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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Soul Crusher on April 08, 2010, 09:05:19 AM
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The Latest Gold Fraud Bombshell: Canada's Only Bullion Bank Gold Vault Is Practically Empty
By Tyler Durden
www.zerohedge.com
Created 04/07/2010 - 10:30
________________________ ________________________ ______________________
Continuing on the trail of exposing what is rapidly becoming one of the largest frauds in commodity markets history is the most recent interview by Eric King with GATA's Adrian Douglas, Harvey Orgen (who recently testified before the CFTC hearing) and his son, Lenny, in which the two discuss their visit to the only bullion bank vault in Canada, that of ScotiaMocatta, [1]located at 40 King Street West in Toronto, and find the vault is practically empty. This is a relevant segue to a class action lawsuit filed against Morgan Stanley, which was settled out of court, in which it was alleged that Morgan Stanley [2]told clients [2]it was selling them precious metals that they would own in full and that the company would store, yet even despite charging storage fees was not in actual possession of the bullion. It appears that this kind of lack of physical holdings by all who claim to have gold in storage, is pervasive as the actual gold globally is held primarily in paper or electronic form. Lenny Organ who was the person to enter the vault of ScotiaMocatta, says "What shocked me was how little gold and silver they actually had." Lenny describes exactly how much (or little as the case may be) silver was available - roughly 60,000 ounces. As for gold - 210 400 oz bars, 4,000 maples, 500 eagles, 10 kilo bars, 10 one kilogram pieces of gold nugget form, which Adrian Douglas calculates as being $100 million worth, which is just one tenth of what the Royal Mint of Canada sold in 2008, or over $1 billion worth of gold. As Orgen concludes: "The game ends when the people who own all these paper obligations say enough and take physical delivery, and that's when the mess will occur."
Also note the interesting detour into what Stephan Spicer of the Central Fund Of Canada [3], said regarding his friend at a major bank, who wanted access to his 15,000 oz of silver, and had to wait 6-8 weeks for its to be flown in from Hong Kong.
It is funny that central bankers thought they could take the ponzi mentality of infinite dilution of all assets coupled with infinite debt issuance, as they have done to fiat money, and apply it to gold, in essence piling leverage upon leverage. They underestimated gold holders' willingness to be diluted into perpetuity - when the realization that gold owned is just 1% of what is physically deliverable, you will see the biggest bank run in history.
Link to full Eric King interview [4].
________________________ ________________
This is why I have been cautious about all these gold people lately. 9mm & .223 ammo seems like a much better safe investment for me.
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The Latest Gold Fraud Bombshell: Canada's Only Bullion Bank Gold Vault Is Practically Empty
By Tyler Durden
www.zerohedge.com
Created 04/07/2010 - 10:30
________________________ ________________________ ______________________
Continuing on the trail of exposing what is rapidly becoming one of the largest frauds in commodity markets history is the most recent interview by Eric King with GATA's Adrian Douglas, Harvey Orgen (who recently testified before the CFTC hearing) and his son, Lenny, in which the two discuss their visit to the only bullion bank vault in Canada, that of ScotiaMocatta, [1]located at 40 King Street West in Toronto, and find the vault is practically empty. This is a relevant segue to a class action lawsuit filed against Morgan Stanley, which was settled out of court, in which it was alleged that Morgan Stanley [2]told clients [2]it was selling them precious metals that they would own in full and that the company would store, yet even despite charging storage fees was not in actual possession of the bullion. It appears that this kind of lack of physical holdings by all who claim to have gold in storage, is pervasive as the actual gold globally is held primarily in paper or electronic form. Lenny Organ who was the person to enter the vault of ScotiaMocatta, says "What shocked me was how little gold and silver they actually had." Lenny describes exactly how much (or little as the case may be) silver was available - roughly 60,000 ounces. As for gold - 210 400 oz bars, 4,000 maples, 500 eagles, 10 kilo bars, 10 one kilogram pieces of gold nugget form, which Adrian Douglas calculates as being $100 million worth, which is just one tenth of what the Royal Mint of Canada sold in 2008, or over $1 billion worth of gold. As Orgen concludes: "The game ends when the people who own all these paper obligations say enough and take physical delivery, and that's when the mess will occur."
Also note the interesting detour into what Stephan Spicer of the Central Fund Of Canada [3], said regarding his friend at a major bank, who wanted access to his 15,000 oz of silver, and had to wait 6-8 weeks for its to be flown in from Hong Kong.
It is funny that central bankers thought they could take the ponzi mentality of infinite dilution of all assets coupled with infinite debt issuance, as they have done to fiat money, and apply it to gold, in essence piling leverage upon leverage. They underestimated gold holders' willingness to be diluted into perpetuity - when the realization that gold owned is just 1% of what is physically deliverable, you will see the biggest bank run in history.
Link to full Eric King interview [4].
________________________ ________________
This is why I have been cautious about all these gold people lately. 9mm & .223 ammo seems like a much better safe investment for me.
3 you remember i put up a couple of threads about this last month and the month before when the Chinese found out america was selling it Tungsten bars that were dipped in GOLD. India found itself caught in the same game and so did England, Germany and now some shenanigans are going on in Canada. Investigations in america found out that its Fort Knox is EMPTY as well (I posted an article about that). This will all be the next BUBBLE TO BUST and it will not be pretty as some nations are dependent upon their gold reserves to stabilize their currency and/or to give value to it. Many people bought into this GOLD RUSH to secure their future. Now they may find out they have less security than they had before, as the gold they bought will either be tungsten or WILL/DOES NOT EXIST AT ALL.....
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tungsten is pretty expendsive though....
Maybe it wasn't as bad a deal as they thought?
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tungsten is pretty expendsive though....
Maybe it wasn't as bad a deal as they thought?
tungsten is not expensive.
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maybe not in WY...
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what have i been telling you guys about gold, and peter schiff?
Yes, stay away from gold..& schiff's stock picks
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what have i been telling you guys about gold, and peter schiff?
Yes, stay away from gold..& schiff's stock picks
If you are holding physical gold then this means nothing but the price possibly going up. It is already back at $1150/oz, you said it was going to crash. It hasn't and it won't with all the stupid decisions being made by the government, Fed, etc..
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maybe not in WY...
this is per pound. Way way super cheaper than gold.
http://www.metalprices.com/FreeSite/metals/w/w.asp
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what have i been telling you guys about gold, and peter schiff?
Yes, stay away from gold..& schiff's stock picks
If gold stocks are artifically inflated via fake bars, then wouldn't it be the opposite of what you say? Wouldn't this have gold prices shooting up even more, the more false gold stocks are uncovered?
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911 masked a HUGE gold theft from vaults underneath the twin towers.
There were some witnesses who reported seeing armed men in US military uniforms loading up buillion underneath the towers.
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tungsten is pretty expendsive though....
Maybe it wasn't as bad a deal as they thought?
Tungsten is ten dollars PER POUND!!!!!
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911 masked a HUGE gold theft from vaults underneath the twin towers.
There were some witnesses who reported seeing armed men in US military uniforms loading up buillion underneath the towers.
everything is a scam and this whole world is run but a superpowerful few and most of us will never know even a small percentage of what actually goes on in the elite echelons of society.
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911 masked a HUGE gold theft from vaults underneath the twin towers.
There were some witnesses who reported seeing armed men in US military uniforms loading up buillion underneath the towers.
I remember that Jag...It was even addressed in some of the films exposing the whole 911 fraud. i forgot which movie now, but I will search for it. In the film the firemen talked of finding train cars filled with GOLD and SILVER. I remember Scotland, England and a few other countries announcing that very day or the day after 911 that they had their gold stored under the World Trade center in vaults and wanted full account of it. No one ever said anymore about the train cars full of GOLD and SILVER, but someone must know something about it. If you saw the movie NATIONAL TREASURE it referenced this very thing. It showed that under one of the buildings near the world trade center was an underground cavern FILLED WITH GOLD... So this GOLD HEIST was planned long before the 911 collapse.... I tell ya the scum never stops planning or stealing..
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If gold stocks are artifically inflated via fake bars, then wouldn't it be the opposite of what you say? Wouldn't this have gold prices shooting up even more, the more false gold stocks are uncovered?
You are right...I talked about this in one of the threads i started about the gold scam and China. WIth their being LESS GOLD than is claimed the price of GOLD is going to skyrocket possibly to a couple thousand dollars per ounce. I forgot who it was who said that gold ws going to go to 5000 dollars per ounce, but with this kind of news being revealed it will probably get there by this summer and certainly by this fall...not to mention this being another SERIOUS blow to the financial and currency markets. We have yet to learn just how much FAKE GOLD is floating around...
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The only metal that matters is lead and steel. You can keep the rest. :)
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This kind of thing has been going for a long time. Governments in Europe used to "clip" coins that were made of gold and melt the clippings down into new coins, devaluing the currency. Some of the original banks in the US were known for having "barrels of gold" in the vault which were actually barrels of nails with a bit of gold on the top.
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To quote 3333...
"Everybody needs to read this."
(http://raymondpronk.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/the_creature_from_jekyll_island.jpg)
;D
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One of the greatest books I ever read.
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One of the greatest books I ever read.
2/3 of the way through it.
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2/3 of the way through it.
What do you think so far?
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Great book. Really eye opening. I was already familiar with some of the content but have learned way more by reading the book. Interesting view on how inflation is simply a hidden tax on the lower classes. Griffin really drives that point home throughout the entire book.
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I almost wish I never read that book in terms of learning just how much of a ponzi scheme our banking system is.
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Makes it a lot easier for me to throw off my support for the monetary system.
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Makes it a lot easier for me to throw off my support for the monetary system.
The book really hit me when he was discussing taxes and fact that the income tax is not about revenue generation, but about controlling people since the govt can print the money to pay its bills.
Why do we even need to pay taxes if money printed by the Fed is considered as good as any legal tender for payment of bills?
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The book really hit me when he was discussing taxes and fact that the income tax is not about revenue generation, but about controlling people since the govt can print the money to pay its bills.
Why do we even need to pay taxes if money printed by the Fed is considered as good as any legal tender for payment of bills?
No kidding. I guess the government wants the people to know that they are being screwed.
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Gold up 5 dollars today so far. If it goes up any faster maybe it'll hit 600 again on Monday like some people said it would.
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Gold up 5 dollars today so far. If it goes up any faster maybe it'll hit 600 again on Monday, like some people said it would.
Ha Ha. Benny & nicky look like fools.
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Im not trying to gloat or anything but Im surprised that anyone could think it has anywhere to go but up in the long term. You can't have creation of money out of thin air going on as long as we have without some positive push to gold. There will be downside forces through all kinds of paper manipulation but nature in all its forms, will find a way to balance itself.
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there isn't enough gold to cover all outstanding claims on gold.
You can get leverage to purchase spot gold at about 500 to one, with the help of some foreign counter-parties...
with 1000 dollars you can literally purchase/sell 500,000 K is spot gold...
Biggest joke is these ETF's like the (GLD)
The (GLD) has Total Net Asset of $39.4 Billion.
That represents a claim of almost 40 billion in gold bullion..
40 billion in Bullion...Ya fucking right dudes...
Shit is paper on top of paper.
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How do you guys purchase gold?
Spot currency dealers? Best way to purchase if excess leverge is required
Futures, Lots of leverage..However, lot's of contango issues.
GLD, other ETF's? Gold Mutual funds?
Gold stocks?
Physical Bullion or Gold bars?
Options on ETF's or options on futures?
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Ha Ha. Benny & nicky look like fools.
Let's wait and see on that...
You guys will end up holding the bag...
Buy some real commodities that have more uses than jewelry..
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The Latest Gold Fraud Bombshell: Canada's Only Bullion Bank Gold Vault Is Practically Empty
By Tyler Durden
www.zerohedge.com
Created 04/07/2010 - 10:30
________________________ ________________________ ______________________
Continuing on the trail of exposing what is rapidly becoming one of the largest frauds in commodity markets history is the most recent interview by Eric King with GATA's Adrian Douglas, Harvey Orgen (who recently testified before the CFTC hearing) and his son, Lenny, in which the two discuss their visit to the only bullion bank vault in Canada, that of ScotiaMocatta, [1]located at 40 King Street West in Toronto, and find the vault is practically empty. This is a relevant segue to a class action lawsuit filed against Morgan Stanley, which was settled out of court, in which it was alleged that Morgan Stanley [2]told clients [2]it was selling them precious metals that they would own in full and that the company would store, yet even despite charging storage fees was not in actual possession of the bullion. It appears that this kind of lack of physical holdings by all who claim to have gold in storage, is pervasive as the actual gold globally is held primarily in paper or electronic form. Lenny Organ who was the person to enter the vault of ScotiaMocatta, says "What shocked me was how little gold and silver they actually had." Lenny describes exactly how much (or little as the case may be) silver was available - roughly 60,000 ounces. As for gold - 210 400 oz bars, 4,000 maples, 500 eagles, 10 kilo bars, 10 one kilogram pieces of gold nugget form, which Adrian Douglas calculates as being $100 million worth, which is just one tenth of what the Royal Mint of Canada sold in 2008, or over $1 billion worth of gold. As Orgen concludes: "The game ends when the people who own all these paper obligations say enough and take physical delivery, and that's when the mess will occur."
Also note the interesting detour into what Stephan Spicer of the Central Fund Of Canada [3], said regarding his friend at a major bank, who wanted access to his 15,000 oz of silver, and had to wait 6-8 weeks for its to be flown in from Hong Kong.
It is funny that central bankers thought they could take the ponzi mentality of infinite dilution of all assets coupled with infinite debt issuance, as they have done to fiat money, and apply it to gold, in essence piling leverage upon leverage. They underestimated gold holders' willingness to be diluted into perpetuity - when the realization that gold owned is just 1% of what is physically deliverable, you will see the biggest bank run in history.
Link to full Eric King interview [4].
________________________ ________________
This is why I have been cautious about all these gold people lately. 9mm & .223 ammo seems like a much better safe investment for me.
I like Tyler Durden...he's a great writer...Writes for seeking alpha.com as well
Keep in mind tyler isn't his real name
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Let's wait and see on that...
You guys will end up holding the bag...
Buy some real commodities that have more uses than jewelry..
3 posts in a row, you seem pretty defensive. ;)
$1161/oz at the end of the day. With the big purchases happening lately I think we see a floor at 1000 for a long, long time.
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3 posts in a row, you seem pretty defensive. ;)
$1161/oz at the end of the day. With the big purchases happening lately I think we see a floor at 1000 for a long, long time.
What exactly is your price target for gold? How are you acquiring the gold?
The party is going to crash soon...As the CFTC is going to impose tighter restrictions on gold Future contacts etc.
I think the opportunity cost of investing in Gold right now is to high...There are some great companies that are selling for unbelievable prices..
Seems foolish to invest in gold right now...
BTW, i have made some nice little scalps buying put options on the GLD etc...Never hold the puts them longer than a few days, due to time decay, etc..
Every now and then i even sell naked puts on the GLD..Again never holding more than a few days...If you don't know selling naked puts is a bulling strategy..
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this is per pound. Way way super cheaper than gold.
http://www.metalprices.com/FreeSite/metals/w/w.asp
Holy shit. You're totally right.
I stand corrected.
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story is spreading
From NY Post:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/busines...MK7mb1uJeVHb0O
Quote:
There is no silver lining to the activities of JPMorgan Chase and HSBC in the precious-metals market here and in London, says a 40-year veteran of the metal pits.
The banks, which do the Federal Reserve's bidding in the metals markets, have long been the government's lead actors in keeping down the prices of gold and silver, according to a former Goldman Sachs trader working at the London Bullion Market Association.
Maguire was scheduled to testify last week before the Commodities Futures Trade Commission, which is looking into the activities of large banks in the metals market, but was knocked off the list at the last moment. So, he went public.
APBrokers and traders transact gold futures on the Comex floor of The New York Mercantile Exchange, Thursday, April 6, 2006. Gold prices topped $600 an ounce in Comex trading Thursday.
Brokers and traders transact gold futures on the Comex floor of The New York Mercantile Exchange, Thursday, April 6, 2006. Gold prices topped $600 an ounce in Comex trading Thursday.
Maguire -- in an exclusive interview with The Post -- explained JPMorgan's role in the metals pits in both London and here, and how they can generate a profit either way the market moves.
"JPMorgan acts as an agent for the Federal Reserve; they act to halt the rise of gold and silver against the US dollar. JPMorgan is insulated from potential losses [on their short positions] by the Fed and/or the US taxpayer," Maguire said.
In the gold pits, Maguire sees HSBC betting against the precious metal's price without having any skin in the game in the form of a naked short.
"HSBC conducts an ongoing manipulative concentrated naked short position in gold. Silver is much easier to manipulate due to its much smaller [market] size," Maguire added.
"No one at JPMorgan is familiar with Andrew Maguire," said Brian Marchiony, a company spokesman. HSBC declined to comment.
Also during the CFTC hearing, Jeff Christian, founder of the commodities firm CPM Group, said that the LBMA, the physical delivery market for gold and silver in the UK, has been using leverage, which is another way to depress the price of gold and silver.
Christian said that the LBMA -- the same market Maguire trades in -- has leverage of about 100-1 on the gold bars settled on the exchange. In layman's terms, that means if 100 clients requested their bullion bars be delivered, the exchange could only give one client the precious metal.
The remaining requests would have to be settled for cash equivalent. "That is tantamount to a default on the trade," says Bill Murphy, chairman of the Gold Antitrust Action committee.
Maguire goes further and calls it a fraud: "If you sell something you do not own, then that is fraud."
Back in 2007, Morgan Stanley agreed to settle a $4.4-million lawsuit brought by precious-metal clients, who alleged that Morgan offered to buy gold and silver and store it for the investors, but never purchased any metal and still charged them storage fees.
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Here seems to be where wisdom is sadly lacking on this board and in this thread. As you see GOLD "rising" what you are looking at is NOT the value of GOLD rising...instead it is the value of the US dollar FALLING!!!!. You could once buy an ounce of GOLD for 300 dollars with american dollars. The same GOLD amount now costs nearly 1200 dollars. That means the US dollar has lost three quarters of its value...IT DOES NOT MEAN THE VALUE OF GOLD HAS GONE UP...THE DOLLAR HAS GONE DOWN!!!!!!!
Seems I have had this conversation on this board many times over this same issue and the understanding of this is as elusive as a BLUE MOON. GOLD maintains it value because it is stable, it limited amount and the fact that there has not been any new veins of GOLD discovered. So GOLD is the standard of currency and as nations currencies are changed due to debt, printing of money and bankruptcy the value of the country's respective currency is measured against the stable value of GOLD. The amount a currency has faltered results in how much it will now cost to buy one ounce of gold relative to when the country's currency was strong and had a purchasing power of X amount. America's purchasing power has been greatly reduced. As a matter of fact the people like Celente, Chapman, Parks, etc have all said that the dollar has lost 94 percent of its purchasing power since it was taken off the GOLD standard in the early seventies. It has lost ten percent of its value in the last couple of years. With the mountain of fraud, corruption, scandals and borrowing ameriac has done with China, Japan, Europe and even Australia its DEBT LOAD is so great that its dollar value is NON-EXISTENT. Its continued borrowing is what keeps its dollar going with the little purchasing power it has. Once you see the GOLD price soar..which should happen soon, know then that the dollar has collapsed and financial ruin is on the way.
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The Latest Gold Fraud Bombshell: Canada's Only Bullion Bank Gold Vault Is Practically Empty
By Tyler Durden
www.zerohedge.com
Created 04/07/2010 - 10:30
________________________ ________________________ ______________________
Continuing on the trail of exposing what is rapidly becoming one of the largest frauds in commodity markets history is the most recent interview by Eric King with GATA's Adrian Douglas, Harvey Orgen (who recently testified before the CFTC hearing) and his son, Lenny, in which the two discuss their visit to the only bullion bank vault in Canada, that of ScotiaMocatta, [1]located at 40 King Street West in Toronto, and find the vault is practically empty. This is a relevant segue to a class action lawsuit filed against Morgan Stanley, which was settled out of court, in which it was alleged that Morgan Stanley [2]told clients [2]it was selling them precious metals that they would own in full and that the company would store, yet even despite charging storage fees was not in actual possession of the bullion. It appears that this kind of lack of physical holdings by all who claim to have gold in storage, is pervasive as the actual gold globally is held primarily in paper or electronic form. Lenny Organ who was the person to enter the vault of ScotiaMocatta, says "What shocked me was how little gold and silver they actually had." Lenny describes exactly how much (or little as the case may be) silver was available - roughly 60,000 ounces. As for gold - 210 400 oz bars, 4,000 maples, 500 eagles, 10 kilo bars, 10 one kilogram pieces of gold nugget form, which Adrian Douglas calculates as being $100 million worth, which is just one tenth of what the Royal Mint of Canada sold in 2008, or over $1 billion worth of gold. As Orgen concludes: "The game ends when the people who own all these paper obligations say enough and take physical delivery, and that's when the mess will occur."
Also note the interesting detour into what Stephan Spicer of the Central Fund Of Canada [3], said regarding his friend at a major bank, who wanted access to his 15,000 oz of silver, and had to wait 6-8 weeks for its to be flown in from Hong Kong.
It is funny that central bankers thought they could take the ponzi mentality of infinite dilution of all assets coupled with infinite debt issuance, as they have done to fiat money, and apply it to gold, in essence piling leverage upon leverage. They underestimated gold holders' willingness to be diluted into perpetuity - when the realization that gold owned is just 1% of what is physically deliverable, you will see the biggest bank run in history.
Link to full Eric King interview [4].
________________________ ________________
This is why I have been cautious about all these gold people lately. 9mm & .223 ammo seems like a much better safe investment for me.
obama did it
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Debt Denial (You'd Better Be Sitting Down Before You Read This)
The Daily Caller ^ | April 9, 2010 | James Rickards
Posted on Saturday, April 10, 2010 9:17:30 AM by Rutles4Ever
The sovereign debt crisis has crossed a threshold. It’s no longer about economics. It’s about math and a complex system whose dynamics tell us there is little time to avoid catastrophe and almost no exit. Going forward, elections and policies will matter less as the debt plague takes hold and dictates hard outcomes.
It is the case that real debt cannot be repaid through any feasible combination of growth and taxes. We will soon arrive at the point where it cannot be rolled over. Debt includes contingent liabilities as well as bonds. In the U.S., this means social security, healthcare and housing obligations estimated at over $60 trillion. That does not include unfunded pension obligations of the states whose plans use fanciful 8% growth assumptions to limit contributions. Pension debt grows exponentially; a toxic brew of increased benefits, contribution shortfalls and anemic performance.
Even what we call money is debt. Paper money is a contract between citizen and government. As with any contract, it pays to read the fine print. Embossed on each U.S. bill is the phrase “Federal Reserve Note.” Give the Fed credit for full disclosure; these notes are liabilities. If the Fed’s mortgage assets were marked-to-market the Fed itself would be insolvent. In short, it’s all debt. Wealth is illusory if it involves a claim payable in dollars which are but a claim on an insolvent central bank backed only by its ability to print more debt. The situation is worse in the UK, Europe and Japan. The global financial system is a rope of sand.
If this system is illusory, how has it prospered over centuries? The answer is that for many years governments ran surpluses and at times had no debt at all. Growth was robust providing support to the tax base. Governments had the trust of bond markets to rollover maturing obligations. With some fits and starts, tangible wealth creation outpaced debt creation. And until recently paper money was backed by gold at fixed rates of exchange. Today all four legs of the table – surpluses, growth, trust and gold are gone or damaged.
There is no prospect for surpluses; nations hit the brink of disorder at the mere mention of 3% deficit-to-GDP ratios. Growth prospects are likewise dim given current policy. Obama grew spending on a feed-the-beast theory that forces taxes to rise to match spending. If Obama does not get his way, deficits will be ruinous. If he does get his way, taxes will stifle growth. You cannot tax your way to solvency in a world of low growth and compound interest.
As for market trust, go ask the Greeks. Each bond buyer has a critical threshold where he will not buy another bond. Picture bond buyers as theatre patrons. The image of someone yelling “fire” and patrons rushing out in a panic is familiar. More intriguing is the case in which just a few patrons rush out for no apparent reason. Do those remaining follow suit or stay seated? It depends on their individual thresholds. If high enough, everyone remains seated. But if some thresholds are low, those patrons leave too triggering other thresholds and so on until a cascade of exits empties the theatre.
In markets, the array of individual thresholds is immensely complex. The scale, interdependence and adaptability of market participants today are greater than ever. It would take very little to trigger a wholesale revulsion with sovereign debt.
What about gold? The view is that systems on a gold standard system cannot increase money supply as needed; of course, that’s the whole idea. Increasing money beyond the modest levels at which gold supply grows is the Keynesian remedy. But empirical evidence shows the so-called Keynesian multiplier is fractional and therefore a wealth destroyer. Another attack on gold is that there’s not enough of it to support money supply; but of course there’s always enough gold; it’s just a question of price.
The U.S. has never truly gone off the gold standard. The U.S. gold hoard today has a dollar value equal to about 20% of U.S. M1 money supply – a respectable ratio even in the heyday of the fractional gold standard. A gold price of $5,500 per ounce would comfortably support a broader U.S. money supply on a one-to-one ratio and maintain confidence in the dollar and U.S. sovereign debt.
Is there an exit? One path involves hyperinflation to destroy the real value of debt followed by redenomination and a new paper money game. The other path involves a gold backed currency at a non-deflationary price. This is a choice between denial and frank talk. Sound money leads to sound growth and the creation of real, not illusory, wealth.
James G. Rickards is a director of Omnis, Inc. and former general counsel of Long-Term Capital Management. Follow him at twitter.com/JamesGRickards.