Narcissists and Psychopaths

"Psychopaths are social predators, and like all predators, they are looking for feeding grounds. Wherever you get power, prestige and money, you will find them.

Psychopaths view any social exchange as a 'feeding opportunity,' a contest or a test of wills in which there can be only one winner. Their motives are to manipulate and take, ruthlessly and without remorse.

Many psychopaths describe the traditional treatment programmes as finishing schools where they hone their skills. Where they find out that there are lots of techniques they had not thought about before.

You'll find them in any organization where, by the nature of one's position, you have power and control over other people and the opportunity to get something.  There are certainly more people in the business world who would score high in the psychopathic dimension than in the general population.

People tend to think of psychopaths as criminals. In fact, the majority of psychopaths aren't criminal. Not all psychopaths are in prison - some are in the boardroom. I always said that if I wasn't studying psychopaths in prison, I'd do it at the stock exchange.

Psychopaths show a stunning lack of concern for the devastating effects their actions have on others. Often they are completely forthright about the matter, calmly stating that they have no sense of guilt, are not sorry for the pain and destruction they have caused, and that there is no reason for them to be concerned.”

Robert D. Hare

And this is why we need rules and regulations, and why theories about naturally free markets are a cruel trick perpetrated by the predatory class upon the gullible.  And like campaigns to deregulate, they will seek to use and manipulate those regulators and any new regulations for their own advantage.

Rules alone will not be sufficient.  The more complicated the rules, the more easily they are bent to the schemes of the swindlers and their lawyers.  They knock down the simple and efficient rules and set a labyrinth of complexities and exceptions for themselves to use.

And this may also be a handy guide for interpreting and understanding the next financial crisis or presidential election, whichever comes first.

Shanghai Gold Deliveries and Deliveries on the Comex - The 'Rest of the World' According To Bloomberg

Gresham's law is an economic principle that states 'when a government overvalues one type of money and undervalues another, the undervalued money will leave the country or disappear from circulation into hoards, while the overvalued money will flood into circulation.'

Notice the 'sea change' that occurred with Shanghai gold flows starting in 2013.

And notice how the Western financial media views this phenomenon.

China Savers Buying Gold As 'Rest of the World' Exits

The 'Rest of the World' apparently does not include India, Russia, Turkey, much of the Mideast, and the European central banks who have been busy trying to repatriate their gold from New York and London.

I have included a chart showing 'Silk Road' gold consumption below.

In addition to all the wealthy individuals in the US and UK who are buying it for their own private vaults.

Who are the idiots who own most of the gold in the central bank crowd anyway?  The numbers are a bit hard to come by because for some reason the bankers are notoriously secretive in response to questions.

The 'official gold reserves' of all central banks in the world is also included below.  And the biggest goldbugs are the US, Germany, Italy, France, the IMF, Russia, China, Switzerland, Japan and the Netherlands.

True, a few central banks have disgorged some of their gold. The UK sold quite a bit of their sovereign reserves at the bottom, the lowest price for gold in dollars. Brown's Bottom it was called, presumably to rescue some 'trading houses' who were caught short.

"We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake. Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it."

Sir Eddie George, Bank of England, September 1999

One might wonder what has some of the NY and London banking crowd so worked up?  What have they gotten themselves into now?  Their spokesmodels have been quite active in the media lately.

I am sure the truth of this will come out some day.  Most likely over some long weekend.

This is how Nixon unilaterally took the US off the international gold standard, and declared a new fiat regime for 'the rest of the world' under the rule of the US dollar reserve, thereby rewriting the Bretton Woods agreement by executive decree.

Is it true that only a few 'goldbugs' really care about this and no one else?

Most of the central banks know the truth of things.  They are just keeping quiet about it for now, for whatever reason.  I suspect that they are receiving pressure related to the antics of one or more of the Banks.

"Gold is unique among assets, in that it is not issued by any government or central bank, which means that its value is not influenced by political decisions or the solvency of one institution or another."

Salvatore Rossi, Central Bank of Italy, 30 Sept 2013

Do these fellows take us for complete fools?  Really?

Shanghai Gold Exchange Withdrawals of 49 Tonnes in the Latest Week

There were about 49 tonnes, or 1,575,000 troy ounces, of gold delivered from Shanghai in the latest week.

No matter what the pundits say about 'gold bugs' and all that sort of nonsensical disparagement, the central banks of the world have been net buyers of gold since about 2007, and the major countries of The Silk Road are buying gold bullion by the tonne each and every week.

Are they all unenlightened idiots? Goldbugs?

Bloomberg seems to imply that they are.  China Savers Turn To Gold As 'Rest of World' Exits

Are the central bankers of the world fools and dupes?

Or are we being misled by the global Banks?    Hard to believe, right?

Gold bullion is moving from West to East.

It is Gresham's Law in action.  

And they are dissembling, most likely to save a couple of the Banks once again and support a policy error that is both wrong-headed and unsustainable.