30 September 2014

Why China Is the Golden Dragon In the Room That So Few Will Even Discuss



This analysis originally appeared at the USAGold website.

Why China thinks gold is the buy of the century
  by Michael J. Kosares
               
   Let's start with some big, but digestible numbers:
$3,950,000,000,000 = China’s total foreign exchange reserves

$1,250,000,000,000 = Value of the world’s 31,866 metric tonnes gold reserve at $1220/troy ounce
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 $1,280,000,000,000.  = China’s holdings of U.S. Treasuries in its foreign exchange reserves

 $   319,000,000,000. = Value of U.S. 8133 metric tonnes gold reserve at $1220/troy ounce
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Now let's delve into what those numbers might mean to the average gold owner...

When it comes to the gold market, China is the dragon in the room. With its nearly $4 trillion in foreign exchange reserves and potential purchasing power, that presence is formidable. 

How formidable?  Consider this:

- China could purchase the total United States gold reserve (8133 metric tonnes) with 8% of its foreign exchange reserves.
 
- It could purchase the total global gold reserve (31,866 metric tonnes) with 32% of its foreign exchange reserves.

- It could purchase all the gold stored by Exchange Traded Funds (+/- 1750 metric tonnes) with less than 2% of its foreign exchange reserves.

- At $4900 per troy ounce, the value of U.S. gold reserves would match China’s U.S. Treasury holdings of roughly $1.28 trillion. 

- At $4700 per troy ounce, the value of the world’s gold reserves would match China’s total foreign exchange reserves of roughly $4 trillion.

- To put it another way, China could pay double the current price for the world’s total gold reserve and still have nearly $1.5 trillion in foreign exchange reserves.

- China sits atop the list of the world’s foreign exchange holdings.

The United States ranks thirteenth at $133 billion.  For the United States to ascend to the top of the rankings, it would need to revalue its $319 billion gold reserve to almost $4 trillion – or raise the value to just under $15,300 per troy ounce...

There is quite a bit more.  You may read the entirety of Michael's very interesting analysis here.

I think someone could make a valid point that this analysis presumes that China is all that interested in buying gold.

And guess what? They are   They are buying the hell out of it.  And they are encouraging their people to do so as well.

We just don't know yet how much they are buying, and why.  But I am sure we will find out, eventually.    In the meanwhile, no one outside the blogosphere seems to be interested in talking about it, or even admits to knowing it.

Central Banks turned net buyers of gold around 2006 after a long period as leasers and net sellers.  
 
The only countries that have not visibly gotten with the program are the core members of the Anglo-American banking cartel.  They have been conducting a fairly obvious, and often clumsy, campaign to discourage public interest in gold and silver ownership amongst their own people with varying degrees of success.  
 
There is much talk of precious metal market manipulation in New York and London.  The leverage in their opaque markets is substantial.  The Fed has stated that it could not return Germany's relatively modest amount of gold being held in custody as requested for seven years.  Apparently it has prior commitments.
 
There is some seriously weird shit going on in the silver market.   People keep connecting the dots, but no one really has the true picture.  And that is a big strike against the US markets.   You would have to be almost a fool to have any confidence in them and their 'price discovery.' 

The gold and silver story is one of the biggest developments in international monetary relationships in almost forty years, and the whole thing is going on virtually unremarked, unaudited, and unexplained.   It seems like an absolutely lame-brained, misbegotten, monumental government policy error, to try and rig the gold price against a mountain of paper.  And the wiseguys and Wall Street took the baton and ran with it, stuffing their own pockets, and getting themselves and their cohorts stuck in it rather deeply.

Sometimes one might wonder if this hasn't become one of the biggest, Goldfinger-sized, insider trades in history.  You don't need to contaminate the Western gold reserves.  All you need to do is to stealthily hypothecate them to take them out of play.  Poof.  
 
How would you like to be on the really right side of that trade, supply wise?   And how would you like to be holding the bag, on the wrong side?  
 
Never waste a crisis. Especially when you are looting a country.
 
It is hard to fully know anything about the markets in the US because they are so often given to hidden trades and misdirecting statistics.  And this is just the way the powers that be like it.

What could possibly go wrong?

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - End of September, Hello Non-Farm Payrolls


I have included the warehouse action from yesterday in both gold and silver so we can see how things stand at the end of the month, heading into October.

Gold is flowing from West to East.  The trading action in bullion is already there.

The Comex is a quaint artifact of the era of market manipulation.  It is little more than a shell game.

Have a pleasant evening.






SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Skittish


There is no recovery.

The policy errors that are driving these markets are going to take a toll.

Have a pleasant evening.





 

29 September 2014

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Non Farm Payrolls On Friday, End of Month Tomorrow


"Heroes. Victims. Gods and human beings.
All throwing shapes, every one of them
Convinced he's in the right, all of them glad
To repeat themselves and their every last mistake,
No matter what."

Seamus Heaney, The Cure At Troy

Today was the first position day for the October metals contracts.  First delivery will begin on Wednesday, 1 October.

China will go on a one week national holiday for 'Golden Week' on 1 October as well.

There was nothing of particular interest in the delivery reports on the Comex for Friday, and some minor movements of bullion out of their warehouses and registered categories.

We are in an endgame.  We do not know how long it will last.  But the East is buying bullion with paper money at a fairly stiff pace.   And since the financiers have not yet figured out how to create real precious metals, just fakes and frauds of them, there will be an end to it.

The malefactors may not go quietly.  They have blood on their hands, and they will carry this mark with them, forever.  They may never be discovered or held to account in this world, if that is what God wills.  They may even continue to strut about and offer their opinions and prescriptions to their victims unashamedly.  But there will be an end to it, and a final reckoning.  To think otherwise is the opium of the powerful.  They never see it coming.

The Recovery is a charade.   The reason for this is quite simple, and it can be seen in one chart here. 

It should be no surprise that the pig men are getting carried away There does not appear to be anyone to save them from themselves this time, to raise a flag and turn them at the edge of the abyss.  Who could stop, when it feels so good to be winning.

Have a pleasant evening.




SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Late Day Buying in Weak Markets


"Suddenly, abused and battered wives or children, the unemployed, the depressed and mentally ill, the illiterate, the lonely, those grieving for lost loved ones, those crushed by poverty, the terminally ill, those fighting with addictions, those suffering from trauma, those trapped in menial and poorly paid jobs, those whose homes are in foreclosure or who are filing for bankruptcy because they cannot pay their medical bills, are to blame for their negativity.

The ideology justifies the cruelty of unfettered capitalism, shifting the blame from the power elite to those whom they oppress."

Chris Hedges


"Narcissism falls along the axis of what psychologists call personality disorders, one of a group that includes antisocial, dependent, histrionic, avoidant and borderline personalities.

But by most measures, narcissism is one of the worst, if only because the narcissists themselves are so clueless."

Jeffrey Kluger

Stocks continued to move weakly most of the day, with the usual late day dip buying ahead of the end of the month which is tomorrow.

Nonfarm Payrolls for September are due out on Friday.

Have a pleasant evening.





What Frightens You?


Do you think that you are the only one who is ever frightened?  Are you frightened of those who are powerful, of the things that can hurt you?   Do you fear loneliness, incapacity, pain?

What frightens you frightens them, frightens us all.   But with a difference.

The difference is that they who serve the world have a harsh and uncaring master, who will never comfort them, now or in the future.  They trust in power, but they have only their only refuge in temporary diversions, oblivion, and death.  

We trust in our weakness, and God's love.  We will never be truly alone, if keep our eyes on His light, and our footsteps in His ways.   We are in His hands, always, even when we do not know it.   Sometimes we are called to be His hands, His voice, and His touch.  But most can be glad that they are not called to great acts, but merely small daily things, such as self denial, and patience, and faithfulness.

This is the nature of our warfare: we rise by falling.  This is the law of God's economy.






The Problem In One Picture: Monetary Stimulus In an Unreformed Economic System


"The problem of the last three decades is not the 'vicissitudes of the marketplace,' but rather deliberate actions by the government to redistribute income from the rest of us to the one percent. This pattern of government action shows up in all areas of government policy."

Dean Baker


"Most of them became wealthy by being well connected and crooked.  And they are creating a society in which they can commit hugely damaging economic crimes with impunity, and in which only children of the wealthy have the opportunity to become successful. That’s what I have a problem with. And I think most people agree with me."

Charles Ferguson, Predator Nation

Trickle down stimulus doesn't work to activate aggregate demand and encourage real economic growth because the largely unreformed economic system continues to divert the bulk of the stimulus and growth to the top.  

Whatever is put in to this great economic machine, whether it be labor, materials, or monetary stimulus, the best and the most of what comes out is skimmed to the top.  This is not a bug or fault, it is a 'feature.'

This is like sending aid to a Third World nation, where the warlords take the aid for themselves, and allow only a very small portion of it to reach the people.   They take the stimulus and leave the debts.

And then there are the enablers, the professional class.   They must support any regime for it to last.  The Fed knows.  Most academics know.  Big media knows.  Politicians know.  It takes a pliant mind to ignore it, and a devious mind to rationalize it away.  On one hand their brilliance justifies their rewards and positions.  

But on the other hand, when something goes wrong, they don't know nothin' 'bout nothin', and had nothing to do with any of it.  There are lots of fabulously paid CEO's of the public trust, who in reality do nothing and know nothing, except on paydays when they know they are worth a lot.

These latest ubermench are members of the 'winning class.'   And those others, those losers, are obviously lazy, and stupid, and not favoured by the god of fortune.  

Why should they do anything about it, even for the sake of their own conscience?  Am I my brother's keeper?  And the bribes are very good, very Darwinian.  And the positions very piously taken, with pride. 

Why consider the parable of the talents, when we would be as gods?  We will write our own bible, our own parables.  And we will believe them.

So they are sitting back and waiting for the little people to do something about it first, to take all the risks, again.  Whether in war or peace, their cleverness and birthright prevails.  Only the little people suffer and bleed.  We are as wolves, and they are as sheep.  And justice is ours, to do with as we will.

Winning.

The Banks must be restrained, and the financial system reformed, with balance restored to the economy, before there can be any sustainable recovery.




History Lesson

Tsar Nicholas II:   I know what will make them happy. They're children, and they need a Tsar! They need tradition. Not this! They're the victims of agitators. A Duma would make them bewildered and discontented. And don't tell me about London and Berlin. God save us from the mess they're in!

Count Witte:   I see. So they talk, pray, march, plead, petition and what do they get? Cossacks, prison, flogging, police, spies, and now, after today, they will be shot. Is this God's will? Are these His methods? Make war on your own people? How long do you think they're going to stand there and let you shoot them? YOU ask ME who's responsible? YOU ask?

Tsar Nicholas II:   The English have a parliament. Our British cousins gave their rights away. The Hapsburgs, and the Hoehenzollerns too. The Romanovs will not. What I was given, I will give my son.
 
 


28 September 2014

Bill Cohan: The Truth About the Fed


"The truth is, although both incidents do reveal something about the way the powerful and famous get away with more stuff than the rest of us, there’s no real comparison. The Segarra Tapes actually reveal little or nothing that was not already known, assuming you have a shred of understanding how the Federal Reserve banks actually work. Nor is William Dudley, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, about to get pilloried in public like NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.

Sorry, folks, but this is simply the way the New York Fed was designed to behave. The system of 12 Federal Reserve banks, established about 100 years ago by an act of Congress following secret meetings presided over by J.P. Morgan himself at an island off the coast of Georgia, has always existed for the benefit of the commercial and investment banks that created the system, that own the banks and that control their boards of directors.

To think that these banks exist for any other reason than to serve their Wall Street masters is complete folly. It has never been so and it will never be so – as long as the current system remains intact – despite what Segarra captured her bosses talking about on tape, without their knowledge."




26 September 2014

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - It May Be Protracted, But It Is an Endgame Nonetheless


One of the more significant things that I have seen so far this year is independent confirmation from a credible source that there is price rigging in the silver markets, and that this knowledge is being suppressed by the mainstream media in the US.

You can read about that here.

I think the fact, given all the rigging scandals from Madoff to LIBOR, that there are major mainstream publications which will refuse to run an article showing evidence of rigging in the silver markets from a credible source is probably as profound as the report itself might be.  They know what is happening, and they are afraid.

So what does this imply.

It implies that powerful financial interests are engaged in an attempt to manipulate the value of certain precious metals to artificial targets. They frequently do this with certain things we know.

Dollars and bonds are amenable to this sort of financial engineering, because the financiers are able to create enormous amounts of money using their balance sheets, and with it buy bonds and other financial paper.  So they can raise and lower interest rates and other benchmarks at will provided that they can do it in secret and with plausible deniability.

They can rig LIBOR, and the ISDAFix, and any number of benchmarks, because these are creatures of their system, without a hard reference or a firm anchor to anything in the real world. LIBOR and the amount of money they have in their vaults can be almost whatever they wish them to be, as long as the people believe.

Their nemesis, however, is when they foolishly tie themselves to something external, something that is beyond their system.  Their error is when they overreach, and try to extend the mythology of their price fixing to things that are not completely under their control for any longer period of time.

Gold and silver are two such things. Yes, they can engage in all sort of gimmickry on their own exchanges where they make the rules and keep the records.  Paper and paper money can symbolically represent precious metals both in quantity and value.   Tonnes of imaginary and hypothecated ounces of bullion may be traded all day long, but without requiring a single physical ounce of gold or silver having to change hands.   The pricing has been divorced from the constraints of supply and demand.  As always, the devil is in the leverage.

Longer term of course there will be effects, very powerful effects.  The amount of actual gold and silver that is represented by their paper continues to dwindle, increasing leverage.   Physical bullion will flee their system, as it is doing already.  That which is unmined will be left in the ground. This is Gresham's Law in action. The 'bad money' will drive out the good.

And they are foolish! There is no real civic need for them to have done this. What does it matter if gold and silver are priced at 1200$ or 3200$ as long as the price increase is orderly and not a panic? All sound economic theory suggests that as the price of gold and silver increase, economic activity will increase to make more supply available.  People might choose it as a store of value, or not.  It has its advantages and disadvantages, depending on the context of its environment.  

You can say that this would cast doubts on the value of the financiers paper, but again, not in any practical sense as long as supply of metal was not constrained and the supply of money was not expanded recklessly without reference to the productive economy.  Even Greenspan admitted this.

By aggressively seeking to manage the price of the metals, by continuing to press their leverage and their perceived successes, the Banks have created a façade and blindly run to the precipice of  an inevitable reckoning, as the London Gold Pool had done in the early 1970's.

The BRICS see this hubris, like the traders who saw the folly of attempting to hold the British Pound to an untenable valuation. And they will continue to keep pounding the Banks' positions with their trades, accumulating more and more of their physical metals, until the trade is unwound, or a failure comes to stand and deliver.

This is what I think is happening. I do not think a serious market failure is inevitable. But a better outcome would require a level of humility, wisdom, and self-awareness of which our ruling class may longer capable. 

Wall Street has become maddened with greed. And by stifling all criticism and dissent, their enablers have only enabled them to go further and further, until the point of no return is reached.

We observers are almost like Harry Markopolos, who wrote of his frustration in Madoff: No One Would Listen.  We are like those who warned of the growing housing bubble, and took steps to protect ourselves from it.

We only need to abide, and if we can abide,  then we will prevail.   Their schemes will eventually fail  And in that failure there is both risk, and opportunity.

Have a pleasant weekend.





SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - All's Quiet On the Western Front


Stocks bounced back today, for no particular reason really.

The third GDP revision was inline at 4.6%, and increase over the prior 4.2%.  This is GDP from the second quarter! 
 
This is an artificial market. And the real buy and sell volumes, ex speculative poofery, are low.

The good news I suppose for Wall Street is that prices are therefore fairly easy to push around using leveraged instruments like the SP futures.

The bad news is that if we see a certain type and level of exogenous event, there will not be much to hold prices up once the day trading dip buyers run to the sidelines. And without human market makers managing the flow, the downdraft could be fairly impressive.

But timing something like this is almost impossible. This is more an occasion of knowing the types of trails which we are skiing, and not necessarily where and when there could be a specific instance of danger.

Have a pleasant weekend.





25 September 2014

Mr. Cohan Responds On His Silver Rigging Exposé - Two US National Publications Refused the Story


"We run carelessly to the precipice, after we have put up a façade to prevent ourselves from seeing it.”

Blaise Pascal

This is starting to make more sense. 

Apparently Mr. William Cohan, a highly respected journalist, did look at all the relevant information he had been provided, and decided to write a story about rigging in the silver markets.

It was submitted and refused by at least two US publications which refused to run it.

Based on past history, one might assume the two national publications that refused to publish it were on the order of The New York Times, and perhaps Bloomberg News or even possibly Forbes.

The actual reasons that they gave for refusing to publish the story are not stated. One can assume they were not sufficient for Mr. Cohan to decide to take his name off of it in his professional judgement, so we can only surmise. 

So we cannot tell if this was editorial scruples, a failure in fact checking, or just good old fashioned minding of one's place.

Insiders never speak ill of insiders.

Bill was good with publishing the piece at ZeroHedge with his name on it.  So he apparently still had confidence in what he had written. 
 
That speaks volumes. 

At that point the whistleblowing parties, if one might call them that, deferred, feeling perhaps that printing something like this on the web alone, even on a large and widely read site, would relegate it to something easily dismissible by the status quo.  The Very Serious Players choose to read only properly vetted, fully credible and approved mainstream sources.

I am being a bit sarcastic, but not so much.  The thought leaders and ruling class in the US are, alas, out of touch almost without regard to their origins. And one does not have to think too hard about it to discover why.  They only read the right publications, watch the right shows, talk to the right people, say the right things, and think the right thoughts.

They live in virtual palaces and bubbles of ease and influence.  To borrow a phrase from one of their less pliant pets, when they go out amongst the common people, it often resembles Prince Charles on a royal visit to Papua, New Guinea.   As George Orwell noted in his diaries, 'apparently nothing will ever teach these people that the other 99% of the population exists.'  

They exist, they just don't matter in the halls of power anymore.

I might have suggested some publishing options a little 'out of the box' like The Guardian or Der Spiegel.  Choosing publications that might be less beholden to the New York financial powers seems as though it could be a more fruitful course of action.  South China Morning Post, or even the Asia Times?  Radio Free America?

So there you have it. We have a story. And the mainstream media refuses to publish it. And there is some wrangling about where and when it might achieve adequate exposure to do some good.

To:  addressees

Thank you all for writing me regarding Andrew Maguire's story of alleged "manipulation" in the silver market. As you may know, I was approached 11 months ago by a PR representative of Mr. Maguire's who wanted to introduce me to Andrew and to his attorney Gordon Schnell, at Constantine Cannon, in New York. I found what Andrew had to say very interesting, especially so in light of a piece I had written in the New York Times about the silver market three years ago.  A Conspiracy With a Silver Lining

I wrote up the story and submitted it to a national publication in the United States, which decided not to publish it. I then tried another, national financial publication, which also decided not to publish it. I then abandoned hope that the story would be published.

About a month ago, Ned Naylor-Leyland contacted me and suggested that Zero Hedge might publish the story. I thought that would be a fine idea.

Unfortunately, Mr. Schnell did not like the idea of Zero Hedge, nor apparently did his clients. They also declined to approve the use of key facts and key quotations that I felt needed to be included in the story to give it credibility. Part of my agreement with them was that they would be given quote approval and without their approval, I could not use their quotations or their information.

They did not approve. At that point, without their cooperation, I did not feel the piece could be published. I explained that to Mr. Naylor-Leyland but he didn't seem much interested in those facts and then went on to encourage the publication of the piece to which you are all responding.

All of which is to say, you are directing your passion to the wrong person. If you want the piece published, you need to reach out to Mr. Maguire and Mr. Schnell.

Thank you for your interest and your passion on this topic.

William D. Cohan



Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Curiouser and Curiouser


Gold was holding a weak bounce and silver drifted lower today, while US equities were showing their first ~2% correction in some time.

Today was unusual only because the metals did not react much to stocks, and also to their option expiration on the Comex, although as I have indicated October may not a particularly important contract per se.

The big news in metals is still the opening of the Shanghai metals exchange, which takes deliveries in physical not cash. The East is where the action is these days for gold and silver.

I recently read about the concept of terra nullius.  It is the principle in law by which ownerless land and other property may be taken by exogenous parties for productive use.   In its abuses, the more 'civilized' decide that the indigenous peoples do not have fully human societies, and are too incapable or insufficiently evolved to be considered proper owners who can make efficient and proper use of the assets (aka fully exploit).   It is a particularly popular concept with the ubermenschen.  
 
I think there are some actors out there that would like to declare terra nullius on the indigenous 99%'s retirement accounts, pensions, deposit savings, civic assets, and a whole lot more than they have already opened up for plunder.  They are on a roll, and seemingly insatiable.

During the day I noted an interesting revelation about an unpublished article said to contain some fairly important sounding information about rigging in the silver markets. You may read about that here.

If there is nothing untoward going on the silver market, it may be one of the few notable markets that hasn't been systematically rigged by our largely unreformed financial system.   My gut hunch is that this has been one of those half assed, poorly thought out government programs that gets co-opted by market wiseguys and free-booted into one of their personal piggybanks.  The credibility trap and personal embarrassment of some overly important people keeps a lid on.  Until it doesn't.  There are some big sharks circling the tank.

Have a pleasant evening.






SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Whoops!


Today we got something a little unexpected. I have to admit it caught me by surprise, and brought back at least a little twinge of seller's regret.

Russia's new draft law permitting them to seize foreign assets and to offer compensation for their nationals who suffer from the Western sanctions shook up the markets a bit, starting with some tremors in the Dax, but achieving their full blossom in US equities. The popular indices were down about 1.5 to 2 percent.

Some pointed to the very low durable goods number this morning, which is fashionably dumb. Durable goods is notoriously volatile because of airplane sales. If you back those out of this morning's figures, then the number was not notable. 
 
And AAPL has reported some problems with their new iPhone6.  The cases are bendably thin, and they are having some software problems.  
 
Our market are this fragile?   It was more likely geopolitical jitters triggering profit taking from the tech bubble fostered by debubbling in AAPL and BABA.

And these sorts of big moves are characteristic of the narrow market we are in, as shown by the NDX/RUT and SPX/RUT ratios.

The same line of dumb thinking says that if we get a revision to 2Q GDP tomorrow it might be over 5 percent, and that would prompt the Fed to tighten more quickly next year, due to our remarkable recovery.

A revised 2Q GDP with no supporting trend, a stagnant median wage, and a recovery that is so selective that it is almost embarrassing if you don't spend all your time talking to the 'right class of people.' Are you kidding me? I cannot believe the level of groupthink that possesses the financially aloof and their spokesmodels on financial television. It's pathetic.

The next move of the markets may be lower, and the support levels are obvious. We are still in a formation that looks like a large inverse head and shoulders consolidation. So we would be looking for any market moves that either negate or activate that formation.

So the markets remain risky, but the volumes and market action is 'narrow,' driven significantly by professional trading that is algorithmically driven. So are we in the long managed rally as we saw in the early 2000's or the kind of reckless bubble making we have seen so often since 1987? Probably both since they are children of the same policy errors.

Have a pleasant evening.






Ned Naylor-Leyland Suggests Media Overhanging an Exposé of Rigging in the Silver Markets


This is an excerpt of a statement apparently made by Ned Naylor-Leyland about an article involving alleged evidence presented on silver rigging that has failed to see publication anywhere for a year.  This statement has now appeared in several public places overnight.  A quick email to Ned last night confirmed that it was his.  I have found Ned to be a serious person and highly competent analyst.

Choosing to ignore this would be a decision on my part as much as choosing to ask about it in as polite and as even handed manner one can manage.  I became loosely aware of this yesterday, but decided to take no action here until something appeared 'in print' and in more than one place.
 
William D. Cohan is a highly respected financial journalist who has recently published a book in  April of this year titled The Price of Silence: the Duke Lacrosse Scandal, the Power of the Elite, and the Corruption of our Great Universities”.   He is certainly no stranger to controversy and to telling the truth against opposition.  He is one of my favorite commentators in business journalism.

I have not personally seen the article referenced here, or any of the evidence or facts which it is said to contain.  I do not know Andrew Maguire.  I am not familiar with the particulars of this situation, not in the loop as they say.  I was aware that some whistleblowers had come forward after the CFTC hearing on silver, but was not aware of exactly who they were or what they had to say.  And I do not even know now if this is in fact the basis of this story.

I would have preferred if there had been a statement from Bill Cohan about this before this story was released.  How do we know he has not taken some serious efforts to have his article published against bureaucratic delays?  For a journalist there are legal considerations and fact checking that may not be as paramount for others who are not professional journalists.  But we have also seen these processes abused in order to delay certain stories artificially.    Since this has the appearance of an ongoing conversation it seems probable that he has had the opportunity to comment and has deferred for whatever reason.   But he certainly now ought to say something.  

Have whatever facts involved in this become Mr. Cohan's exclusive property?  If not, how can he become the presumed bottleneck for these revelations?  I can understand the slowness of processes involved in something like this,  but people are aware that other stories have been held until after important elections before by the mainstream media so as not to embarrass any political figures.  

And there are some sensitivities here since the CFTC conducted a four-five year study of price rigging in the silver market, sat on the results over the protests of commissioner Bart Chilton, and then killed the study without issuing any results. 

Despite sincere efforts by some, the regulators have managed their public awareness responsibilities somewhat awkwardly to say the least.  And this is not incidental to their mission but paramount since they are public interest representatives in a publicly funded position.  There is a general aloofness and high-handedness in this Administration that is not consistent with a healthy democratic process. 

And it is not as if market rigging is some sort of outlier that only conspiracy specialists would imagine given all the recent scandals in LIBOR, etc.  One might say that if a market can be profitably rigged this days, then it most likely is.  Former CFTC Chair Gary Gensler is alleged to have said that recently, and it makes sense.  And what the heck does that say about our current markets and their health, given that we are now six years past one of the greatest collapses of a control fraud in the financial markets and have supposedly reformed them, while spending trillions to support them?

Are the ruling elite going to retreat into silence again, and then wait until we forget about this and go away and let them do whatever they want?  Are we at the point when even asking legitimate questions has become a concern?  I should hope not, because then we would be truly lost beyond repair.

The lack of transparency in these matters is therefore a likely precipitant to speculation about what is happening, and what the facts may be, given the overly secret nature of the markets and regulation, and some of the seemingly out-of-the-norm happenings and positions. 

If any of this is being done to promote confidence, then it is surely not being done well.  The US and UK could not have eroded confidence in their markets any more than if had gone out and purposely intended to sow doubts about their integrity in the eyes of the world.

Light is a marvelous remedy for doubts, suspicions and secretiveness.   And impatience is no excuse for incivility, although one can understand how continual stonewalling can grate upon the public temperament.  Let us therefore have some light, please, and less efforts to manage and hide some of the more potentially embarrassing facts or mistaken policies of the past. 

As we have seen so often it is rarely the initial missteps that cause  the most serious problems, but the downfall always seems to be in the subsequent attempts to cover it up, and too often to save someone important some embarrassment, all in the name of 'confidence.'

Is the emperor naked?   Do we dare look?

You may read the entire piece at TFMetals here or at Bill Murphy's site here (free trial available.)

"I very much hope that pressure will now be brought to bear on William D. Cohan to publish the article that he wrote a year ago and is still sitting on; the suppression of this evidence and regulatory collusion is helping to keep this rig going. An investigative financial journalist of repute has looked at the evidence, wrote a long and scathing editorial piece about what happened (a year ago) and yet STILL we sit waiting for discovery or publication of his piece.

While nothing comes of this Precious Metals investors continue to experience real losses, something that is unacceptable to me as an observer aware of the background story. I take no pleasure in naming and shaming in this way, and am heartened that Cohan confirmed and corroborated Andy’s evidence, but now is the time for the pot to be filled and the perpetrators flushed out. If it takes intervention by a third party to set fires in order to get it out there, then so be it."

Ned Naylor-Leyland
 
 Please see:  Mr. Cohan Responds

NAV Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds


The gold/silver ratio is rather elevated.

The premiums on the non-Sprott funds are also exceptional.

The cash level on Sprott Silver is now surprisingly low.   At some point they will have to consider another offering to raise silver and cash and units outstanding. 



24 September 2014

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Options Expiration on the Comex Tomorrow


As a reminder, tomorrow is an option expiration for gold and silver October contracts on the Comex.

There was intraday commentary here. The gold that was smuggled into India the other week is greater than all the registered gold on the Comex. And there is much more upcoming for the festival season.  This is a world of tails wagging dogs.  But they think they have the tails to do it.

I get the sense that the pigmen are scared.  Now what they may fear is another question.  Perhaps they are afraid of spraining their knee from repeatedly kicking the markets in the ass towards whatever direction they prefer at that time. Or perhaps they are staring into the abyss once again, and feeling the edge growing nearer.  It is hard to say. 

There was further intraday commentary here introducing a video from Nomi Prins about why the Anglo-Americans have such a keen interest in certain locales like the Ukraine and Syria she calls 'gateways.'   

There was nothing much of interest happening yesterday on the carney game called the Comex, that paragon of transparent price discovery. hah!
 
The Gold/Silver ratio is an eye popping 68.9.   And silver is about as consistently oversold as I have seen it.  I will be looking for another buy point here for my silver positions.

It is hard not to suspect that there is more to many of these things than meets the eye.  We have been lied to so consistently that it does well to maintain a very active skepticism about all these things that don't add up, and seem to come at us out of nowhere.

The professionals have taken over the management of the country and the economy, and they are not inclined to discuss the issues with common shareholders, much less the unimportant person on the street who is walking around waving an empty wallet and a pretty much meaningless vote.

Time to get your hearts and heads right.

Have a pleasant evening.





SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Wall Street Celebrates


New home sales came in seasonally hot this morning.

Wall Street took the opportunity to start a new wash cycle going, and stocks were in rally mode most of the day, with the SP futures leading the charge higher.

My seller's regret on that big volatility position I unloaded the other day was greatly exaggerated. lol.

So what next?

Alibaba has been successfully taken to market, with about $300 or more million going into Wall Street's pocket.  And so the Banks bid its investors farewell and good luck.  .

Western leaders are doing as they are told, and all the enablers are behaving, from the courts to the academies.

The masters of disasters are back in the driver's seat again.

What could go wrong?

Have a pleasant evening.






Bye bye Alibaba!   We win again!  Yay us!


50 Tonnes In Ten Days: Gold Smuggling Overwhelms Government Restrictions In India


So much for the mainstream media reports of a waning interest in gold in India and elsewhere.

To put this into perspective, there are just under 32 tonnes of total registered gold on the Comex. 

USAToday did a rerun of 'Why Warren Buffett Hates Gold' the other day. 

Few outside the dollarsphere are listening anymore, or care.    

Things are certainly warming up.  The mispricing of risk is formidable.

The entire story can be read here.

Hindustan Times
50 tonne gold smuggled into India in 10 days, 30% reached Mumbai
By Manish Pachouly
Mumbai, September 23, 2014

About 50 tonnes of gold has been smuggled into the country in the past 10 days, and subsequently taken into the market to cater to a surge in demand for the precious metal in the festive season. There is a heavy demand for gold during Dussehra, for which booking and supply will start from Thursday, when shradh ends and Navratri starts.

Market sources said that 30% of the smuggled gold has been supplied in Mumbai to unscrupulous jewelers, while the rest was distributed to different parts of the country.

Sources said that illegal gold is finding a place in the market because of below average imports resulting from the 80:20 scheme and 10% import duty. Against the average monthly demand of 80 tonnes, the import is presently around 51 tonnes in the country.

Sources said that gold was smuggled into the country through the land route, via Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. “This is because airports have tightened security, restricting the smuggling of gold by the air route,” said a market expert. The Mumbai airport customs, which has started a serious crackdown on gold smugglers, has seized around 529 kg gold from April to August this financial year.

Experts fear that more gold will be smuggled from similar land routes in days to come, as the demand will shoot up once the marriage season begins, in the later part of November. “There will be huge demand because of the festive season, and also the low price at which gold is presently being traded,” said Kumar Jain, vice-president of Mumbai Jewelers' Association.

Jain said, “The government should immediately bring down the import duty and relax the 80:20 scheme, so that official import goes up. That will bring down the smuggling.”

Rajiv Popley, director Popley Group, said, “Smuggling of gold has been on the rise for the last eight months, due to irrational supply issues. The officially available gold was at a premium, which was higher than anywhere else in the world.”


Nomi Prins: Why Is the US So Interested In the Ukraine and Syria


"Why do we care about the Ukraine? We care about Ukraine because it’s a gateway to oil. It’s a gateway to Eastern Europe. It’s a gateway to control a situation politically, but also for our banking system to get involved from a financial perspective...

Nobody really wants to have a third world war. That’s expensive and deadly, but this fighting over financial and political gain is really continuing to crescendo. It is crescendoing because there is so much money on the table and because the economies involved, ours, China’s, Russia’s, are really all weaker than any government wants to admit on the surface.”

Nomi Prins, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine-Financial Gateways


"War is madness. Even today, after the second failure of another world war, perhaps one can speak of a third war, one fought piecemeal, with crimes, massacres, destruction. In today's world, behind the scenes, there are interests, geopolitical strategies, lust for money and power, and there is the manufacture and sale of arms.  And these have engraved on their hearts, 'what does it matter to me?'.”

Francis I, Memorial of the Hundred Thousand at Redipuglia, 13 September 2014

What does it matter to me? Am I my brother's keeper? This is the mark of Cain.

In this interview below Nomi Prins is suggesting that under the guise of humanitarianism and freedom, the Anglo-Americans are pursuing an age old colonialism with a modern financial twist.  And that pursuit is manifesting in 'gateways' or friction points where its expansion meets some countervailing force.

The notion of taking and controlling 'gateways' is interesting.  These could be seen as the current areas of action in the ongoing currency wars, which are merely exercises in financial power.  The geographic importance of the gateways reminds one of strategic points of control based on topography and supply lines in the last century. 

Now we have the flow of money and debt to consider as well as the ability to set prices and value.

If a fiat currency becomes like a Ponzi scheme, without growth underpinned by organic economic activity, it must continually expand or endure the risk of collapse.  The ability to enforce a valuation becomes paramount.

The reason that the US dollar has become a Ponzi scheme is because of the utterly artificial and unsustainable recovery that has been created.  Inequality of opportunity, wealth and justice is the hallmark of aristocracy, oligarchy, and all the empires of the past in which a narrow group of people skew the economic performance of the economy for their own benefit.

The choice has apparently been made to engage the world in financialisation, which has had its way with many of the developing countries, and is now confronting opposition from competing forces in more distant lands where it seeks to expand.

You can see the write up and view the original source of this Nomi Prins interview at USAWatchdog here.