As you can see from the first chart below, the number of potential claims per deliverable ounce on the Comex has risen to a record high of 121 to 1.
That can be corrected by higher prices for bullion that will prompt more legitimate sellers of actual bullion to take their stored gold and put it in the 'registered' for delivery category.
Or the trading desks of the banks and funds can continue to pummel the price with paper short selling, in the hopes of knocking down the open interest and the longs.
In the short term a fraud is relatively easy to sustain if you can compromise the 'cops on the beat' and you have powerful friends in the game with you.
In the longer term all such schemes collapse. But con men and other criminal sorts are rarely thinking about the longer term consequences.
And it is the character of our time that those who say they are for reform, and vigilantly seek out injustice in their own case, will so often not only ignore, but join in on the taunts and misery of others less fortunate, who are suffering their own injustices, often from the same perpetrators.
There is no real merit in acting solely out of self-interest. Even the worst of people will do this. But since this has become the guiding principle of our age, having sacrificed the notions of duty and honour on the altar of expediency and greed, so the virtue of the people is found wanting.
It is all too easy to act out of the self-interest, with your mind, and not for what is right out of a principled stand for what is just, with the heart.
Have a pleasant evening.
