Pictures From A Non-Farm Payrolls Report

I did not see anything untoward in any of the factors which I check, including the seasonality adjustment and the birth-death model adjustment.

The unemployment rate is a fairly useless measure, as it continues to improve by dropping people from the labor force. The Labor Participation Rate is much more relevent. This shows a continuing decline to the lowest level in three decades.

The median wage is also a critical indicator too often overlooked.

The bottom line is that the US is continuing in a weak and somewhat fragile recovery following a financial catastrophe of a magnitude not seen since the late 1920's.  The result could have been much worse in the US.   If Hoover's principles had been applied once again to the US economy, things would have been very dark this time around indeed.  People overlook this.  They might still get another chance to see how destructive economic malpractice can be.  Europe may take a run at it.   The UK appears to be willing to have a go.

The current situation is not enhanced by the deadlock in Washington, particularly with the hard line obstructionism in Congress. We may as well call it that, because that is what it is.

Efficient market theory is a fraud, and further deregulation is little more than a license to steal. It is no coincidence that the gap between the wealthy few and the public is at levels not seen since the last Great Depression. This is the mark of a very unhealthy social economy, with a few big winners and lots of losers, a kleptocracy based not on merit but on position, power, and payoffs.  These distortions born of the will to power are always doomed to failure, and sometimes spectacular.

The corruption in the system acts like a huge tax on the real economy, diverting resources, labor, and investment away from productive activity and towards monopolies, cartels, and the fraudulent accumulation of wealth through the manipulation of financial assets, making money from money.

There will be no sustainable recovery until there is substantial, genuine reform of the financial and political systems, both of which have been tainted by big money and corporate power promoting a very narrow and self-servingly destructive agenda.

Agree or not, things will continue to get worse, even if in a long, dwindling cycle of decay and despair, until change comes. And it will come, one way or the other. And the longer it takes, the more volatile the outcome will be.

Sprott Physical Gold Trust *PHYS* Prices At 14.84 - PHYS YTD Performance

This offering will raise between $341,000,000 and $392,000,000 for additional purchases of gold bullion, taking it off the world market.  The final number depends on the actions of the underwriters with regard to their own allotment of 3,450,000 units at roughly 14.84.

The total raised would represent roughly 240,000 ounces of gold at $1740 per ounce.

Sprott Physical Gold Trust Prices Follow-on Offering of Trust Units In An Aggregate Amount of US$341,320,000

Sep 7, 2012

TORONTO, Sept. 7, 2012 /CNW/ - Sprott Physical Gold Trust (the "Trust") (NYSE: PHYS / TSX: PHY.U), a trust created to invest and hold substantially all of its assets in physical gold bullion and managed by Sprott Asset Management LP, announced today that it has priced its follow-on offering of 23,000,000 transferable, redeemable units of the Trust ("Units") at a price of US$14.84 per unit (the "Offering").

As part of the Offering, the Trust has granted the underwriters an over-allotment option to purchase up to 3,450,000 additional Units. The gross proceeds from the Offering will be US$341,320,000 (US$392,518,000 if the underwriters exercise in full the over-allotment option).

The Trust will use the net proceeds of the Offering to acquire physical gold bullion in accordance with the Trust's objective and subject to the Trust's investment and operating restrictions described in the prospectus related to the Offering. Under the trust agreement governing the Trust, the net proceeds of the Offering per unit must be not less than 100% of the most recently calculated net asset value per Unit of the Trust prior to, or upon determination of, pricing of the Offering...

Year-To-Date Comparison of the performance of gold and PHYS.

Year-To-Date Comparison of the performance of GTU and PHYS

Sprott Physical Gold Trust Announces Follow-On Offering

The stock was down .31 after hours on this announcement. So much for the healthy premium.

Even though the funds will be used to purchase additional gold bullion and add a little cushion to the cash on hand, there is generally some game playing done by the underwriters who like to hedge (some might say 'front run') their over allotments.

PRESS RELEASE: Sprott Physical Gold Trust Announces Follow-on Offering of Trust Units
Thu Sep 06 16:04:24 2012 EDT

TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - Sept. 6, 2012) - Sprott Physical Gold Trust (the "Trust") (NYSE:PHYS)(TSX:PHY.U), a trust created to invest and hold substantially all of its assets in physical gold bullion and managed by Sprott Asset Management LP, announced today that it has launched a follow-on offering (the "Offering") of transferable, redeemable units of the Trust ("Units").

The Trust will use the net proceeds of the Offering to acquire physical gold bullion in accordance with the Trust's objective and subject to the Trust's investment and operating restrictions described in the prospectus related to the Offering. Under the trust agreement governing the Trust, the net proceeds of the Offering per unit must be not less than 100% of the most recently calculated net asset value per Unit of the Trust prior to, or upon determination of, pricing of the Offering.

The Units are listed on NYSE Arca and the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbols "PHYS" and "PHY.U", respectively. The Offering will be made simultaneously in the United States and Canada by underwriters led by Morgan Stanley and RBC Capital Markets in the United States and RBC Capital Markets and Morgan Stanley in Canada...