11 July 2011

Gold Drops Precipitously Just Prior to Obama's Press Conference on the Debt Ceiling



Gold soared this morning on a flight to safety from the European debt crisis.

Then suddenly it started dropping sharply around 10:30 NY time.

What could have happened?

Oh, the Bloomberg is reporting that Obama will be addressing the nation in a Press Conference around 11:00 AM.

It doesn't get much more obvious than this.

As the news commentators just noted, gold is flat and the Treasuries are rallying, so why worry?

My stock index shorts from Friday are doing well as this overextended rally continues to pull back. I took a portion of them off the table as the SP futures reach down to support around 1312. I also took the miners off in the first hour, and trimmed back the bullion plays a little after that.

I suspect the major players will reach some agreement on the debt ceiling by July 22, and throw a portion of the American public under the bus, to everyone's relief that a horrible crisis has been averted, while largely maintaining the real status quo and the primacy of the Wall Street monied interests.

It's MMT all the way. Not only Modern Monetary Theory, but Modern Management Theory, and the management of perceptions is everything in the Potemkin economy.

Later: I am watching Obama speak now, and it's pure theater. He said he wants a 'fair and balanced' solution. He is posturing quite a bit, but obviously concerned with giving his Republican colleagues cover with the more vocal wing of their constituency.

I have great sympathy for him, as he has inherited a terrible mess created in large part by his predecessors. The pigmen and their comrades are in a feeding frenzy, and the social fabric is stretched thin. Enough is never enough for them as they are addicted to greed and the will to power.

A bright fellow no doubt, but unseasoned by things like family, tradition, and the personal experience of hardship: a great story teller, a rationalizer, a perpetual outsider, and a thoroughly modern relativist. You have to keep your eye on what he does, rather than what he says. But that is a given with all modern managers.

No wonder gold and silver were hit so hard. They are the untarnished standards that stubbornly resist all rhetoric and relativism.