Sharefin/Directions -- auspec, 18:15:39 01/20/02 Sun Of course your analysis of where most of the gold has landed is fully correct, and because of that, gold has been micro-managed at the margin. It never made sense to me that CBs were merely reshuffling the deck chairs, although that has happened, especially with the EU coming into fruition. Those who proposed this absurdity lost great credibility. Frank Veneroso based much of his work on gold flowing to ankles, wrists and necks, BUT, many tills have also been raided by 'corparate' entities as well. Public treasures leaving en mass, some for adornment, but some also for elitist coffers, no doubt. This is the way of all bailouts, and we have a big one coming. The money trails may be arduous to follow but they will eventually lead to Snideley and Co. Gold in the ground is flowing from weak hands to strong hands, partially/mostly enabled by the continued flow of official gold to market for management at the margin. Who will be left with paper gold and who will walk with certified bars? It will be tough to follow because gold leaves the faintest scent of all. At the very minimum these geniuses had full use of public gold to enrich themselves prior to sending it to market. How much gold can 1 person carry? When one begins to understand the criminal depth of current world financial management the picture shows those who would never hesitate to become heavy metal fans. We're now talking Cayman Islands and the multiple other off-balance-sheet havens. These people are thieves, plain and simple, and thieves know full well what has the most value. Cynical? Hell, yes! Watch it unfold.... HTML? Yes I saw the direcions, but am directions/impaired/averse. Don't worry though as I will come to the plate sooner or later. Thanks for this great place, I think it will be a lot of fun and most educational! kapex/Hugo Salinas Price -- auspec, 17:34:48 01/20/02 Sun Yes, I have also hammered this message home for quite some time now. It's the blatant resource grab, and they've zeroed in on the Mother Lodes, no need to salt those mines. This is getting pretty high profile w HSP and you will clearly note in his article the implied jeopardy he is under. Of course as this becomes fairly common knowledge he becomes much more unreachable. Do you think there is one iota of a chance this piece is circulating in Latin America, especially Argentina. We need a few more Latin tempers on our side! HE/WE NAILED IT!! Agreed!  auspec -- Sharefin, 16:36:43 01/20/02 Sun Have a read of this page auspec -- Sharefin, 16:33:03 01/20/02 Sun Everywhere I go I see people with jewelry. From little kids to old rich folks, they all have gold jewelry drapped over their necks, hanging from their ears and adorning their wrists & ankles. Lots of it is of the watered down variety but now and then you come across the Mr. T role models who carry many ounces of the pure stuff weighting down their necks. Multiply these people by many millions - even billions and you will find where much of the gold of old which was stockpiled and has since been leased on has gone. Look at all the Indians who wear nothing but the finest gold. A billion people wearing an ounce each would equate to approx 31,000 tons. So a billion people with 4 ounces each would equate to all the gold ever found. Or 4 billion people with an ounce each. Methinks that jewelry makes up for the greatest percentage of gold - far greater than reserves or hoards. A few bright minds & excentric individuals have hoarded away what they can afford. A few goldbugs have picked up the few ounces they can afford. But much of it is in the form of 9 or 14 carat junk jewelry never to be returned back to pure gold. Most junk jewelry has a price factor of 8 times plus content so gold will have to go up to many thousands of dollars before this junk is worthy of being melted down. You only need to go to the local mall where a dozen different jewelers have display cases bulging at 50% off. Just look at the young 12 year old girls admiring the pretty baubles and you'll see where the greatest percentage of gold has been whisked off to. Go in to a major shopping center and watch every person to see who has gold jewelry adorning them & who hasn't and you'll be surprised. There is far more gold under our noses than we give credit for...^o-o^ Hugo Salinas Price on Gold -- auspec, 13:07:44 01/20/02 Sun -- kapex, 15:51:50 01/20/02 Sun Well! It's nice to see someone has been reading my posts! YAR!!! Couldn't have said it better myself! Wait a second. I Already Did say it! This is Exactly what is going on IMHO. I have been hollering about it for a year now. U.S. dollar likely to test upper limit against the yen this week -- Donald, 13:38:54 01/20/02 Sun click here for Japan Times story dated January 21, 2002 Hugo Salinas Price on Gold -- auspec, 13:07:44 01/20/02 Sun It is my conviction that the shady characters who are behind the scenes in this world, and who really run things, a la Disraeli's “Coningsby”, have a plan which they have been carrying out over the past decades. These are the individuals who give orders to Central Banks, of their own, and of other nations. They have the power to do so. We have been witnessing a new way of accumulating gold, never before seen in the world: accumulation through mass-deception, through manipulation of the mass-mind, which was never before possible. These unidentified characters have used the dollar to accumulate wealth, and they have been going after the gold. They can well see, that the present international monetary system is doomed. It was a visible fact to them, long ago. If we, the little spectators, can see this is happening, it most certainly cannot have escaped the observation of the movers and shakers in this world. We private, small-time spectators count for little, and though we can see what is happening, we have not the means to convince the masses. Perhaps the world rulers will deal with us, one by one, at their leisure. Or perhaps not. Don't mess with the Mafia, and they will let you alone. Killing is messy and preferably avoided. Let us hope this is the outcome. A new system will have to come into existence, when this present system passes away in disorder and revolution. And lo and behold! Gold will figure prominently in it. Gold amassed while the Central Banks of the world were being coerced to dishoard it. The propaganda regarding the “death of gold” has been effective. It has allowed the Central Banks to sell off their stocks, painfully acquired through centuries, at cheap, very cheap prices, to the characters operating in the shadows. In a sense these past decades have been one long bankruptcy sale on the part of the world's Central Banks, where the banks have been selling off their best assets - to their owners! - at rock bottom prices. Of course, at fire-sale prices, otherwise, it would be next to impossible to accumulate it in any quantity. Comments: This guy is very high profile and it's wonderful to have him be so outspoken. Article is at GE http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_02/salinas012102pv.html {I'm still working on the link mechanism} President of Newmont predicts rise of $25 to $50 per oz. -- Donald, 09:05:43 01/20/02 Sun click here Gold up at $1700 -- Sharefin, 07:47:41 01/20/02 Sun Gold at $1700 an ounce? TB2000 -- Sharefin, 05:34:23 01/20/02 Sun TimeBomb 2000 Gold & Silver auspec -- Sharefin, 03:00:49 01/20/02 Sun Tread lightly but carry big gold sack. Elitist follies make many smiles soon. NWO -- Sharefin, 02:59:10 01/20/02 Sun UN Tribunal for World Debt? Numbers/Sharefin -- auspec, 21:24:13 01/19/02 Sat "These days I would guesstimate that of the approx 135,000 tons of gold in existence that the various Governments of the world are now only holding approx 15,000 tons or approx 11% of total stocks." Comment: One really has to see through a lot of smoke to see official #s this small, can it be? The European #s should be real as would be China, Russia etc. The US and International MFs #s are highly suspect at best. You're quite likely fully correct as I think back on pioneer FV's numbers, but it is really stark to see it up close and personal. I bought his gold book projections that portrayed the end case scenario and it was probably 1998 when he came out with it, 3-4 yrs further into the game now. i believe FV had one big flaw in his numbers and thinking. He constantly used calculations that projected loaned/leased gold as having to be paid back and leading to his rubber band projections. apparently, everyone that ever borrowed money from the good professor paid him back in full. I have the 'oops, sorry' theory, of course it will not be paid back! politicians and bankers, when caught, do it all the time. Like Steve Erkel; "OOPS, did I do that?" It's not their gold! It has likely gone from public hands {ours} to private hands [theirs}, as well as to market demand. They really didn't screw up as they now have the gold, at least in part. The 'resource grab' includes the richest deposits of gold ever, CB coffers! FV, bless him, said one of the most bullish cases possible would be if the USG, or others, were found to be suppresing gold. They are, beyond a shadow of a doubt. They're backing GS and JPM/C and all their other utility instruments and the whole place has become a cess pool. Why would Artie Anderson risk the consequences of shreding subpoenaed documents? Because the consequences would be even worse if the documents were NOT shred. GATA thinks Enron will lead into the gold fraud, hopefully so. Common, decent, and hard working people cannot imagine what their criminal and unconstitutional govt has been up to. "let's just not go there." Hell, people on these 'honest money' sites don't even want to 'go there'. I honestly believe that many/most of our govt officials don't even know how bad it really is, they're probably not on a 'need to know' basis. "..astounded by our gains"? Very likely, but also astounded at the level of deception that brings us these gains. I am no Soros fan but will rephrase one of his most famous quotes: Detecting and positioning oneself to profit from elitist' folly brings a dual reward, financial as well as doing one's patriotic duty. Cheerio! revolutiono -- offal, 20:42:42 01/19/02 Sat my philosophy is pretty simple i want to bring fiat money to an end, and replace it with a fractional gold, silver and platinum standard. i tried politics, but the lesson learned is that they are generally the same bunch. the major party's are bought off. the internet is pull media where i can visit sites that i want, and share info.. this is crucial. It's not like television where the message (lie) is pushed into your face i want a better world for my young family, not a place that encourages forever indebtedness, and that's where we are today. bring on deflation, bring it on my salary is half of what it used to be. today i work in a service job, whereas two years ago, i worked in a manufacturing job. the mfrg job is now in china so bring on deflation. deflate, deflate, deflate i ain't buying a house at these prices, forgetaboutit auspec -- Sharefin, 20:00:54 01/19/02 Sat And when you think about the gold situation and Frank Veneroso's numbers basically the same situation applies. The stockpiles have depleted and stocks have been double dipped & double counted. The facade that vast resources of both these metals exist is nothing more. Sure silver has an industrial aspect, which has depleted and forever removed the ounces available. But gold also has been depleted not to disappear forever but rather to go to strong hands, which don't want to sell. If you were to go back to the 1940's you'd find that most all gold stocks across the globe were in Government's hands and thus you could say in an accessible stockpile, they probably had close to 90% of all stocks. Cumulative World Gold Production These days I would guesstimate that of the approx 135,000 tons of gold in existence that the various Governments of the world are now only holding approx 15,000 tons or approx 11% of total stocks. Their reserves are way under par due to the hedging game and at the current rate of disbursement would be gone in a matter of years. So gold stocks are far different from silver stocks but the disbursement is there the same. I believe holders of these metals going forwards are going to be astouded by their gains. Sharefin/Buffet's Silver -- auspec, 19:33:47 01/19/02 Sat You are absolutely right about the relatively small size of Buffet's silver, it could only be an obstacle 'at the margin', much like BoE gold in fact. It is good to think it through ahead of time because it will come back into play sooner or later. Its effect could be mostly psychological. It is pretty illuminating to think he has 1/4 of the known above ground silver yet it isn't going to last long in the current market. I ran the same Q's by Ted Butler for his input and he replied as follows: Thanks for your note. I think you have it right - if WB still held the silver he bought, it would be an overhang for the market. I'm of the opinion (and no one knows for sure) that every ounce of Buffett's silver has been leased out, helping to satisfy the deficit over the past few years. He now owns silver in paper form only. As such, his "holdings" represent no threat to the market, if my speculation is correct. Please see - http://www.gloomdoom.com/12-25-00.html END Thanks for your thoughts, Sharefin, auspec gold posts -- offal, 18:38:40 01/19/02 Sat sharefin and donald. thanks for links auspec, emoticoms are a neat little addition. i'm no silver officianado. it's just my opinion, but i think the December run on silver was capped by ever more leasing. it could happen again. i also think that the RSA rand and Canadian dollar are being artificially depreciated in order to supply more (cheaper) gold and silver to satisfy the 'shorts'. This thing is so huge it's why the US Fed and Treasury are 'strong dollar' i'm impressed that there's this thing called the internet. with it, we were able to witness mind boggling criminal endevours (ie SM bubbles, Enron), Now we are able to use it to hasten the movement to honest money. Investors piling into South African gold stocks -- Donald, 17:40:24 01/19/02 Sat click here Debt -- Sharefin, 17:35:55 01/19/02 Sat A Blasphemy Spreads: Debts Are OK There are not many issues on which the Bible, William Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin and the modern mass media offer nearly identical social criticism. On the matter of saving money and going into debt, however, they speak in one voice. The New Testament advises readers to "owe no man anything," and Polonius famously said in "Hamlet," "Neither a borrower nor a lender be." Should people fail to heed these admonitions, as they often do, they risk both their morality and their independence, becoming "a slave to the lender," Franklin said, paraphrasing Proverbs. When entire societies ignore the warnings, they forfeit future prosperity for conspicuous consumption. This is the essence of the most widespread worry about the American economy today. After having taken on ever higher levels of credit-card and mortgage debt to finance arguably the highest material standard of living the world has ever known, Americans will eventually have to cut back, many economists and writers have argued. The economy will suffer for years as people save more and spend less. In recent months, however, a growing group of economists have begun to challenge these conventional worries. To them, Americans' spending habits threaten the nation's economic fabric no more today than they threatened the moral fabric in Ben Franklin's time. Debt is a natural part of economic life, these economists say, and its level is not high when compared to the population's wealth. This view has won new followers in academia and on Wall Street over the last year, which brought precisely the kinds of events that might spook people about their finances. But despite a recession, the worst terrorist attacks in the country's history and a war of undetermined length, consumers have continued to increase their spending levels, although modestly. A spate of research has helped the argument as well, chiefly by putting current debt and savings levels in the context of wealth rather than income. Prodded by Alan Greenspan, two economists at the Federal Reserve recently discovered that the much- discussed decline in the personal savings rate in the 1990's occurred almost exclusively among the richest 20 percent of Americans, who also registered large gains in stock holdings and home values. Another economist, Jonathan Skinner at Dartmouth, likes to show people a chart that plots people's net worth - assets minus debts - relative to their income. The graph suggests that no group of Americans is worse off than they were a decade ago, once their homes, mutual funds and retirement accounts are taken into account. In 1998 households with the median income were worth about twice their annual salary, up slightly from 1989. And a handful of Wall Street economists, picking up on other research from the Fed, have begun arguing that the decline in the official savings rate - from 8 percent 10 years ago to roughly zero now - is more of an accounting fiction than an actual trend. Last year Lehman Brothers tweaked the worriers by titling one report, "Are U.S. Households Saving Too Much?" One section was called "Forget Ben Franklin." "If the stock market collapses, then you have a real problem for the consumer, but if it doesn't collapse, then forget about the low savings rate," Ethan S. Harris, a senior economist at Lehman Brothers, said. "It's not an issue." This soothing argument has received a helping hand from another discipline, too. In 1999 Lendol Calder, a cultural historian at Augustana College in Rock Island, Ill., published "Financing the American Dream" (Princeton University Press). Mr. Calder said he had set out to trace the troublesome history of consumer debt but had ended up finding much more concern about debt than harm caused by it. In addition to the Bible's and Ben Franklin's warnings, he came across headlines like "Never Have So Many Owed So Much" (U.S. News & World Report, 1959) and "Debt Threatens Democracy" (Harper's, 1940). In fact, he said, debt's main role has been allowing people to buy items they could otherwise not afford. The upshot was a book in which he tried to debunk what he called "the myth of lost economic virtue": the mistaken notion that previous generations had wisely practiced frugality while the current one was spending its way toward trouble. "We don't need to be alarmed by Chicken Littles running around saying, `The sky is falling, the sky is falling,' " Mr. Calder said. "The sky hasn't ever fallen." Of course, debt really is a larger part of the economy today than it was in the past. People pay for everything from groceries to college tuition with their credit cards. Banks have used risk-management computer programs to expand the portion of the population to which they are willing to issue credit. The number of Americans owning a home, and therefore having a mortgage, and the size of the average mortgage have both soared. Even the anti-Chicken Little crowd acknowledges that at some point debt can become unmanageable for a society. "There is a limit," Mr. Calder said, "but we don't know what that limit is." The idea that the current debt level poses few if any risks remains a minority view. To many economists, Americans are already overextended. From 1991 to 2001, household liabilities more than doubled, from $3.9 trillion to $7.9 trillion, according to Economy.com, a research firm in West Chester, Pa. Despite the rise in unemployment, people have continued to take out new loans in the last year, thanks largely to low-interest rates and interest-free auto loans. Payments on those debts will come due no matter what, even if the stock market collapses or home values and incomes fail to rise. People making less money are especially vulnerable because a single problem, like a layoff or Enron-like collapse of retirement savings, can cause them to fall badly behind on mortgage and credit-card bills. As soon as debt stops increasing at its recent rapid pace, the more pessimistic economists say, the brisk economic growth of the late 90's will be impossible. "In some sense, what drives an economy forward is a willingness to extend credit and a willingness to take on a debt," said James K. Galbraith, a economist at the University of Texas. "But one needs to distinguish between a general aversion to debt and the issue of whether the pace that debt is being accumulated can be sustained." "My view is that debt is at the point that households are likely to retrench for a substantial period of time," Mr. Galbraith said, voicing a concern of many economists. The optimists' response begins with the government's official savings rate. It measures the amount of every dollar of income that people put away instead of spending, and it has fallen from almost 12 percent in the early 80's to 8 percent a decade ago and to about zero now. But the figure excludes gains on assets like land and stocks, which have been plentiful in recent years. At the same time, it subtracts the taxes people pay on such gains from their income, effectively lowering their savings rate. So if a person buys a stock for $10, sells it for $100 and pays $20 in tax on her $90 gain, she appears in the government accounts to have lowered her savings by $20 when she has actually raised it by $70 as far as she is concerned. The increased popularity of 401(k) plans instead of pensions and the decline in the number of companies paying dividends to their shareholders also skews the savings data, Mr. Harris of Lehman Brothers said. The research that has gotten the most attention was done by Dean M. Maki and Michael G. Palumbo, who were both economists at the Fed when Mr. Greenspan suggested they combine two data sets to break down the savings rate by income group. They concluded that the rate fell sharply in the 90's for the 20 percent of Americans with the largest salaries, fell slightly for the next fifth but did not fall for the rest. The explanation, they said, is the long bull market, which allowed affluent people to increase their spending by dipping into their stock portfolios. "The wealth effect is the story behind the decline in the savings rate," Mr. Maki said. There are valid methodological reasons for the Commerce Department to tabulate the data the way it does, economists say, but one result is that the savings rate makes households' balance sheets look worse than they are. "The steep drop in the U.S. personal savings rate over the last decade has fueled speculation that Americans are spending recklessly," a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York concluded a year ago. "These fears are not well founded." With joblessness likely to continue rising, the coming year will provide a good test. Recessions have a way of resolving debates like this one. Cobra -- Sharefin, 17:29:42 01/19/02 Sat Also these ratios: Gold/Dow Ratio Gold/SPX Ratio The turn is in....... Cobra -- Sharefin, 17:24:22 01/19/02 Sat The top is in - it's just a matter of holding on now. Theoretically the pace should pick up as we accelerate through the curve. So many gold charts are pointing the way going forwards that I do believe the cabal will lose their grip on the situation. Goldbugs are going to have their day..... Dow/Gold Ratio -- Cobra, 17:13:29 01/19/02 Sat That was From Cobra TO Sharefin..RE: Dow/Gold Ratio More volatility -- Sharefin, 17:12:58 01/19/02 Sat Moody's May Change Credit Ratings Faster, More Often ........."This is going to cause something of a firestorm," said Louise Purtle, U.S. credit strategist at Deutsche Bank. "There are so many aspects of the financial markets which are structured around ratings."......... US Stocks -- Sharefin, 17:11:12 01/19/02 Sat Investors Say Valuations Are Too High: U.S. Stocks Outlook Dow/Gold Ratio -- Sharefin, 17:11:02 01/19/02 Sat Thanks my friend.....the trend is Our friend also. The Public I -- Sharefin, 16:54:42 01/19/02 Sat The Public I  Charts to view -- Sharefin, 16:48:50 01/19/02 Sat Can Greenspan Bring Back The Bubble More charts Tallbear -- Sharefin, 16:43:06 01/19/02 Sat Just like the Romans had their day so to shall go the way of the US. And to add some comfort - the top is already in. Sell the US & buy physical.(:-))) American Patriotism -- Tallbear, 16:09:43 01/19/02 Sat It is refreshing to see Americans stand up for their beliefs in Kitcoville. Lefty Canadians are cowering with the US Marine presence. We are the world's leaders. IMF Statistics -- Sharefin, 16:08:40 01/19/02 Sat  TrimTabs Liquidity -- Sharefin, 16:07:22 01/19/02 Sat TrimTabs Liquidity News PAUL KRUGMAN -- Sharefin, 15:57:53 01/19/02 Sat A System Corrupted January 18, 2002 A System Corrupted By PAUL KRUGMAN Clearly, Larry Lindsey shouldn't have described the Enron affair as a "tribute to American capitalism," and Paul O'Neill shouldn't have declared: "Companies come and go. It's part of the genius of capitalism." Both the top White House economist and the Treasury secretary have been excoriated for their callousness. But did they have a point? Yes, they did - but their remarks suggest that they still don't understand what happened. The Enron debacle is not just the story of a company that failed; it is the story of a system that failed. And the system didn't fail through carelessness or laziness; it was corrupted. Mr. Lindsey and Mr. O'Neill were, in effect, patting themselves on the back for allowing Enron to fail. Indeed, that is one redeeming feature of the saga. It turns out that you can be too well connected; Enron was so enmeshed with the Bush administration that any bailout would have been politically disastrous. But it's missing the point to focus on Enron's eventual failure. The real issue is what Enron executives got away with during the good times. We usually take the viability of the modern corporation, in which professional managers look after the interests of shareholders, for granted. But as economists since Adam Smith have warned, a separation between ownership and management opens the possibility of insider abuse. Indeed, Smith thought that such a separation was a bad idea, except in a handful of businesses. But you can't run a modern economy with family-owned companies and partnerships. So capitalism as we know it depends on a set of institutions - many of them provided by the government - that limit the potential for insider abuse. These institutions include modern accounting rules, independent auditors, securities and financial market regulation, and prohibitions against insider trading. The Enron affair shows that these institutions have been corrupted. None of the checks and balances that were supposed to prevent insider abuses worked; the supposedly independent players were compromised. Enron's byzantine network of 3,000 subsidiaries and partnerships - one for every seven employees - made a mockery both of accounting rules and of rules against insider trading. Not incidentally, the network also allowed the company to evade taxes in four of the last five years. And Enron executives knew what they were doing. A letter last August from an Enron vice president to the chairman, Kenneth Lay, described how shell companies with names like Condor and Raptor were used to create fictitious profits, and quoted one manager as saying, "We are such a crooked company." The accounting firm of Arthur Andersen was told of these concerns. Yet it gave Enron a free pass, and shredded documents when questions arose. The regulators were nowhere to be seen, partly because politicians with personal ties to Enron, like Senator Phil Gramm, took care to exempt Enron from regulation. Mr. Lindsey and Mr. O'Neill would have us believe that all's well that ended badly; because Enron was allowed to fail, justice was done and the system worked. But Enron isn't a person; the evildoers here were Enron executives, who collectively walked off with at least $1.1 billion. It's not just a matter of the utter unfairness of it all - employees lose their life savings while crooked executives walk away rich. It's also a matter of what it takes to make capitalism work. Investors must be reasonably sure that reported profits are real, that executives won't use their positions to enrich themselves at the expense of stockholders and employees, that when insiders do abuse their positions their actions will be discovered and punished. Now we have seen a graphic demonstration that the system that was supposed to provide those assurances doesn't work. And nobody I know in the financial community thinks Enron was an isolated case. Yet all the evidence suggests that the Bush administration doesn't get it. On the contrary, until the latest revelations it was moving in the wrong direction. Harvey Pitt, the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, made his reputation as a lawyer who represented accounting firms - including Andersen - in struggles to maintain auditor independence. Now we've seen what Andersen did with that independence. The truth is that key institutions that underpin our economic system have been corrupted. The only question that remains is how far and how high the corruption extends. Stephen Roach -- Sharefin, 15:54:27 01/19/02 Sat Cracking Denial Crosscurrents -- Sharefin, 15:51:55 01/19/02 Sat A Story That Will Be Told And Retold Crash warning -- Sharefin, 15:47:57 01/19/02 Sat The Market Climate remains on a Crash Warning here JP Morgan -- Sharefin, 15:45:24 01/19/02 Sat JP Morgan upgrades Anglo American El Nino -- Sharefin, 15:38:45 01/19/02 Sat IS El NIÑO COMING BACK? Efficient Frontier -- Sharefin, 15:36:03 01/19/02 Sat How Much Pie Can You Buy? Crosscurrents -- Sharefin, 15:33:45 01/19/02 Sat Whom Do You Trust? The Last Great Bubble - Counterfeiting the Dollar -- Sharefin, 15:19:57 01/19/02 Sat The Last Great Bubble - Counterfeiting the Dollar Cobra -- Sharefin, 15:15:59 01/19/02 Sat Here's a couple of versions of the Dow/Gold ratio. Long term chart Short term auspec -- Sharefin, 15:13:46 01/19/02 Sat I don't think anyone needs to worry about Warren Buffett's silver position. When you think about it it's on;ly about 20% of a years consumption. When the market is producing 450 million ounces but consuming 850 million ounces and the global stockpiles have run dry then Warrn's pot of silver will only feed the deficit for a few months. Then what? Credit Bubble Bulletin for January 18th -- Donald, 14:43:15 01/19/02 Sat Analysis of the consumer bubble U.S. Manufacturers want a weaker dollar -- Donald, 08:08:56 01/19/02 Sat Representatives meet with U.S. Treasury official asking for intervention against the dollar GoldGate -- FOG, 07:51:14 01/19/02 Sat Gold/USD, interbank, 19 days of January [$00.10 moves] Tuesday, January 1, 2002 1 Gold (oz.) = 278.800 US Dollar 1 US Dollar (USD) = 0.003587 Gold (oz.) (XAU) Saturday, January 19, 2002 1 Gold (oz.) = 278.700 US Dollar 1 US Dollar (USD) = 0.003588 Gold (oz.) (XAU) There appear to be 'security guards' at the gold gate. Big guys with an attitude. Control. How can they do that? Expanded tool set. RINET for example. "LL117/98 09 December 1998 [Just in time for 31 Dec legacy lock-in] LLOYD'S WORKS WITH RINET ON NEW E-TRADING INITIATIVE FROM REBUS Lloyd's is working with RINET (the Reinsurance and Insurance NETwork), to establish a London pilot for a new insurance and reinsurance e-trading initiative - Trader 2000. 2. The Reinsurance and Insurance NETwork (RINET) facilitates the use of electronic networking technologies on behalf of its world-wide membership of over 550 companies in over 60 countries." http://www.lloydsoflondon.co.uk/pressmedia/pressreleases/1998/dec/ll11798.htm "IVANS and RINET joint program brings EDI to U.S. reinsurers PROJECT WILL FACILITATE INTERNATIONAL TRANSMISSION OF DATA IVANS and Brussels-based Reinsurance and Insurance Network formed a partnership offering U.S. reinsurers, ceding companies and reinsurance brokers EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) services for domestic and international reinsurance transactions. RETACCs, REBORDs and RESETTs already are being exchanged via EDI. These messages include technical accounting, bordereau and SETTLEMENT ADVICE, respectively." http://www.roughnotes.com/rnmag/february97/02p54.htm From newest ISO 4217 list "XRE RINET Funds Code" http://www.gefeg.com/work/ana/part3/co4i.htm Central banks. Banks. Insurance Companies. And a private currency [code]. One might move a modest mountain or two. Dow/Gold Ratio Chart -- Cobra, 07:09:49 01/19/02 Sat Sharefin---Or---Donald.... I would be most appreciative if either of you could post a chart of the present Dow/Gold Ratio...I have not seen one in quite a while......Thanks in advance. Kodie - Golden Bathtub -- AuNuggets, 22:38:59 01/18/02 Fri The Golden Bathtub was featured on a television show about gold sometime back. Have not seen it anywhere on the internet, but if I run across it, I will send along the link. Supposedly the owner of the tub has it located in a spa somewhere in Japan and charges handsomely for each "life-extending" dip. Who says gold pays no interest.....? offal -- auspec, 22:32:53 01/18/02 Fri How'd you get that cool little light bulb with your post? Buffet, imho, is to be thought of much like Ted Turner. Turner was a real renegade and elbowed his way to billionaire status from practically nothing. Took a ton of chances and has always been quite the 'visionary'. In fact he made it big nuff to join the most elite of the elite, and now he is 'one'. I am simply saying WB should not be put on a silver pedestal because it will likely melt on us. You a silver officianado, eh? Buffet or no Buffet this one is going to fly. Anyone here dispute the fact that above ground silver is more rare than gold? We had an extensive discussion of this at ER recently. Now, is there sufficient underground silver to keep silver from STAYING at an eventual $50 to $100. I say there is as enough time for exploration and development is allowed. a lag time for sure. Some think otherwise, but I'm not sure how mining savy they are. Regards!  auspec -- offal, 21:50:18 01/18/02 Fri by now everyone has heard 'the fed stands ready to lease gold should the price rise', or some such variation substitute silver, and you have the reason why WB, and all the other billionaires, are long. it wouldn't be far fetched that the FED, and other fiat controllers, encouraged these 'pillars' of capitalism, to make this investment, just for this very reason. in FACT, when silver shot up, lease rates exploded (yes, exploded, to da mooon), All i could think about was how uncanningly similar it was to greenspan's comments regarding gold leasing. Buffet -- auspec, 21:05:18 01/18/02 Fri The following is from GE by Robt Chapman: Warren Buffet owns about a quarter of the worlds available silver. Has Warren proven himself to be a value investor par excellence? Don't you want to take the advise of someone like him and invest in silver yourself as well as George Soros, Bill Gates and other billionaires? They must know something to be putting their fortunes into silver. Palladium just went up ten times in price in only four years so please don't say it can't happen. It just did happen with palladium and you could have been a millionaire by buying $20,000 worth of palladium contracts in 1996. This is real world proof you can do it with almost no downside, with almost no risk and an upside that is mind-boggling. END Comments: I am getting a tad weary of folks blindly assuming that it is a GOOD thing that WB holds all this silver, as am not personnaly so sure. Yes, he is a value investor, but is he simply going to use his silver position as a means of influence peddling? Isn't this quite the hammer overhanging the market still, albeit at some higher level? Please indulge me with somewhat of an absurd thought {or is it?}: would you be thrilled of the Queen herself owned this much silver? Would you rather have it in widespread hands? Frankly my Buffet suspicions arise partially because of his backing of the Jr Senator from Arkansas, excuse me, New York. Enough said? Ever see WB wax philosophically on honest money issues or bi-metallism? I have not. WB is certainly one mighty shrewd investor and his value approach to markets is one worth emulating, I'm kust not totally comfortable where he will take this silver story. It's not like he's out beating the drum for $40 silver and letting anyone know his intentions or even in what actual form his Ag holdings are in. I say he's merely an oportunist with more socialist than hard money leanings. Have I lost it? Any thoughts? $hifty's Ponzi Index -- RossL, 19:58:43 01/18/02 Fri
The index is at 5851.10 Ponzi dollars on Friday, January 18, 2002. $hifty's Ponzi index chart is derived from the forumla: Ponzi index = (Nasdaq + Dow) divided by 2. AuNuggets, I have not -- Kodie, 19:54:14 01/18/02 Fri ...seen the bathtub. Do you have a link? Kodie..... -- AuNuggets, 19:22:56 01/18/02 Fri Glad to see another connoisseur of natures fine forms of yellow delight ! Have you seen the "Golden Bathtub" ? Supposedly made of SOLID gold rather than guilded like the toilet. But what a bathroom the pair would make, eh ? AuNuggets Lady of the Lake -- Kodie, 18:20:32 01/18/02 Fri I just this minute got an email from Janet, The Lady of the Lake and she arrived home to Queensland yesterday after a successful 7 month prospecting trip to Western Australia. "Got back yesterday after an arduous trek back across cental Australia in 44 degrees C. Had numerous punctures and wrecked 4 tyres since I left Kalgoorlie!" I'm glad she's safe. The Golden Pot and my wife -- Kodie, 18:11:35 01/18/02 Fri Nice site Sharefin. I've been reading all the links, but I'm a sorry reader of charts. I enjoy your personal site too. First things first. The nugget photo posted by AuNuggets 21:16:42 01/16/02 from the
Late afternoon New York silver news -- Donald, 16:12:32 01/18/02 Fri Closing news, comments and analysis Argentine banking chaos -- Donald, 15:59:51 01/18/02 Fri Argentine banks face insolvency. Foreign owned banks raided by investigators. Police beefed up. @Sharefin -- Galearis, 07:47:18 01/18/02 Fri Good morning, Sharefin, (Hi auspec!) Goldbugs are all refugees in spirit, that's why we hedge. The thought popped up as I sat down to type this. I meant to say that I AM a Kitco refugee and, perhaps, now from another forum too. The word "refugee" connotes different things to different people (another thought coming through): For my father (of the conventional school of thought) the word "gold" equates to refugees in that "gold is for refugees" mindset. All his (considered) wealth is in CAN$ in one form or another and we dispair of his situation. But his philosophy is the mindset of the majority it seems, a microcosm speaking for the greater numbers, and a revelation at how difficult it is for logic, numbers and historical harranges to move an ideologue from a belief system with the potential to destroy those that have been "taught" to support it. A beautiful forum, kind sir. Thank you for being here. Regards, G.  The Fat Lady has sung! -- $hifty, 07:17:02 01/18/02 Fri http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?mnu=news&ptitle=Mining%20News&tp=ad_mine&T=au_storypage99.ht&s=APEf69hS6QW5nbG9H Mining News Fri, 18 Jan 2002, 11:03pm EST AngloGold Cedes Normandy to Newmont, Closes Offer (Update1) By Antony Sguazzin Johannesburg, Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- AngloGold Ltd., the second-biggest gold producer, said it closed its A$5.62 billion ($2.89 billion) takeover bid for Normandy Mining Ltd., ceding the battle for Australia's top gold miner to Newmont Mining Corp. The company ``believes that it is not possible for AngloGold to obtain majority control of Normandy,'' Chief Executive Bobby Godsell said in a statement. Johannesburg-based AngloGold rescinded an earlier notice that it would extend the offer by a week, saying lawyers sent it to the Australian stock exchange by mistake. ``It's a bit depressing for the South African gold sector,'' said Allan Cooke, an analyst at Rice Rinaldi Securities. AngloGold wanted Normandy to cuts its costs and lessen its dependence on South Africa, where the depth of deposits makes mining difficult. U.S.-based Newmont also aims to reduce costs by acquiring the Australian company, whose margins have benefited from record lows in the Australian dollar. AngloGold said it won 7.1 of Normandy shares. A week ago it said 6.5 percent of Normandy's shareholders had accepted its offer. Newmont can now force AngloGold to accept its offer for the Normandy shares, if more than 90 percent of Normandy shareholders approve it. ``We are pleased that the shareholders of Normandy have had their say,'' said Randy Eppler, Newmont's vie president for corporate development, in an interview. Newmont expects to complete the acquisition in mid-February, he said. AngloGold shares fell as much as 20 rand, or 4.2 percent, to 456 rand. Normandy fell as much as 4 cents, or 2 percent, to A$2.01. Auspec welcome -- Sharefin, 23:19:56 01/17/02 Thu The moniker is an old hangon from when I first registered @ Kitco - nothing more. And there's not to many Kitco refugees here - they're still trying to kick the habit. Funny old world eh...... Collusion/Collision -- auspec, 22:39:06 01/17/02 Thu "It's almost as though the are siding with those colluding to keep the POG & POS low." Maybe they've been in touch with the Blanchard Folks or the Weiss expert on silver, Victor Flores. More truth on the net than the regular media but also much contamination, basically the full spectrum of opinions are expressed, and one can pretty much take his pick which one to believe. Which usually brings him back to where his original bias was, no? One must always be on the lookout for AGENDAS as some are quite clever at concealing them. Open and honest folks have gone the way of the .5c cigar and the TV Westerns, but let's not get started on that one again. Am personally into most aspects of Au & Ag and have a particular affinity for Jr miners. They have been a scourge for so long that historic depths have been reached, nobody wants them. You know what they say about things that nobody else seems to want. So I find myself being a contrarian in a contrarian market. I do own one Senior, FN, and they seem to be the current Kingmaker in the present merger skirmish; cash is king. Can we mention stocks here, I saw no rules/guidelines posted? Would have rather seen FN spend their money in the Jrs as they would have received 2X the result w 1/2 the cash and still retain their autonomy. Their M&A guy happens to have voted similarly, to no avail. maybe the NuNumont will have sufficient funds and aspirations to head in the right direction soon. NO new reserves are brought to the table by the combination of Franco, Newmont, and Normandy, merely a management reshuffling. Don't get me wrong, this is a huge battle for the good guys {non-hedgers}, but it is still months or years from bringing NEW gold to market. Too bad! Now, friend Black Blade says the gold mining industry has trimmed its roster to the point that it will be most difficult to find competent exploration and production help when POG turns north. Too bad! What in the world should I do with a few spare FRNs when this market reaches such extremes and the pendulum has reached its modulus of elasticity? Maybe it will come to me in my sleep. So, there are a few Kitco refugees /escapees here, eh? Rhody: I have read your posts at USAG put up by G or Rich{?}. Looking forward to some dialog as SILVER is a no brainer, imho. Time and cycles are our best friend! We're due the precious metals upside, and after all these govt games, it's gonna be a historic one. They will drown in this 2nd POOL, soon or sooner. What hudspeh! What foolishness! I'm no fan of Soros {or Buffet}, but making govt pay for their folly is GOOD sport. Howe do we expand these great net gold sites so more than just the 'choir' is reached? Doubt there are many choirboys here, other than me. Ha. Regards or Cheers as one of my heros commonly says, auspec Nice Site -- auspec, 21:45:31 01/17/02 Thu Thought maybe I would drop in to the friendly confines of the Sharefin site. Promise to behave. Can someone tell me where the term 'Sharefin' is derived from? I see Sharefin spends some time at ER, that's very good. Also see several familiar faces here, particularly ThaiGold, going for the trifecta perhaps? The GATA support of this site is well known and appreciated by all, as is the unparalleled {sp?} technical work. looking forward to plugging in here, thanks. auspec  The Last Great Bubble - Counterfeiting the Dollar -- Black Blade, 21:26:32 01/17/02 Thu Snippit: You may be inclined to think that the green bills in your wallet are dollars, but I have shocking news for you: They're not. They're counterfeits. Since 1913, a gradual shift has turned our money from wealth to debt, and finally into a speculative investment. Prior to 1913, the first year of the Federal income tax, and the year of the founding of the Federal Reserve System, gold and silver coins, stamped by the U.S. Mint were the principal money used in this country. This was not merely tradition, but it was a constitutional imperative, as we shall see. The U.S. Coinage Act of 1792, consistent with the Constitution, provided for a U.S. Mint, which stamped silver and gold coins. One dollar was defined by statute as a specific weight of gold. The Act also invoked the death penalty for anyone found to be debasing money. Black Blade: Good read on Gold as money. Preaching to the choir, but still worth reading anyway. http://www.depression2.tv/2002/counterfeiting.html Here's the lease rates -- Sharefin, 21:18:04 01/17/02 Thu  The cabal are getting desperate -- Sharefin, 21:11:45 01/17/02 Thu Kitco's lease rate chart is showing lease rates for gold starting to jump. Yet on their lease rate page it's not showing these numbers. Check here Why aren't both datasets constant - theoretically they should be coming from the same source? And when you go to check out lease rates from The Bullion Desk you'll see that they also haven't updated theirs to show the recent changes. (Also note that The Bullion Desk haven't updated their databases for charting the PM's for quite a few months now. Just click on the little charting icons in the page linked above and you'll see how back dated their data is.) Strange how a 'premier' gold website isn't keeping their viewers updated with what they want to see? Mitsubishi is showing the higher move in the rates. Yet LBMA Lease Rates is not yet showing any increase. So do we have the beginnings of squeeze in the lease rates leading to a squeeze in the POG or not? I sure hope so!!! Whatever happens one needs to be a lot more cautious in validating prices and quotes across the net. It does appear that some of the precious metals data providers are disinclined to keep their data accurate & up to date. It's almost as though the are siding with those colluding to keep the POG & POS low. The recent fiasco in silver well demonstrates the above. There's a precious metals war coming and it appears some are being told what to do. And the cabal are desperate enough to force their way. First Frank - now Bart, next it'll probably be Murphy. Who next!!! Enron Fires Arthur Andersen -- Sharefin, 19:25:32 01/17/02 Thu Enron Fires Arthur Andersen, Cites 'Recent Events' Lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee today released an internal Andersen memo that acknowledges the auditor talked in February about Enron's affiliated partnerships and habit of ``intelligent gambling'' with the booking of revenue. --- I wonder how much gold & silver derivatives they were playing with...^o-o^ Enron fires Anderson -- Sharefin, 19:20:22 01/17/02 Thu JP Morgan Chase -- Sharefin, 18:22:35 01/17/02 Thu Fall Street JP Morgan Chase misses earnings estimates and the CEO states, "our economic scenario for 2002 is not a rosy one" - this is anything but perfect. As for JPM, S&P lowered the companies outlook yesterday to negative, but refused to lower the companies rating (a lower credit rating would trigger higher debt payments and could cripple JPM). Rumor has it that Greenspan personally called up S&P directly and pleaded with them not to downgrade the 1907 'lender of the last resort'. S&P obliged, and now everyone is working feverously to figure out how to hide the billions of dollars in exposure JPM still carries in Enron, Argentina, K-Mart and others. If you think this story is far fetched read what has been going on with Enron. So how does JPM plan to get out their current mess? Buy more debt -- literally... U.S. mortgage rates drop under 7% -- Sharefin, 17:51:49 01/17/02 Thu U.S. mortgage rates tumble Argentine Banks in Tailspin -- Sharefin, 17:43:25 01/17/02 Thu Argentine Banks in Tailspin Siver lease rates still high -- Sharefin, 17:26:08 01/17/02 Thu Mitsubishi PM Data 1 month = 14.63 - 19.71 3 month = 7.65 - 12.73 6 month = 5.68 - 9.78 12 month = 4.02 - 7.12 Note the above are ranges. Argentine Peso Sinks to New Lows as Crisis Continues -- Sharefin, 17:08:33 01/17/02 Thu Argentine Peso Sinks to New Lows as Crisis Continues Change of Heart -- Sharefin, 07:11:18 01/17/02 Thu UBS Warburb Report - pdf file The announcement from a major gold company that it had reduced its hedging recently may become a feature of 2002. We expect further reductions in gold hedging from a number of gold producers this year. We estimate that changes in the aggregate producer hedgebook this year will see demand from this part of the market rather than supply as has been the case over most of the last 15 years. This is one of the key arguments behind our expectations of a strengthening gold price in 2002. The K-Wave -- Sharefin, 07:06:15 01/17/02 Thu Many investors are now once again starting to watch the American gold market and are asking themselves the question, “Has the market bottomed out, and is the market now in the very early stages of the next major bull market”. On the surface it appears that there is good reason at this time to be asking themselves this question when one considers the international economic and political uncertainty that exists. Hopefully the following will assist investors in reaching a conclusion that in all reality may make the difference in whether they survive financially or not in the next few years. The first item to be examined is whether or not the long-term business cycle is still in play. Those who are familiar with cycles are well aware of the K-Wave Theory which states that approximately every 55 years on average the American economy goes through an economic cleansing to adjust for the economic excesses of the past. The question which is on the minds of many today is “Has the US economy entered the Winter phase of the K-Wave cycle, and if so, what effect will this have on precious metal investments?” A HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE AMERICAN GOLD MARKET Taylor On Manipulation -- Sharefin, 07:03:08 01/17/02 Thu On Monday of this past week, my good friend James Turk, editor of "The Freemarket Gold & Money Report" revealed more compelling evidence that the U.S. government has been swapping its own gold to other nations. This action undertaken starting in 1998, freed those nations to dump gold physically held in their vaults and thereby suppress or cap the international gold price. As long term subscribers are aware, the suppression of the gold price was a major cornerstone of the Clinton strong dollar policy. That strong dollar policy which, on the basis of trade resulted in a grossly overvalued dollar is to this day continuing to fuel enormous global economic dislocations that threaten to bring down the global economy. The end of this nonsense, one must think is near. Taylor On Gold S. African golds to produce Q4 stormer -- Sharefin, 06:57:19 01/17/02 Thu S. African golds to produce Q4 stormer JOHANNESBURG - South African gold producers are heading for stand-out fourth quarter results owing to highest ever rand gold prices and quarter-on-quarter increases in operating earnings totalling several hundred percent. Normandy hedge call gives Newmont leg-up -- Sharefin, 06:45:25 01/17/02 Thu Normandy hedge call gives Newmont leg-up Whispers -- Sharefin, 06:34:35 01/17/02 Thu Gold has lost much of its glitter on world market ; Metal isn't as precious as it used to be Silver speculation Silver was trading in the $4.52 per ounce range Monday, down from $4.73 in New York last week - the peak of a long rally that began at the end November. Prices rose by 50 cents per ounce during that time. Silver lease rates also jumped, giving rise to all sorts of speculation. "There's a rumor that Enron had a short position on 50 million ounces of silver," said Coeur d'Alene Mines' Steeves. He's also heard rumors involving billionaire investor Warren Buffett, whose silver position in 1998 helped spike the metal above $6 per ounce for a brief period. Futures Source News -- Sharefin, 06:23:51 01/17/02 Thu ***Australia's largest gold miner, Normandy Mining Ltd. said Thursday its production of 1.249 million troy ounces in the fiscal first half ended Dec. 31 was the best half-year performance it has recorded. In the same period a year before, Normandy produced 1.1 million ounces of gold. ***Australia's largest gold miner Normandy Mining Ltd. said Thursday it has reduced its gold hedging to allow great participation in a rise in the gold price and because the forward price of gold has been reduced by low U.S. and Australian interest rates and higher gold interest rates. ***Australian gold and tantalum producer Sons of Gwalia Ltd. said Thursday its gold production for the fiscal second quarter ended Dec. 31 jumped 55% to 162,746 troy ounces, from 105,098 ounces a year earlier. ***Miners Out Of Pocket After Tronoh's Exit Sydney, Jan. 17 (OsterDowJones)--Tronoh Mines Malaysia Bhd.'s (P.TMM) decision to appoint receivers to its 62%-owned Hillgrove Gold NL (A.HGO) of Australia has seen 90 miners lose their jobs and short of millions of dollars of pension payments, the Daily Telegraph reports in a front page story Thursday. ***Australian Pasminco Says Won't Sell Century Mine ***Diversified miner WMC Ltd. (WMC) is shaping up as Australia's biggest corporate play in 2002, with U.S. aluminum giant Alcoa Inc still circling despite being rebuffed late last year. ***Precious metals settled higher Wednesday, amid buying that seemed to smack of flight-to-quality sentiment in response to another bad day on Wall Street. Future Source News Lenny's Daily Commentary -- Sharefin, 06:10:48 01/17/02 Thu Prospector Asset Management Today the gold market was a marvel of beauty and professional gamesmanship. One large bank began aggressively buying gold in the Far East and carried into London. Prices were pushed through the $285 technical resistance level. As the market in general was very short, awaiting the next to last Bank of England auction, nerves began to get a bit frayed. Then a rumor swept the market that one buyer was planning to "take out" all of the gold being offered. This panicked the shorts and the price of gold ran to the $290 level and slightly above as shorts aggressively covered their positions. At the time of the auction, gold was trading at about $287.50. Then the hammer fell, to wit...NO ONE SHOWED UP AT THE AUCTION. The Bank of England, always a most welcome financial contributor to the market, sold it's gold at $4 UNDER THE MARKET PRICE (an immediate loss of almost 2.6 Million USD). Gold immediately fell $4 as disappointed longs sold. Then, as New York opened, gold rallied to the back to the $288 level. The gold market whipsawed both the longs and the shorts yesterday and the largest losses were, of course, taken by the Bank of England, as per the official rules of the game. Delta.au -- Sharefin, 03:29:24 01/17/02 Thu This lot of Aussie stocks would make you smile.  Goldfields Australia ... Lookin' GOOD!!! -- Delta.au, 02:50:40 01/17/02 Thu +++++++++++++++++++++++++ Goldfields Limited (ASX: GLD) announces further exploration success within the Darwin Zone at Henty. It has been reported that the Mt Julia resource area is now separated into the northern Mt Julia Zone and the southern Darwin Zone, as shown in the attached long sections. These zones are separated by a large fault structure known as the Moa Fault. Further underground infill drilling of the Darwin Zone commenced in October 2001. This drilling has separated Darwin into two significant zones of high-grade gold mineralisation, one of which is to the north and the other is at the very southern and near the limit of the current decline. Both zones appear to be amenable to bulk mining methods, showing continuity of the significant mineralisation widths with very little structural disturbance. New results from the northern zone of Darwin are: - 6.7 metres at 11.9 g/t Au (Z16235) - 13.3 metres at 11.9 g/t Au and 15.9 metres at 11.4 g/t Au (Z16232) - 12.7 metres at 18.0 g/t Au and 14.0 metres at 15.8 g/t Au (Z16238) - 10.2 metres at 23.0 g/t Au (Z16245) New results from the southern zone of Darwin are: - 15.8 metres at 40.0 g/t Au (Z16220) - 17.2 metres at 8.0 g/t Au (Z16223) - 6.7 metres at 17.9 g/t Au (Z16228) - 8.5 metres at 27.2 g/t Au (Z16231) - 9.2 metres at 10.5 g/t Au (Z16234) - 7.3 metres at 92.8 g/t Au (Z16240) - 8.7 metres at 34.2 g/t Au (Z16258) The locations of these new results are shown on the attached long section. Holes Z16240 and Z16258 in the southern zone of Darwin are of particular significance as they are located approximately 40m south of all previous holes and indicate that the high-grade mineralisation remains open to the south. As a result of the Darwin drilling results it is planned to extend the Mt Julia decline south so that the full extent of the high-grade gold mineralisation can be defined. Underground diamond drilling of the Darwin Zone commenced in July 2001. Previously reported results included 16.8 metres at 12.2g/t Au (Z16202). 16.2 metres at 14.2g/t Au (Z16173). 6.1 metres at 31.8g/t Au (Z16164). 42.4m @ 7.3g/t Au (Z16148), 7.6 metres at 18.3g/t Au (Z16185) and 1.5 metres at 247g/t Au (Z16197). For completeness, these results are also shown on the attached long section. Terry Burgess, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Goldfields Limited, commented: "These exciting drilling results suggest that mining at Henty in years to come will be at grades higher than previously anticipated. It is also pleasing that mining of the Darwin Zone will be at the reduced 1% royalty rate." Note: All intercepts are true width at uncut grade For further information, please contact: Terry Burgess Telephone (02) 9903 4000 The Binion Collection -- Sharefin, 00:32:23 01/17/02 Thu Ted Binion's Silver Dollars Sold - pdf file The Binion Collection Australian stocks follow U.S. down, gold glitters -- Sharefin, 00:25:54 01/17/02 Thu Australian stocks follow U.S. down, gold glitters The Australian share market succumbed to Wall Street's weakness in early trade on Thursday, with losses seen across the board. The gold sector was among the exceptions as Australian producers remained the focus of recent consolidation in the sector world-wide. Australia's largest producer, Normandy Mining (NDY) , which has been the subject of a long takeover battle between two of the world's largest producers, shot another five cents to A$2.06, to its highest since September, 1996. The latest rally follows a 2.4 percent rally in the share price of U.S.-based Newmont Mining (NEM) , the front-runner in the takeover bid, which pushed the value of its bid for Normandy up to A$2.08 per share. Also, Normandy said on Thursday it has reduced its minimum hedge ratio and completed restructuring of its hedge book, which would increase its exposure to any upside in the gold price. Other gold stocks rode the enthusiasm for the sector. For example, Goldfields (GLD) , which recently merged with Delta Gold and will change its mind to Aurion Gold, rallied 2.6 percent to A$2.72, while Lihir Gold (LHG) rose 2.3 percent to A$1.34. Gold for money -- Sharefin, 00:23:59 01/17/02 Thu Iamgold Wants Investors,Indus To See Gold As Money A Canadian mining company has come up with a new policy that should add some sparkle to its dividend payments, while compelling the gold industry to rethink its approach to promoting bullion. Ontario-based Iamgold Corp. (T.IMG) recently unveiled its "Gold Monetary Policy" to underscore its assertion that gold should be recognized more as a monetary unit. Under this policy, the bulk of Iamgold's corporate discretionary funds - some US$65 million - has already been converted into gold, and shareholders are now being given the option of receiving future dividend payments in either gold or Canadian dollars. "If we as an industry don't demonstrate our belief in the monetary nature of gold, why should we expect anyone else to?" said John Ross, Iamgold's Chief Financial Officer. "We firmly believe that our industry can best promote gold by simply using it as money." Iamgold believes that some segments of the gold industry have overemphasized the jewelry-related aspects of gold, while overlooking bullion's role as a store of value. The company hopes its new policy will help reverse this trend, while setting the standard for how the gold industry should be standing behind its product. In a statement, Iamgold co-chairmen William Pugliese and Mark Nathanson said: "We firmly believe in gold's primary monetary role as a safe store of value and that gold is the only form of money that is not someone's paper I.O.U. Given our belief that gold is fundamentally undervalued relative to paper currencies, it only stands to reason that we would prefer gold bullion to U.S. dollars." An official with Iamgold said the company's management believes the present trading range for gold is "significantly" below what they consider to be appropriate based on current international economic conditions. However, this official declined to comment on what price level the company would view as appropriate for gold. Joanne Jobin, Director of Investor Relations for Iamgold, said the initial response to the new policy has been very favorable with many peers in the mining industry sending congratulatory messages. "Gold is money. It has always been out there in that form, but it has just been a little forgotten and we hope to bring some attention back to it," said Jobin, adding that the company hopes others in the mining industry will follow their example in treating gold as a monetary option. "We are a mining company and we are standing behind our product," said Jobin. Aaaaah ! -- AuNuggets, 23:54:11 01/16/02 Wed "The City of Gold"...... I remember that one. And that's one hefty nugget !! Thanks for sharing..... Massive Precious Metals Loss -- Sharefin, 23:43:55 01/16/02 Wed Ford Chief Explains Precious Metals Loss; Further Cuts Could Be Coming DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) - Ford Motor Co. lost $1 billion on a precious metal used in catalytic converters because of a combination of improving technology and plummeting prices. "Frankly, we saw palladium spiking in price, we bought palladium, and at the same time, our research labs did a magnificent job in reducing our dependence on palladium," Ford COO Nick Scheele said at a dinner during the annual Automotive News World Congress Tuesday night. He said the price for palladium - a soft metal used as a catalyst or in alloys with other metals - dropped from the roughly $1,500 per troy ounce Ford paid to about $400. The loss exacerbated a declining financial position for the automaker, which on Friday announced a $9 billion turnaround plan that included the closing of five plants in North America and the elimination of 35,000 jobs worldwide. Mo Money -- Sharefin, 23:37:12 01/16/02 Wed Venezuela discount rate raised to 38.5 pct AuNuggets -- Sharefin, 23:26:59 01/16/02 Wed Not sure on the weight but I'm sure it's on the website I linked in. Apparently Janet has no trouble finding lots of nuggets. If you have a real close look at her website and check out the photos I'm sure you'll be surprised. Seems like there's ounces everywhere - like every few feet. Here's a few of my favorite images.  This one was just over 196oz  Sharefin -- AuNuggets, 22:16:58 01/16/02 Wed That's a real beauty ! What's the weight ? Always dreamed of visiting friends down under, fondly referred to as "The Wizards of Oz" and doing some metal detecting. Have spent many a day detecting in the desert southwest here in the states for nuggets with my trusty GM-3, but nothing much left here to compare to the Aussie nuggets. "Big" for us is a few grams..... AuNuggets AuNuggets -- Sharefin, 21:16:42 01/16/02 Wed Thanks This one's from the Lady of the Lake  Giant Golden Gumboot -- Sharefin, 21:03:39 01/16/02 Wed Nth Queensland town to build giant golden gumboot Newest Gold Forum -- AuNuggets, 21:03:12 01/16/02 Wed Sharefin, Great new site, and nice to have another "above-board" place to read and post. Much appreciate all the work you've done on your links pages and now the forum. Best of luck to you Sir ! AuNuggets  BOE Auctions -- Sharefin, 20:55:20 01/16/02 Wed Taking Candy From A Baby PRINCETON, NJ -- A funny thing happened in London today. The Bank of England presided over an auction that sold 20 tonnes of gold at $283.50 an ounce for the grand purpose of adding $182 million Federal Reserve notes to the Treasury. In so doing, the wily Brit mandarins managed to leave $2.9 million on the table relative to the London morning fix ($287.95) and $4.2 million relative to the overnight high ($290). Ordinarily one needs to be an insider of some standing to secure equivalent margins from such a prestigious client. I have no illusion that I might persuade the Old Lady to offer me 100 quid in exchange for just 98 bits of Her Majesty's specie. Yet she gives away HM's bullion at that rate. The auction result, which showed the second worst subscription rate ever with an implied total bid of 28 tonnes, is not as calamitous as many commentators might believe. The actual achievement was to demonstrate the flawed auction design in fact as well as theory; a lampooning of the BoE at its penultimate auction. Mitsui gold maven Andy Smith noted "conspicuous buying in the vacuum before London trading" which had forced professional shorts to cover their positions. Put another way, someone ran a beautifully orchestrated sting against the BoE. And it was all on the up-and-up since the BoE itself made possible this novel form of front running. Leonard Kaplan of Prospector Asset Management believes the action started in Asia overnight triggering a premature run on the metal for fear that someone was going to scoop up all the BoE's gold and leave shorts high and dry. The net effect was to force the shorts to fire all their guns leaving them spent by the time the auction came around. So the sharp tack in Asia who squeezed the shorts and engineered disinterest in the auction probably used his profits from the short squeeze to buy the BoE's discounted metal. He was immediately able to flip that into the market an hour later for up to $2 more per ounce. That's some fine trading; the stuff on which personal legend is built. Whoever thought of it needs a double bonus. The overall point to take away from this auction is that gold bulls remain reticent and lackluster. It evidently does not take much to stir the shorts. Someone could exhaust them by playing these games on an ongoing basis. And just what might have happened if the Asian wiz had decided to act on the leak that he would take up the entire allotment? Perhaps we'll find out at the final auction in March. But the shorts will know the game by then. Can they be outplayed again? Moderation -- Sharefin, 20:26:52 01/16/02 Wed Currently I've turned the Moderation Control off and will leave it off untill such time as it's needed again. Any posts that seek to attack or inflame will be removed and if any folk seek to be disruptive then they will be filtered then banned. I was looking for another forum where password protection is available but do believe that the controls available on this forum will suffice. As forum administrator I have the choices of: 1/ putting the forum on Moderator's Control where I approve/disapprove all posts 2/ deleting offensive/agressive posts 3/ individual Host/ISP banning I will endeavour to utilise the above to keep this forum running smoothly and avoid the pitfalls of certain posters. I am new at this caper so please excuse my censorship but feel assured that I will not censor gold related news or views but rather disruptive posters. So controls are off and it's back to normal. But rest assured I will exert control when neccessary. I've also turned on a posting preview so posters can review their comments priot to posting. Back to the subject at hand Cheers Sharefin Silver -- Sharefin, 20:07:46 01/16/02 Wed Here's a chart of silver tick-by-tick showing the recent action.  sideways -- Cyclist, 15:40:31 01/16/02 Wed April gold price will tighten till Jan30 between 290 and 285.March silver will be the catalyst. SIL spiked at the close on volume,something dramatic is at hand. different quotes -- Dave, 11:08:25 01/16/02 Wed I have noticed quite a difference in the price quotes at Bart's place and Ino http://quotes.ino.com/exchanges/?c=metals Ino seems to use forex quotes. I have been going to ino for sometime, because they seem to show what is happening. Wierd that there isn't a consenus on the price. The Long Road Ahead -- Sharefin, 09:26:23 01/16/02 Wed The Long Road Ahead Pssst wanna buy some gold........ -- Sharefin, 09:19:08 01/16/02 Wed China Pushes to Move Mountain of Bad Debt Japan's banks failing JP Morgan Chase -- Sharefin, 07:28:48 01/16/02 Wed Loans, Argentina Hurt J.P. Morgan Profits J.P. Morgan has disclosed that it is owed some $2.6 billion in Enron-related exposure, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. BOE Gold Sales -- Sharefin, 05:39:29 01/16/02 Wed Results for the 2nd last sale 16 January 2002 The Bank of England announces that the gold on offer (approximately 20 tonnes or 643,200 ounces) has been allotted in full at a price of $283.50 per ounce. Details of the result are as follows: Amount of gold on offer (approx.) 643,200 oz Amount applied for 881,200 oz Times covered 1.4 times Amount allotted to bidders 643,600 oz Allotment price $283.50 Scaling factor at allotment price 61.3334 % All accepted bids which were made at prices above the allotment price have been allotted in full at the allotment price. Valid bids made at the allotment price have been allotted an amount of gold equal to the amount bid for multiplied by the above scaling factor and rounded up to the nearest 400 ounces. By close of business in London today, applicants whose bids have been successful in whole or in part will be notified by the Bank of England of the exact weight of the gold bars allotted to them and the amount payable in respect of their purchase. Payment must be made in US dollars to the Bank of England's account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, no later than 12 noon New York time on 18 January 2002. Note for Editors On 7 March 2001, H M Treasury announced that the Bank of England, on behalf of H M Treasury, would sell approximately 120 tonnes of gold in a programme of six auctions of around 20 tonnes each in the financial year 2001/02 on the terms and conditions set out in an Information Memorandum that was published on 7 March 2001. This is the fifth auction in the programme of six. The final auction will be held on Tuesday 5 March 2002. Many thanks Thai Gold -- Sharefin, 05:22:53 01/16/02 Wed Here's a couple of excellent urls for getting UK quotes & charts on the metals. The little chart symbol top left corner takes you into a whole new page for charting. Gold Quotes Silver Quotes @ Sharefin... Zowie.!. POG Plummets at BoE Time -- ThaiGold, 04:37:05 01/16/02 Wed Well, you cannot make a profit shorting the POG "Markets", unless you first run the price UP. Then you SMASH it down. Deja'Vu AllOverAgain. Scroll down to the live Forex chart I posted earlier. It went straight down. On cue. On schedule. On Yawn. PS: Here's the link for the BoE results, expected to be published at the BoE Website momentarily: BoE Website Auction Results 16 Jan 2002 Thai Gold -- Sharefin, 03:04:48 01/16/02 Wed Many thanks for the chart links. I'll bookmark them and keep an eye on them. Well it appears that someone ‘got to Kitco' so that even though they quote that ‘their prices are live' they are far from it. Kitco is obviously not allowed to quote the real live prices as they happen. They are therefore not reliable as to when one wants an accurate quote. I wonder when all the goldbugs will come to wonder that Kitco has sold out to the other side? And I wonder how many other sources are the same? Perhaps I'm wrong but it doesn't look like it to me. All this action reminds me of the chatter from years ago where it was forecast that the physical price would separate from the paper price. Now one would have to presume that TPTB are seriously enough concerned for them to manipulate the price of silver. It's certainly blatant enough where the price in London is well broadcast yet in the US investors aren't supposed to know. So there must be a sizeable problem for them to go to this much effort in burying the information. Perchance it's due to the serious nature of Enron's silver position. I don't know but it does show we are coming to the end of the price wars on the metals. And about time. ellix98 -- Sharefin, 02:51:28 01/16/02 Wed I have zero interest in complaints or bitching. Kitco is full of it. Take you rhetoric elsewhere. The Golden Pot is for gold content..... @Fergus re: deflation -- Donald, 02:19:39 01/16/02 Wed You have it stated correctly. The huge numbers of "dollars" in the world are "credit dollars" not fiat printed cash dollars. As in Enron recently many billions of those fantasy credit dollars disappeared in the blink of an eye. Gold holders had their purchasing power increase by an equal amount. You can buy 300 shares of Enron today for an ounce of gold. A few months ago you would only get 3 shares for your ounce. Expect this process to be repeated many times. Sure, the Fed will print and make credit easily available but the number of qualified (and fearless) borrowers will be plunging. Deflation news is the best news a gold holder can get. (Hi Chicken man) @ Sharefin: Silver Price Clipping... -- ThaiGold, 02:07:05 01/16/02 Wed Enjoyed seeing your observations of the price fakery of POS charts NY-vs-London. I've remarked/harped about that long and often at ER, since noticing the pattern of deceit last year. You have expressed it far more elegantly than I could. You suggest watching non-Kitco charts from England, for example to get the real data. I agree wholheartedly, and we have been advising our EagleRanchers to use these two charts instead of the Kitco charts whenever there's a runup in POG or POS. I'll post them here for all your fans as well. These are of the 24 hour "Forex" trading, worldwide, and always seem very accurate; detailed; and active. I've never seen the stall out nor lose data, as is so prevalent on the Kitco feeds. FWIW: These links, from an England source. Times are London: AuF Forex Gold Chart AgF Forex Silver Chart BoE Auction: What Hath The Queen Wrought.?. -- ThaiGold, 01:24:46 01/16/02 Wed Well Boys and Girls, it's nearing TeaTime. On Threadneedle Street. In Foggy London Town. Time is nigh for the latest and next-to-final Bank of England Gold "Auction". I put that in quotes, because we all know what a farce they've been. For the past three years. They "award" their booty to the LOWEST bidder. Oddly. But of course including as the winners, the HIGHEST bidders as well. Somehow. Now you see why the quotes. But not why the auctions. 15 tonnes. Every other month. For three years.!. Since just after they looked into the Washington Agreement Abyss. Call it a bridge over troubled waters. Sink or swim. Fish or cut bait. They got the message. From Rubin. And Clinton. And Greenspan. Sell now. Avoid the rush. And avoid our Wrath. Bush was powerless to stop them. Yes. Powerless. Not really alot of Gold. Just enough,;and in a way; to spook the "markets". (oops -- more of those quotes -- sorry. I can't help myself from snickering) Well, as I write this it looks like it's a good time for them to end these charades (no quotes). For the POG is rising. Alarmingly. With only minutes to go before their dumpy-dump. POG nearly $290. $268 is customary. What gives.?. Now we must begin to turn our attention to the next FINAL Auction in March. Towards the middle. The Ides. How ominous.!. For them. Will they come up with some NEW scheme. Subterfuge. Fanatic Fakery. Again.?. Answer: Yes. Now all we need to do is guess WHAT it will be. What. Not When. Regards to all our Friends at the Sharefin Site. Mind if I repost this at ER.?. ...Tai Gold Up -- Sharefin, 01:06:28 01/16/02 Wed Gold going up:  Silver is strange - Kitco has it as square - yet in London it was up 10cents - Bullion Desk had silver up 10cents and then dropped it. What with Kitco removing the price spike the other day and what appears to be going on it's almost as if they don't want the US markets to know what's happening in London each day. London wants silver at a higher price but NY doesn't want this known. Supplies are heading east and mums the word - price data is changed. They've taken to editing the data as to not show what's actually happening. When you can, watch a website that's showing the prices in London whilst it's trading over there. Don't watch Kitco or other US sites but rather try to find a UK site or European site. See if you can spot this mythical action in silver. Spot the price of silver........ Silver -- Sharefin, 00:03:16 01/16/02 Wed Silver bolts higher in Europe on renewed borrowing LONDON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Silver prices jumped in Europe late on Tuesday as borrowing returned to the market and fund interest picked up, traders said. Silver recouped overnight losses in late trade to reach a day's high of $4.63 an ounce at one stage as borrowing resumed. "There have been reports of metal coming from New York to London, but people would have known about that and known it was coming...I think this is more to do with the fact that there is so much confusion and speculation and people don't know what's going on," one trader said. "The borrower stopped borrowing and lease rates have eased...the borrowing has started again this afternoon and funds are interested again. Personally I think this market is still underpinned and is just marking time before it goes higher again," he added. ---- PGMs DOWN ON FORD NEWS Platinum and palladium prices continued to feel pressure from Ford's announcement on Friday of a $1 billion write-down on holdings of palladium metals it had bought to use in exhaust systems. At one stage in afternoon trade platinum prices were off nearly $20 at some $452.00/475.00 an ounce. ----- Yet the Comex Palladium stockpile fell by 70% at the same time??? Peter Elaides - stockmarket cycles -- Sharefin, 23:12:54 01/15/02 Tue Sign of the Bear  Snipped from EagleRanch -- Sharefin, 23:07:32 01/15/02 Tue c2b re Frank Veneroso Posted by: AuAg Date: January 15, 2002 at 18:06 Message id: 3229 Hey c2b! Remember howe Frankie was supposed to be in N.O. and pulled up lame at the last moment? The following is from JT {with a white hat} out of the previous link I put up: WHY DID FRANK VENEROSO STOP PUBLISHING? Last week, I talked to the CEO of a Canadian junior gold mining firm that is on our list. This CEO is very close to Frank Veneroso. In fact they have a working business relationship. The CEO told me that Frank quit publishing his gold newsletter as a result of some pressure from people in high places. They told him that they would start following him around and watching his every move. This morning I sent Bill Murphy, who used to work with Frank, an email to ask him about whether this is true. Here was Bill's response to me. "That is correct. Also he was afraid he might be killed. Great country we got." Bill Whereupon, I sent Bill another email to ask if this could be related to my subscribers in this week's hotline message. Bill said the following: "Fine with me. I have mentioned it. I called him (Frank Veneroso) over Christmas. He said he had friends over and would call back. He never did call back. He says our phones are tapped." Bill Last week I talked about an imposture group that is very much plugged into the American mainstream that is using the name "Blanchard" to talk what few gold bugs remain on the planet from buying gold. Now we hear that Frank Veneroso, a giant of an intellect who's work helped lead to the creation of GATA and the lawsuit now before Judge Lindsay in Boston, is being muzzled by the establishment. For those of you who don't know Frank, he is a high priced Harvard educated consultant who has worked on behalf of various central banks and major corporations in America. He is highly regarded. He knows the price of gold is being rigged and he has said so publicly. One instant comes to mind when he confirmed statements made by Bill Murphy at and CMRE meeting in New York. At one point, a very hostile gentlemen who said he had friends at a major investment bank, stood up from his table and expressed great hostility toward Frank for implying wrong doing on the part of his friends. When Frank Veneroso talks, important people listen. I guess that is why Frank had to be shut up? Do you see why I think the establishment is getting desperate? Do you see why I think that the price of gold may finally be ready to explode to levels far higher than all but the most ardent gold bugs can envision? END Comment: The taps are playing for JT {with the dark hat} and the rest of the gold mauraders. Do you know a bit about my newest mining stock, Rio Narcea? If this story doesn't really get one's blood boiling don't know what will. Regards, AuAg ----------------------- Galearis Posted by: AuAg Date: January 15, 2002 at 18:44 Message id: 3232 Bill has become personna non grata, but that is expected. A year and a half ago or so he had a car stolen, but it turned back up. He was suspicious but really unsure it had any deeper meaning. Then one night as he was walking home from a meal he was blindsided by a fist that likely wore brass knuckles. He never saw it coming and it took him down for the count. Nothing was removed from his person so robbery was no motive. Beyond that he hasn't said, but little would surprise me. His trek has been an educational tour of the shady side of American politics/economics, one wonders if he would have ever started out if he then knew where he was heading. One simply doesn't challenge the Power-Elite w/o great risk. I also know that numerous GATA strategy sessions have involved long drives and person to person conversation as opposed to phone or e-mail use. You got some snoops/spooks involved in these issues and much hardball is played. The widespread use of the internet, I believe, helps keep folks relatively safe. If you're gonna be a target might as well be as public and conspicuous as possible, laying all your work and discoveries out there for all to see. Broad daylight and truth just happen to be allies of ours! Lord forbid, if something were to happen to Bill, there would be NUMEROUS folks ready to step in his place. This thing is way too big and out of control to be contained, Midas or no Midas, and hasn't he advanced the cause in a wondrous way?! YIKES is right! AuAg ------------ Frank Veneroso Posted by: THC Date: January 15, 2002 at 21:30 Message id: 3244 Good evening, gents! I am sorry to say that I have heard similar things regarding Frank. I previously inquired as to why he had stopped publishing and had even shut down his web sites, and the response was that he felt it would be dangerous for him to continue. Somebody probably told him twould be be "Arkancide" for him to keep talking. Sad indeed, THC ------- Kip -- Sharefin, 22:27:58 01/15/02 Tue Here's a chart of the Ted Spread. It comes from Mark's data Barron's Data  btw Your chart never showed as I've not uploaded it. Send it over & I'll do it.(:-))) Comex Stockpiles -- Sharefin, 22:16:11 01/15/02 Tue Are getting skinny!!! Gold Total = 1,212,652oz Eligible = 103,480oz Silver Total = 103,268,084oz Eligible = 34,567,960oz Platinum Total = 244 x 50oz = 12,200oz July last year there was almost 35,000oz Palladium Total = 125 x 100oz = 1,250oz Yesterday there was 4,160oz And on the 1st January 2002 there was almost 6,020oz Palladium stocks are fast running down.  Donald--a question for you -- fergus, 22:08:11 01/15/02 Tue You have spoken in the past of the coming deflation. I'm confused... Is it because the destruction of money thru default would overwhelm any all attempts to create more of it? (At least, the fiat stuff, anyway.) The money supply has been soaring for a while now. How does that impact the deflation scenario? Thx, and glad to find a place to see your posts. I always valued them at the old place.  Test Mssg -- Delta.au, 22:07:01 01/15/02 Tue Some Aussie golden minnows are rearing up in recent days ... including GTM and GYM among others ... And some majors too ... LIHIR up 6 today on rumors of a possible suitor. NDY was up again today ... anybody know why? BTW ... I own shares in GTM, and am trying to acquire the other 2 at better prices. Cheers ... delta Latest Lease Rates for Silver -- Sharefin, 22:04:51 01/15/02 Tue  Ted Spread -- Kip, 21:45:51 01/15/02 Tue This spread little talked about these days, maybe because the T-Bill futures contracts now very thinly traded. The Ted Spread is supposedly a good barometer for the health of the international banking system. In times of 'banking anxiety' the spread will widen to reflect the higher interest rates banks needed to attract offshore dollars visa vie comparable T-Bill rates. The current 0.2~ basis point spread is very narrow from a historical perspective. I recall it over 1.5 and I think at times it has been much higher than that. Perhaps somebody has a link showing some history.   OZ Gold Index - XGO -- Sharefin, 21:42:22 01/15/02 Tue The Australian Gold Index is surging upwards. Todays XGO XGO Chart Cheap Gold -- Sharefin, 21:29:46 01/15/02 Tue Scroll 1/3 the way down the left hand side for "Cheap Gold" by Megan Rose. Cheap Gold Linking in urls -- Sharefin, 21:00:04 01/15/02 Tue Dave & others The instructions for the html code for inserting links is linked in above on the top right hand side. I'll also add some instructions in on adding in charts/images etc. Homestk Kid -- Sharefin, 20:47:56 01/15/02 Tue The Kitco crowd have crapped all over their own forum sending many fine goldbugs searching for greener pastures. I have zero intent in letting that happen here. Complain as much as one wants but I refuse to lower my forum to the depths that Kitco has sunk to. Gold content or related will be enthusiastically welcomed. Banal inanities will be vetoed & removed. gap -- Dave, 19:34:33 01/15/02 Tue what happened to the $ today, see the gap down in the afternoon. http://quotes.ino.com/chart/?s=NYBOT_DXY0 Spinnin Silver on "thestreet"....? -- Chicken man, 17:28:20 01/15/02 Tue http://biz.yahoo.com/tsp/020115/10006788_1.html Nice job finny..! Hi Donald.. Coin Prices -- Dave, 16:27:15 01/15/02 Tue Heritage auction ending today, prices seem strong. Prices are strong on ebay also. http://www.heritagecoin.com/index.asp?type=HERITAGE-COIN.COM This forum -- James Nicholasson, 15:55:21 01/15/02 Tue Delighted to find a place where materials are posted. Although I agree with certain conclusions you have expressed in the past, I think you are a reasonable man, and I have a high regard for the materials you offer to support your point of view. Best of luck, J Art -- GoldBrick, 13:03:43 01/15/02 Tue Art, I lost you're e-mail. Shoot one my way. I'm going to be close by this week-end and would enjoy some brain storming with you. Inquiry into 37% slide of the South African rand last year. -- Donald, 12:59:07 01/15/02 Tue SA Central Bank President says there may have been a conspiracy to manipulate the rand lower Currency converters -- Fan of Gold [aka FOG], 11:57:23 01/15/02 Tue A divergence that continues to fascinate Live Rates as of 2002.01.15 18:56:49 GMT. 1.00 XAU Gold Ounces = 284.067 USD United States Dollars 1 XAU = 284.067 USD 1 USD = 0.00352030 XAU http://www.xe.com/ucc/ Tuesday, January 15, 2002 1 Gold (oz.) = 278.700 US Dollar 1 US Dollar (USD) = 0.003588 Gold (oz.) (XAU) http://www.oanda.com/convert/classic Whereas, the Swissie just . . .continues. . . "United Nations Convention on the Carriage of Goods by Sea 3. The monetary unit referred to in paragraph 2 of this Article corresponds to sixty-five and a half milligrams of gold of millesimal fineness nine hundred. The conversion of the amounts referred to in paragraph 2 into the national currency is to be made according to the law of the State concerned. { 191 } http://www.jus.uio.no/lm/un.sea.carriage.hamburg.rules.1978/26.html 65.5 milligrams 65.5 milligram = = 0.00210587390024513 troy ounce gold 1 Gold (oz.) = 461.471 Swiss Franc 1 Swiss Franc (CHF) = 0.002167 Gold (oz.) (XAU) http://www.oanda.com/convert/classic silver/test -- Bryan Johnson, 11:33:46 01/15/02 Tue Hello, my handle is rhody. I am a silverbug. Yesterday paper silver collapsed, but the lease rates didn't. Silver leases dropped to 14% but are up to over 18% now. A 20% one day proportation increase in silver one month leases is not a sign that this rally is over. What ever is constricting the silver market is still operating, as illustrated by the 7c rise in paper silver at the close of COMEX today. This is a continuation of the COMEX pattern seen over the last two weeks. COMEX spot looks like a saddlebag, with initial shorting followed by last minute buying. Why would a physical buyer do that: buy at the end of day, just to raise the price? This looks like price manipulation to me, so who wants the pos to rise????? Buffet? Me? Galearis, sharefin? I'm not doing this, so which one of you guys in manipulating COMEX. Come on, own up! Enought of this nonsense, this is just a test. Silver prices battered by high lease rates -- Donald, 11:21:52 01/15/02 Tue Silver seen to be dragging gold lower Hello to Sharefin -- Gand, 11:21:44 01/15/02 Tue Hello Sir. I am a poster at the Eagle Ranch, where notice went out about your new forum. I've always used and admired your site and followed your posts on Kitco. Just wanted to stop in and to express my best wishes. Regards, Gand The Carlyle Group -- Sharefin, 10:11:21 01/15/02 Tue Crony Capitalism Prudent Bear -- Sharefin, 09:29:09 01/15/02 Tue International Perspective COGNITIVE DISSONANCE AND THE WASHINGTON CONSENSUS 8 January 2002 "We have to end the decades in Argentina of an alliance that has made the country suffer, and that's the alliance between the political power and the financial sector and not an alliance with the productive sector. The financial sector is important, but in its proper place'" New Argentinean President, Eduardo Dulhade Japan's Finest Hour -- Sharefin, 09:27:00 01/15/02 Tue Japan Can Escape from the Fatal Pull of the Zero Interest Blackhole by opening the Mint of Japan to Gold Gold News -- Sharefin, 09:14:00 01/15/02 Tue Gold News NEW YORK (CBS.MW) - Silver prices turned higher Tuesday after a nearly 4 percent drop on Monday, while gold futures prices dulled, a day ahead of the Bank of England's auction. Shares of most major metals companies followed silver higher. On the Commodities Exchange division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, March silver rose by 4.5 cents, or to trade at $4.56 an ounce. The contract touched a two-week low a day earlier. In a research note, John Reade, an analyst at UBS Warburg said the prospects for silver "are good for 2002 and 2003." "The widely expected global economic recovery should benefit silver's industrial uses and lead to an increase in the identifiable deficit in silver," he said. As of late Monday, Comex gold inventories were up 1,648 at 1.21 million ounces. Silver stocks were down 1.41 million at 103.9 million ounces. Meanwhile, gold for February delivery traded at the $285 level, down 70 cents an ounce. On Wednesday morning, the Bank of England will hold its fifth auction in a program of six announced last March to sell about 20 metric tons of gold. The last auction, which saw the gold sell at $273.50 an ounce, was held on Nov. 27. It was 2.6 times oversubscribed. Venezuela raises discount rate to 38.5% -- Donald, 09:06:05 01/15/02 Tue Attack by speculators on the currency forces the central bank to raise rates Live charts -- Sharefin, 09:05:50 01/15/02 Tue Gold Silver Please note -- Sharefin, 08:57:01 01/15/02 Tue All the prior posts have been switched to archive #1 linked in above at the top right hand corner. It works -- Sharefin, 08:20:51 01/15/02 Tue Well the blocking & removal of garbage works. I will try and clear the posts as often as possible but due to the fact that I sleep whilst the US is awake there will be a lag delay between some postings. This problem should be fixed shortly. Please feel free to post gold content..... Garbage in & garbage out -- Sharefin, 08:08:58 01/15/02 Tue Due to the garbage posts entering this forum I will be switching on the moderator feature only letting relevant posts get through. I should have this problem fixed within a few days with a new forum utilising passwords. Those who have fouled Kitco have no place here. Please excuse such simple minds..... No more -- Sharefin, 08:04:48 01/15/02 Tue This forum is already resembling Kitco so I will shut down the free posting priviledges untill I make some changes. Genuine posters are welcome to continue posting & I will filter the posts removing those with no gold content. The other garbage will end up where it belongs. I should have these problems fixed in a couple of days with a new forum with passwords & priviledges. To those who only get their jollies off spewing crap - goodbye & get a life. Escape from kitco -- GoldBrick, 06:00:18 01/15/02 Tue Thanks sharefin-I also add my name to your Golden Pot parking privleges to escape the likes of the kitco snakes. Profits of Death -- Sharefin, 05:40:13 01/15/02 Tue PART I - CIA Does Not Deny Stock Monitoring Outside the U.S. PART II - Trading With The Enemy ALL ROADS LEAD TO DEUSTCHEBANK AND HARKEN ENERGY, W's OWN 1991 INSIDER TRADING SCAM - THE MOTHER OF ALL ENRONS Congratulations Sharefin -- KaptainKaos, 05:16:42 01/15/02 Tue I shall be parking myself at your fine site until Bart removes the likes of ellix98 & the others who denigrate daily the name of the United States. Good luck. I hope that I can periodically add required PM insight, Normandy bidding war news -- Donald, 03:51:23 01/15/02 Tue AngloGold says it will not raise its bid Chinese devaluation warning -- Donald, 02:59:29 01/15/02 Tue China warns Japan that continued weakness in the yen could trigger them to devalue the yuan Shadowfax -- Sharefin, 21:35:15 01/14/02 Mon Welcome aboard matey....... CEF you say - the safest ship on the seas..... CEF Daily Chart Cheers Bad urls -- Sharefin, 21:20:33 01/14/02 Mon Here's the last 1/2 of the prior post: --- Then we have the POG & POS in rising uptrends in most all major currencies. Gold Currencies Silver Currencies Not to mention many individual goldstocks in major uptrends. Then there's all the cross ratios with gold pointing to a changed market now in a serious uptrend. Then there's the market supply/demand equation that is leaning nay towering over these markets. Then there's the global deterioration in world markets, currencies & economics. Which shows strongly in the world indices: Global Indices Also specially in the Global Sharemarket Sentiment Index Global Indices And also in the Wilshire 5000 Wilshire 5000 Looking at the above and separating the PM markets from the equities markets leads us to view the Dow/Gold ratio and to where we currently are: Dow Gold Ratio Stepping back from the trees and observing what's happening within these markets it appears that the PM's are in serious uptrends. Paining pictures -- Sharefin, 21:15:40 01/14/02 Mon Now I think that the prior post was a load of bunk. Here's a few charts to paint a different picture. Many of us are familiar with Dabchick's Index, which if one understands the construction of the inputs then one realises that this index gives a global perspective. This index is currently making new highs. Dabchick Gold Index Then there's my Global Gold Sentiment Index breaking to new highs. Global Gold Sentiment Index The CRB AG/AU/PL Sentiment Index, which has just bounced off a fabulous support base. AG/AU/PL Sentiment Index Then there's the Precious Metals Mutual Funds Sentiment Index PM MF Sentiment Index Then we have FIGs Index & the King Soloman's Index FIG & King Soloman Indexes Followed by the PM's displayed in Point & Figure charting P&F PM Charts As well as numerous other gold indices all making or breaking to new highs. FTSE Goldmines Indices Global Gold Indices GGSSI Index --- Then we have the POG & POS in rising uptrends in most all major currencies. Gold Currencies href="../gold/SilverCurrency.php">Silver Currencies Not to mention many individual goldstocks in major uptrends. Then there's all the cross ratios with gold pointing to a changed market now in a serious uptrend. Then there's the market supply/demand equation that is leaning nay towering over these markets. Then there's the global deterioration in world markets, currencies & economics. Which shows strongly in the world indices: Global Indices Also specially in the Global Sharemarket Sentiment Index Global Indices And also in the Wilshire 5000 Wilshire 5000 Looking at the above and separating the PM markets from the equities markets leads us to view the Dow/Gold ratio and to where we currently are: Dow Gold Ratio Stepping back from the trees and observing what's happening within these markets it appears that the PM's are in serious uptrends. Central Fund of Canada -- Shadowfax, 21:00:19 01/14/02 Mon Sharefin...great site matie... from the queen of lurkers.. 2ND BEST WAY TO HOLD GOLD AND SILVER.. CEF Central Fund's bullion holdings are not subject to any gold loans or other derivative products. The bullion is held on a completely unencumbered basis. Central's bullion is stored on a fully segregated basis within the vault complexes of the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce in Toronto, Ontario and Vancouver, British Columbia. The bullion is fully insured and is audited semi-annually in the presence of bank officials by 2 representatives of Central Fund and representatives of Central's Auditors Ernst and Young . Painting pictures -- Sharefin, 20:47:56 01/14/02 Mon Charts point to massive gold slide Normandy bids teeter on acrimony -- Sharefin, 20:44:05 01/14/02 Mon Normandy bids teeter on acrimony Accounting for the ESF's Gold Swaps -- Sharefin, 20:32:31 01/14/02 Mon Accounting for the ESF's Gold Swaps Global Silver Stockpiles -- Sharefin, 20:27:57 01/14/02 Mon National Defence Silver Stockpile CME Stockpile - note this is all registered - eligable & non-eligable CME Stockpile Total Silver Stockpiles Old stockpile data: US Stocks in Gov't & private hands US Stocks Total all US stocks - 5.9 billion ounces Total US Stocks Also silver lease rates Silver Lease Rates Global Silver Stockpiles -- Sharefin, 20:21:47 01/14/02 Mon This chart shows stocks at all the exchanges:  Also some more on silver inventories: National Defence Silver Stockpile CME Stockpile - note this is all registered - eligable & non-eligable Total Silver Stockpiles Old stockpile data: US Stocks in Gov't & private hands Total all US stocks - 5.9 billion ounces Also silver lease rates Rate of Change -- Sharefin, 19:58:21 01/14/02 Mon Here's two views of the Rate Of Change (ROC) month-by-month for gold & silver: Long term  Short term  Miro -- Sharefin, 19:55:56 01/14/02 Mon I agree - I just posted it for the content. I'll probably post lots of stuff here that I don't agree with but that has some PM content. Cheers Jere Smith - Troublemakers -- Sharefin, 19:51:23 01/14/02 Mon There will be no attacks tolerated here nor trouble where it raises my blood pressure. This forum is a private one where I will retain control. I cannot set up a password system within the parameters of the forum but I can set the posts so that every single one has to be passed by me. If certain people seek to disrupt then the continuity of this forum will be severely broken in that I will control each & every post that is made here. There are many forums to chatter on and pass the time of day but that is not why I have started this forum. Rather I wish to see it as a brief overview of news or events within the marketplace. I have zero wish for disgruntled Kitco posters doing the same here as they have done over there. That is why I have left Kitco as it is not a pleasant place. Too many folks with high blood pressure. No high blood pressure & no testosterone allowed here - leave them at the door please. I have two options:- no control or total control - and I would prefer no control. So keep the chatter out & the content or news in. All charts are welcomed too. Apart from that all are welcome all to lurk or contribute. Cheers Left wing liberals -- Jere Smith, 19:43:37 01/14/02 Mon Left wing liberals from canada are too cowardly to come here, Tallbear and I & many others will throw them out. They have ruined kitco. sharefin-thank you for this last great gold page. sharefin, permabear -- ET, 19:19:08 01/14/02 Mon Hey sharefin - thanks for the site! Would also like to second the need for passwords. Will try to contribute from time to time. Good to see old PH hasn't been lost in LA after all. {g} Hey permabear - regarding silver, from a technical point of view, the move up, as well as gold's move up are so far unconfirmed. We really need to see a close above last week's high as well as no move below the previous low for confirmation. I know this is a rather large spread, but from a technical point of view, we are seeing a "Broadening Formation" (see Murphy's book), which is relatively rare. Differing from a regular triangle where volume normally decreases as the triangle narrows, this formation sees higher volume with each swing. This pattern normally occurs at tops and signifies a market out of control and highly emotional. Murphy says, “because this pattern also represents an unusual amount of public participation, it often occurs at major market tops. The expanding pattern, therefore, is usually a bearish formation.” What is unusual in this case, however, is that this pattern is forming at a major market bottom, or so we think. The wave guys still think we have one major move down left in the metals, but that is based on wave counts subject to change. At this time I'm neutral on silver but if you are accumulating physical, I don't see how you can go terribly wrong at these prices. If you're trading futures, you would probably want to wait for confirmation either to the up or downside before entering a trade. As I mentioned earlier, gold also has not confirmed a move to the upside. It's price pattern is looking a lot more normal than silver's. This is probably because of the lack of public participation and will probably give us a better perspective on the metals in general. If gold drops below the $270 area as the wave guys think will happen before it closes above $300, this would be very bearish. However, if gold can remain above its trendline joining the points from the April low and the November low, we should see a move up through $300 and beyond. Gold appears to be forming an ascending triangle, which is normally very bullish, particularly at a bottom. Once again, if you are accumulating physical, these prices seem pretty good, but if you are trading futures you might want to wait for a breakout over $300. Hope this helps. Nick -- volavka, 18:23:02 01/14/02 Mon Nice site, keep up good work! Gold - The Power Of Veto - Sharefin -- miro, 18:21:34 01/14/02 Mon Finny we shall see, I think that Garry North analysis is a bit presumptuous, considering odd factors for gold going up. Markets don't work like that, they are much more complicated, no matter what we want them to do. Do I believe gold will have its bull market in this decade? I surely do but for different reasons that Garry North puts out. None of the China factor, just a pure cycle theory, when gold and commodities will have their day and bull run. Gary always had some odd reasons and agendas. JMHO Cheers!! Bankers who must never walk alone -- Sharefin, 18:20:41 01/14/02 Mon Yakuza gangsters, who reign in a parallel world of glamour and degradation, are blamed for prolonging Japan's recession. Charts -- Sharefin, 18:14:41 01/14/02 Mon Anyone who wishes to post a chart is welcome to send it to me and I'll store it on my server and post it here. Chart from Kip -- Sharefin, 18:07:28 01/14/02 Mon  Gold - The Power Of Veto -- Sharefin, 17:49:03 01/14/02 Mon The price of gold has been making another of its upward moves. These upward moves have been beaten back so consistently over the last 22 years that there is not much interest by the financial press or investors. But there will come a day when the threat of central banks to sell gold -- mainly to each other -- will no longer scare gold buyers. They will start taking delivery. If officials in the central bank of China ever decide to use the banks enormous reserves to start buying gold, they will make that bank the dominant central bank. At some point, they will do this. They will understand how vulnerable the G-8 nations are to a determined central bank that wishes to get their hands on the gold. If they follow this with actual delivery from the vault in the New York Federal Reserve Bank to Beijing, they will announce to the world, "The days of wine and roses have ended. Call this revenge for the opium wars." The Chinese could do this tomorrow. I think they are certain to do it sometime in this decade. When they do, they will become the dominant central bank. I think this is what they want: symbolic affirmation of their new-found international economic might. They are fast becoming the 800-pound gorilla in the world's markets. By 2010, they will be the gorilla, if you count Hong Kong, which they control, and Taiwan, which has sent $180 billion in private investment into China since 1991, and 40 million overseas Chinese, who serve as the middlemen in the expansion of Chinese foreign trade. JANUARY, 1980 Why has the price of gold trended lower since January, 1980? Part of this drop was a reaction to the large price rise in 1978-80, which had been driven by the inflationary policies of the Federal Reserve System under the long-forgotten and unlamented Chairman of the Board of Governors, G. William Miller. He was not an economist. He was a corporate executive without any known understanding of monetary theory. His tenure of office was brief: March, 1978 to August, 1979, but public confidence had been lost. He was replaced by Paul Volcker, who adopted tight money policies in October, after being persuaded by other members of the Board. Meanwhile, OPEC had driven up the price of oil for the second time in the decade, this time under Jimmy Carter. By 1979, there was deep pessimism regarding Carter's political leadership and the economy. This elected Ronald Reagan in 1980. In late 1979, Iranians kidnapped the staff of the American embassy. Throughout 1979, there was also Bunker Hunt's squeeze on silver, which drove up the price to $50/oz from under $5 a year earlier. He had been taking delivery of silver contracts all year, terrifying the shorts. Poor Hunt. He was about to lose his second fortune. The first had taken place in 1971, when Qadaffi had nationalized Hunt's oil holdings. As soon as the Gulf sheikhs saw that Qadaffi had gotten away with this massive theft, they decided to squeeze the West. That fabulously successful oil squeeze began in 1973, the same year that Hunt began buying silver futures at $1.95/oz. What stopped Hunt in 1980 was two-fold: Volcker's tight money policies and the COMEX, which changed the rules. No further purchases of future contracts were accepted by the exchange except for shorts who were covering their positions. By March, 1980, the price of silver was at $11. Hunt lost a billion dollars. He had to borrow from the FED to cover his position. He then uttered those memorable words, "A billion dollars just doesn't go as far as it used to." Silver never has recovered. The last two decades have seen a fall of the price of all raw commodities. The nominal price of oil has stayed up, but price increases of finished goods and services have dramatically lowered the purchasing power of the dollar since 1980. It costs $2,150 to buy what $1,000 bought in 1980, according to the inflation calculator at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (http://www.bls.gov) The percentage of American family incomes that is spent on food, for example, has gone down year by year. So, the all metals have dropped in price and have stayed down except for brief upward moves. Is this a permanent feature of the West's economy? Those who think that we are running out of raw materials say no. They are generally not economists. Most economists say yes. They argue that improved extraction techniques and resource-discovery techniques and technological substitutes will continue to place a premium on the knowledge-service economy in relation to commodities. Throughout the twentieth century, the economists have been correct about this except during wartime. This scenario applies to commodities that are used in production. But one commodity is not generally used in production: gold. From about 2,000 B.C. until today, gold has been used mainly as money. The issue is: Used by whom? THE INVENTION OF COINAGE To facilitate exchange, a medium of exchange is crucial. Barter is too inefficient. If you don't have what I want to obtain, or I don't have what you want to obtain, there will not be an exchange unless a third party steps in. He will get a high commission for his specialized knowledge of markets. Money reduces these commissions by making exchange between producers easier, i.e., converting them from producers into consumers. The best definition of money was provided by Ludwig von Mises in 1912: "the most marketable commodity." Historically, the most widely acceptable money commodities have been gold and silver. We read of the patriarch Abram, "And Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold" (Genesis 13:2). Sometime between 700 B.C. and 635 B.C., the king of Lydia, in Asia Minor, began producing the first coins. They were round, uniform, and stamped with a lion's head, the symbol of the Lydian dynasty. This invention was soon imitated by the Greeks. Originally, the coins were electrum: silver and gold. Under King Croesis ("Creesis"), all of the Lydian coins were gold. He was the famous king discussed by Herodotus, who made war on the Persians and lost his empire. But his economic innovation reigned until 1933. I think it will reign again, but that's another story. The world was re-shaped by that invention: the extension of trade and the division of labor. Wealth increased. But there was another consideration, one which became the basis of the visible destruction of the gold standard in the 20th century. Lydia's invention carried with it an assertion, an implication, and a symbol: the sovereignty of the State over coinage. The stamp of the dynasty marked the coins as the monopoly of the State. Civil governments have claimed this sovereignty over money ever since. The stamp not only announced the coin's authenticity; it announced a monopoly. He who counterfeited a coin by adding base (cheap) metals was a violator of the State's exclusive right. The State had to authority to bring negative sanctions against the violator -- not on the basis of his having committed a fraud, but on the basis of violating the exclusive authority of the State to produce the coinage. The practice of debasement had been condemned by the prophet Isaiah two generations before the invention of coinage. "Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water" (Isaiah 1:22). His condemnation was an extension of the law against false weighs and measures. Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment, in meteyard, in weight, or in measure (Leviticus 19:35). But thou shalt have a perfect and just weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have: that thy days may be lengthened in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. For all that do such things, and all that do unrighteously, are an abomination unto the LORD thy God (Deuteronomy 25:15-16). The presence of an authoritative stamp made a coin more acceptable in trade. It reduced the product-seller's risk of not weighing or testing the coins. The fact that the stamp was imposed by the authority of the king did not, in and of itself, make the coin a monopoly instrument of trade. What made it a monopoly was the decision of the king to monopolize the production of coins. He did not authorize others to use his stamp even when their coins matched the weight and purity of his coins. He could have charged them a stamping fee for use on their coins - a trademark fee, in other words. He refused. From that time on, civil governments resisted the production of coins by private parties. Coins were deemed an aspect of State sovereignty. So, three separate analytical issues were involved: (1) the reduction of transaction costs associated with small coins compared to large ingots; (2) the reduction of transaction costs associated with officially stamped metal; (3) the assertion of State sovereignty over coinage. The third was not necessary to the first two. THE FINAL COURT OF APPEAL The judicial issue of sovereignty in the pre-modern world (say, pre-1660) was the issue of divine right. The assertion of divine right was the judicial-theological issue of the final earthly court of appeal. He who possesses legal sovereignty cannot be sued, apart from his permission, for he is judged by no human court. Sovereignty is why the U.S. government cannot be sued without its permission, according to the Constitution. This is why there is so much political pressure on the U.S. government to allow American or foreign citizens to appeal to the World Court and other international jurisdictions above the U.S. Supreme Court. To be the King of the Hill, a court must be the final court of appeal. Without a world supreme court, there cannot be world government. The final judicial court of appeal for money is a nation's supreme court. But the final economic court of appeal is the free market. A court can determine what is lawful money. The free market determines what is actual money. A civil government can legislate the price of money: exchange rates between two forms of money; price controls on goods. The free market will determine what the rates of exchange are in actual exchanges: the black market rate of exchange. Gresham's mid-16th century law says, "Bad money drives out good money." This form of Sir Thomas's law is imprecisely stated. Here is the correct version: "The monetary unit that is artificially overvalued by law will drive out of circulation the monetary unit that is artificially undervalued by law." This means that there will be a shortage of any artificially undervalued currency. The best recent example was the U.S. dollar in relation to Argentina's currency unit in December, 2001. The dollar was artificially undervalued by Argentina's law. Almost no one could buy dollars at the government's fixed exchange rate. There was a shortage of dollars at the phony low price. As always, government-enforced price ceilings create shortages (too much demand). Government-enforced price floors create gluts (too much supply). The government can pass all the price controls it wants. The free market will respond: shortages and gluts. Whenever you hear of a shortage or a glut, think: "At what price?" Whenever a price is established by law, the shortage or glut will remain until this legislated price randomly matches the free market price, at which time, there is no further need for the legislated price. Politicians do not understand that the final court of appeal is the free market. The economy trumps the State. Governments, by imposing added risk for the detection of an illegal transaction, do raise transaction costs, but governments cannot establish the price at which exchanges will take place. There is no appeal beyond the free market. The market, not civil governments, is sovereign. Politicians rarely believe this. So, they play power games with prices. By establishing by law which currency unit is acceptable for paying taxes, politicians can determine which currency unit functions as money in tax-related transactions. But politicians cannot determine at what prices this tax/currency unit will function as money. The free market -- buyers and sellers of money - establish the money prices of goods and services. Consumers, not governments, are sovereign over the value of money. COUNTERFEITING: LEGAL AND ILLEGAL Gold has served as money in free markets for over four millennia. Paper money was an invention of the Mongols less than a millennium ago. Within a century, they had destroyed their currency. Commercial bank-created money is less than six hundred years old. Central bank-created money began in 1694, with the Bank of England. Here is a nearly unbreakable rule: politicians serve their own self-interest by paying off their constituents with money collected from their opponents' constituents. When the taxation of their opponents' constituents threatens to create a tax revolt, or the defeat of the incumbents at the next election, or both, incumbent politicians seek ways to keep the money flowing to their special-interest voting blocs without visibly taxing their opponents' special-interest voting blocs. The key word here is "visibly." Monetary inflation is the preferred solution of politicians. The real cause of the public's increased cost of living can be hidden from most voters, who are economically ignorant, naive, and trusting. Price increases can be blamed on profit-seeking speculators and capitalistic price-gougers. If the currency system were exclusively private, then there can be no element of sovereignty for counterfeiters. Counterfeiters could be brought into a court of law and prosecuted for fraud: false weights and measures. They could not claim that they are beyond the law, above the law, and immune from law suits. Governments can and do make these claims of immunity. They transfer by law to central banks this same political sovereignty. This is why the mixing of judicial sovereignty over money and economic sovereignty over money eventually leads to fraud on the part of governments: monetary debasement, either openly ("thy silver has become dross"), or through the printing of more paper IOU's for gold or silver than there is metal on reserve, or through the adding of digits in bank computers. When a national government has established a State-run gold standard by persuading the public to exchange their gold for the government's IOU's of gold at a fixed price, then the public can retaliate against future monetary inflation. Prices rise due to the increase in the money supply. This would raise the money-price of gold, except that the government or its central bank has promised to sell gold at an official price to anyone who brings in an IOU. The demand for gold therefore rises at the government's artificially legislated price. This is a rational response of the IOU-holders. The government is subsidizing the price of gold. Two groups want access to the promised gold: (A) people who think the government will soon change the rules and (1) stop paying gold for IOU's (default), or (2) reduce the amount of gold that has been promised (devalue the currency); (B) industrial or ornamental users of gold who want to take advantage of the subsidy. If the government wants to maintain full value of its IOU's for gold, then it must stop inflating the currency. This will cause a recession: the reversal of the prior policy of monetary inflation, and the restoration or prices, especially of capital goods. Politicians lose elections during recessions. "It's the economy, stupid." So, they want the good times to continue to roll, which means the printing presses must continue to roll. But then the gold reserves of the government will be depleted. What's a government to do? Franklin Roosevelt's answer was two-fold: (1) confiscate the gold of American citizens in 1933, and, once the gold had come in and had been turned over to the privately owned Federal Reserve System, (2) raise the price by 75% in 1934, thereby transferring to the FED a huge windfall profit. The FED's monetary base rose because of the higher monetary value of its newly received gold, so commercial banks created new credit money to take advantage of these increased central banking reserves. The result was the economic recovery of 1934-36. But when the FED raised bank reserve requirements in 1936, this produced the recession -- a whopper -- of 1937. http://www.independent.org/tii/news/990500Timberlake.html Because the government also raised taxes in 1936, this added to the economy's woes: a double-whammy. After 1932, Americans were no longer able to pressure the government to change its monetary policies. They lost the right of redemption. This abolition of the public's right of redemption had been the decision of European governments, 1914-1925, in response to the war: a suspension of gold payments. Whenever a major war broke out in Europe, governments suspended gold redemption. Why? Because they planned to inflate the money supply to pay for the war. It happened during the Napoleonic wars. It happened in 1914. In between, 1815-1914, Europe enjoyed a century of price stability. The public's right of redemption of gold serves as a veto on the government's expansion of fiat money, or the central bank's expansion of credit money. Until the right of redemption is suspended by the government, the public holds the strong hand. Every government-run monetary system is a compromise with the free market. Every government-run gold standard is based on promises: IOU's issued for gold at a fixed price. This promise is no better than the promise of politicians. The government can always invoke its sovereign right to change the rules. It can legally renege on its promises. It is judicially sovereign. This is the war of political sovereignty - the State's self-imposed immunity from law suits - against free market sovereignty: the public's right to select whatever they as individuals want to use as their currency unit, and their right to bring counterfeiters to justice in the State's courts. Private, profit-seeking counterfeiters have no immunity from law suits, unlike legalized private counterfeiters (central bankers). In the case of the law suits brought by Americans against the Roosevelt Administration in 1933, the Supreme Court refused to hear the cases. (The most detailed account of this subterfuge will be available in a few weeks in a 1,600-page book on the Constitutional history of the dollar, written by Ed Viera, author of the shorter but excellent book, PIECES OF EIGHT. Viera is a Harvard- trained lawyer who has devoted his career to the money question. He is also an Austrian School economist.) Every gold standard that is established by a civil government is a pseudo-gold standard. It is no better than a government promise, a government that claims sovereignty over money, i.e., legal immunity from prosecution for breaking its promise to redeem gold for its earlier IOU's. WHO VETOES WHOM? With any pseudo-gold standard, the government retains the right to veto any attempt by the public to veto the government's monetary policies. When holders of government IOU's for gold begin to present their IOU's and take home their gold, the government can intervene and refuse to pay. Remember, it is not the government's gold; it is the IOU-holders' gold. Anyway, that was what was originally promised. But agents of governments lie. This is their primary function operationally in every democracy: to deceive the citizenry. A pseudo-gold standard allows undeceived citizens to call the deceivers' bluff until the government publicly reneges. This is why any gold standard is hated by all modern political liberals and most conservatives: it places a veto in the hands of citizens. The overwhelming majority of the intellectual defenders of State power dismiss the gold standard as a barbarous legal institution based on a barbarous relic (Keynes). Why barbarous? Because it places a veto in the hand of the barbarians: citizens and non-citizens who can legally buy up the IOU's with depreciating paper money and then launch a gold run on the government's treasury or the government-licensed counterfeiters: central banks and their clients, commercial banks. The monetary skeptics announce, "There's gold in them thar vaults!" When the gold flows out, the day of reckoning draws closer for the purveyors of counterfeit IOU's for gold. The counterfeiters grow desperate. "Their" gold is now being demanded by barbarians -- arrogant citizens who think that a government promise is worth its weight in gold. Finally, the counterfeiters end the illusion of their pseudo-gold standard. They had persuaded the public to sell the government their gold in exchange for IOU's. Then the government defaults. "Tough luck, suckers!" This has been going on for three hundred years. The suckers -- IOU-holding citizens -- never learn. We are more trusting of known crooks (legally immune politicians) than money center bankers are who lend money to Latin American dictators. CONCLUSION The public trusts the government, which claims sovereignty: immunity from law suits. The public also trusts Alan Greenspan. The American public has not had legal IOU's to gold in their collective hands since 1933. They have voluntarily renounced the power of the veto. It has been even longer for most Europeans. The economic veto over monetary policy has been transferred to bond speculators. There are fewer of them than citizens who used to hold gold coins. But they do have a lot of power. They are hated by the government. The Street.com's Daniel Gross reminded us in November, 2001: In 13 years at the helm of the Fed, Greenspan has built up an enormous amount of credibility and clout -- in Washington and New York. His actions in controlling the movement of interest rates have been credited with making or breaking the past two presidencies. George Bush -- the elder -- explicitly blamed Greenspan for dooming his one-term presidency by not cutting rates quickly enough in 1991. "I reappointed him, and he disappointed me," Bush said. Greenspan, on the other hand, made Clinton's presidency. The Fed Chairman strongly suggested, early on, that the president focus on deficit reduction because that would please him and, in turn, the bond market. Clinton exploded: "You mean to tell me that the success of the program and my reelection hinges on the Federal Reserve and a bunch of [bleeping] bond traders?" But with the market-savvy Robert Rubin whispering in his ear, Clinton chose the path of budgetary restraint. Greenspan ratified his 1993 budget plan, and the rest is economic history. In today's political/investing culture, it is difficult for policymakers to make much progress without the cooperation of the bond market. And because the bond market regards Greenspan as an oracle par excellence, the 74-year-old former devotee of Ayn Rand now occupies the catbird seat. http://www.thestreet.com/comment/ballotdance/1164057.html The bleeping bond traders today are called "bond vigilantes." This fits. Vigilantes in the old West used to string up suspected malefactors when the government refused to prosecute, or when, in some cases, the people at the end of the ropes were the local government. For politicians, the free market's speculators who publicly expose the government's monetary policies as detrimental to the public are regarded by the government as barbarians or vigilantes. Politicians hate any veto power held by the public. Bond market speculators are exercising a veto on behalf of the public. The government will do what it can to bankrupt them, hamper them, or in some way remove their veto power. But, in the long run, there is no escape. The free market will veto bad economic policies. The free market, not the State, is economically sovereign. Economic sovereignty trumps judicial sovereignty in the long run. Keynes dismissed the long run. "In the long run, we are all dead." Well, Keynes is dead, and his theoretical legacy is dying. But, for the moment, the rival sovereignties are about equally matched. That's why veto-holding citizens can get burned in the short run when we attempt to exercise our veto. If you think price inflation is coming, sell bonds and buy gold. If you think the opposite, do the reverse. I think price inflation is coming. That's because monetary inflation is here, all over the world. Gary North's REALITY CHECK Issue 107 ------- January 14, 2002 Merrill Cuts U.S. Equity Allocation -- Sharefin, 17:35:52 01/14/02 Mon Merrill Cuts U.S. Equity Allocation ``We have commented that there is a thin line between a liquidity-driven market that anticipates improving fundamentals and a bubble,'' Merrill's Chief U.S. Strategist Richard Bernstein said in a research note. ``The equity market may have stepped over that line.'' Gold Ratios -- Sharefin, 17:33:54 01/14/02 Mon Gold vs Silver & Gold vs Platinum Brabo Nick! -- TYoung, 14:18:36 01/14/02 Mon Who is the enforcer on this site?:) Great to see Donald posting...this could save me hours of reading...like it used to. Who da thunk 20 years ago that large numbers of folk all over the world would be exchanging views as we do now. Hope I get to see the next 20... BTW...where's Disney...oops...jus kidding. Tom Sharefin -- Tallbear, 14:18:17 01/14/02 Mon Nice to have another site to go when the feces flinging on Kitco gets too brown for decent folk. Thank you Nick. @Permabear - Additional Silver Purchases -- Gianni Dioro, 12:39:58 01/14/02 Mon Permabear - Additional Silver Purchases My take on the silver market is that we will probably make a minor correction with Silver sliding for in a week or two before continuing higher. If you look at the 1/10/2002 comex daily silver chart found below (the one with the black line drawn in at $4.76 - the neckline), Silver appears to be forming a bullish inverted Head & Shoulders formation (action from Sep high to present). If this scenario plays out, then we need to form the final shoulder which would be a down/up move and then hopefully we will see silver shoot higher from there. I would say that Silver is a buy at under $4.60 spot, but keep in mind that 4 years ago Buffett paid around $4.50-5.50 for his investment in silver. Silver is a bargain at under $5 IMO and sometimes if you spend your time waiting for the perfect price, you might miss the boat. If you are keen on buying silver but worried about the price, perhaps the best strategy for you would be to average in, i.e buy your silver in 2 or 3 purchases. =============== I wrote this before I was aware of Silver's fall in NY. It looks to me anyhow that silver found support at 4.50 and is ready to form that shoulder mentioned above. Thanks -- Dave, 09:18:52 01/14/02 Mon Thank you Sharefin, I hope your paper all turns to gold. King Report -- g, 09:15:38 01/14/02 Mon The stock market is now in a precarious technical position - one is which dramatic sell-offs can occur. http://www.prudentbear.com/boards/user/non-frames/message.asp?forumid=4&messageid=98741&threadid=98741 Oy-vey -- Sunny Spot, 09:04:41 01/14/02 Mon I haven't even a gold pot to piss in. Oy-vey, er I guess oy-Voy, o-boy. Good to see a spin off, I think. Cash Settlements--Addendum: -- Fan of Sharefine, 09:02:53 01/14/02 Mon Bank may trade energy derivatives for its customers pursuant to '' 5(11)... "We are writing in response to your correspondence dated *. You asked whether Illinois law permits the Chicago branch of * ("Bank") to engage in proprietary trading of commodity related derivatives, including trading in commodity-related derivatives for other than hedging purposes. The activities in which Bank is engaging are similar to the ones approved for national banks by the OCC in the above referenced issuances. Bank enters into these transactions as a counterparty with their customers to assist them in meeting their financial objectives. Bank has the necessary risk management tools and expertise to deal in energy derivatives in a safe and sound manner." INTERPRETIVE LETTER 94 -019 www.obre.state.il.us/CBT/legal/intrltr/Btil9419.PDF - Pervasive Paper Whirled if it's only a paper moon hanging in a cardboard sky what happens to the tides? Way to go, Sharefin -- Fergus, 08:47:56 01/14/02 Mon Thank you for doing this, Sharefin. It'd be nice to renew having a gold discussion site, without although the angst and bashing. I think I'll stay here. I don't post much, but like to learn so lurk fairly often. Good luck! Is this true? -- Who Cares, 07:58:39 01/14/02 Mon I found this at Goldbuggerers petition site Number 11,022 Date 10:10 pm PST, Jan 12 Name: Mike Shiller US Why I am signing this I am very sick and may never get a chance to come clean about Bart Kitnir. I have known him for several years. HE USES THE INTERNET TO PUSH THE ANTI-GOLD AGENDA. HE IS CORRUPT AND MAINTAINS A VERY LARGE SHORT POSITION IN BOTH GOLD AND SILVER! Brabo Sharefin--as ever,sharing freely and 'finely' -- Fan of Sharefine, 07:58:20 01/14/02 Mon Northern Trust isn't an ice floe folks, simply ONE SMALL ice cube . How bad will it get? Think about it tomorrow, Scarlett. Top up our drinks Rhett. "In the MII Deposit analysis, the OCC noted that national banks are permitted, and indeed encouraged, to manage prudently the exposure arising out of bank activities, and they must be allowed the flexibility to use the most suitable risk management tool. What was important in MII Deposit was the fact that the futures hedging activities were conducted in connection with expressly authorized banking activities. Whether the futures hedge was for the benefit of bank customers, as in OCC Interpretive Letter 356, or for the bank's own account, the OCC has concluded that futures hedges are permissible for national banks if conducted in accordance with safety and soundness considerations. The OCC also specifically rejected the argument that purchasing S&P 500 Index futures contracts was impermissible because the bank was not generally permitted to purchase the underlying securities. . . . The ability of a bank to use cash-settled commodity futures and options on commodities not permissible for purchase by national banks to hedge its own risk was expressly analyzed in two subsequent OCC precedents. In the Unmatched Swaps Letter, the OCC concluded that a national bank could act as principal in unmatched commodity price index swaps with its customers and hedge any unmatched commodity price risk exposure using exchange-traded commodity futures.26 The futures would always be cash-settled, and the bank would not be required to receive or deliver any of the underlying commodities. Citing BC-79 and MII Deposit, the OCC stated that the purchase and sale of futures contracts to hedge unmatched swaps is equivalent to using futures to hedge exposure on deposits or loans with interest rates linked to movements in the price of a commodity. In a subsequent letter, the OCC considered a proposal for a swaps program that involved warehousing commodity index swaps and managing them on a portfolio basis.27 In this case, each swap would be hedged with another swap transaction, an exchange-traded futures contract, or an OTC option. As before, the hedging transactions would all be cash-settled and at no time would the bank accept delivery of the underlying commodity. The OCC concluded that these activities were essentially the same as those covered in the Unmatched Swaps Letter and approved the proposal. The OCC specifically noted that banks may use cash-settled commodity futures or options to hedge the risk from a permissible activity, in this case, the swaps transactions, but in no case may purchase those derivatives for their own account. The OCC specifically acknowledged that cash-settled OTC commodity options can serve as hedges and that other cash-settled derivatives involving closely related commodities would also be permitted as hedges. Julie L. Williams First Senior Deputy Comptroller and Chief Counsel http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:693ZbEBX-90C:www.occ.treas.gov/interp/oct00/int896.doc+%22OCC+Banking+Circular+277%22&hl=en or http://www.occ.treas.gov/interp/oct00/int896.doc I'm amazed -- Sharefin, 07:36:50 01/14/02 Mon Here it is I go away to the hills for a quiet drink and lo & behold when I come back. Thanks kindly for all the best wishes & kind remarks. I do hope that this forum grows and grows with decorum, I have little interest in monitoring it nor spending countless hours scanning posts minute by minute. Rather my sense of this watering hole is a place where relevant daily news & information & charts etc can be posted so viewers can quickly get a grasp of the action without having to wade through the morass. There are other forums of high volume content where hopefully the chatter & banter can stay & I'll endeavor to contribute what I come across here. One and all are welcome to post but please keep the volume low & the content high & we'll all enjoy the information exchange. There's little I can do to control content here & hopefully none will be needed but the ultimate threat is that I totally censor the forum if it falls by the wayside. So with the above I say thanks to all for the welcome & welcome yourselves. Namaste Nick Hello Sharefin -- FRED C DOBBS, 07:26:34 01/14/02 Mon Good luck on your new site. An alternative to Kitco is long overdue. Let's hope it doesn't fall down the same slippery slope of trolls and psychotics. Unfortunately, I see a couple of Kitco's less desireable characters have already shown up here. Will you be exercising more control over content and behaviour than does Bart? Checking it out -- LostDutchman, 06:35:06 01/14/02 Mon Sharefin, thought I'd see what all the buzz is about. Looks nice! Greetings and Congrats -- PH in LA, 06:32:17 01/14/02 Mon Greetings Sharefin, Thanks for the new forum site. With nothing new to offer, I restrain myself to lurker activities. Waiting patiently for FOA's rains to come. Till then, you won't see much from me, but I'll be here nevertheless. Hey Sharefin.....nice digs -- RIP, 06:29:05 01/14/02 Mon Missed your analysis at the old place.....best of luck. (Tap) (Tap) This thing on? -- Jorick, 06:08:17 01/14/02 Mon Nice board. I hope the slime doesn't migrate from Kitco. GOOD MORNING GOOD PEOPLE -- TheFatMan, 06:00:16 01/14/02 Mon HEY, anybody seen AuSODOMITE? Sehr Gut, Sharefin!! -- JPS, 05:51:08 01/14/02 Mon What a great idea! Hello friends, old & new! Congratulations -- oldhickory, 05:45:57 01/14/02 Mon Missed your postings. tes t -- BillD, 05:30:41 01/14/02 Mon test .. will be lurking .. go finnie!! Glittering New Site -- Steve Ellis, 05:23:53 01/14/02 Mon Onward and upward, Congrats on your new site HAR! -- Eldorado, 04:52:56 01/14/02 Mon Sharefin. This looks like a fine upstanding place to hang ones hat! Thanks! one door closes -- duppy, 04:51:09 01/14/02 Mon ANOTHER one opens....yo finny regards from the PromisedLand dUp Hi folks -- miro, 04:47:21 01/14/02 Mon another good site to escape the wrath of Kitco rowdy crowd. Good, thankee much. Book marked, as it sure has less nonsense than Kitco Hi all ! -- RossL, 04:38:09 01/14/02 Mon Just stopped by to check out the forum.  Congratulations -- Farmer, 04:30:46 01/14/02 Mon Well Done Finny I was very distressed when you departed Kitco so am very chuffed to find this site. Farmer B R A V O S H A R E F I N ! ! -- Heavy Metal Sunshine / MetalMoonshine, 04:22:35 01/14/02 Mon The Next Wave is Here! S H A R E F I N ! ! ! Very Nice Indeed. We've been needing an alternative to Kitco as you are all too aware. It is now even worse than when you pulled out. Glad to see you're doing well. Been missing the breath and depth of your posts to shining the light of understanding into the dark corridors of the precious markets. HMS Hello -- UGotGold?, 04:02:17 01/14/02 Mon The gangs all here. Only problem is that there is no way to verify posters because there is no password. sharefin -- Gurk, 03:56:50 01/14/02 Mon Nice one! So news of your demise was premature. :) ATB Gurk Another Gold forum -- Jims101, 03:33:57 01/14/02 Mon Referred over here off the Kitco site. Be interested is seeing how things develope....Thanks to the host.... .Better than Kitco by a mile -- Jere Smith, 03:15:54 01/14/02 Mon Hit returen too quick, people who know me will unnerstand I hope. Retired Soldier here, I agree with the Cobber, too slimy over at our old beloved KB&G all the best guys have left. I promise to behave and not START anything here. I only resppond over there when they really make me mad or go after my friends. Congratulations, Sharefin!!!! -- THC, 03:12:20 01/14/02 Mon Congratulations on the inauguration of your new metals forum!!!!! Wishing you much success and happiness in the new year, THC .Better than Kitco by a mile -- Jere Smith, 03:12:10 01/14/02 Mon nice one finny! -- WIFFO, 03:05:33 01/14/02 Mon congratulations on putting this site up! Hi Sharefin & Other old friends -- Cobra, 02:09:30 01/14/02 Mon I have been following your progress here for a while & I linked it to Kitco on Saturday. Seems it's taking flight nicely. It's very nice to have communication almost always. I hope I may be of some service in the tumultuous days and weeks to come. Hopefully all of us can profit from this new association that you have so graciously provided. Andele' El 0R0 I like it ! -- $hifty, 22:49:51 01/13/02 Sun Another good site to add to the list! Im sure I will be lurking! $hifty Looking Around - Nice Digs -- Black Blade, 22:11:19 01/13/02 Sun Hi Sharefin, just dropped by to take a look. Good to see you're still around. Good to see another PM resource getting established. I shall book mark this site. Cheers! - Black Blade cobber -- offal, 21:42:07 01/13/02 Sun demise of the kitco forum ... kinda like the USA auto industry, japs came in, copied the good stuff, got rid of the bad.. notice how VOY forum uses kitco attributes ... example: heading layout, time, date. then the body of the text, even word wrap, use of full screen, and html! fwiw, i consider it another bullish indicator for gold.... as i expect (and hope) to see many, many, new handles over more 'portable, hard asset' forums Great New site -- G-San, 21:02:12 01/13/02 Sun Great site. Hope to be able to contribute some gold info from Japan. All the best G Compliments and Congratulations on this New Site.!. -- ThaiGold, 20:18:59 01/13/02 Sun @ Sharefin... My sincere compliments to you and this wonderful new resource.!. I'm sure it will become a treasure trove of Precious Metal news; graphics; insights; and commentary. From what I see here, it already is.!. A wonderful addition to your fabled Sharelynx Site. We will all benefit from your creativity. And my Thanks to @ thmann for dropping by EagleRanch today to bring it to our attention. Now that we've found it, will do all we can to link and promote it. My Gosh.!. You even got @ reify to come out of retirement. He will for sure want to take a photo of this new sunrise. I am especially glad to see your HTML format here, where you can display many or your excellent charts vividly to enhance postings and illustrate important points clearly. Everyone will enjoy that and further appreciate your extensive effort in tracking all the important PM data. Such a resource.!. Thank you again, Nick, and I wish your new Forum/Archive all the sucess it richly deserves. We'll watch that little hit counter SOAR. Hopefully, just like the PM charts.!. Cordially, ...Tai Silver market hypothesis -- SteveIS, 19:41:04 01/13/02 Sun The price is higher in London. The Comex totals aren't shrinking. It is a simple arbitrage to lock in the differential by sending silver to London. Why isn't it happening. Because the US price is the most important price to control (ask Ted Butler). The silver is being bought in London destined for US. It is used to depress US price. Also by increasing comex inventories they help maintain the illusion of plenty of silver. Finally some of the silver is necessary to replace any silver lost when the trade towers fell. In any event silver whatever silver there is is being sucked up by strong hands. A drop in price is nothing to fear. This is the year they lose control. Namaste' P.S. thanks sharefin for all that you do! Additional Silver purchases -- permabear, 19:06:36 01/13/02 Sun Ok, my first message worked, now for a serious question from the technical experts. I have established a nice stash of physical silver but now want to make another purchase. The sharp climb in price since November has me worried I may be stepping in right at a short term top. Is there any reason for me to be concerned about this? Better yet, if this is NOT a safe spot for new purchases, what level of support should I wait for? Sharefin site -- permabear, 19:01:20 01/13/02 Sun Is this where one escapes from kitco? Looks like I'm not the only one. Hmmm -- thmann, 15:21:05 01/13/02 Sun Very nice place you have here sharefin, I probably won't be posting much here, but will certainly be lurking. Eagle Ranch is ANOTHER spot I've been hanging out. I see you have them linked above, I just posted your link here over there. Back to (bullish) lurk mode. thmann Demise of the Kitco Forum- -- cashcobb, 14:14:51 01/13/02 Sun The Kitco pond has become to slimy to swim in--I will post my comments of substance here and others places (when I have any)..............JC @Sharefin -- Galearis, 09:54:13 01/13/02 Sun I was pleasantly surprised to see this wonderful web site page addition to our gold community and plan to visit and contribute to the flow. Best regards, G. Enron -- Sharefin, 04:37:01 01/13/02 Sun ENRON EXPLODING - MAY CONNECT TO MONEY LAUNDERING Normandy Revulsion -- Sharefin, 04:33:18 01/13/02 Sun 2002 is going to be the year of volatility - currencies, indices et al And the PM's will be right in there. The charts are shaping up well. As for Kitco - well if I say nothing then I can't put foot in mouth..... Say no more..... Go gold...... Cheers........ Sharefin. -- Normandy revulsion, 04:17:18 01/13/02 Sun I have missed your posts on Kitco. I read a few of the posts directed at you and do understand why you no longer contribute at Kitco. It is good to see an aussie gold site like yours. Keep up the good work. i hope you swooped on a few of the aussie pennies. 2002, the year for Gold. Put your balls on it. Selling stocks -- Sharefin, 04:10:35 01/13/02 Sun Return of the retail investor? Trimtabs, which monitors liquidity conditions in the US, says that equity mutual funds suffered a $4.8bn outflow in the first week of January. This is highly unusual. Normally, January is a good month for inflows as investors make their "New Year resolutions" to save more. This time round, however, they may be disillusioned after two successive years during which their equity investments lost money. At the same time, companies sold $3.5bn of new offerings in the first week. Again, Trimtabs says this is unusual, even unprecedented; normally the first week of the year is very quiet for new offerings. We have seen a similar wave of offerings in Europe, with share or convertible bond offerings from Vivendi, Infineon and Publicis so far this week. Furthermore, insiders have resumed their share sales. According to Bijal Shah of SG, sales are now outweighing purchases by three-to-one. For a brief period in late 2001, purchases were in the ascendant. XAU & Bollinger Bands -- Sharefin, 03:19:29 01/13/02 Sun Check out this monthly 10 year chart of XAU Kapex -- Sharefin, 00:53:26 01/13/02 Sun Thanks for the count & comments. Another push up in the metals would be very bullish. Just to taunt you  Also this one which I believe is a strong trigger at the moment. It's the composite of AG/AU/PL  ------ Who Cares I wouldn't take to much notice of what GoldBuggerer ever says. When you're that far twisted what actually makes sense.... Dr Doom -- Sharefin, 00:20:53 01/13/02 Sun The treacherous nature of bear market rallies Is this true? -- Who Cares, 22:57:50 01/12/02 Sat I found this at Goldbuggerers petition site Number 11,022 Date 10:10 pm PST, Jan 12 Name: Mike Shiller US Why I am signing this I am very sick and may never get a chance to come clean about Bart Kitnir. I have known him for several years. HE USES THE INTERNET TO PUSH THE ANTI-GOLD AGENDA. HE IS CORRUPT AND MAINTAINS A VERY LARGE SHORT POSITION IN BOTH GOLD AND SILVER! Gold.................... -- kapex, 08:28:16 01/12/02 Sat Gold....................... -- kapex, 11:25:49 01/12/02 Sat As I look at the Gold market in here, one can't help but see the level of "interference" that happens each and every time Gold and Silver get to critical points. For now, Elliott waves are not saying much more than they did a couple weeks ago. That being the structure is muddy, but positive. Unless you have a bearish tilt and then you will see Everything as negative. Take for instance the Elliott wave futures guy Peter DeSario. He posted and e-mail update that said we were in a triangle and are thrusting out to the upside. In other words, he says the action was an A-B-C in the making in that we had the A, and the B was a triangle and we broke out to the upside for the C in the making. Now, you would have to have a view that all the action since the lows has been a correction upward including the action since the May high. It very could be an upward correction. I can not in any good conscience say definitively that Gold will do this or that now and that This or That IS the proper count. There is a count that is correct in there somewhere and looking at the longer term picture yields clues about that. When the pressure comes off the Gold market, it will clear up the Elliott pattern and will validate the bullish tilt. At this stage I have ruled a couple things out. I don't think there is any way the Gold market is going below the old lows. Therefore, to comment on DeSario's triangle is to look at it the way he does and I see a Much different picture. For instance, where he see's an A-B-C up, I see a 1-2 and 3 beginning now. http://www.Treasurestatefutures.com/chart/ts_cha72.gif The weekly Gold chart above is doing things which lean to the bullish camp, not the other way. For instance: The simple trend lines from the 99 high down across the May high has been surpassed this week. Just like the weekly Silver chart in which the down trend line from 98 across the most recent Sept. 9-11 related high has and was surpassed last week. http://www.Treasurestatefutures.com/chart/ts_cha82.gif They are in new Breakout territory. Look at Gold's weekly chart above. Make a trend line from the April low up across the next low and carry it over. Notice how prices tried like hell to break out below but couldn't do it? The prices make a nice track along that up trend line until this last week where they did two things. They sprinted away from it to the upside, and broke out above the down trend line from the 99 high across the May high. Gold does have, unlike Silver, one more line to bust through before it has broken though all down trend lines and that is the recent high in Sept. from the wave (1) 99 high. I would say a weekly close above 289 nearest futures would break that one too. From an Elliott perspective, one could say the action from the May high is a large A-B-C. This would mean that the May high being a 1 of Some sort, either a second 1 with the first high from the Feb low as a 1 also. The action could then be counted (which then might give DeSario's count some validity if it was a part of something larger and not just an upward correction in a downtrend), as follows; The initial decline from the May high is obviously the A wave down, it then shows on the weekly as a 3 wave move up to the Sept. high and this would be the B. The action from the Sept high would then need to be a C wave decline in which the first 5 down is an A, "THEN" the action up from there could be an a-b, with the b being the triangle he is speaking of with the c of wave B happening now with the thrust out of that up. That would be the 3 wave counter move to an initial wave a decline. Sooooooo, the count from the May high could be still bullish with more work to do on the downside without a new low in the picture. It just needs a full C wave decline from the Sept. high of what would be a wave B into a low below the lows set after the May high. In the 260's. If his count is more a Part of a correction rather than something more bearish, than I could agree that it is a very plausible scenario, maybe even very likely. The large A-B-C from the May high, not a more bearish count that PD May have. I do not know what his bigger picture is. That bigger A-B-C is something I have talked about before and have said is a real possibility. Buy on the dips. I do not see any sort of GSD at all! We have already had it. There is no one who has any to spike it down. The news is that most everyone has done all their leasing (countries) and have sold it as well. Most are looking for a graceful exit, not a new opportunity to sell more. That so many are still talking about it is a Good thing! The best of things actually! I would say that there is a real possibility of the large A-B-C and then we would be off. It fits the shaking of the tree one more time. A more bullish count and I have been leaning that way because of the factors I mentioned earlier with the trend lines and stochastics I have mentioned before, is the recent action is wildly bullish. The low on the daily and the action since then would be a 5 wave advance for a 1 with the sideways action a 2 or even a pennant with the 3rd wave leaping up out of it. http://www.Treasurestatefutures.com/chart/ts_cha21.gif As you can see above, Gold come off it's post 9-11 high decline into that low in early Dec and went up in a 5. That's Good! It has gone sideways since while Silver was shooting up. Try to find a trend line on the Dec daily that it hasn't broken to the upside! So, while the wave structure may not be clear, the price action and bullish trend line breaks Are! I am NOT a pure Elliott Wave guy. I like the simpler tools to tell me what's happening. The PTB are strong and are not going to let Gold go up $100 over a very short period. I said yesterday and a month ago that Silver and Gold looked set to explode. Silver has. Gold may be. But I don't mean to the moon or anything. We are up $20 from the recent lows. I mean another 20 to 30$ by explode. From where we were and where we are, that is a pretty good start. The triangle that PD was talking about had a double inside week on the weekly. The last double inside week was after the Sept high and when it broke out it went in that direction. Down. This time it broke out UP and we shall see. If we are going to go back down to the 260's, I hope you all take advantage of what it will be! Another opportunity. Cheers! The Credit Bubble Bulletin -- Donald, 05:50:25 01/12/02 Sat "It's little wonder that gold caught a bid this week". Be sure to read all the way to the bottom for an outstanding analysis of the Argentina problem. Expect more Argentinas -- Donald, 04:32:48 01/12/02 Sat Argentina is just the latest victim of the scheme which allows the U.S. dollar to be the reserve currency of the world. The End of Silver Leasing? -- Sharefin, 21:33:54 01/11/02 Fri The End of Silver Leasing? The Spike That Never Happened -- Sharefin, 21:17:36 01/11/02 Fri Actually the spike did happen as can be seen in the following two charts. So for some mysterious reason Kitco decided to change the price - perhaps it wasn't to their suiting - I don't know but it certainly makes one wonder about their displaying accurate data. Here's the daily tick-by-tick chart showing the price spike.  And the monthly tick-by-tick chart.  Going back to the Kitco chart where the spike is absent it appears that someone cut & pasted the prior 1/2 hours data into the time where the spike occurred. So now we have proof that the price of silver is manipulated...as well as the price of gold...... I now presume that certain people did not want it known that silver had broken to new highs giving more optimism to the silver rally and causing the price to surge higher. So perhaps they contacted Kitco and asked for the price to be adjusted to meet their needs. I don't know and can only speculate as to why the price was adjusted. Kitco posted that the London Fix for silver on the 10th was 4.845 ------ I also noticed that many other data suppliers did not quote the price of silver as breaching 4.80. Bohl has the OHLC for silver on the 10th for the contract SI02H as 4750 - 4760 - 4680 - 4700 So I cannot explain why their data missed out recording the new highs for silver Here's some other charts that also don't show the price spike. TSF Silver Chart FutureSource Silver Chart BriteFutures Silver Chart So it appears that even though the price of silver traded up to as high as 4.865 that many data feeds were adjusted not to reflect the price spike. Data vendors are presumed to supply clean data and not adjusted unless an error has been made. Obviously when reviewing the above one comes to the conclusion that someone high up with enough clout can whisper in the right ears and get data adjusted to suit their needs. It certainly makes me wonder when reviewing data that is it accurate or not? We as humans are being led along by higher authorities into believing what they want us to believe. They wish us to believe that silver never broke to new highs when it actually did. More power to silver and power to the people who hold it physically and wish top see the end of this manipulation. So silver printed a high of $4.865 on 01/10/2002 but you won't see that from your data provider. But believe it you should and you should change your data to reflect this actual price spike that occurred when London opened. Argentina devalues peso 41% -- Donald, 16:54:29 01/11/02 Fri Analysts say the devaluation effectively wipes out the capital of every bank in Argentina. Foreign companies clobbered. Argentina bank deposits frozen for 1 year -- Donald, 01:52:34 01/11/02 Fri Argentina freezes bank deposits. Protests resume. General Motors is one victim The Spike That Never Happened -- Sharefin, 22:23:38 01/10/02 Thu On the 10th Jan the live silver chart from Kitco recorded a silver price spike of what appears to be $4.865 This spike timed in exactly with the same time frame as the day before & the day before that, in that when London opened the price rose sharply. My expectations were that the price was acting to the demand situation in London, which is apparently tight.  Now on the 11th I go back to look at the spike and it's gone.  Now did someone wipe out the price spike & remove it? I don't know. What I do know is that if this current rally is to be contained then the current print high should be the top. The price needs to trade down from here or it's going to break out in a hurry and head much higher. As can readily be seen in this chart:  So was that missing price spike a portent of power bearing down on the price of silver? Or was it some data error that self corrected along the way somehow? I don't know but what I do know is that at the current price of silver there's no room for higher prices without a major breakout. And we all know the silver shorts don't want that to happen. Old links -- Sharefin, 20:09:56 01/10/02 Thu Enron Reflected In Gold Accounts Racket The Long Wave Gold Cycle JPM Derivatives Monster Grows Making Sense Of The Gold Price - pdf file The Harvest Of Intervention Herd Mentality -- Sharefin, 20:05:40 01/10/02 Thu Stockbrokers may act like sheep The Art & Science of Speculations -- Sharefin, 20:02:23 01/10/02 Thu Great Speculations Enron -- Sharefin, 19:49:24 01/10/02 Thu Enron is not Bush's Whitewater - It's Worse Andersen Says Its Employees Destroyed Enron Files US set for $1 trillion of Internet writeoffs -- Sharefin, 19:34:57 01/10/02 Thu US set for $1 trillion of Internet writeoffs US COMPANIES could be forced to write off a total of $1 trillion (£690 billion) in the first three months of this year to cover the cost of acquisitions made at the peak of the Internet boom, analysts said yesterday. Under new accounting rules that have already forced AOL Time Warner to write off up to $60 billion, US companies will have to give details of the amount they overpaid for acquisitions during the boom of the late 1990s and early 2000. Paranoids with enemies? -- Sharefin, 19:30:31 01/10/02 Thu Paranoids with enemies? Is the price of gold being manipulated? Sometime toward the end of the Battle of the Atlantic, notes John Hathaway of Tocqueville Asset Management in New York, U-boat captains suspected that the Allies had broken the German Navy's secret code. They thought this because of the eerie way in which, when they surfaced to radio their position home, warplanes promptly arrived to drop depth charges on them. But the High Command dismissed the idea as crazy. Just a little more lateral thinking might have brought them to the truth: The Allies had in fact been reading all Axis codes since the beginning of the war. Hathaway is perhaps the most respectable Wall Street convert to another apparently crazy idea: that the gold market is being managed. Goldbugs, notoriously obsessive, have been muttering this for some time as the price of the metal has fallen to inflation-adjusted levels not seen since 1971. A Delaware corporation called the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (www.GATA.org) has retained Berger & Montague, Philadelphia antitrust lawyers, to act against the financial institutions, bullion dealers and investment banks it considers responsible. Similarly, Reginald Howe, the proprietor of the investment website Goldensextant.com and a lawyer, is suing the Bank for International Settlements, as well as Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, and financial institutions for colluding to suppress the price of gold. Hathaway says that what got his attention was trading action at New York's COMEX on June 27. Gold had been rising on the growing perception that the authorities were panicking in the face of gathering recession. Suddenly, a massive unidentified seller broke the gold rally. A few minutes later the Fed announced one in its series of cuts in the interest rate, which normally would have sent gold soaring. But in the thin gold market, Hathaway explains, carefully timed interventions can have long-lasting reverberations. Gold continued to slump. "It sent the message 'Gold tanks-t-he authorities are in control!'" says Hathaway. Not for the first time. But for him, this was one depth charge too many. "Governments try to manage exchange rates and interest rates," he asks. "Why not gold?" In fact, as recently as the mid-1960s, central banks quite openly managed the gold price, through the so-called London Gold Pool. The effort failed when the inflation of the 1960s made the demand for gold uncontainable. In back of Hathaway's question is an even more ominous possibility. Has the recent unprecedented appreciation of U.S. financial assets simply been a great credit bubble--which the authorities are struggling desperately to control through such measures as a repressed gold price? He thinks so. "The price of gold in perpetual checkmate became a central motif in the mythology of the new economic paradigm," he writes in an essay on his company's website (www.tocqueville.com). He says that a "bipartisan consensus" believes a strong U.S. dollar is necessary to attract foreign finance, and weak gold makes the dollar look better. Peter L. Bernstein, an economist and author (most recently of The Power of Gold, which notes the metal's lost oomph), discounts talk of a conspiracy. "The world's a big place, and there are big market forces at work," he says. "Gold is like a bond that doesn't have a maturity." However, he suspects, a snugger supply after Sept. 11 and demand for jewelry will lift the price, which lately has lagged below $280 an ounce. Just wait until the jig is up, says Hathaway. "Eventually, gold will be a multiple of its current price," he says calmly. "$2,500--maybe $5,000." Again with the Argentine crisis deepening -- Donald, 12:00:04 01/10/02 Thu Argentine crisis spreads wordwide -- Donald, 11:52:57 01/10/02 Thu Ludwig von Mises -- Sharefin, 08:35:35 01/10/02 Thu Tribute To A Pro Gold Economist Ludwig von Mises -- Sharefin, 08:32:32 01/10/02 Thu Tribute To A Pro Gold Economist The gold bull of 2002 -- Sharefin, 00:03:36 01/10/02 Thu The gold bull of 2002 SILVER---THE MAXIMINUS OF INVESTMENTS! -- Sharefin, 23:46:53 01/09/02 Wed SILVER---THE MAXIMINUS OF INVESTMENTS! Prospector Asset Management -- Sharefin, 20:59:59 01/09/02 Wed Daily Commentary Today we saw a very substantive rally in gold, one that this firm and our clients have been awaiting for some time. All the white metals, silver, platinum and palladium opened the day quite firm as silver benefited from continuing very high lease rates and the PGM's saw some buying in the Far East. Gold was up a bit in sympathy, flirting with the $280 resistance level. All the locals and many funds got short at this level, as gold has failed from this price on many recent occasions. All of a sudden, one large NY bullion bank came into the market buying very heavily, which propelled prices through very large resting buy stop orders. The market skyrocketed up over $5 as all sorts of technical chart points were violated. For a few minutes, I must say that it even looked like it wanted to go over the $285 level in spot, but reason took hold and the prices were sold back a bit into the close. Silver was up from the opening bell as lease rates seem unrelentingly strong even though we keep climbing in price. London silver was (gasp!!) trading at a 10-cent premium to New York silver all day. Dear readers, I have been around an eon or two in these markets and I do not remember such a premium occurring. Silver stayed strong all day but did not rally when gold broke out to the upside. It just kept its previous levels. The next 20 cents in silver will be hard going in my opinion as significant resistance lies between $4.80 and $5.00. The "irrational exuberance" in the silver market shows itself in some of the option premiums. I was made aware that at least 400 May $8.00 calls traded for over 2 cents per ounce today. Please understand that these expire in about 3 months and represent almost a DOUBLING of the current price level. The rumors keep flying and prices keep rising. This has become a market for the gambler, not really for the speculator. And the mysteries of the market persist. Platinum and palladium started today higher all day, and then suddenly collapsed at the end of the day. The technicals that I follow still call for lower prices and I still believe that the upside of these metals is sorely limited. As the equities market decline, and they had a most poor showing today, these metals will have further difficulties. That is, unless we see "currency hedge" buying out of the Far East. But this looks rather doubtful. I thought it might be fun to discuss the mysteries of the silver market at present. Please be aware that I will be just be asking questions. If I had the answers to these issues, I would (well, perhaps I wouldn't...) be writing about them. The financial press keeps alluding the "unknowns" in this market, and I thought it would be illuminating to portray just a few of them. SILVER LEASE RATES Earlier this morning in London, the midpoint of the 30-day lease rate for silver was about 25%, an extremely high historical rate, not seen for about 4-5 years. This means that an investor could lease out his silver and receive almost 10 cents per month in interest or a lease payment. This would indicate that the physical market is EXTREMELY tight and silver needed to be borrowed, and badly. A very bullish sign. Now, lets look at the one-year rate which was about 3.5% per annum, or about 18.8 cents per annum or 1.6 cents per month. So....if you borrow silver for one month, your cost is almost 10 cents while if you borrow for a year, your cost is only 1.6 cents per month. Wouldn't it make eminent sense to borrow silver for a year (borrow long), and lease it out for a month (lend short)? If lease rates held for just one more month, you would recover ALL of your committed expenses for a year lease, while still having 10 months to profit from leasing your silver short term? Please understand that all components of this trade can be hedged; please take my word for it as I do not want to get into the specifics of the transaction. (Well, for the right price I would tell). So, pray tell....why have short-term rates for silver leases gone ballistic while long-term rates have been relatively unaffected? Why haven't major players in the market seen the obvious? Just what is going on here? It makes no logical sense. NEW YORK VS. LONDON SILVER PRICES For over a month now, silver prices in London have been 5 to 9 cents over the price of silver in New York. One would naturally expect to see silver leave New York warehouses to seek the higher price in London. And, yet...that has not occurred. In fact, silver inventories in New York have increased during this period of time. Again, please take my word for it, this trade can be totally hedged and arbitrage profits are virtually assured, and yet, it has not happened. Why? OPEN INTEREST ON THE COMEX In virtually every rally in silver prices on the exchange over the past 20 years, we have seen open interest (the number of silver contracts outstanding) expand as prices surged higher. In this current rally, we have not seen this at all. In fact, most of the buying has been demonstrated to be the covering of short positions by the large speculative funds, and not fresh buying. How does this play in the prospects for the market? WHY HASN'T THE PRICE DONE BETTER? This is certainly a subjective evaluation of over 25+ years of trading and watching the market. But the last time we saw such a persistent level in short-term lease rates, silver was about $7 per ounce. The past two to three days, where we have seen short-term lease rates of over 20% on a annualized basis, silver prices have gone higher, but not considerably so. I would have thought that silver prices would have done much much better under such conditions. Maybe that means that we are going to $7, but I really doubt that. Another mystery, I suppose. Silver Lease Rates Exploding -- Sharefin, 20:52:25 01/09/02 Wed Current lease rates are: one month rate - 27.84% three month rate - 17.84% six month rate - 10.94% one year rate - 6.37%  Here's a comparrison chart of the lease rates spike in 1998: Silver spike 1998 The rates for one day on the 5th Feb 1998 were: one month rate - 75.63% three month rate - 60.63% six month rate - 45.63% one year rate - 25.66% Lenny's post at the bottom of this page is well worth reading when thinking about the current situation. Japan Central Bank Warns: Deflation, Banking Crisis, Trouble For Yen Ahead -- Sharefin, 20:39:22 01/09/02 Wed Japan Central Bank Warns: Deflation, Banking Crisis, Trouble For Yen Ahead "We will take every possible measure to prevent a run on the banks from ever happening," Yamasaki said. "We won't let the people panic, and we will take measures to prevent the economy from falling into a deflationary cycle." Latest charts - tick-by-tick -- Sharefin, 19:49:23 01/09/02 Wed Gold  Silver  From the Far Side - G-Khan -- Sharefin, 19:36:51 01/09/02 Wed The Truth about Money When you look closely at the money in your wallet or purse, you will notice, at the top of each bill, the words “Federal Reserve Note”. What is the Federal Reserve? Most Americans cannot answer that question. This is quite understandable, as the folks at the Federal Reserve Bank do not publish much information about their activities - and for good reason. Most Americans assume the Federal Reserve Bank is a branch of Government. It is not. The Federal Reserve Bank is a private corporation, owned by foreign interests. This bank and its stockholders control the entire wealth of America. To better understand the true identity and purpose of this corporation, one must go back to the earliest days of our Nation. During the period after the Revolution, our Founding Fathers were approached by representatives of wealthy European banking families who proposed the establishment of a bank for use by America. This bank would provide the money that our young nation would need to grow into a world power. However, the Founding Fathers refused their proposal. The United States, being a sovereign nation, was fully capable of creating its own money supply. This power “to coin money and regulate the value thereof” was given to our Congress in the Constitution. Aside from knowing that the United States had the power to create its own currency, the Founding Fathers were well aware of the motives of the European bankers…. namely, to siphon off the wealth and natural resources of the people through various methods of currency manipulation, just as they had done throughout history in every major country of Europe. Thomas Jefferson expressed the prevailing attitude toward these men when he warned “If the American People ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency… the banks and the corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all prosperity until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered”. The private European banking families, although unsuccessful in their first attempt to gain control over our currency, did not give up. During the next one hundred years, they tried on several occasions to establish their Central bank for America, but the American people, still mindful of Jefferson's warning, quickly caught on to their paper money “tricks”, and public sentiment remained against them. Finally in 1907, a banking panic shifted public opinion against the American banking industry. The European families recognized that finally their chance to take full control of America's banking system had arrived. Fanning the flames of public outrage toward the existing banking system, the European bankers began through the newspapers they owned and lobby groups they funded, to call for “full banking reform”. They clamored for Congressional investigations into the current banking system, and offered their expertise in drafting reforms that would protect the public future bank failures. By 1912, so widespread was public concern over banking reform that Presidential candidates from each political party offered their own carefully drafted versions of a national monetary reform bill. What the public had no way of knowing was that the two main “competing” reform bills were virtually identical, as both were written by the same German banker, Paul Warburg. The public also had no way of knowing that the election campaigns of the three 1912 Presidential candidates were financed by Warburg's firm (Kuhn, Loeb Company), one of the wealthiest and oldest banking houses of Europe. By controlling not only the content of the banking reform bill, but also the results of the 1912 Presidential election, the foreign banking interests were guaranteed that their dream, the establishment of a Central Bank for America (and complete control over America's currency), would finally be realized. In 1913, the foreign banker's Central bank plan, intentionally mistitled “The Federal Reserve Act”, was signed into law by newly elected president Woodrow Wilson. This bill officially transferred Congress's Constitutional duty to issue America's currency into the hands of a private corporation, The Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Stock in this private corporation was not made available to the public, and was purchased by only the powerful banking families. At its inception, the activities of the Federal Reserve Bank were intended to be monitored by the President and Congress. However, over the years, through repeated subtle changes in legislation, the operations of this corporation have been completely independent of all Congressional control. Extremely secretive in its operation, this corporation even refuses to be audited by the United States Government. To understand how the Federal Reserve Bank has successfully transferred the wealth and resources of the mightiest nation on earth into the pockets of its privileged shareholders, it is only necessary to examine the procedure that this corporation employs to create our currency. When the management of the Federal Reserve Bank proclaims that one billion dollars should be created for use by the American people, they simply write a check for one billion dollars. By doing so, new money is thereby created out of thin air, as the Federal Reserve Bank, the creator of money, is not required to have any actual funds of its own to cover this check! With this check they then purchase one billion dollars' worth of US Treasury Bonds from major banks and brokerage houses. The banks and brokerage houses now have one billion “new dollars” in their accounts, which they will then loan out into the economy. In exchange for the check, the Federal Reserve Bank, a private corporation with private stockholders, now owns one billion dollars' worth of US Treasury Bonds. Wouldn't most of us like to be able to open a checkbook with a balance of zero, write a check out for one billion dollars, then instantly have one billion dollars worth of interest-bearing Treasury Bonds placed into our account? Is it any wonder the European banking families were so persistent in their efforts to be granted the right to issue American currency. When the Federal Reserve Bank takes possession of US Treasury Bonds, it also takes control of the real wealth of America, as it is the labor and property of millions of citizens, transferred into the Treasury through taxes, that backs up the actual worth of these Treasury obligations. Each time the private corporation called the Federal Reserve Bank of New York “purchases” a billion dollars in Bonds, one billion dollars worth of American labor and prosperity must eventually be confiscated by the Treasury to “cover the check”. It may now be obvious why Thomas Jefferson so vehemently fought the issuance of America's currency by a private bank. To add to the oppressive nature of our current money system, the Federal Reserve Bank will collect annual interest on the Treasury Bonds it holds, further adding to the indebtedness of the American citizens to the Treasury. One sometimes hears the term “debt money” used to describe the notes issued by the Federal Reserve. Under our present system of money creation, it is a sad fact that each dollar note issued by this corporation places one dollar's worth of debt onto the backs of the American population. The effect of the Federal Reserve Bank on our Nation and its citizens has been devastating. Since 1913, the value of the American Dollar has fallen to 11 cents. Our Gold reserves have vanished. Interest rates rise and fall arbitrarily. A continually-inflated money supply wipes out the value of life-long savings. Within five years, interest payments on the national debt will exceed all revenues collected annually by the Treasury. Sadly, not one in a 100,000 Americans would be able to guess the identity of the actual group responsible for these tragic statistics. The Federal Reserve Notes in our Wallets and purses are not Constitutional money. They are in fact pieces of paper which document America's ever-growing debt to the very clever, very persistent, and very wealthy stockholders of the Federal Reserve Bank. That is the Truth about your money!  Anglogold & Barrick -- Sharefin, 19:25:56 01/09/02 Wed By Nic Hopkins The Times, London Thursday, January 10, 2002 AngloGold, the world's largest gold miner, has confirmed it is seeking to forge stronger ties with Barrick, the Canadian gold mining group, in a move that may pave the way to a multibillion-dollar merger. AngloGold is battling Newmont, of the United States, to win Normandy Mining, Australia's largest goldmining group, in a A$4.3 billion (L1.6 billion) bidding war. Its offer is due to expire tomorrow night. Last month it announced plans for a tie-up with Barrick, involving Barrick and Normandy's assets in Australia and Tanzania, that would take effect should it win the bidding war. The proposed alliance enabled AngloGold to revise its bid for Normandy and stay in the bid race with Newmont, which has tabled a richer cash and shares offer. But Jonathan Best, AngloGold's finance director, said yesterday that Barrick and AngloGold were moving closer, regardless of the outcome of the battle for Normandy. "We've been talking to Barrick for a while now and actively looking for ways to work together," Mr. Best said. "If we lose Normandy, that will not be the end of the road with Barrick." Mr. Best added: "As far as I know there are no plans for a merger with Barrick at the moment. But if there is to be consolidation in the industry, you are not going to do it by mopping up the little guys. The big guns have to come together." Consolidation is rampant in the gold sector. Barrick, the world's second biggest gold miner, recently completed a $2.3 billion (L1.6 billion) takeover of Homestake, also of North America. Newmont, meanwhile, is seeking a three-way merger with Normandy and Canada's Franco-Nevada. AngloGold crept back into contention for Normandy yesterday, with its cash and shares bid coming within a few cents of Newmont's cash and scrip offer. If it sees a rush of acceptances late on Friday, AngloGold may extend its bid. IAMGOLD launches gold money policy -- Sharefin, 19:22:05 01/09/02 Wed IAMGOLD launches gold money policy MARKHAM, ON, Jan 09, 2002 (Canada NewsWire via COMTEX) -- IAMGOLD Corporation (TSE:IMG) is pleased to announce that it has established a Gold Money Policy whereby it has converted its discretionary funds into gold bullion. In terms of this Policy, the Company has converted US$6.5 million into some 0.7 tonnes of gold bullion at an average price of US$285.20 per ounce. The amount of money held as gold is expected to increase in 2002 due to cash inflow from the Company's interests at its Sadiola (38% IMG) and Yatela (40% IMG) Gold Mines located in Mali, West Africa. The Company will currently retain dollar amounts equal to one month of corporate operating expenses. In the view of the Directors and Management of IAMGOLD, the present trading range for the price of gold is significantly below what we regard as appropriate and fair value in the current international economic and financial circumstances. Reserve currencies are presently under pressure because of fears of economic recession and because of measures taken by governments and monetary authorities to stimulate demand through increases in money supply and credit. Gold is the only form of currency which is ultimately not susceptible to governmental and central banking controls, and it thus constitutes the only independent measure and store of value. IAMGOLD Co-Chairmen, William Pugliese and Mark Nathanson said, "Notwithstanding current efforts within the gold industry to promote jewellery demand, we firmly believe in gold's primary monetary role as a safe store of value and that gold is the only form of money that is not someone's paper 'I.O.U.' Given our belief that gold is fundamentally undervalued relative to paper currency, it only stands to reason that we would prefer gold bullion to U.S. dollars." Todd Bruce, President and COO said, "IAMGOLD's new Gold Money Policy distinguishes the Company from the bulk of its peers who are currently divided into two groups: Those companies which, through hedging programs, convert their gold to paper before it is produced, and those which convert their gold to paper the moment it is produced. Therefore, our Gold Money Policy establishes IAMGOLD as the Company that is truly backed by gold." John Ross, Chief Financial Officer said, "If we as an industry don't demonstrate our belief in the monetary nature of gold, why should we expect anyone else to? We firmly believe that our industry can best promote gold by simply using it as money." From the Far Side -- Sharefin, 18:56:51 01/09/02 Wed Comex silver warehouse inventory (bitsboy) Jan 09, 14:34 "We are all watching with interest the silver supply squeeze. All the articles refer to 105 million ounces in Comex warehouses. First of all, Comex does not have a warehouse. There are three Comex approved bank warehouses (vaults). The 105 million figure is very misleading. There are two categories of silver listed by Comex: Registered and Eligible. Registered means a warehouse receipt has been issued and the silver is held for the receipt owner. It does not change hands unless the receipt owner decides to sell it. I own a number of silver warehouse receipts and have no intention of selling until prices are much higher. Yet, my silver is counted in the Registered category. The Eligible category is silver available for but which has not yet been registered (no warehouse receipt issued). As of the close of business yesterday, the 105 million ounces consisted of 70 million Registered and 35 million Eligible. In reality, Comex only has 35 million ounces to meet delivery demand unless someone like me decides to sell their silver." ----- Barron's Historical Data -- Sharefin, 18:43:40 01/09/02 Wed Just updated the layout on Mark's long term data. BARRON's Long Term Charts From the Far Side -- Sharefin, 18:27:27 01/09/02 Wed Note to Charlie from Bob Chapman -------------------------------- Charlie: $5.25 next stop - maybe $6.00 soon. Someone is covering a giant short and there is no physical around. Lease rates at 25%. Gold calls are being bought today for deliver in 2 days, massive, they must be taking delivery. Gold will be up again tomorrow as well as silver. Bob ------------- Silver traders puzzled by move -- Donald, 16:57:55 01/09/02 Wed http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/020109/n09526764_1.html re: silver -- strat, 15:42:47 01/09/02 Wed Lease rates are holding up here. For how long? Some short squeeze. Has manipulation written all over it. Nice site, Sharefin. Thanks. Argentina Delays devaluation, peso slumps on Black Market -- Donald, 12:46:28 01/09/02 Wed http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/020109/n09322474_1.html Today's Big News -- chasabarr, 09:55:29 01/09/02 Wed is this new site. Kudos, Sharefin. Checking in here will be part of my daily routine. Japanese banking report -- Donald, 09:30:48 01/09/02 Wed Nice report on Japan but why just talk about Japan? You can just as easily plug in USA and several others and still have the report be valid. Why do they think it just takes paper to solve the Japanese problem? The Long Wave of Banking -- Sharefin, 08:56:26 01/09/02 Wed The Wealth-Transfer Machine Japan seen on the road to default -- Sharefin, 08:55:06 01/09/02 Wed Japan seen on the road to default WASHINGTON (Kyodo) Japan is on the road to default because it is expected to incur an unsustainable debt burden of $1 trillion in protecting depositors from the collapsing banking system, according to a report released by a Washington-based think tank. "The negative net worth of the Japanese banking system is somewhere above the yen equivalent of $1 trillion. When the banking system collapses . . . the Bank of Japan will need to inject at least $1 trillion into the banks to protect depositors from losses," says the latest issue of the Economic Outlook report by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. The report says the inability of the Japanese government and the BOJ to remove deflationary pressure will inevitably lead to the failure of one or several large banks, and ultimately to the failure of the entire banking system. As the banking system collapses, the Japanese government will have to stave off additional losses of households and business depositors in the banks through recapitalization, it says. The report says the Japanese government will be forced to issue $1 trillion worth of securities that the BOJ will buy and inject into the banking system. "Such systems will probably result in nationalization of Japan's banking system, since the government will have underwritten its solvency," it says. As a result of the issuance of a huge amount of government securities, Japan's public debt will jump immediately by about 15 percent, and the surge in liquidity will cause Japan's currency and bonds to collapse, the report says. "Japan's deflation and debt crisis now constitute systemic risk to the global economy," it says. The report also says that the Japanese government, foreseeing a run on banks, may postpone the March 31 termination of its full refund guarantee for deposits at failed banks. But this will only delay the outright collapse of the banking system. Japan needs "a massive direct injection of liquidity into the economy -- not into the moribund banking system -- through the direct purchase of foreign bonds, corporate bonds and land by the BOJ," the report says. The Japan Times: Jan. 8, 2002 Bassic Blues -- Sharefin, 07:57:58 01/09/02 Wed 2002 the year of volatility. Where some folkes are going to be surprised...... Reify - I prefer the peace -- Sharefin, 07:55:58 01/09/02 Wed  To each a bone -- reify, 07:46:39 01/09/02 Wed Have been at this game, and that's really all it is... for almost 40 years. What have I learned...don't believe anything you see or hear, but learn from personal experience. I'm a bear from way back. I was right, but it cost me a fortune. Why? I'll tell you only if you ask. One learn best from sour experiences not from the wins one has...trust me on this one! Right now I'm looking for the markets to go up and the PMs to correct. Weird eh. For me for sure! But I've learned to call them as I see them not the way I feel, or how it SHOULD BE. That in itself is a big lesson I had to learn with time and experience. Why the gold price offers upside -- Sharefin, 07:43:47 01/09/02 Wed Why the gold price offers upside ------------------- Rerating due for unhedged gold stocks? ------------------- I hope the rise in gold fori translates to a rise in gold! Best of Luck! -- BassicBlues, 07:41:41 01/09/02 Wed Silver pushes higher, leaving gold in its wake -- Sharefin, 07:41:26 01/09/02 Wed Silver pushes higher, leaving gold in its wake LONDON, Jan 8 (Reuters) - The squeeze in silver kept traders guessing on Tuesday morning as spot prices edged to near 12-month highs and the metal geared up for a challenge of resistance thanks to the highest lease rates in four years. After opening flat on the previous New York close, the shortage of silver on the lending market saw spot prices gain a couple of cents to teeter around levels last seen one-year ago at some $4.77 a troy ounce. One-month lease rates, which galloped to 30 percent on Monday morning, held steady on Tuesday. However, most traders said they were still none the wiser as to the cause of the deepest backwardation since billionaire investor Warren Buffett bought 130 million ounces back in 1998. ``I know some people are saying it's ....clearer than it was but I really don't think it is...if it was clear people would trade accordingly, but no one can get to the bottom of who is buying silver,'' one trader said. ``Some are saying it's a ploy to get out by some big speculators who are long, but if that's the case once they start to liquidate it will be obvious and people will shy away. So I don't know that it's this, but then I don't know what it is,'' he added. By 1055 GMT, spot silver was quoted one cent higher at $4.75/4.77 an ounce. Short-term rates have tightened significantly over the last month as metal has disappeared from the lending market, hurling the market into the deepest backwardation in several years. There has also been talk circulating the market that a large amount of COMEX silver stocks are bound for London although GNI Touch Research downplayed the talk in a report, saying there was no evidence to support the theory. Traders said this talk, coupled with renewed speculation about Warren Buffett's involvement and the LMBA's bungled press release last week, is proof that there is a shortage of metal available in London. ``...it would seem as if someone is short in London and struggling to get hold of the metal. It may be a technical squeeze, but it certainly shows that there is not a lot of free metal available,'' GNI Touch Research said. Analysts said the squeeze in silver could be technically or speculatively driven and they added that a corrective pullback on the overbought market should not be ruled out. However they said they saw the price heading towards $5.00 as long as the market remains in backwardation. In other news, the announcement on Tuesday morning that the London Metal Exchange will suspend its silver contract with effect from the close of business from March 1, 2002, had no impact on prices. Enron reflected in gold accounts racket -- Sharefin, 03:42:37 01/09/02 Wed Enron reflected in gold accounts racket PRINCETON, NJ -- The circle is closing on US government accounting improprieties that mirror the events behind Enron's collapse. James Turk, full-time proprietor of GoldMoney.com and part-time conspiracy sleuth, has uncovered the sort of slick financial scheming that gave investors cause to abandon Enron. If the US no longer owns much gold reserve after pledging it for use in dubious off balance sheet transactions, then there is also every reason to short the country's stock - the dollar. Turk shows that the application of business accounting standards to the national accounts has forced a clean up in how the US Treasury and Federal Reserve deal with gold. The net result is a $20 billion hole in the US balance sheet. What he has found does not irrefutably prove the alleged conspiracy against gold, but the fast and loose behavior evident in Fed and Treasury accounting is astonishing. There is no company that could massage its accounts so blatantly, for so long, and not get carpeted for it. But, what is government's purpose if not to formalize dishonesty? Murky The first fiddle relates to the pricing of gold. Prior to 1997, the US gold reserve was priced at market value while gold liabilities were priced at $42.22. Hardly a conservative interpretation of assets and liabilities… GAAP makes that sort of fudge illegal, so the consolidated financial statements reflect the arbitrary lower value for both. That pricing change neatly squares the $11 billion in gold the Treasury makes available to the Fed with its entire stock of bullion - 261.7 million ounces. A fifth of that gold appears to be in foreign hands. Turk has argued previously that the US swapped 1,700 tonnes (54.7moz) of bullion with Germany's central bank, but could find no record in the accounts for it. Now he believes the transaction is revealed within a $31.2 billion foreign currency liability item. He says the swap transaction was further secured by an issue of Special Drawing Rights (IMF funny money). The Bundesbank then transferred ownership of its gold to the US's Exchange Stabilization Fund which made it available to the bullion banks, presumably to cap increases in the metal's price. Turk supports his interpretation of the Bundesbank's call on US gold with the inexplicable reclassification of gold vaulted at Westpoint from "Bullion Reserve" to "Custodial Gold." Accounting phraseology is always more art than science, but its underlying meaning is always purposeful. Some bad news While the new findings contribute greatly to making the case for a conspiracy to suppress the gold price, it is not all positive. Firstly, the Fed and Treasury are not acting illegally. Indeed, they are merely practicing that peculiar modern American art - doing what is legal even when it is wrong. They are free to act beyond the purview of Congress and are enjoying that liberty thoroughly. Second, the national financial statements reveal a negative net worth of around $6 trillion. That makes gold a pinprick in the whole scheme of things. At $300 an ounce, the entire gold stock is only worth $80 billion, or a mere 1.6 per cent of the problem. In that sense it looks irrelevant in the whole scheme of things. However, don't be too quick to dismiss the impact. Would you have rather owned Enron's oil and gas or its stock and bonds when things got pear shaped? Answers are overdue The Enron example goes further. When questions about Enron's murky accounting were first asked of ex-CEO Jeff Skilling and Chairman Ken Lay early last year, they brushed aside the critics as morons. But the morons were right all along. The least a chief executive can do when confronted with evidence of accounting problems is to reassure investors that all is well. As Enron demonstrated, personal assurances are not enough. Complete transparency is required or your stock is going to get flushed past the s-bend. Of course, you may not give a rat's backside about your shareholders because you set the stock price in the first place and you know you'll get paid the super pension regardless. Then the investors are going to get flushed. The best shareholders can do is at take a little insurance, say 5 per cent of your portfolio, and spend it on gold. LME to close doors -- Sharefin, 03:38:26 01/09/02 Wed ODJ London Metal Exchange To Suspend Silver Contract From Mar 1 London, Jan. 8 (OsterDowJones) - The London Metal Exchange (LME) has suspended its silver contract with effect from close of business on Mar. 1 2002 and therefore, with immediate effect, no trades in this contract will be permitted if they have a prompt date beyond this time, the Exchange said. The last day on which cash trading will be permitted is Feb. 27, with Feb. 28 to be the last day on which cash today trading will be permitted, the LME added. The contract will be suspended in the LME matching and clearing system (MCS) and on the Exchange's electronic trading system LME Select at the close of business. The last day on which deliveries can take place will be Mar. 1. The LME will continue to keep the silver contract under review, either in its current form or in a modified form, it said. In order to implement the suspension of trading, the London Clearing House will reset each clearing member's parameter file to prevent entry of LME silver trades into MCS. However, the contract details remain within MCS should a resumption of trading take place. Andrea Hotter, OsterDowJones (ODJ), +44 207 979 5740 Send comments to: ahotter@fwn.com Gold sector consolidation bad news for bullion banks -- Sharefin, 03:25:57 01/09/02 Wed Gold sector consolidation bad news for bullion banks A wave of consolidation in the gold-mining industry could threaten the livelihood of the bullion banks as the number of market players falls, industry experts said. The current tussle between top producer AngloGold of South Africa, and US number-one Newmont Mining for Australia's Normandy Mining is likely to affect the whole structure of the gold market and its middlemen. Nine bullion banks make up the London gold market-making community, among them NM Rothschild & Sons, Barclays Bank and HSBC. Aside from matching buyers and sellers, the banks offer a variety of services, like arranging credit lines for new mining projects or building complex risk-management strategies. But the steady drop in gold prices, the emergence of higher-yield investment assets such as technology stocks, and the global slowdown have forced some banks to join forces or even bow out of the market in recent years. “It is tough to be a bullion banker right now because gold has become much more of a commodity than a derivative play,” said Jessica Cross, a consultant with analyst group Virtual Metals and an expert in gold derivatives. Newmont is also set to merge with Canada's Franco-Nevada, and if its bid for Normandy is successful, it will remove two players from the banks' fast-diminishing pool of customers. “It is the banks that are losing out from consolidation - they have fewer clients, less margins and lower contangos,” one London gold analyst said. “The bullion banks are already saying that they are not getting any business from the supply side, so they are going to the demand side,” the analyst said. Bullion banks play a pivotal role in forward sales, a measure mining firms take to lock in higher sale prices for their gold and reduce their risk. The practice has often been blamed for gold's steady decline in price. In times of falling prices, miners can sell their gold forward to a bullion bank. The bank will borrow central bank gold while it awaits delivery of the mine production and lends this gold back into the market, thereby capping any rallies. Hedging has fallen out of favour with producers in the last two years, since a sudden rise above $300 at the end of 1999 endangered the hedge books of many miners that had sold forward at much lower price levels. This has robbed the bullion banks of much-needed business. “If you do not have this enormous hedge book that you're managing on behalf of the mining industry and on the other side a large lending book for the central banks, the margins are not right and so that area of the business just implodes,” Cross said. If Newmont's bid prevails, it would mean that the world's new largest miner would be a strict non-hedger, as opposed to Anglogold, and this could change trading conditions for the rest of the industry. “Adding to hedges is not a good thing because the market can't stand any more hedging. “It is too illiquid and what they have already is too big,” analyst Andy Smith of London-based Mitsui Precious Metals said. “This is a signal for the end of a trend, which is hedging, that has been dominant for the last 15 years. It has now become a liability because the market has become too small to trade these books,” Smith added. Gold may see steadily rising prices, rather than a sharp uptrend, as the concentration of production in fewer hands would be unlikely to lead to the creation of a cartel, analysts said. “I would say it is supportive of the price in the longer term and that is the best we can hope for,” Cross said. For Barclays Capital analyst Howard Patten, the reduction in producer hedging through consolidation would be positive for gold, but the key to sustainably higher prices lay in consumer appetite. “Removing a perceived limit on prices (hedging) without applying the means by which prices can move higher (investment demand) is rather like opening the birdcage of a dodo, expecting it to fly free,” Patten wrote in an earlier report. Prospector Asset Management -- Sharefin, 03:23:42 01/09/02 Wed DAILY COMMENTARY Today was much like yesterday, with prices closing just about unchanged for the precious metals. Gold, eyeing both option expiration on Comex on Friday and the Bank of England auction next Wednesday, was most immune from any exogenous stimuli and closed up a whole 30 cents on the day while recording a total trading range of less than $1. Silver came in relatively strong today upon news that lease rates in London were 22%/32% for the 30 day maturity. Silver then trended just a bit lower during the day as lending was seen at those exalted price levels, as one could naturally expect, and prices then moved fractionally lower. We closed down 3 cents in silver as the "trade' was said to be a good buyer and the large speculative funds the major sellers. All in all, not much. Platinum and palladium were slightly higher today, although not much so, as some light commercial buying interest was seen in the USA. They were also solidly supported by Japanese "currency hedge" buying in the Far East time zone. The Japanese Yen continues its death spiral and no one has even a clue as to where it may stop, as the government of Japan appears to be taking no steps to halt its decline. If I were a Japanese investor, I would be scared. Very scared. And yet, there is no solid evidence that the Japanese public is as of yet doing much about it. Reports have indicated that they have stepped up their purchases of gold and anecdotal evidence has them buying more platinum on the exchange, but, all in all, the quantities are microscopic in terms of the total potential of capital movement. Since there is not much to talk about today, I thought it might be fun to discuss the mysteries of the silver market at present. Please be aware that I will be just be asking questions. If I had the answers to these issues, I would (well, perhaps I wouldn't...) be writing about them. The financial press keeps alluding the "unknowns" in this market, and I thought it would be illuminating to portray just a few of them. SILVER LEASE RATES Earlier this morning in London, the midpoint of the 30-day lease rate for silver was about 25%, an extremely high historical rate, not seen for about 4-5 years. This means that an investor could lease out his silver and receive almost 10 cents per month in interest or a lease payment. This would indicate that the physical market is EXTREMELY tight and silver needed to be borrowed, and badly. A very bullish sign. Now, lets look at the one-year rate which was about 3.5% per annum, or about 18.8 cents per annum or 1.6 cents per month. So....if you borrow silver for one month, your cost is almost 10 cents while if you borrow for a year, your cost is only 1.6 cents per month. Wouldn't it make eminent sense to borrow silver for a year (borrow long), and lease it out for a month (lend short)? If lease rates held for just one more month, you would recover ALL of your committed expenses for a year lease, while still having 10 months to profit from leasing your silver short term? Please understand that all components of this trade can be hedged; please take my word for it as I do not want to get into the specifics of the transaction. (Well, for the right price I would tell). So, pray tell....why have short-term rates for silver leases gone ballistic while long-term rates have been relatively unaffected? Why haven't major players in the market seen the obvious? Just what is going on here? It makes no logical sense. NEW YORK VS. LONDON SILVER PRICES For over a month now, silver prices in London have been 5 to 9 cents over the price of silver in New York. One would naturally expect to see silver leave New York warehouses to seek the higher price in London. And, yet...that has not occurred. In fact, silver inventories in New York have increased during this period of time. Again, please take my word for it, this trade can be totally hedged and arbitrage profits are virtually assured, and yet, it has not happened. Why? OPEN INTEREST ON THE COMEX In virtually every rally in silver prices on the exchange over the past 20 years, we have seen open interest (the number of silver contracts outstanding) expand as prices surged higher. In this current rally, we have not seen this at all. In fact, most of the buying has been demonstrated to be the covering of short positions by the large speculative funds, and not fresh buying. How does this play in the prospects for the market? WHY HASN'T THE PRICE DONE BETTER? This perhaps is a matter of judgment and the results of 25+ years of trading and watching the market. Personally, after such a long period of time of very high lease rates, I (my own personal observation only) would have thought silver would be at much higher prices than we currently see. The past two to three days, where we have seen short-term lease rates of over 20% on a annualized basis, silver prices have done very little. In fact, today they declined. I would have thought that silver prices would have done much much better under such conditions. Another mystery, I suppose. I hope the above will provide some food for thought. I know that I am confused, but then again, my wife always accuses me of that. And worse. Much worse. There was a very interesting article in the Miningweb.com where Paul Van Eeden discusses the gold/dollar relationship of the past 20 years. While it is certainly understood by readers of this commentary that gold, being priced in USD, is injured as the USD increases in value, it is noteworthy to quote the exact statistics over the past 10 years, "Even though the gold price in USD has declined by over 30% since January 1990, the average gold price in the world has increased by over 20% during the same time. This not only reinforces the concept that talking about the gold price is currency specific but more importantly, it shows that the average gold price in the world is stable and in fact steadily increasing". Well, to be fair, much of the increase is due to the utter collapse of some currencies of the world during the last 10 years, the Malaysian Ringgit, the Mexican Peso, the Russian Ruble, etc. But, it attempts to demonstrate that gold can still be considered a valuable portfolio diversification and "insurance" against currency catastrophes in some nations, but, truth be told....investors in those nations would have been better served buying USD and not gold. The stream of income would have been better and the net return much better. Yes, gold served them well, but USD would have served them better if they were looking at a collapse in the value of their currency. And, I think it a journalistic error not to recognize it as such. The French Are Switching Savings Into Precious Metals Rather Than Euros -- Sharefin, 03:18:34 01/09/02 Wed The French Are Switching Savings Into Precious Metals Rather Than Euros Interesting to note that the Financial Times, once a newspaper noted for its even handed coverage of major events, has now disclosed its position as an Official Euro Partner of the European Central Bank. Small wonder its coverage of the launch of the euro has been so effusive, but a visit to Marseilles which claims to be France's oldest town and Europe's second biggest port, indicates that major doubts are being expressed about the euro by the average French voter. We are not talking about the small irritations of shop keepers and restauranteurs marking prices up rather than down, or the aggravation of being charged a double whammy of commission through francs to euros when exchanging sterling for the new currency. It goes much deeper than that and the first clue comes when visiting a French bank. In a prominent position in the window is a list of prices of precious metals and coins including krugerrands, gold sovereigns and napoleons. A look inside the door shows that the queue at the precious metals counter is as long as all three of the counters selling euros. The banks themselves have given precious metals sales a nudge as most of them do not want to exchange francs for euros as there is no commission on the business. It is no coincidence, therefore, that the precious metals and coins are all priced in francs a full week after the introduction of the euro and when every taxi, shop and bar has switched to euros. They are seeking to catch the business of Monsieur and Madame Average who did not anticipate events by opening an account in Monaco in Swiss francs or dollars for undeclared savings. As Le Figaro pointed out in its Economie edition last weekend "Les Francais se bousculent pour convertir leurs bas de laine." There is no direct English translation of this, but it means that the French are bustling about converting their hidden hoards. Hidden hoards are no innovation on the other side of the Channel. Most French peasants have traditionally kept a bit of money and some gold under their mattresses to face the bad times and it has virtually become a national habit. Multiply these bits of money and coins by two thirds of the French population and you are talking zillions, or milliards of francs as Le Figaro described it. The French franc is regarded as an icon of the nation and distrust of the euro means that a healthy percentage of this money is going into gold. Most of it is in quantities too small to attract the attention of the money laundering authorities, but there is a nice story of a colourful lady of a certain age who plonked down 2 million francs in a bag on a bank counter in Avignon and asked for the equivalent in gold. When the manager started to produce a number of official forms she leaned over and whispered, "Would you like your underlings to know where you go on Thursday evenings, Monsieur?" The documents were withdrawn. This distrust of the euro, as explained by the people of Marseilles, cuts to the quick and should be taken on board by politicians who will need their votes next time round. The taxi driver at Marseilles St Charles station said that it was nonsense to value the French economy on the same basis as Spain, Italy and Greece. He held the last of these countries in particular contempt as being a net taker from, rather than contributor to the Common Market. The owner of the Ruban Bleu restaurant was worried that Germany might have influence on future French financial and economic policies. He was too young to remember when the Nazis blew up several acres around the Vieux Port in 1943 on the pretext that the buildings were sheltering Jews and collaborators, but nor will September 11th 2001 be forgotten in 2069. And the fishwives selling the catch off the boats were even more blunt. The euro, they said, was a dangerous experiment by politicians who have never had any experience of commercial life. Prices and salaries would still vary between countries due to duties and taxes and the introduction of the euro would simply increase the power of faceless bureaucrats. All agreed that it was an experiment which the people of France had not been asked to approve. And like all experiments there was a good chance it would fail. Already the Italians are showing discontent and the Spanish refer to it dismissively as the eurito. Small wonder then that gold is in favour as the French will not have missed the slight increase in the bullion price, the fact that silver hit an 11 month high, nor the improvement in the dollar/euro exchange rate in the first week of the new currency. It may take time to get through the system, but the switch from francs could add up to a lot of tonnes of the yellow metal. |
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