Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts

Just another day in the 'hood with the hoods.

I thought it was interesting that China has finally relaxed their ban on the movie 'V for Vendetta.' Stephen Leeb says that a diplomat told him that China Is Accumulating Gold to Back the Yuan.

Other than that, most everything else was noise, and that condition might remain until the end of the year.

The US markets as effective a discounting mechanism for the real economy as a three card monte game on Sixth Avenue.

Here is an interview by Tekoa Da Silva which you might find to be of interest.

Technical Gold Trader Gary Savage: “Big Players Use Panic Selling Events To Enter Billion Dollar Positions In Gold & Miners"

And in this video Lauren Lyster interviews Chris Powell and Bill Murphy of GATA

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Jamie Galbraith: Global Economic Crisis

The sound and fury of the pigmen, signifying nothing.

Have a pleasant evening.

Here is an excerpt from a recent talk by Jamie Galbraith:

"Five years ago when the great financial crisis broke into public view, those who claimed falsely that no one could have predicted it also claimed that our economies would recover. Standard forecasts foretold rapid growth and high employment within five years. Banks in America would start lending again. Confidence would return in Europe.

Those of us who said no, that there would be no return to normal, were for the most part ignored. Yesterday we heard Professor Nouriel Roubini give a magisterial and very high speed tour of the world situation making it clear of course that the promised recovery has not occurred. But if Nouriel is Sir Isaiah Berlin’s fox, who knows many things, let me try this morning to be the hedgehog who knows one big thing, and that one big thing is that what we are experiencing is a single, unified, global crisis of the economy and of the financial system.

It is not a cluster of distinct and separated events; a subprime crisis in the United States; a public debt crisis in Greece; a bank crisis in Iceland; a real estate bust in Ireland and Spain; nor are there distinct U.S. and European crises, nor can the financial be separated from the real, nor is Germany a country to which crisis has not yet come with the suggestion that there might be some separate way out. There is one crisis, only one crisis, a deeply interconnected crisis of the world system. This crisis has, I think, three deep sources going back not twenty years but forty years to the early 1970s and the end of what we sometimes call the “golden age,” the “glorious thirty” years in the immediate aftermath of the second World War...

And the third great source of our problem is ideological. It is the neo-liberal idea that has given us deregulation and de-supervision; that has given us the notion that markets can function on their own without breaking down or blowing up. It is this notion as applied especially to finance.

This is the great illusion of the last generation, and it fostered a form of economic growth that was intrinsically unstable and unsustainable. Why? Because it was based on declining standards for loans and on lax accounting of the proceeds of those loans. Or to put it in simple terms, it was based upon financial fraud, on the most massive wave of financial fraud that the world has ever seen.

And the world has seen a lot of financial fraud. It was known to be such to the lenders at the time. This was true of housing loans in the United States made by the tens of millions that were known to the lenders as “liar’s loans,” as “ninja loans,” no income, no job, no assets; as “neutron loans” destined to explode leaving the building intact but destroying the people. This was known at the time. These were loans that had to be refinanced or they would default..."

Read the entire speech here.

Report that Russia Has Issued Gold and Silver Coins Which Can Be Used As Legal Tender

Unfortunately I do not read Russian so I have not yet completely verified this, but I thought it was interesting enough to pass along on the face of it, since it is 'making the rounds' of the internet, and some have asked me about it.

Here is the reported document in Russian.

As they are not coins for general circulation but rather coins to commemorate the Russian Olympics I do not see this as signficant perhaps as the blogger quoted below. Also it appears that they will be issued in rather limited numbers so will probably price as a collectible and not as currency. That is how it is with commemoratives in limited edition.

Here is the sentence from the document that provoked such a strong reaction in some circles.

"The coins are legal tender cash payment in the Russian Federation and must be accepted at face value in all kinds of payments without any restrictions."

I have not yet done all the math to determine the equivalent 'face value' of the coins in other currencies, but I have taken an initial swipe at it.

In the case of the 50 Rouble gold coin, it is 7.78 grams, or 0.25013 troy oz.

At $1700 per ounce, that would make the gold coin worth about .999 x .25013 = .25 ounce of gold, or roughly $425 for a face value coin of 50 roubles.

That is about 8.5 dollars to the rouble. And I don't think many would take that exchange, since the US dollar is now trading at about 30.77 roubles.

Much ado about not too much I am afraid. This strikes me as the $50 face value on the gold American Eagle. I don't even need the legal tender guarantee to make me want to honor that exchange.

Note: A Russian reader informs me that ALL such coins have always been considered legal tender there, as if it matters, given their largely symbolic face value.

Well Aren't These Fine
By Demetrius Tucker
19 December 2012
Tallinn, Estonia

It seems 2012 is not yet done with its surprises. The Central Bank of Russia has issued three values of bullion (300,000 31.1g silver pieces with a 3RUB face value, 300,000 7.78g gold pieces with 50RUB face, & 100,000 15.55g gold pieces with a 100RUB face value) that can be used as legal tender beginning, well, TWO DAYS AGO!

If you don’t yet understand the ramifications of such a move, don’t worry, it’s not too late. But you want to begin reading now – starting with the history of metals as money...

Read the entire report here.

Here is a Google translation of the Russian document.

The Central Bank of the Russian Federation (Bank of Russia)

Department of External and Public Relations

107016, Moscow, ul. Neglinnaya, 12, tel.: (495) 771-4417, 771-4669, fax: (495) 771-4932; http://www.cbr.ru

INFORMATION

On the issue of investment appeal of precious metal coins

Department of External and Public Relations of the Bank of Russia informs that on 17 December 2012 in the framework of the monetary program "Sochi 2014" Bank of Russia issues a bullion coins dedicated to the XXII Olympic Winter Games 2014 in Sochi: 3 Rubles silver, gold nominal 50 and $ 100, with the year of issue "2012".

Investment silver coin of 3 Rubles (fine metal content 31.1 g, fineness 999, catalog № 5111-0247) has a rectangular shape with rounded corners, length 35.0 mm and a width of 23.0 mm.

On the front and back of the coin is raised.

The obverse of the coin features the relief of the State Emblem of the Russian Federation, there are inscriptions in two lines at the top of "the Russian Federation", below face value coins - "RR 3" and the year of issue - "2012", indicate the metal in the periodic table of elements D. I. Mendeleev, fineness, the mint trademark and the fine metal content...

The coins are legal tender cash payment in the Russian Federation and must be accepted at face value in all kinds of payments without any restrictions.

December 17, 2012

Using materials reference to the Department of External and Public Relations of the Bank of Russia is required.