Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - In a Hall of Mirrors

 

"Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day; but a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate and systematical plan of reducing us to slavery."

Thomas Jefferson, 1774

"To some degree this is a battle between the politicians and the markets.  But I am firmly resolved — and I think all of my colleagues are too — to win this battle.  The fact that hedge funds are not regulated is a scandal. Britain has blocked previous efforts to do this.  First the banks failed, forcing states to carry out rescue operations.  They plunged the global economy over the precipice and we had to launch recovery packages, which increased our debts, and now they are speculating against these debts.  That is very treacherous.  Governments must regain supremacy. It is a fight against the markets and I am determined to win this fight."

Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, Berlin, 6 May 2010

"The suspicions that the system is rigged in favor of the largest banks and their elites, so they play by their own set of rules to the disfavor of the taxpayers who funded their bailout, are true.  It really happened. These suspicions are valid.   Incentives are baked into the system to take advantage of it for short-term profit.  The incentives are to cheat, and cheating is profitable because there are no consequences.

It’s implicit in so much of the regulatory structure that if you don’t make too many waves there will be a job for you elsewhere.  So we have to limit those job opportunities and develop a more professional path for regulators as a career.  So much of what’s wrong with Dodd-Frank is it trusts the regulators to be completely immune to the corrupting influences of the banks. That’s so unrealistic. Congress has to take a meat cleaver to these banks and not trust regulators to do the job with a scalpel.”

Gretchen Morgensen, Neil Barofsky: Into the Bailout Buzzsaw, NY Times, July 21, 2012

"At first, the love of money, and then that of power began to prevail, and these became, as it were, the sources of every evil. For avarice subverted honesty, integrity and other honorable principles and, in their stead, inculcated pride, inhumanity, contempt of religion and general venality. These vices first advanced but slowly, and were sometimes restrained by correction; but afterward, when their infection had spread like a pestilence, the state was entirely changed, and the government, from being the most equitable and praiseworthy, became the most rapacious and insupportable."

Sallust, Conspiracy of Cataline

"Dallas Fed President, Robert Kaplan, wasn’t just trading like an aggressive hedge fund kingpin in 2020, he’s been doing the same thing for five years at the Dallas Fed while simultaneously having access to non-public, market moving information from the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate setting FOMC meetings and other confidential communications.

In addition to speculating in stock index futures, Kaplan has also made tens of millions of dollars in purchases and sales of a litany of individual stocks over the last five years, including Big Tech and fossil fuel companies, rather than adhering to the customary ethical standard by Fed officials of employing a buy and hold position in diversified mutual funds. In 2020, the vast majority of Kaplan’s individual stock trades were also for 'over $1 million.'

The role of the brokerage firm that executed these trades is a very serious matter and every American should be demanding that Fed Chairman Jerome Powell release this information immediately.  In this case, knowing your customer should have meant frantically calling your compliance department when an officer of the U.S. central bank, who sits on some of the most sensitive, non-public market intelligence in the world, instructs you to make 'over $1 million' trades, multiple times, in S&P 500 futures contracts. The S&P 500 futures trade request by Kaplan should have convened an immediate, all-hands-on-deck meeting of the entire compliance department of the brokerage firm.

Instead, the trading has gone on unimpeded for more than five years, according to Kaplan’s financial disclosures. Clients whose jobs involve having access to confidential market information, like an investment banker or a central banker, would have their trades closely monitored in a properly functioning compliance department. This compliance department was clearly not functioning and the American public deserves to know why.”

Martens, Trading Like a Hedge Fund Kingpin for Five Years, Wall Street On Parade, September 27, 2021

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

Jesse, May 2009


The Dollar rallied this morning early, and managed to hold on to the 109 handle.

VIX wallowed near its moving averages.

Stocks slumped badly, but did not set a lower low, recovering quite a bit into the close.

Gold and silver rallied.  Gold has run up to the key resistance.

US markets will be closed tomorrow in observance of the funeral of Jimmy Carter.

The rest of the world will have to try and carry on without Wall Street.

As you know I try to suspend judgement on a new administration for the first 100 days.

I am doing the same thing again.

Well, let's see how this all unfolds.

I suspect that 2025 is going to be a year of historic, shocking changes.

See you on Friday.

Have a pleasant evening.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - FOMC Next Week - Little Finger and Cersei

Gold and silver gave up a little today, which was not as much as one might have expected from the little rally up in the US douleur du monde.

Gold in particular has an interesting formation in the making, and as can be seen on its chart, is approaching an area of key support.

Next week could be 'interesting.'

I won't assign odds to what the Fed might do next week. There are obviously two factions on the board, the hawks and the doves. Yellen is the dove-in-chief, with Fischer presumably the hawks'.

The warehouses and clearing were relatively quiet for the precious metals.

The currency war continues. That rather impressive fine levied on Deutsche Bank by the DoJ was clearly a shot in the war of some sort. Perhaps Frau Merkel is not toeing the line sufficiently.

The US election is an interesting one, with both candidates having very high unfavorable ratings. This is sure to be a divided, contentious four years ahead no matter who wins.

One twist, which may not seem likely now, is that for some reason the lady Hillary would have to drop out, presumably for health reasons. The Democrats would have to show their true colors then.

As for the Republicans, they are stilll the loyal servants of the corporate moneyed interests as they have long been, only for a different faction of the one percent compared to the Wall Street Democrats.  In corrupting the DNC, the Clintons did a great damage to the political balance of the country and government by the lesser of two evils.

These two candidates remind might remind one more of Lord and Lady Macbeth, rather than the standard bearers of ideological contrasts.  Or in keeping with the current tastes in literature, like Little Finger and Cersei.    All the people seem to need to decide is a lot of name-calling and a good show, and the caricature of their humanity to beat upon.

We have only just begun to sit down and eat at that banquet of consequences.

The weather is taking on a definite flavor of Autumn, and at night it is even a bit chilly.  There are plenty of leaves already on the ground, not from the changing of the weather, but from the almost unbearable heat and lack of rain we have had over the past few weeks.

Well, it will be raining here on Sunday.  And it will be welcome.  All good things come to those who wait.

Winter is coming.

Have a pleasant weekend.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Bubble Up to the Bar

Stocks were in rally mode today, as it was risk on all the way.

The markets were cheered by Microsoft's results last night, and the love in between May and Merkel that is dispelling the Brexit fears.

After the bell today, Intel beat the numbers. However the markets were not impressed, as the numbers that INTC beat were recently lowered this week. It would have missed the numbers in place last Friday. Picky, picky.

Qualcomm and eBay were rallying after hours on their adjusted results.

Financial assets are in a bubble again, compliments of the Fed. It's what they do.

Too bad it does nothing positive for the real economy.

Have a pleasant evening.

The Arsenal of Hypocrisy

"The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology."

Michael Parenti

America and Her Allies in the News by C. K. Michaelson of Some Assembly Required

On the world stage full of purported leaders who are dangerous fools, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has a special place. He charged the EU several billion dollars to let the EU force hundreds of thousands of terrified refugees into concentration camps in Anatolia, then upped the ante and said there would be no deal unless Turks were allowed visa-free travel throughout the EU. He also wants journalists who “disrespect him” jailed, and comedians who make fun of him extradited to Ankara for appropriate punishment - a condition that Angela Merkel found reasonable. Meanwhile his troops are gunning down women and children (suspected of being Kurds) fleeing Syria as Erdoğan pursues his genocidal war against the Kurds while trying to pretend that the slaughter of half a million or more Armenians a hundred years ago never happened. All with US President Obama – who has committed a few war crimes himself – pretends that the Armenians committed suicide...

Amusingly, the US now claims that it had understated the number of collaterally damaged dead civilians in US air strikes in Iraq and Syria, and that there had actually been 42. This does not, obviously, include the hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded civilians previously collaterally inflicted on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya...

The circus over the – gasp! - Saudi involvement in, planning of and financing of both Ossma Ben Laden and the 9/11 attackers is hard to understand. (That some of the 9/11 hijackers lived with an FBI informant prior to the attack is not being much mentioned.) It has been obvious to all since the day of the attacks the the Saudis were deeply involved. That's what is in the 28 pages totally removed from the 9/11 report. Ask any of the members of the commission who produced it. On top of that there is not the “Document 17” which includes documentary evidence of the direct invoolvement of the Saudi Embassy in Washington DC in the tragedy. And Seymour Hersh's report that the Saudi government paid Pakistan hundreds of millions of dollars to hide Ben Laden seems to be another solid piece of reporting that will be ignored.

Why does the US continue to submit meekly to the Saudis? It is not the oil – we seem to have plenty. It is not their usefulness as an ally, they are scorpions in the bed. What to the Saudis have? Money. And a lot of blackmail material in the form of past dirty deeds and in the form of $800 billion in treasury notes that they use to threaten Obama.

όχι - Greeks Overwhelmingly Vote 'No' to Austerity and Eurocracy - SP Futures Open Down 29 Points

"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."

Frederick Douglass

They tried to make a desert, and call it Greece.

Apparently Syriza has united the Greek people, and confounded all those who continually predicted their capitulation.

Now the real struggle for a workable solution must begin. 

To that end, Merkel and the Eurocrats have called a summit for Tuesday to discuss the situation.

Otherwise, the charade will continue, until exhaustion or reform.  The reform will not be initiated internally by the system.  It will take more acts of courageous protest and political action.

Live updates at The Guardian here.

Related:   Greece Votes No; Euro Drops 1%

Greeks defy Europe with overwhelming referendum 'No'

By Karolina Tagaris and Lefteris Papadimas

ATHENS (Reuters) - Greeks voted overwhelmingly on Sunday to reject terms of a bailout, risking financial ruin in a show of defiance that could splinter Europe.

With nearly half of the votes counted, official figures showed 61 percent of Greeks rejecting the bailout offer. An official interior ministry projection confirmed the figure as close to the expected final tally.

The astonishingly strong victory by the 'No' camp overturned opinion polls that had predicted an outcome too close to call. It leaves Greece in uncharted waters: risking financial and political isolation within the euro zone and a banking collapse if creditors refuse further aid...

BBC

Greece debt crisis: Greek voters reject bailout offer

With two-thirds of ballots counted, results from the Greek referendum show voters decisively rejecting the terms of an international bailout.

Figures published by the interior ministry showed 61% of those whose ballots had been counted voting "No", against 39% voting "Yes".

Greece's governing Syriza party campaigned for a "No", saying the bailout terms were humiliating.

The "Yes" campaign warned this could see Greece ejected from the eurozone.

Some European officials had also said that a "No" would be seen as an outright rejection of talks with creditors.

But Greek government officials have insisted that a "No" vote would strengthen their hand and that they could rapidly strike a deal for fresh funding in resumed negotiations.

Greek banks will reopen by Tuesday, they say.

 

"The German mind has a talent for making no mistakes, but the very greatest."

Clifton Fadiman

Greece and Goldman: Can the World Afford the American Elite's Addiction To Abusive Banking Practices

 

Und das große Feuer in Soho
sieben Kinder und ein Greis -
in der Menge Mackie Messer, den
man nicht fragt und der nichts weiss.

Und die minderjährige Witwe
deren Namen jeder weiss
wachte auf und war geschändet -
Mackie, welches war dein Preis?


Kurt Weill, Bertholdt Brecht, Die Moritat von Mackier Messer, 1928

Here is an example of the consequences of the failure to reform the outsized and kleptocratic financial system after bailing it out, even years after the latest financial crises.

The former Greek government was certainly more compliant to Western banks and political suggestions.  It was the introduction of a 'reform government' in Syriza that rustled the feathers of the international kleptocrats and their organizations.  

But we have heard all this before, many times, from investigative reporters and whistle-blowers such as John Perkins, on the 'economic hitmen.'

I would like to see Europe and Asia begin to take stronger measures to prohibit these banking cartels with long records of banking violations and market rigging from doing business in their regions and with any of their official financial instruments.

The US apparently does not have the political will to reform its banking system.

How much damage will they stand by and permit these sorts to visit on their people, who always seem to be picking up the pieces, through austerity and privatizations of their national assets.   Will these new trade agreements even allow them to exercise their national sovereignty to protect their people from fraudulent financial practices and price gouging in the future? 

The apologists for white collar criminality like to say, 'don't hate the player hate the game.'  But the only way to make the game honest again is to have these bent players take responsibility for their actions, and for the judges to start handing out red cards to any repeat offenders.

That would be more statesmanlike than visiting harsh punishments, and austerity, and slanders on their victims.  

Wall Street On Parade
Goldman Sachs Doesn’t Have Clean Hands in Greece Crisis
By Pam Martens and Russ Martens
June 30, 2015

Are Goldman Sachs executives Lloyd Blankfein, Gary Cohn and Addy Loudiadis losing any sleep over elderly pensioners waiting outside shuttered banks in Greece, desperately trying to obtain their pension checks to pay their rent and buy food? Are these Goldman honchos feeling a small pang of conscience over the humiliation by creditors of this once proud country?

Perhaps Blankfein, who famously espoused that he’s “doing God’s work” might shed a tear or two for the small child clinging to her elderly Grandmother’s hand as she searches in Athens for an ATM that will give her $66 from her bank account – the maximum allowed per day under the newly imposed capital controls.

According to investigative reports that appeared in Der Spiegel, the New York Times, BBC, and Bloomberg News from 2010 through 2012, Blankfein, now Goldman Sachs CEO, Cohn, now President and COO, and Loudiadis, a Managing Director, all played a role in structuring complex derivative deals with Greece which accomplished two things: they allowed Greece to hide the true extent of its debt and they ended up almost doubling the amount of debt Greece owed under the dubious derivative deals.

A February 2012 BBC documentary on the Goldman Sachs deal provides a layman’s view of the dirty underbelly of the deal, calling it “a toxic import” from America that is “hastening” the downfall of Greece...

For the unschooled to the ways of Wall Street, one might jump to the conclusion that Greece and its finance officials were knowing participants in the deal. That would be a reasonable assumption were it not for counties and cities and school districts across America that were similarly fleeced and hoodwinked by investment banks on Wall Street.

In March 2010, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) released a study showing that from 2006 through early 2008, Wall Street banks are estimated to have collected as much as $28 billion in termination fees from state and local governments who were desperate to exit abusive derivative deals. That amount does not include the ongoing outsized interest payments that were, and still are being paid in some cases. Experts believe that billions of these abusive derivative deals may still remain unacknowledged by embarrassed municipalities.

Back in 2010 when German Chancellor Angela Merkel first heard of these derivative deals to hide sovereign debt among European Union partners, she had this to say: “It’s a scandal if it turned out that the same banks that brought us to the brink of the abyss helped to fake the statistics.”

Well, that’s exactly what happened...

Read the entire article here.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - End of Quarter, Hearts of Darkness, Web of Lies

"The Brussels Eurocrats are in the image of Plato’s Philosopher King, only there are too many Kings all believing themselves to be the most capable ruler. For two years I have written that the European leaders feared referenda more than anything, for direct democracy was an affront to the wisdom of the self-anointed elite. The European project was too important to be left to the capricious voters...

The ruling elites, the Davos Gang, are not really financially astute for the Greeks could have kicked the proverbial can down the road for a mere 7.5 billion euros. Today’s market response to the new uncertainty probably wiped 500 billion in value off global equity markets and raised borrowing costs for the less credit-worthy countries of peripheral Europe. Egomania, like a membership in a quality credit card company, has a price to be paid...

It is not economic contagion but political contagion that strikes fear in the heart of Angela Merkel."

Yra Harris, Looking Back on the European Dystopia

"Our main challenge, since the global financial crisis, has been to make rapid (or at least as rapid as possible) progress toward achieving these objectives. While it has taken a long time, and extraordinary monetary policy actions, the U.S. economy is now close to full employment..."

Stanley Fischer, Vice Chairman Federal Reserve, Monetary Policy In the US and Developing Countries, 30 June 2015

And in fairness to the hubris of the Eurocrats, the same thing can be said today about the ruling elite in the US, especially the Federal Reserve.   At some point in the credibility trap, power begins to serve itself without the veil of reason or the pretense of progress towards a 'cure.'  

And as for The Recovery, maybe the ruling elite don't even know anyone who is unemployed, or struggling as one of the working poor.  Why would they fraternize?  Or maybe Stanley Fischer was just pulling our leg, winding us up, in light of the 37% of the people not in the labor force.

 

Now that the political class has put on the feed bag of corruption, they need only pay attention to the rabble during the occasional election contest.  It is not a genuine two way conversation between representatives and the people, but performance art which is carefully stage managed using a mountain of dark money. Otherwise, the people can be generally ignored while in pursuit of personal power and privilege.

 

Gold and silver were held down to the lower bound of their trading ranges for the end of the 2nd quarter. 

 

Almost 4 million ounces of silver were 'claimed' on the Comex.  As can be seen from the warehouse reports however, the physical bullion in the warehouses is mostly pushed around the plate, like unwanted vegetables.  It is becoming an embarrassment, and barely sustainable.

 

Accounts will be balanced. Even the biggest lies, intended to last for a thousand years, unwind. There is a reckoning coming, and a downfall. 

 

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Capped - The Fog of Currency War

The Lord is my light and my salvation;
          whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the center and refuge of my life;
           of whom shall I be afraid?

Psalm 27:1

With the VIX soaring and the US equity markets seeing their first 2% correction in many moons, the capping on the precious metals was determined and obvious.

So much for 'Greek capitulation.'

I think Syriza realized they were being presented an untenable solution, the 'generous offer' of extend and pretend by Merkel and the Eurocrats, with the IMF playing heavy.

This bailing out of private creditors while extracting a pound of flesh from the Greek people, facilitated by corporate friendly governments, was exactly how Greece came into this situation in the first place.

I thought fomenting a bank closure on Greece by the EU was a bit tough, and probably senseless. Showing them the lash to get them to fall to heel and all that.

Most economic commentators in the US are completely clueless about money these days, and global economics as well.

More surprises will therefore be coming I am sure.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

 

 

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - And That Was the Non-Farm Payrolls Report

"One may safely say that it would be no sin if statesmen learned enough of history to realise that no system, which implies control of society by privilege seekers, has ever ended in any other way than collapse."

William E. Dodd, US Ambassador, Address to the American Chamber of Commerce in Berlin, 1933

“Our pundits and experts, at least those with prominent public platforms, are courtiers. We are captivated by the hollow stagecraft of political theater as we are ruthlessly stripped of power. It is smoke and mirrors, tricks and con games, and the purpose behind it is deception...

A culture that does not grasp the vital interplay between morality and power, which mistakes management techniques for wisdom, and fails to understand that the measure of a civilization is its compassion, not its speed or ability to consume, condemns itself to death.”

Chris Hedges, Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle

"People only see what they are prepared to see."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Could they get any more blatant and careless in just hitting the market with massive sell orders to drive down the price?  It's a great way to collect on short positions on the miners among other things, as some joker noted on bubblevision today.

Careless as in not having a care, because they do what they want and no one will call them on it.

I would not trade gold and silver futures on the Comex in this environment. I rode some pretty hairy markets in the early 2000's, and enjoyed aggressively trading the stock futures.

 

 But based on what I see now I think the rules and regulation have become so captured by a few big players that it just makes no sense for even a seasoned investor to get near them.  But that is what I am doing for myself. You can make up your own mind.

The Non-Farm Payrolls report was 'better than expected.' It caught a lot of analysts off balance because it was the net result of a pretty profound revision of the numbers going back at least a year. I won't say much more than that for now, since I have not had the time to sit down with a spreadsheet and see what was actually done.

But if the Fed wanted cover to change their wording in March, and then hike a bit in June to give themselves some cushion for lowering rates after their later experiment in policy error blows up (again), then I think they have it.

It is pretty obvious that the Fed is making public policy by default. The default of course is their willingness to use their self-funding ability, taking the gains they make from creating money and trading in sovereign debt for their expenses, and returning the leftovers to the Treasury.

 

The Fed is stepping into an obvious policy vacuum that has been created by a corrupt and servile Congress and Executive who have lost the will and the ability to govern, which has now become more of a pastime to their own posturing and looting. 

So we will sit back quite a bit over the next few weeks and wait to see what the philosopher kings at the Fed decide to do, with the unfolding freak show of the Congress as backdrop. Americans love to ignore international developments, but the Ukraine and Greece will continue to weigh on the financials.

And as always, lest you forget, we are in a currency war. And when the going gets tough, the privileged cheat, steal, and lie.

I said several times we might see some antics in the metals today, and what we got was 'a message.' I think these jokers are getting nervous, and when the pampered princes get nervous they tend to lash out.

Putin was meeting with Hollande and Merkel in Moscow, and the US/UK are concerned that they will negotiate a separate deal with Russia and not maintain their 'Nato unified front.' 

And of course there is Greece. A small people seem to be standing up to the moneyed interests and are saying 'enough.'  And those who are in pursuit of global empire want that movement contained.

That sort of thing can give other people ideas. As President Snow said in the Hunger Games:

“Hope. It is the only thing stronger than fear. A little hope is effective, a lot of hope is dangerous. A spark is fine, as long as it’s contained. So, contain it.”

Have a pleasant weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Geopolitical Risks and Numbers Nonsense

 

"A clueless political personnel, in denial of the systemic nature of the crisis, is pursuing policies akin to carpet-bombing the economy of proud European nations in order to save them."

Yanis Varoufakis

The big tickle today was the jobs report. They went back and greatly revised the numbers for at least all of 2014. I really did not have the time today for the kind of analysis I would like to give a change of that magnitude.

But let's just say that the skepticism about the employment picture I have had for the past few weeks, as so well expressed by the CEO of Gallup, has not abated one bit.  I think we are dealing with very frightened public figures who have become inured to lying to get what they want.  They have been using contacts and deceit and special privileges and arrangements most of their lives.

Stocks were in rally mode, but backed off hard into the loss category into the close. The SP futures have taken multiple runs now at the near overhead resistance around 1265-1270, and they either punch it through next week, or we may just go back down again for a reconsideration of the whole rally effort.

I expect geopolitics involving the Ukraine and Greece to dominate the news for the next few weeks. The Street will forget about it, and rally up now and then on some bubblicious news item related to dodgy accounting and ridiculous company market caps and growth estimates, and then tumble on back down again.

Some of the lesser reported news today was the 'emergency meeting' in Moscow between Merkel, Hollande, and Putin with regard to the fighting in the Ukraine.

The US and the UK are calling for 'Nato unity' in taking a hard line, and are concerned that France and Germany might strike a compromise that cedes a portion of the Ukraine and Crimea to Russian influence.

We are losing our humanness in the States, and are being actively conditioned to be 'hard' and ruthless in our quest to order the world. That is of more concern to me perhaps, that the gap between perception and reality will continue to widen to some tear in the social fabric.

But life goes on, and human spirit endures.

Have a pleasant weekend.

 

 

 

 

 

Germany's Gold: Auf Wiedersehen

"Finally he makes a decision, it is time to go, and he uses a gambling metaphor: he says 'Roll the dice', 'Alea jacta esto'. Once the dice start rolling they cannot be controlled, even though we do not know what it is as the dice roll and tumble.

Julius [Caesar] and his men swiftly cross the river [Rubicon] and they march double time toward Rome, where they almost beat the messengers sent to inform the Senate of their arrival.

Frances Titchener, To Rule Mankind and Make the World Obey

"Germany has decided its gold is safe in American hands."

That is one response, when you ask for the return of your gold, and your request is refused.

Just when you thought the spin could not become any more blatant or ridiculous.

Do you have any doubts?  It is not patriotic to have doubts.  You must do your duty, and believe.

This saga of Germany's national gold reserves being held by the Fed in New York is one of the most incredible stories in some time.   I believe it is related to what will become the scandal of the century.

Those reserves are largely gone, or encumbered with multiple claims, having been given to the Banks for their profit. 

How are a people fallen, and their spirit extinguished.

 

Addendum:  This appeared in the comments to this story as it ran in BusinessWeek:

From Peter_Boehringer

Just to set the record straight re this article in which my name is mentioned and in which I am quoted out of context:

a) BusinessWeek/Bloomberg uncritically cites statements of politicians and BuBa-bankers who have or give no proof whatsoever re the untouched whereabouts of the german Gold.

b) Re our campaign "Repatriate our Gold" www.gold-action.de/campaign.ht... : "On hold" does of course NOT mean that we are in any way satisfied with the current status of BuBa´s ongoing repatriation (far too slow and too little - only 5 tons came from NY in 2013! Not exactly a proof for the untouched existence of 1500 tons in a NY vault unaudited since 1950...). Our public campaign will therefore have to continue.

c) Almost no info in the article can be considered in any way "news". Simply because there has not been any material news in this context since early 2013.

d) Especially the headline is plainly false, because there has not been any change in BuBa´s (too slow) repatriation plans: at least 300+ tonnes will come from NY by end 2020. It is not much - but contrary to the headline, BuBa has NOT stopped the ongoing partial repatriation - enforced solely by public pressure!  (I would check your pressure readings mein herr.  Buba seems to be a bit less concerned than one might imagine.  Never underestimate the official indifference of a German bureaucrat to popular opinion.)

e) The political party "Alternative for Germany" has never been part of our campaign - they can therefore not have been "rebuffed" as the article suggests.

f) The political party "FDP" has (with the exception of one (1) MP ) never demanded a repatriation - yet another false info in the article.

g) Some politicians cited in the article can not in any way claim to be "in charge" of the german gold hoard (abroad or not). This holds true for both Mr Barthle and for Mr Hardt: BuBa alone is in charge - and officially, BuBa is independent from political influence... (But apparently not to 'public pressure' whatever that may be.)

Summary: a "non-news" article with a wrong headline, strange interviewees, old news, and with a clearly apologetic ideological approach: the main purpose seems to be NOT to give space to the myriad of unanswered and extremely relevant questions BuBa and the Fed have been refusing to answer for decades. Pls read more at "Repatriate our Gold" http://www.gold-action.de/camp...

German Gold Stays in New York in Rebuff to Euro Doubters

By Birgit Jennen

Jun 23, 2014

Germany has decided its gold is safe in American hands.

Surging mistrust of the euro during Europe’s debt crisis fed a campaign to bring Germany’s entire $141 billion gold reserve home from New York and London. Now, after politics shifted in Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition, the government has concluded that stashing half its bullion abroad is prudent after all.

“The Americans are taking good care of our gold,” Norbert Barthle, the budget spokesman for Merkel’s Christian Democratic bloc in parliament, said in an interview. “Objectively, there’s absolutely no reason for mistrust.”

Ending talk of repatriating the world’s second-biggest gold reserves removes a potential irritant in U.S.-German relations. It’s also a rebuff to critics including the anti-euro Alternative for Germany party, which says all the gold should return to Frankfurt so it can’t be impounded to blackmail Germany into keeping the currency union together...

“The Bundesbank never doubted the integrity of the foreign gold-storage sites,” Carl-Ludwig Thiele, the bank’s council member for payments and settlements, said in an interview on May 23. “We were able to see everything we wanted to see in New York. As far as we’re concerned, there are no more open issues...”

Read the entire article here.