Net Asset Value Premiums of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds - Three Stooges

The Three 'Stooges'

"Extreme careerism is the propensity to pursue career advancement, power, and prestige through any positive or negative non-performance based activity that is deemed necessary."

Bratton and Kacmar, The Dark Side of Impression Management

The revolving door has a long runway and a vast lobby.

The cash levels in PSLV continue to draw down, making an additional shelf offering highly likely within the next four months. This may be why the premium is historically a bit thin.

Sprott will almost certainly start to secure supply before the offering which may provide some resilisence to the physical market.  I am not informed sufficiently to say if these are merely verbal inquiries or firmer commitments in the nature of contracts with contingencies.  Each ounce of physical silver taken out of the highly leveraged LBMA shell game machine takes the basis for about 100 paper ounces with it.

The physical silver market is an accident waiting to happen, and the CFTC stands firmly in the center of responsibility which they will attempt to avert through the usual CEO style defenses of plausible deniability.

At least they will not be able to easily admit that they were merely following orders, although they probably are.   The question is, whose?   So hard to tell the rank and responsibility without the uniforms.

Jamie Dimon is spinning his vision of the future and a particular version of the past using the bully pulpit of the Council On Foreign Relations today. It is quite the show.

C'est la guerre des monnaies.

Chris Hedges: The Rise of the Corporate Class

"Oh you who are born of the gods, easy is the descent into Hell. The door of darkness stands open day and night. But to retrace your steps, and come back out into the brightness above, that is the work, that is the labor."

Vergil, The Aeneid

I struggle with Hedges' perspective at times, because in his revulsion he places himself to the left of 'the liberal class' which is the well-educated middle and upper middle class and traditionally benevolent social power such as church organizations, universities, and the 'thought leaders' or intellectuals and even the media. But his insights are often brilliant.

To me the last thirty years of the Anglo-American empire merely testifies to the corrosiveness and calcifying nature of greed on the hearts of the gifted, and the logical outcome of irresponsible and reckless selfishness on position. This is a euphemism, of course, for what has been traditionally called a rising lust for power and the commensurate 'wages of sin.' The familiar meme is of the gifted one becoming a good guy gone bad through some excess or fatal flaw. One's strength is their weakness. Hamartia (ἁμαρτία).

We are not in hell yet, but the path ahead is easy. It's all downhill from here.

"And I saw a white horse, its rider having a bow, and there was given to him a crown, and he went forth overcoming not in righteousness, but that he may conquer."

Golem XIV: What Are We Bailing Out the Banks? Part Two

It is remarkable how gentle democractic freedom goes into that good night, and how easily the 'reform' movements fall prey to the monied interests. They seem to get better at this sort of thing with time.

Why are we bailing out the banks? Part two. Theory, Ideology and Failure.
by Golem XIV
October 9, 2012

In part One I argued that if we want to understand why our rulers have insisted we MUST bail out the banks we simply have to look at who owns the banks and the vast bulk of the wealth they house. And surprise, surprise the owners of most of the financial ‘wealth’ are…our rulers and their friends.

I ended by suggesting that true though I felt this was, there were also theoretical reasons why some people felt the banks must be protected at all costs -as long as the burden of paying that cost was placed firmly upon the backs of the little people, you understand...

Read the entire essay here.