously acquired wealth. Some will just gamble, an act that neither others nor I who deal in gold production practice. Risk takers and gamblers are different.
The latest reason an investment guru says for putting ten to twelve percent of your investment into gold was this. Gold does not return interest. Banks and government investments now earn low interest. Jean-Marie Eveillard told Bloomberg news today why his fund is about 10% invested in gold and gold mining securities. “It’s insurance to protect against the fact that current policies by American government and the FED are potentially wildly inflationary.” (Nothing new and exciting here.) His novel idea is gold pays no interest and banks pay nearly no interest. You can print money but you cannot print gold. So, you don’t lose because of gold’s non-interest bearing condition. I’m not saying this will launch gold into a buying frenzy but somewhere the president of some bank is watching gold, waiting on the sideline before he jumps in…at the top.
in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #3750Gold Bugs At Last Have Their Perfect Trinity
China has doubled its bullion reserves and left us in no doubt that it will spend more of its $40bn monthly surplus on hard assets rather than the toxic paper of Western democracies.
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Published: 9:36PM BST 23 May 2009The world’s top hedge fund manager John Paulson has built a gold position of at least $5.5bn, the biggest such move since George Soros and Sir James Goldsmith bet on Newmont Mining in 1993.
Britain has become the first of the Anglo-Saxon “AAA” club to face a downgrade. As feared, the cancer of bank leverage is spreading to sovereign cores.
Related Articles
Gold treads water on fears of stronger dollar
Gold: Traders remain bullish as hedge fund managers buy gold futures
Gold falls to 10-week low
Two thirds of traders advise to buy gold
Gold: longest losing streak since AugustGold prices tend to slide in late May and languish through the summer, because of the seasonal ups and downs of jewellery demand. The trader reflex would be to short gold at this stage after its $90 vault to $959 an ounce over the past month. They may think again this year.Paulson & Co has bought $2.9bn in SPDR Gold Trust, the biggest of the gold exchange traded funds (ETFs), which now holds 1106 tonnes − three times the Brown-gutted reserves of the United Kingdom.
Mr Paulson has also built up a $2.3bn holding of Anglo Ashanti, Goldfields, Kinross Gold, and Market Vectors Gold Miners. The fact that he is launching a “Paulson Real Estate Recovery Fund”, reversing the bet against sub-prime securities that made him rich, tells us all we need to know about his thinking. This is a liquidity-reflation play.
He may be wrong, of course. In his early fifties, he belongs to the baby-boom cohort most psychologically vulnerable to the 1970s “paradigm-error”. And perhaps he has never lived in Japan.
It is striking how many of those most alert to the deflation danger are either veterans of Japan’s Lost Decade or close students of it: Albert Edwards at Société Générale, Russell Jones at RBC Capital, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, the Fed’s Ben Bernanke, and Athanasios Orphanides, who helped draft the Fed’s study on the Japan trap. “People always thought Japan’s bond yields had to rise, but they kept falling and Japan is still not really out of deflation,” said Mr Edwards. Indeed, 20 years after the Nikkei peaked at over 39,000 it stands today at 9,280. Interest rates are 0.01pc. The yield on two-year state bonds is 0.34pc. Still there is not a whiff of inflation.
A number of readers have written to me in tones of polite reproach asking why I fret about deflation when governments everywhere are spending and printing as if there was no tomorrow. I admit to being tortured by self-doubt, like others grappling with this extraordinary situation.
What we know is that inflation is already negative in Ireland (-3.5pc), China (-1.5pc), Thailand (-0.9pc), Korea (-0.5pc), US (-0.7), Japan (-0.3), Switzerland (-0.3, Spain (-0.2pc). The eurozone may be negative by July. Alistair Darling said Britain’s retail RPI inflation used to set wage deals will be minus 3pc by September.
Does this constitute deflation in a meaningful sense? Not yet, perhaps. But it is moving too close for comfort in a world stretched by extreme leverage. The economies of the US, Japan, the eurozone, and Britain have been contracting in “nominal” as well as “real” terms – which smacks of the 1930s.
The “yen GDP” of Japan has shrunk by 10pc in one year; the “euro GDP” of Germany has shrunk 6.2pc, and Italy’s by 4.7pc ; the “dollar GDP” of the US has shrunk 3.3pc. Debts are not shrinking, however.
GMO’s Jeremy Grantham says in his latest note, Last Hurrah And Seven Lean Years, that the market value of equities, houses and commercial property in the US reached $50 trillion in the boom. This “perceived wealth” sustained $25 trillion of debt.
The crash has cut this wealth to $30 trillion, but the debts are still there. America’s debt-gearing has exploded, as it has in the UK and Europe. This looks awfully like Irving Fisher’s “debt deflation” trap of 1933. It will be a long slog for households to bring their debt-to-wealth ratios down to manageable levels.
You can argue – as do UBS, Merrill Lynch, ING, and Capital Economics, to name a few – that massive global stimulus is merely struggling to off-set a massive deflationary shock.
So how will gold fare in a “Japanese” stalemate world where neither inflation nor deflation gets the upper hand? The eight-year rally that has lifted gold from $254 to $959 may lose momentum for a while.
“The air is getting thin up here,” said John Reade, precious metals guru at UBS. “Rich investors are no longer rushing out to buying gold bars as they did after the Lehman collapse. Still, we think it is highly significant that both China and Russia – two of the biggest holders of foreign reserves – are both buying gold,” he said.
Personally, I remain a gold bug out of fear that the most corrosive phase of this crisis lies ahead. There are two more boils to lance: Europe and China. As the IMF keeps telling us, Europe’s banks are still covering up their vast toxic debts. Nor has the G20 begun to address the root cause of the global crisis, which lies in excess exports from East (aided by currency manipulation) to an over-spending West. China is putting off the day of reckoning with its crisis response, which is to build yet more plant to flood the world with yet more over-capacity.
For “political bears” the risk is that the EU polity fragments under strain, and that governments restrict basic markets to defend themselves – whether by imposing exchange controls to stop bond flight, or shutting derivatives markets used as hedges, or putting up trade barriers. We will find out if and when unemployment hits 10pc in America, 12pc in Germany, and 20pc in Spain, or if migrant workers rampage in Shenzhen.
Some call this the “Armageddon case” for gold. That is going too far. However, gold has outperformed Wall Street’s S&P 500 index by 500pc so far this century, as if able sniff out trouble in advance. Such runs tend to finish with a “parabolic” blow-off before they die. Mr Paulson may yet make another fortune, whatever his reason.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3749Last on gold is $949.20.
A significant meeting will take place on June 16th in Kommersant, Russia between Brazil, Russia, India, and China to discuss the role of the Dollar in the global financial system amoung other issues. The acronym for this group is BRIC.
It’s interesting that along with the emerging Brazil, Russia and China are recent buyers of gold while India’s populace holds much more gold than others.
This upcoming meeting has to have monetary officials in the US spooked. What will be the outcome of the meeting?
In the meantime, gold’s price has been weak for the past few days as these same officials, undoutedly, attempt to suppress its price in an attempt to kill the messenger and to a small degree, effect a lower gold price prior to this meeting.
Games, games and more games, greed is the key word here. How much more smoke and mirror manuevers are US officials still able to conduct? It’s really silly when focusing in on the big picture, China will have the new world’s reserve currency in just a matter of time as they continue to beef-up their gold holdings on weakness in preparation for that reality.
What we have been seeing lately in lower gold prices is just another aggressive attempt by US officials to make our massive debt load look unimportant. Martin Armstrong has stated many times that an increasing monstrous debt load of governments from the past has spelled their demise on a regular basis.
Manipulating gold lower with our heavy load of debt is just historical monetary nonsense and plays directly into the hands of the Chinese.
In the end we will all pay a heavy price for the many years of misguided gold manipulation when the metal is adjusted significantly upward by the market and possibly leaving the American people responsible for an empty Fort Knox and for the replacement of borrowed gold from the vaults of the NY Federal Reserve.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3747Last on gold is $954.60.
I prefer not commenting too much on daily price events concerning gold as we are in a major bull market and the daily ups and downs don’t mean much. Today was especially interesting, the manipulators in a well planned assault hit gold as the two precious metal indexes, XAU & HUI, were right next to minor chart resistance.
Today’s raid was no more than a psychological stab at investors to make them feel uneasy. The XAU was off 6.75 closing at 150.67, with resistance at 165. The HUI was off 19.20 closing at 367.82, with resistance at 400. Weakness soon developed in the mining shares when the COMEX miscreants started selling gold contracts from $980 all the way down to $957. Near the end of the session gold rallied some to $964 but in after hours trading they hit it again, taking it to a low on the day of about $952.
The Dollar strong advocates in Washington continue to depress gold as it approaches the $1000 level with all their creative smoke and mirror tactics including running up the US Dollar Index some. Unfortunately, we will all pay the ultimate price in more debt or our loss of more wealth resulting from a Dollar price dive when their day of reckoning finally arrives and the piper has to be paid. What do you think would happen if someday the free world had one currency and it was discovered that all our gold was gone? You have to be naive if you think we still have our gold that they say we have in various locations around the US. It wouldn’t surprise me if our Treasury officials have sold some of the custodial gold for other countries that is being held for them in the vaults of the NY Federal Reserve. The greed to control the gold market over the years by these current and past officials may eventually destroy our civilization aided by the the growing possiblility that the government will sooner or later be unable to service the debt payments on our expanding IOU obligations.
Don’t forget, China will buy gold into all declines with their vast reserves as they significantly increase their gold holdings in preparation for their currency becoming the new world reserve currency when the Dollar goes into a major crisis sometime in the near future as a result of too much debt.
I have posted below a link to an interesting article concerning silver ETF’s(exchange traded funds). It’s always been my contention that COMEX gold trading was created to sop up money away from buying physical gold along with the gold miners as well as why the gold and silver ETF’s were created.
The article below points to the fact that ETF’s in America are not to be audited. I believe, again, the silver ETF that was set-up by J.P. Morgan to divert precious metal investments away from physical mrtal and the silver miners.
When Bear Stearns imploded Geithner arranged for J.P. Morgan to take over their silver short position with a public guarantee that if Morgan suffered any losses from that position that the American people through the Treasury Department would cover them. This was all designed to prevent the Bear Stearns silver shorts from being covered while taking the market higher and probably influencing gold’s price as well. It was soon after in the latter part of 2008 that the silver price was forced considerably lower along with gold by US banking interests in the midst of their crisis.
In the past I have mentioned Central Fund of Canada(CEF-ASE) which holds their shareholder funds in 50% physical gold and 50% physical silver. By the way, CEF IS AUDITED.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/141227-will-a-silver-bullet-finally-kill-the-metal-manipulators
in reply to: Clips from Alleghany #3746Alleghany had heavy thundershowers on the night of the 3rd into yesterday morning. A little over one inch of rain fell. The lightning show was impressive!
An MSHA inspector visited the mine on Thursday. The compliance paperwork was reviewed and no citations were issued.
Please look at the homepage as Rae Bell has been busy updating information on the gold collection. Edda Snyder is putting together a color catalog with individual prices that should be available next Thursday the 11th. Send $10 to receive your catalog.
Edda is graduating from High School today! She has been working in the corporate office a few days a week as part of her senior year studies. The mine is lucky to have her graphic art talent on board and she is learning to do the bookkeeping too! Congratulations on your graduation Edda!
Underground Gold Miners Museum had its annual meeting of membership last Saturday. Two new board members were appointed and the incumbents, whose seats were up, were re-elected. The membership adopted an amendment to the bylaws to allow up to eleven board members. This was done in the hopes of getting more active involvement going. Currently there are six board members and their biographies will be updated soon on the museum web page. http://www.undergoundgold.com A raffle was held of all current members and John Scully won the raffle prize. To become a member and support the museum’s efforts to preserve, promote and protect mining resources through education go to the museum link (upper right) on the Sixteen to One home page and then click on “membership” on the museum page. Underground Gold Miners of California Museum is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit. Donations are tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law. The museum is a separate entity from Original Sixteen to One Mine, Inc. Many people seem to be confused about this. Establishing its own identity is one of the museum’s priorities this year.
The Sierra County Fire Safe council was awarded a grant to create a “fire safe zone” below the town of Alleghany. The project is well underway and must be completed by June 30th.
Sierra County has applied for a grant from the Dept. of Housing and Community Development to build a new ambulance station in Alleghany. A public hearing will be held on Thurs. June 11th at the firehouse in Alleghany at 6pm. This is a much needed structure for Alleghany. Our ambulance is over 20 years old and is unreliable. Downieville Fire Protection District has a new ambulance to give to Alleghany but it is too large to fit in our current structure. As a matter of fact the only way we were able to get the current ambulance in the shed was by shaving a couple inches off the rafters in the shed and removing the antennas from the roof of the ambulance!
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3745Super important clarification: my entry below is a comment on the national debacle in Washington.
(It struck me, after review, that someone new here may have thought I was writing, below, about the mine….explaining to anyone new here: all of us familiar with real assets within the Original Sixteen know how real they are…)
The Original Sixteen to One Mine is in direct contrast to the Federal debacle crap I was writing about below.
Scroll down….
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3744Bluejay is right.
This is debt without asset. It is also by design. The degradation of the dollar is not by accident, but by purpose. As stated, a banana-state (no republic intended) is the focus and intention.
The references cited by Bluejay and Kitco.com are real. It is no longer a fringe topic for a fringe group of “righties” who want Obama to fail. The numbers don’t lie. There is no assest, and there is debt. There is no plan to pay the debt back, and there is a plan to watch the debt take hold of our freedom, personal property and Constitution.
Despite the monetary warning (which I missed last time and stayed in the market, yet knowing that my gut told me to get out and solidify my tiny asset base with hard-holding gold, still didn’t)….this time I will.
Damn, that it is still tomorrow’s task. I keep feeling the cool-aid, but I won’t drink it. Tomorrow I will convert my assets to gold, real-live gold.
Simple Math.
“Honey, I think we’re broke.”
“Great! Let’s go spend while we can!”While we can…time.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3743Bluejay is right.
This is debt without asset. It is also by design. The degradation of the dollar is not by accident, but by purpose. As stated, a banana-state (no republic intended) is the focus and intention.
The references cited by Bluejay and Kitco.com are real. It is no longer a fringe topic for a fringe group of “righties” who want Obama to fail. The numbers don’t lie. There is no assest, and there is debt. There is no plan to pay the debt back, and there is a plan to watch the debt take hold of our freedom, personal property and Constitution.
Despite the monetary warning (which I missed last time and stayed in the market, yet knowing that my gut told me to get out and solidify my tiny asset base with hard-holding gold, still didn’t)….this time I will.
Damn, that it is still tomorrow’s task. I keep feeling the cool-aid, but I won’t drink it. Tomorrow I will convert my assets to gold, real-live gold.
Simple Math.
“Honey, I think we’re broke.”
“Great! Let’s go spend while we can!”While we can…time.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3742Last on gold is $980.30, following an early morning low of $960.00.
Copied below are pertinent comments made today b Monty Guild and Tony Danaher at http://www.Guildinvestment.com:
UNFORTUNATELY, THE U.S. HAS NO CHOICE. IT MUST CONTINUE TO PRINT MONEY AND DEBASE THE DOLLAR
China is positioning itself using a panoply of agreements that include allowing Chinese Yuan bond financing by Hong Kong banks, arranging trade related currency swap agreements with Brazil and six other countries, and working with countries and companies all over to world to lock up assets that it will need to run its production machine. China’s purchases include oil, coal, iron ore, nickel, and zinc to name a few. In short, China is buying assets worldwide –including an ever increasing share of the world’s gold supply — to stoke its economic machine in coming years.
China’s lust for gold is significant and deserves note. The fact is that China has been buying much more gold than it is producing. China is buying gold in the open market, willing to take gold off of the hands of the poorly managed IMF and central banks like Britain, who sold most of their gold at about $250 per ounce. Britain, the IMF, and others who have been, or will be, gold sellers appear to us to be operating with an excess of pompous verbiage and a shortage of common sense.
Gold will be an instrumental part of any new monetary system that is created in the world to succeed the current Breton Woods system. When the U.S. turns over power as the world’s reserve currency to China, it will be China’s large holdings of gold and large cash hoard which will make them a new monetary superpower. When that transition takes place, the old cliché about the golden rule, “Whoever holds the gold makes the rules” will be remembered for its wisdom.
On a side note, http://www.jsmineset.com carried an article today that stated household national debt is currently running at $545,688 and on the rise.
Very few people can grasp that our country is on the road to becoming another banana republic. Geithner and Bernanke lead by their financial handlers are selling out Americans. If the people can’t stop them, one of your few hopes is holding gold and silver and the companies that produce it.
Heaven help us all.
in reply to: Clips from Alleghany #3741Pencils were sharpened and calculators were firing as David and Mike reviewed the gold collection with the intent to drop prices. Thirty-one pieces out of 100 were studied (all specimens with no carvings). The old price totaled $323,090. The new prices dropped $71,955. Even though the spot price for gold rose from the original pricing, the idea is to bring them down to make some sales.
The next step is to cross-reference them with the photographs made last spring and make a nice spread for this web site. Too bad no one stepped up to keep the collection whole. It is truly a slice of California’s gold as Huell Howser would say.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3738Last on gold is $960.90.
The following interesting comments were picked up from the ECU forum page at Agoracom.com this morning:
JW: Hitmen hired to strike at crimex and lbme
posted on May 28, 09 10:59AM
Please read the entire article!http://news.goldseek.com/GoldenJackass/1243519200.php
The HITMEN have been hired, with highly lucrative contracts and wide berth in methods to be put to use. Their assigned task is to castrate the levered family jewels from some of the major players who illegally keep the gold price and silver price artificially low. The targeted victims know their awaited fate, and are presently defecating in their skivvies. A short list of banks facing the firing squad is already known, details for Hat Trick Letter members. Some detailed speculation will be devoted to the June HTL reports, since too controversial. This will be an evolving story, with new chapters soon written. The executions will be sudden. The missing US-UK levers will be immediate. Since last autumn, the global powers have aligned against Wall Street, even if the central bankers have supported it. If one wants to destroy a building, then weaken its pillars, cut a few support beams, then rush in a crowd of people, and wait for a turbulent storm. In the case of the COMEX, the wicked players will crowd the corrupted building. They will sink into ruin and then oblivion. They might become objects of mockery when they make noises from prison. If lucky, they will join Ken Lay from Enron fame in a remote Caribbean island where other favored operators live a secluded life, but a life nonetheless, complete with plenty of sunshine, fresh air, beaches, bikinis, and sailboats, but no intrusive cameras. Please, do not disturb the quasi-dead!
The financial cartel dominated by the United States and United Kingdom is soon to suffer some serious blows. The list of their financial crimes is as magnificent as it is long. Its list of victims is as prominent as it is long. The harbored resentment is great by many global players. They waited patiently for the Obama Admin to install a new group, but the old group remains due to a revolving door from the same smoky club, dominated by Goldman Sachs once more. Their influence, if not bribery, of the USCongress is in continuation, sufficient for unwanted obsequious approval. The regulatory agencies are from the same encrusted chambers replete with stench. The Coup d’Etat of the USGovt financial offices has not changed with Obama, who sounds like a refreshing leader but who is actually a marionette under control by those who selected him, favored him with publicity, then enabled his election. Nothing has changed except the rhetoric of change and the pace on the path to bankruptcy for a few icon firms like General Motors and Chrysler, if not the desperate cries from the 50 states suffering from insolvency. More prominent failures will follow, since nothing has been remedied. The channeled funds directed to Wall Street firms continue unabated. The bread crumbs to Main Street and the people continue unabated. Even the war continues unabated. Forget not that Marie Antoinette once said “Let them eat cake” before the French Revolution and the Storming of the Bastille. Today, the Bastille is the entire USEconomy where insolvent Americans are stuck.
in reply to: Another U.S. precious metals miner goes foreign #3740For fifteen years our company has been excited about the gold deposit known as the “Brown Bear”. Over 500,000 ounces of gold were produced from its claims (total patented acres: 580.18). What sticks out is that little development occurred below the drain tunnel. Interpret this as less costly mining in future development time and expenses and a mine owner’s dream.
The Brown Bear is the home of a ghost town…Deadwood. Deadwood had a school, a post office, saloons, churches, businesses and homes. And the spirit remains. Ray Wittkopp and I are familiar with the old workings, geology and concepts for future mining. It is a great bet, even when the gold price was half what it is today.
Well, yesterday I listed the property with Coldwell Banker. The price is $1,323,000 (surface rights), a price suggested by the local broker. Our Company needs working capital along with debt reduction. Since the gold collection did not sell, our Trinity County property becomes next in line to raise money.
This northern part of California has rugged features that are accessible yet hard to find in one location: world class fishing, boating hiking, wilderness, unyuppiefied communities, a short drive to the Pacific ocean, redwoods, and even golfing. It even has a commercial airport about an hour away.
After speaking these glowing words about the gold potential of the Brown Bear, another fact is the Sixteen to One deposit and its potential is unrivaled anywhere in the world. Therefore, the Brown Bear is now available for someone else to take a shot at getting some gold. This became possible because as I entered the real estate office, I thought about our awaiting plans in Alleghany and decided to also offer the mineral rights to the listing. I love the Bear but the gold here in Alleghany is at our finger tips.
It is difficult for anyone to appraise the mineral value of deposits like the Sixteen to One or Brown Bear so again I listened to the broker. His estimate was significantly lower than mine; however again I thought about our plans in Alleghany, our expectations and the need to goose this operation into action, so agreed that the “mineral rights may be included for a purchase price of $2,318,000”
There is an ancient saying that if the deal sounds to good to be true, it probably isn’t. Adequate data exists that supports another rarely used saying that if a deal sounds to good to be true and is, take it with a smile. Such is the situation now available at the Brown Bear.
So either with or without the mineral rights, these 580.18 acres on four parcels will have someone walking away with a smile. Let’s find a buyer right now!
in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #3739Two great sayings:
Yoga Berra: When you come to
a fork in the road, take it.It aint over until it’s over.
Best of “BIGRE!”(fr) nuggets to all.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3736Last on gold this Memorial Day is $957.60
Jim Sinclair’s(jsmineset.com) Commentary
I have not read a better encapsulation of conditions nor have I seen a better reason to get insured immediately if you are not in gold. If you are not insured, prepare to suffer the extraordinary loss of lifestyle you are accustomed to, if not your existence itself.
Let’s call our writer “CIGA Pedro the Informed.”
A View From Abroad by an American in Brazil
We are witnessing the end of a very long phase in history. As a result there is a mass insecurity amongst the dominant nations of the past 300-years that is bordering on hysteria. This insecurity manifests itself in many different ways and markets are reflecting this. Gold prepares to soar, reflecting this insecurity, as gold is a barometer of fear.
Within the English-speaking world it is evident that “foreigners” are to blame. In the UK it is both the Poles and the “Pakis”. In America it is initially revealed via a general population viewing the Kyoto Protocol as a Chinese-led trick to destroy our economy. Then it is the belief that Mexicans are “invading” and Arabs are trying to kill us all. One has to stop and ask what the root of this paranoia really is.
As the American power structure tries to prepare for “inevitable conflict” with world Islam (c.f. Huntington, Clash of Civilizations) it also tries to hide its obsequious relationship with the Saudi Royal Family, which is incestuous at best, and perhaps more symbiotic than most would want to know. The financial population cannot reconcile this anymore than they can the fact that (perhaps apart from Jim) the accurate, unblended analysis of this crisis seems to have been foreshadowed by a two people with names: Nouriel Roubini and Naseem Taleb. People remain confused by the fact that the American power structure lacks patriotism and seems to favor its own interests over the interests of the country. They lash out at everyone, including, now, their own leaders. People don’t know whether to “blame” Obama’s socialism or Bush’s self-serving capitalism. Their foreign policies seem different but the rest appears the same. Major banks appear to have more control than we thought….even while teetering on bankruptcy.
This is reflected in markets. Currencies gyrate wildly. As Jim has noted many times, anybody trying to fathom the FX markets and trade them is likely to be carried out of the pit on the proverbial trader’s stretcher with a coronary. First the Euro is finished – its break-down elucidating thoughts of its demise – but then the belief that jettisoning the PIGS (Portugal, Italy (Ireland?), Greece, Spain) might be causing it to rise. The markets are schizophrenic. They don’t know what to think. The dollar and sterling take the brunt. There are reasons for this.
This is a system headed for breakdown. The established historical order is drifting to a close, and nothing can stop it. Changes in policy are manifestations of history – alter it they cannot. Gold’s rise becomes inevitable as countries who have ruled the Imperial phase of history try and resist their diminishment in status. Markets are manipulated as they try and hold on to power, while history shifts under their feet. China and Brasil cut deals that don’t include the USA and UK…the UAE starts to view separate currency arrangements with Russia, foregoing overtures by Saudi Arabia for a Gulf wide (GCC-led) monetary regime. Riyadh’s relationship is too close to Washington. Washington is yesterday’s news. (So much for the conspiracy of Islam.)
The end of an era is upon us. That is the era of the Global hegemon. The first phase took place in Britain, the second in the Soviet Union, and the third in America. Fukayama’s theory of history’s end is immolated on its very alter. The debacle of Iraq, as well as Afghanistan stand as testimony. The dominant powers simply cannot draw borders they way they did at San Remo in 1920 or via the Red-lines which economically created Kuwait. We seem to be unsure if we should break Iraq up, or let it be unified. Is it even our business, or has history out-run us and we have failed to acknowledge it? As the global hegemon is characterized through the Imperial phase of history, now draws to a close, people stand confused and amazed. The rulers of the dominant nations appear ready to sell them out…and this appears as “news” to educated observers.
Nobody can be sure of any currency regime any longer. The markets gyrate wildly. As fear and insecurity mount, Gold prepares for take off.
in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #3737I regret to inform that Sb 670 is alive and well, I believe there is a sense in the state Legislature to get even against the people for voting down their pay raise. Is this a new concept for California of Government against the people?
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3735For the time being, the Allegany gold production has peaked as well. The many many thousands of ounces of gold broght to the surface had much more of a chance to be discovered back when the oppressive forearms of anti-freedom statists weren’t held so tightly to our throats….
These oppressive demamgogue statists, who believe they are the country and not the other way around, weren’t around when the shackles allowed the spirits of miners to flourish.
This is the only conclusion I can draw regarding the reluctance and nervous posture of investor potential.
All shareholders will recall when the CDAA threw a dagger into the mix, breaking laws and ignoring facts, and scared everyone away…and Mike Miller brought the issue forth during that year’s shareholder meeting: what was the sentiment and what were the consequences of doing nothing compared to fighting back?
History is always hindsight, but I believe the history of that protracted fight and subsequent railroading by yellow-bellied court crooks in the appellet court tells the story very well: the back-bone of virtue, freedom, inovative discovery and persistance is written in the record.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3734Bloomberg TV is showing a last cash sale for gold of $957.35.
Supplied below is a link to an informative report on gold relating to world production and the prominent regional producers. The writer, Thomas Chaize, has been stressing over recent years that world gold production has peaked.
The article has been translated to English from its orginal French format.
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3731Last on gold is $952.00
“Gold cannot decline from its highs as it will be incorporated into the national and international monetary systems at that time.”
–Alf Fields, May 20, 2009Now do you have any questions why Fund Wizard Paulson just got long a few billion dollars worth of Gold ETFs and a few major gold producers?
Finally a major event has taken place that is a US dollar milestone.
The financing and extremely important event is the arrangement between China and Brazil displaces the dollar as China becomes the major trading partner with Brazil. Since then the Rial has been celebrating and the dollar has been depressed.
This is a once in approximately a century replacement of a trading currency that has always meant a dethronement of the deposed and coronation of a new currency king.
The last time this happened was when the US dollar supplanted the British Pound as the major trading currency and entity with Brazil 79 years ago.
It took the Brits 300 years to supplant the Portuguese Escudo with the British Pound.
Only twice has this occurred in 379 years. This is obscure to most but not to Mr. Paulson the hedge wizard. Obscure to most, but not to our gang at JSMineset.
The dollar died in Rio and that means everywhere.\
The dollar is in for a very cold winter.
There is one thing that is absolutely certain and that is Gold is now headed to at least $1650 and in all probability much higher. This is happening NOW!
What more do you need to know?
in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #3730The following article written by David Duval appeared on jsmineset.com tonight. I thought Mike, especially, would enjoy the historical references made to Homestake Mining along with the writer’s thesis that small mining operations can be quite positive.
With Commodity Prices Trending Upward, Near-Surface Mine Development and Royalty Model Become Options for Junior Explorers
By David Duval
The contemporary wisdom that “bigger is better” has taken a well-deserved beating since the credit crisis unfolded and destroyed some of the world’s largest financial institutions in its wake.
With large-scale project financing options limited or non-existent because of the credit crisis, many of the smaller players in the global mining industry have been forced to review their growth strategies, a trend that could see historic mine development practices making a comeback and less mainstream business models adopted.
Perhaps not since the turn of the 19th century has the appeal of “small” become so attractive. Indeed, today’s examples encompass a broad range of industries including power generation (wind turbines, small hydro, solar etc.) and small mining operations that provide feedstock to portable or centrally located process plants and refineries, a practice that is relatively common in Asia and Africa.
Not being major enterprises with large industrial footprints, long permitting periods, and high capital costs, these businesses can be developed incrementally from ongoing cash flows, substantially reducing the risk to investors. In the “good old days” this scale of development was the rule rather than the exception and most of the world’s major gold camps were discovered and developed on this basis over a century ago.
In his book titled, “History of Dakota Territory” George W. Kingsbury describes the development of the Homestake Mine in these words:
“When the claim was purchased by the Homestake Mining Company the exploration consisted of small surface pits only and some mining men considered its value as doubtful although there were a number of favorable surface indications. The company immediately began the further exploitation of the property and two shafts equipped with hoisting engines were sunk and various drifts were soon under way.
By July, 1878, or the year after the purchase of the claim, the first mill of eighty stamps was constructed and in commission. With the first dropping of stamps it was proved that the mine was a producer and from that small beginning the mine has steadily expanded, breaking all records and setting a new pace in the world of gold mining. Although it is a very low ore, illimitable tonnage is at the disposal of the company and large mills, the most improved mining machinery and great mechanical power enable the mine to pay large dividends.”
It’s worth noting that Homestake was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 1876 and its now dormant South Dakota mine produced approximately 40 million ounces of gold over a 120 year period before the mine’s economic reserves were exhausted in late 2001.
Mimicking the discovery of other major gold finds at the time, Homestake began as a surface showing with gold values occurring in vein material that was easily distinguishable from adjoining wall rock. Pick and shovel mining provided a bulk sample for metallurgical test work and grade estimation.
First off, however, the miners recovered gold from alluvial gravels that were eroded from the hard rock vein material. Exploration shafts were then sunk to evaluate the vein material at depth, producing gold in the process to offset exploration costs.
In many parts of the world (including Africa and Latin America) artisanal miners have already gained access to sub-surface vein material by hand sinking small shafts and mining along the vein structures. In fact, you would be hard pressed to find a major mine in Africa that didn’t have such workings within its property boundaries. These old workings facilitate target selection and the development of a resource base for production purposes.
Because of its high specific gravity (gold’s relative weight to that of water) gold concentrates in stream beds within alluvial gravels and it can be extracted by mechanical methods that take advantage of the fact it is 19.3 times as heavy as water.
Gold occurs in many different geologic settings but two basic types of occurrences or deposits are recognized: primary and secondary. Both rely on similar chemical and physical processes to produce economic concentrations of gold ore.
The Homestake discovery didn’t have the advantage of present day drilling technology to confirm the existence of an orebody whose life would extend for more than 100 years. Instead, the economic viability of the mine was established by mining and processing the easily extractable surface material with equipment that used gold’s specific gravity to produce a saleable concentrate. In the late 1890s, cyanide was employed to recover fine gold from rocks and is still used under carefully controlled conditions.
Even today, gravity separation is the best proven and accepted technique of concentrating minerals due to its high efficiency and low cost. In addition to gold, gravity separation remains a primary means of concentrating iron, tungsten, tin and coal ores.
Process plants (mills) for gold need not be large and in fact they are often manufactured and assembled in large industrial centers where skilled trades people are readily available. By employing modular construction techniques, equipment can be brought into a mine site by truck, air transport and in the case of tidewater locations, by sea barge. The various modular sections are simply joined together like a kid’s Lego set on the mine site. As the operation expands, new modules can be shipped to the site and added to the existing plant facility.
In order to reduce capital requirements, companies often employ contractors to mine their mineral deposits at a fixed price, locking in costs for the term of the contract. With contract mining, a company need not acquire in-house mining expertise or equipment that would only be utilized on a seasonal basis in any event. For smaller operations, contractors can provide services for a sufficient length of time to develop a stockpile for year round milling operations.
What’s surprising about today is the reluctance of many companies to consider the small scale, staged development of mineral deposits which is much less risky from both a financial and technical standpoint. In gold’s case, some of that reluctance no doubt relates to the belief by analysts that any company producing less than 100,000 ounces won’t get adequate market recognition. But as we’ve seen during the global financial crisis, analysts sometimes make a habit of being just plain wrong.
Nonetheless, in an escalating commodity price environment, the appeal of these modest-sized operations is certain to increase, especially where possibilities exist for multi-sourced production that will boost consolidated output to even more attractive levels. This has been a feature of China’s mining industry for generations and is certain to catch on in the West before too long.
Physical gold output – even on a small scale basis – provides price leverage to companies in the marketplace, especially for situations where the exploration potential leaves room for future production growth.
in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #3732An insightful piece of writing, thank you Bluejay, for finding it. It brought a smile to my face and hope in my soul that our precious company in one of the world’s highest-grade high-grade deposits will become of interest to people about gold. An understandable (not necessarily true) outtake on the junior gold companies was that the exploration phase of mining has the sizzle and potential huge stock appreciation over the gold producers. Gold investment writers’ touted exploration would lead to a take over by major, sending stock prices through the roof. It developed into a belief that once a company began production, financial forecasts became dull and predictable.
The flaws in this opinion are obvious: evaluate the risk/reward for dollars spent; start up time and infrastructure costs befitting the proposed deposit, corporate overhead is usually hidden from the grade of ore/cost of mining analysis, dependence on others and mobility.
Ray Wittkopp has great stories about some of the gold mining capitalists he worked with in Nevada that followed the behavior of industry heroes. Move quickly, cut the check, the future is ahead and the past instills wisdom. The big mining companies have been bogged down for years, successful but few of their leaders have the spirit of what made mining a proud and vital industry. I don’t see significant changes even though the article below takes a reader along the path to the future.
in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #3733Thanks for chiming in again, everyone.
What are we going to do? Here’re some thoughts.
I’ve decided to engage any of friends who have a big glass of cool-aide in front of them to think twice. Currently I have a few ongoing email discussions with political adversaries who have written to me listing their “fears” of conservative takeover and “concerns” for un-caring policies of the freedom wonks.
Yes, there is actually a profile offered on FaceBook that allows one to take the “Test: what kind of Republican would you be?”
???
And everyone is having a big hoot about which idiot republican they would be, based on their answers.
Yesterday I read one that referred to “That nebulous thing called freedom.”
I’m serious. There is actually a group and groundswell of modern neo-statists who are considering “freedom” something to laugh at.
Go look for yourself. Pull up a Google search for ‘FaceBook, What kind of Rebublican would you be’…and see what happens.
Cool-aid city.
in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #3729I hope we have a big choir. Freedom to all.
in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #3728Rick
Re what we are going to do about it?
I think the Tea Parties that were well organized as a show of discontent with those in power were a good start.
I am a firm believer in what Gandhi and Martin Luther King advocated in dealing with injustice, organized nonviolent resistance.
Get organized, prepare signs to convey your message, select a location, advise the media and present your case in public, the more the merrier.
in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #3727An essential reality I’ve known since a very very small little guy, is how love of freedom comes from love of country, hence why my counrty was founded: with Constitutional principals.
Essential to the very core of this love is defending any assault to the contrary, and keeping in the forefront of any afront that our country has a government, not the other way around.
This current government actually believes IT has a country, not the other way around.
I feel like I’m writing to the choir.
WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT????”
in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #3726I had a thought, maybe the State thinks they can help balance their budget by putting State employees in the streams after they tell us to “take a hike.” I hope it didn’t happen today and I hope the two Senators I contacted did the right thing for us.
I’ve learned an important point, when governments get into trouble they’ll do whatever it takes to stay in power and that means taking it from the citizenry.
Stay informed, read http://www.jsmineset.com. Martin Armstrong, the living legend, has related with his graph what we are expected to witness upcoming in the world of business. Also, Jim Sinclair has some interesting comments tonight which precede some informative articles.
in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #3725Thank You everybody for your concern and help with the opposition to SB 670. It was item 41 on the Senate Floor session today. Senator Wiggins was kind enough to “pass” when it was requested for consideration.
in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #3724The one good thing that has come from this threat that it has alerted and united we the people of the future legislation that will destroy our rights under the 1872 Mining law, This fight is only beginning.
in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #3723We know the Truth,the Senator who wrote SB 670/Wiggins,Vacuum or suction dredge Equipment, knows the truth, but has chose to ignore the truth for the prejudice of her own advocacy to destroy our rights to dredge for gold in our rivers and streams.
in reply to: Ideal Time for Facts #3722In combination with Mike’s letter to the Gov, including the latest Misc topic additions concerning the pending vote to abolish dredging:
WHY? Because they can? Becuase they have no clue of physics or history or logic? (Ahem, Rick….yes…)
Wake up!!!!!!
Those of us taking up the challenge to contact “representatives” (I want to gag sometimes when I need to refer to them as such) ….please remind them of this truth:
Rocks in the rivers are round because they roll. Theyv’e been rolling around for billions of years because water rolls them. Water is a force made from snow. It’s caused by weather. The weather has been happening for 4.6 billion years.
The weather and rock-rolling didn’t start when this current group of idiots believe their own personal short-sided version of history started.
Rocks the size of busses, even ten busses roll and shape our rivers every year. Give me a freaking reality check.
The rocks in our rivers are and have been rolling around and re-creating habitat for longer than human-kind can even fathom. Except, wait….history just started for idiots with self-centered short-brained reference points.
Let me see…”we’d better outlaw dredging the rivers because it disturbs the habitat” or whatever other anthropomorphic pipe-dream reaches their egotistical and blind reasoning.
I am ashamed of my own human species trying to take credit for why river rocks are roundy. Give me a flying break!!!!
in reply to: Miscellaneous #3720I just ran into the following and thought it might be of interest to some:
http://www.goldgold.com/legal/670_flash-actionalert.htm
The vote to Ban suction Dredging in California is coming Monday….
We just received word from our lobbyists in Sacramento that Senate Bill 670 (anti suction dredging legislation) will be put up for a vote in the senate this coming Monday, May 18! Because this is moving forward as “urgency legislation,” 27 “Aye” votes will be required in the Senate to keep this bill alive. Therefore, if we all act quickly, we have a real chance at defeating this very bad bill. Here is a link to our Action Alert:
http://www.goldgold.com/legal/670_flash-actionalert.htm
Included there, is a link to help those of you in California to locate an email contact form for your State senator. For those of you residing outside of California, our very capable lobbyists have targeted 6 senators for you to direct faxes to. We will need all emails and faxes to get to these senators no later than 12 noon on Monday, May 18. That’s only a few days away! Our Action Alert also includes a link to some talking points from which you can copy and paste to create your own messages. Emails should be kept short to prevent them from being rejected by automated electronic filtering! Please remember that your own names and addresses must be included with any messages that you send. I am sorry this is happening on such short notice. It’s the way things are when our adversaries control the legislative process! We can still win this battle though; but only if we all pitch in right now and make our voices heard to these senators by noon, this Monday! Thanks for whatever you can do to help!
They have studies up the Wazo that Small mining dredging actually cleans the gravel, cleans the Mercury from natural and historical deposits,
It’s good for fish and spawning beds. And it helps local economies.
If you have access to a Fax….pop off a short missive.in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3719Gold closed the week at $930.90
Evidently, the Telegraph took a lot of heat from Washinton concerning the recent article entitled “Geithner Enriches Speculators in “Sham Bank” Bail-Outs and took the story down from their website.
The truth will set you free.
Fraudonomics
The interaction between government, the media, and Wall Street.Thursday, May 14, 2009
Geithner enriches speculators in “sham” bank bail-outs – TelegraphUpdate (May 15): The article that was linked to this posting has been taken down by the newspaper. So, now you will not only not hear about it on CNBC, it is not in the press anywhere.
Original post:
At the Qatar Global Investment Forum, Mark Patterson shed some light on Geithner’s Wall Street giveaway plan. This is not new information to Fraudonomics readers, but it is nice to have someone who is participating in the scheme tell the truth for a change. His words would cut like a knife if anyone in the government gave a damn about anything other than enriching the friends of Timmy and Ben.Notice that the story is being carried by a British newspaper. I doubt if you will hear about it on CNBC. Enjoy!
Geithner enriches speculators in “sham” bank bail-outs – Telegraph: “The US Treasury’s effort to stabilise the banking system through the TARP programme is a hopelessly ill-conceived policy that enriches speculators at public expense, according to the buy-out firm supposed to be pioneering the joint public-private bank rescues.
“The taxpayers ought to know that we are in effect receiving a subsidy. They put in 40pc of the money but get little of the equity upside,” said Mark Patterson, chairman of MatlinPatterson Advisers.
The comments are likely to infuriate Tim Geithner, the US Treasury Secretary, because MatlinPatterson took advantage of the TARP’s matching funds to buy Flagstar Bancorp in Michigan. His confession appears to validate concerns that the bail-out strategy is geared towards Wall Street.
Under the convoluted deal agreed earlier this year, MatlinPatterson has come to own 80pc of the shares while the US government has ended up with under 10pc.
Mr Patterson said the US Treasury is out of its depth and seems to be trying to put off drastic action by pretending that the banking system is still viable.
“It’s a sham. The banks are insolvent. The US government is trying to sedate the public because they are down to the last $100bn (£66bn) of the $700bn TARP funds. They think they’re doing this for the greater good of society,” he said, speaking at the Qatar Global Investment Forum.
Mr Patterson said it would be better for the US to bite the bullet as Britain has done, accepting that crippled lenders must be nationalised. “At least the British are not hiding the bail-out,” he said.
MatlinPatterson said private equity and hedge funds were deluding themselves in hoping to go back to business as usual after the trauma of the last 18 months.
“This is not a normal recession and there will be no V-shaped recovery. The crisis has destroyed leveraged companies. We’re going to see a catastrophic increase in the number of LBO’s (leveraged buyouts) going into default because they’re knee-deep in debt and no solution exists since they can’t refinance,” he said.
“Alfa hedge funds have been making their money by gambling with excessive leverage, so the knife that cuts off leverage is going to cut off their heads as well,” he said.
Like many bears, Mr Patterson expects the great crunch to end in deliberate inflation, deemed a lesser evil than outright depression.
“The US government has thrown 29pc of GDP at this crisis compared to 8pc in the early 1930s. The Fed’s balance sheet has risen from $900bn to $2.7 trillion to bail out the system. America has to do it because the only way out is to debase the currency, but that is going to lead to some very high inflation three years down the road,” he said.
Matlin Patterson, however, has missed the Spring rebound, the most powerful rise in equities in over 70 years. “We shorted the equity rally because we thought it was lunatic. We’ve kept adding positions seven times, and we’re still holding,” he said. Ouch!”
in reply to: Miscellaneous #3721It is very important to get as much support on the opposition of this bill. A simple phone call to your state Senator informing him or her that you oppose SB 670.
Is all you need to do.in reply to: Water and Arsenic: which came first? #3718Rick
It sounds that the Water Board is just like so many other government agencies, full of ignorance and leaning towards complete stupidity. Or, is it about white envelopes being exchanged under tables???
Check out the jsmineset.com website tonight concerning a major newspaper in London running the headline, Geithner Enriches Speculators In “Sham Bank” Bail-Outs and the enjoining article.
The deeper you dig the messier it gets.
in reply to: Water and Arsenic: which came first? #3717The original initial entry under this topic was written by me, a few years ago, when the CRWQCB demanded of the Original Sixteen to One Mine that the naturally occuring element arsenopyrite stop exisiting in the water.
Arsenopyrite is the naturally occuring element in the geology of the Allegany Ridge, with a principal element arsenic. CRWQCB stands for California Regional Water Quality Control Board.
Many of us testified in Sacramento in front of that board, and personally I suggested that they “dip their own mugs into the effluent waters from the downtown rail-yard where arsenic levels were 25,000 time higher than their mandate of 50ppb” hich they demanded the mine establish in a pristine environment of naturally occuring levels….”hile the man-made occurance of arsenic in the rail-yard remained un-assaulted by the very board demanding the impossible” from where the Original Sixteen to One is located….
[This was happening the same time the CDAA was also assaulting the mine. A full court press, reminiscent of the current administration’s intolerance of freedom.]
My time in front of the CRWQB was limited to a minute. I made my point: the arsenic in Allegany is natural, upstream and downstream; also to go “dip your mugs” where it is not.
Summarily dismissed. No response. They could give an S.
I implore all of you reading this forum entry to back-track to the origins of the topic title, which will be at the very bottom, the original writing.
BTW, they don’t care about the water. They only care about buying votes.
in reply to: Water and Arsenic: which came first? #3716Been on my radar screen for years….
in reply to: Gold Enters Major Bull Market #3715Last of gold is $915.00.
The following submitted excerpts of a longer report were written by Mr. Murry Pollitt who is president of Pollitt & Company in Toronto.
Usually I provide a link but since these copied excerpts were from Agoracom.com it wouldn’t have been easy to access, so no link.
Most interesting which you don’t see often is Mr. Pollitt’s questioning the accuracy of GFMS’s(formerly Gold Fields Mineral Services) reporting and why? Otherwise, the excerpts are an excellent presentation of the truth concerning the lengths that some groups will go to to keep gold’s price depressed and why those efforts are becoming strained.
Murray Pollitt: The gold monetization scheme is ending
By Murray Pollitt
Pollitt & Co., Toronto
Thursday, April 30, 2009The G8 appears finished but their policymakers continue to try to bend the G20, and the world, to their will. The establishment, the Fed, the Bank of England, the Bank for International Settlements, the same gang that has been setting policy for decades, is still at it. They appear to remain in charge (with nary a whimper of criticism about the trillions of dollars’ worth of damage their policies have caused) but, when it comes to gold, they are slowly losing their grip.
Besides setting the stage decades ago for sub-prime paper, CDSs, and so on, it appears policymakers embarked on a scheme, at more or less the same time, to monetize the hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of gold lying sterile in central bank vaults. The temptation was too much. One-percent income on gold for a central bank was better than nothing, so the argument ran, and for the Lehman types borrowing gold (and selling it) provided lots of money (capital) to play games with.
It was so easy. Besides, the gold carry trade involved selling lots of gold into the market and this helped keep the price down (and hopefully the dollar up), a subject near and dear to policymakers.
It also led to: a) huge mine hedging with the two biggest miners, each with a link to Morgan, together short over 30 million ounces (“making money on gold in the ground” was the argument) and b) significant outright central bank sales, which may have been interventionist or may have been for portfolio diversification, however ill-advised.
And if banks and markets didn’t always follow the script, there was always high-level intervention. To illustrate the mindset, in 2004 one William White, advisor to the BIS, talked about the need for “international credits and joint efforts to influence asset prices (especially gold and foreign exchange) in circumstances where this might be thought useful.” The idea of rigging markets is as old as the hills, and if the government is on your side. …
Anyway, the great gold monetization (mobilization?) scheme appears to have started in the 1980s and the following events that, in part, characterize it are not necessarily in sequence.
1) Goldman bought gold dealer J. Aron.
2) In an early gold carry trade, Drexel borrowed hundreds of tonnes of gold from Portugal.
3) All the big swinging banks sought to get into the gold game and they bought all the London gold dealers except Rothschild, which was definitely in on the game on its own.
4) Mine hedging was pushed very hard, to a peak of about 120 million ounces.
5) Greenspan and others dropped broad hints that central Banks stood “ready” to supply gold to the market.
6) Drexel went broke and it apparently took Portugal five years to recover its gold.
7) Two long-term gold players, Republic and Safra, each with a somewhat checkered past, had a shotgun wedding. Later Mr. Safra was fried to death in his Monte Carlo apartment, presumably for nonrepayment of gold.
8) Two of the largest American players, JP Morgan and Chase, also had a shotgun wedding and now carry more gold derivatives than can be imagined.
9) Much of the Drexel brain trust apparently went to work for AIG, which promptly started boasting about mine hedging.
10) HSBC (often advised by Paul Volcker) bought Midland Bank (which had earlier bought bullion dealer Samuel Montagu) and, in another shotgun wedding, bought Republic, transactions that made HSBC one of the major gold players. HSBC’s U.S. subsidiary is now the custodian for the SPDR ETF.
11) When the gold price started to move up, Rothschild said enough and sold its “book” (at a loss?) to Barclays.
12) Finally there was recently a shotgun wedding between Dresdner bank and Commerzbank.
Crisp details are rare, but the past generation has seen hundreds of millions of ounces of gold bled into the market. Canadian and Australian gold reserves are gone; Britain, Switzerland, and many others are down by two-thirds.
But this doesn’t count the gold that has been lent. In general it seems that the same sort of banks that got into trouble investing in high-yield, low-quality sub- prime paper have also taken short positions in low-yield, high-quality gold. Too many favorite-son banks are on the wrong side of the market for policymakers to be rational. Given the option between common sense and helping a bank, well, the record is clear. This is probably the main reason the establishment remains anti-gold today — the old ideological reasons are not that relevant.
So once again they trot out the idea of International Monetary Fund gold sales. What rubbish. The IMF hasn’t sold gold since the 1970s, but every year the idea is advanced to frighten the gold market. Why would the IMF sell $10 billion of gold when central banks are printing $10 billion of new money every day? Gold is the only IMF asset worth 100 cents on the dollar — everything else is junk.
As well the establishment hammers on the idea that the gold price is high, and GFMS continues its weird forecasts.
Well, the gold price is not high. Oil and several other commodities have outperformed gold since World War II. A good underground gold mine may grade 5 parts per million (ppm) while a good open pit may grade 1 ppm.
Nobody who has said the gold price is high has ever spent a nine-hour shift drilling rock — it’s a tough business. God only knows the blood-to-gold ratio for old Roman mines in Spain or Spanish mines in Peru, and getting the gold from mine to home base was often not easy. Much Victorian gold went from Ashanti by caravan through Timbuktu, the Sahara, and on to Europe — the Brits were hardly keen to auction it off then.
Gold mine production is down about 12 percent from the 2001 peak (and still falling) and Barrick shares have barely moved in a decade. Much of the industry’s cash flow is attributable to accounting magic, and the long years, even decades, of gold price suppression have taken their toll. There are few major new mines on the horizon, and lots of old ones on the way out.
Notwithstanding, GFMS has consistently forecast rising production for the past eight years (even though it has consistently fallen), raising the question: Why?
Our guess is that GFMS’ big clients are the very banks we refer to above, the ones on the wrong side of the market, and for them Ms. Rosy Scenario needs the healthy, and expanding, industry model that GFMS gives them.
What are companies like Commerzbank and Societe Generale doing sponsoring GFMS anyway? Neither Germany nor France has any gold mining industry at all.
One would have to be barking mad not to see the benefits a higher gold price would have on vast chunks of the global economy. Even long-suffering Zimbabwe would be a huge beneficiary, and more wealth in Africa and Latin America would mean more exports of Fords and Cats from the United States. The establishment may not care, but that won’t stop G20 members (and others) from connecting the dots and following China’s lead in increasing gold weighting in monetary reserves.
Gold is again becoming a preferred central bank asset and the great monetization scheme is coming to an end. Western policymakers and banks have pushed their game too far for too long and the combination of the shift of power from G8 to G20, plus the reduced availability of gold, will turn the tide. You can sell gold only once, although, in the new wondrous world of derivatives, maybe somebody has actually sold it twice.
—-
Murry Pollitt is president of Pollitt & Co., a brokerage firm in Toronto, and a veteran of mining industry finance. This essay is excerpted from his latest letter client letter and reprinted by permission.
- AuthorPosts
