More on Gold

Further to previous post:

The US CFTC hearing on COMEX position limits over the past couple of weeks seems to have  set a cat among the pigeons. No idea how it will all shake down but it is satisfying to watch the authorities squirm if nothing else.

A series of posts from Zero Hedge linkable from the latest one here, provides a good run down of what is going on.

The following (tongue-in-cheek) press release from GATA is timely and sums up the deeply patronising, obsessively secretive, smoke and mirrors world of the paper-chase that characterises what we are assured (with straight, earnest faces) is a genuine honest free market in gold.

The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee today offered to sell 191.3 tonnes of gold, tonnage equal to that remaining to be sold by the International Monetary Fund, on the same terms offered by the IMF except $100 per ounce below the London PM gold fix price on the day prior to purchase.

GATA Chairman Bill Murphy said his organization could provide a better price for the metal because it recently had received a gift of expensive hundred-year-old certificate paper originally intended for use as Chinese railroad bonds and because, in selling the gold, the organization, unlike the IMF, would not employ a large staff of publicists to tout the sale to news media throughout the world every day for months in advance.

Except for the discounted price, GATA's gold sale terms will match the IMF's:

• After selling the gold, GATA will present the buyers with certificates of ownership while continuing to store the gold using vaults in the United States, Britain, France, or India whose locations are known only to GATA.
• The gold will be audited by auditors chosen by GATA whose reports will be available only to GATA.
• The gold may be resold through GATA as long as it does not leave GATA's vaults.
• GATA will use some of the gold sale proceeds to assist developing or financially troubled nations but exactly how much is used for that purpose and what's done with the remainder will be nobody's business.
• GATA's sales will be structured to minimize any effect on the world gold market and to this end they will be announced only this once.
• For an additional $250 GATA will have a buyer's gold certificate tastefully framed.
• Buyers of gold in the amount of $100 million or more will be invited to GATA's annual Christmas party.

Purchasers should send certified checks payable to GATA in care of your secretary/treasurer at the address below.

Where's all the Gold?

Gold in the news again - Questions about those gold sales by Chancellor Brown back in 1999-2002 being reported in the UK papers and evidence from 'ZeroHedge' of what was really behind them.

Since retiring from my trading activities  I have not followed the markets as closely as before. However, I have remained  a keen student of Gold and its role in economic and monetary affairs. I haven't posted on it recently but have digested a constant drip of credibly sourced articles and commentary, attaining pretty much the status of received insider wisdom, which in summary suggests that the amount of paper claims against ALLOCATED gold, allegedly held by the Banksters, is in the ball-park of 50 times the bullion actually stored in their vaults.

(Allocated gold you understand is defined as gold which is identifiable by serial number as belonging to a named individual or other owner and which is stored and insured in a particular vault at some charge to the owner).

If this is correct, then everyone who THINKS they own some gold and that it is stored on their behalf in this or that vault - makes no difference where in the Western World - actually only has a claim against the institution that issued them with their paperwork - forget serial numbers, they mean diddly-squat

The situation is similar to the standard fractional reserve fiat system except that, in the case of ALLOCATED gold, it is illegal (but who among the banksters cares a toss for legal niceties unless they can be used to their advantage?). To symplify, suppose that all allocated gold were stored in the same vault and all those to whom it is 'allocated' were to want to view it - you know, do a sort of audit - on the same day; each viewing could take no more than about 30 minutes in a round the clock operation (10 minutes for an eight hour day) because each viewer would be shown the same physical stuff - serious problems with the logistics of keeping them apart too eh? - and that of course is the nub of the matter. It all rests on the rather naive belief on the part of the 'owners' that they're dealing with honest institutions - oh dear.

The situation is magnified and complicated by 'non-allocated' gold accounts where it is admitted that the account holder merely has a paper claim and the assets backing it are indeed used in a 'fractional reserve' fashion. The shenanigans here probably dwarf the 50:1 allocated ratio because it involves the Comex and other futures and paper trading operations. And when you factor in credible  estimates of 'Black Gold'  well, the mind boggles. But, so long as the 'owners' do not demand personal physical delivery the fraud will continue. It sure does appear to be creaking at the seams right now though.

As for Gordon Brown, I have no doubt whatsoever that his gold sales were deeply mired in precisely these considerations. The 'official narrative' - as always - is just so simplistically absurd. Which is why that Telegraph article is careful to point out that there is no question of allowing all the paperwork to be made public - weasel-words from the leader of the opposition notwithstanding. If Cameron doesn't know the score by now (highly unlikely in view of his parroting of all the other 'official narratives') it looks like he damn soon will - and anyway, for obvious reasons he can be relied upon to assist in the demolition of Brown who appears to be stumbling into the role of fall-guy. He's privy to some very dangerous knowledge though. His personality type must be worrying to some very powerful interests and I wonder if elevation to a peerage will really be enough shut him up.

His health isn't looking so good these days either. Hmmm

Who will save the Savers?

Here is ANOTHER comment inspired post - from ConservativeHome again too. Oh dear!

As explained in other comments and IMHO our economic system, based on fractional reserve banking and the necessity for perpetual exponential growth that underpins it, does not HAVE a future. A total re-think that recognises 'Limits to Growth' so-to-speak is what is required and I see precious little sign of that happening short of the cataclysmic force majeur that I judge will occur sooner or later anyway.

Be that as it may, on the assumption that the whole creaking edifice CAN be resurrected and propped up one more time, here is my personal experience of government actions and bailouts to date:

Over a 40 year, mainly self-employed business career, I have built up a modest pension fund (actually by the standards of the Fred Goodwins of this world, 'minuscule' would be a more accurate description). Back in 2004 I could clearly see the storm clouds gathering and moved the lot into deposit-based funds. With the Footsie then nudging 5,000, that turned out to be a little premature although at current levels I am comparatively better placed than most. Anyway, at that time the going rate for annuities at my chosen retirement date was around 7% (A few years earlier nearer 10%). Today it is about 4% - a 43% haircut! Had I not moved to cash, the value of my pot would now be about 30% less, implying a total haircut on the prospective pension of around 70%. That is probably typical of anyone relying on a personal pension whose fund is invested in equities and, given the incessant urgings of government about private pension provision and the obscene levels of such provision enjoyed by those doing the urging, it is nothing short of scandalous.

As if that is not bad enough, when taking benefits I am required to use 75% of the fund to purchase an annuity. From whom? - why an 'Approved Annuity Provider' of course, which in practice means a private Life Assurance Company. Can ANYONE have confidence that those 'approved providers' will be around long enough to pay my pension? I certainly can't and fully expect most of the balance of my little pot to vanish down another 'Black Hole' accompanied by yet more weasel words, crocodile tears and gross incompetence from those ultimately responsible - whilst they continue to draw their own tax-payer funded, protected and indexed pensions. This is the stuff of which revolutions are made.

So, who indeed will save the savers? - Because 'saving' appears to have become a dirty word doesn't it? Saving is anti-social (if not treasonable) when what is needed to save us all is SPENDING. 'Borrow and spend - BORROW AND SPEND' is the mantra - as though the actions that precipitated this whole sorry mess, can now be used to get us out of it. It really is Alice in Wonderland stuff.

When all this permeates through to the consciousness of the average Jo(e), He(She) is going to be as angry as I am - which means pretty damned angry. More weasel words are then likely to be the trigger for riots - as I think TPTB are only too well aware.

The death of Ivan Cameron

Genuine sorrow is the only humane response to the news of the death of Ivan Cameron and, like the Prime Minister, I too offer sincere condolences to David and Samantha Cameron on their tragic loss.

But watching Gordon Brown's statement in the Commons yesterday I could not help but note that, in the strange, cocooned, self-righteous and self-absorbed moral universe we inhabit in this country, some children are more precious and some parents' 'unbearable sorrow' more worthy of empathy than others.

Brown said:

"Every child is precious and irreplaceable and the death of a child is an unbearable sorrow that no parent should ever have to endure."

Quite so; but where were his words of condolence about the preciousness of the 450 children so recently killed by the Israeli military in Gaza? Or the unbearable suffering of their parents? and all in the worthy cause of self-defence we are told - so that's alright then.

Frankly, the grossness of the double standards make me sick.

Part of the Union ?

The Stupid English and their Scottish Masters
(or - the government we deserve)



And ...... Gordon Brown tells us he intends to make Health and Education his priorities. Both are devolved matters and thus the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament in Scotland. So any legislation on these, his "areas of priority", will NOT apply to his own constituents. How's that for democracy ?

The Union? Stuff the Union.

The Gordon Brown Gold Indicator

Otherwise known as 'The Brown Bottom'

This courtesy of USA Gold:

Recently, with gold pressing $700, Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, on cue, renewed his push for International Monetary Fund gold sales. There was a time when Brown's antics were cause for alarm in the gold market, but no more. As it turns out, one of the more reliable indicators of an impending spike in the gold price is Gordon Brown pressuring the IMF to sell its gold.

Just prior to the Bank of England sales in 1999, Brown pressured the IMF to sell a portion of its gold. When that sale failed to materialize, he prevailed upon the Bank of England to sell instead. Gold hit a bottom shortly thereafter at $280 and then sharply rallied to $450 per ounce, the beginning thrust of the current bull market. Then again in 2005, Brown was knocking on the IMF's door trying to persuade it to sell, and again he was turned back. Gold, which had been stalled in the low-$400s, promptly found new life this time rising to over $700 per ounce -- the second leg in the bull market.

Brown's latest attempt to persuade the IMF to sell gold suggests that the bullion banks are still having difficulty finding physical gold, and if that is the case, they are likely to bid up the price to meet whatever obligations are on the table. If the past is an indicator, Gordon Brown's new call for IMF gold sales might be predicting another explosive move upward.

Brown's latest IMF call was not widely reported in the UK press. He made it at an IMF Committee meeting during his trip to Washington last week.