Jim Sinclair¨"Silver Will Be Gold On Steroids In Coming Rally"

Road Map to Sound Money: A Legislative Hearing on H.R. 1098 and Restoring the Dollar

Professor Antal Fekete outlines the gold-suppression, bond-support scheme

In a two-part essay posted at 24hGold, the economist Antal Fekete provides a compelling interpretation of the gold price suppression scheme, which is also a scheme for the support of U.S. government bonds.
Fekete writes:

 "The government has the following desiderata: 
 1) To have a floor below the bond price. 
 2) To have a ceiling above the gold price. 
"Indeed, without such a floor and ceiling, the bluffing epitomized by check-kiting could be called, and the international monetary system would unravel. 
"To promote these desiderata, the bond and the gold markets are manipulated. It is true that the Treasury and the Federal Reserve prefer not to play a direct role in it. Speculators are induced to do it for them through the lure of risk-free profits. 
"Simply put, the role of the derivatives market is to make phantom bonds available to buy, and phantom gold available to sell, for the benefit of speculators. It is no problem to make speculators want to buy phantom bonds. They have the incentives. They know that the Federal Reserve is going to buy, rain or shine. This offers a risk-free opportunity for profits. All the speculators have to do is to pre-empt Federal Reserve purchases -- that is, to buy beforehand. So let them. 
"The tricky part is how to make speculators want to sell phantom gold. This problem is solved by setting up a gold mine as a front, beefing it up as the world's largest gold-mining concern, and letting it introduce a phony hedge plan."

Fekete adds:
"Clandestine government policy to manipulate the bond and gold markets is revealed by statistics on the number of outstanding contracts in derivatives, showing an inordinate open interest in bonds on the long side and in gold on the short side. Neither has any rhyme or reason to exist, in view of the underlying economic reality. What is more, the long interest in bond and short interest in gold derivatives are increasing exponentially, far outpacing the amount of bonds in existence and the amount of gold available for delivery. 
Moreover, there is an extreme concentration of derivatives in the hands of three or four firms -- namely, concentration of long bond and short gold positions."

Part I is headlined "When Atlas Shrugged: The Lure and Lore of Risk-Free Profits" and it is at 24hGold HERE  

Part II is headlined "When Atlas Shrugged: Gibson's Paradox and the Gold Price" and it is at 24hGold HERE

Egon von Greyerz talks to James Turk

James Turk interviews Matterhorn Asset Management's Egon Von Greyerz (one of the most brilliant minds in precious metals today) on the importance of owning physical gold (and silver of course) OUTSIDE the banking system.

Mystery and Intrigue in the Gold Market

Mystery and Intrigue in the Gold Market

By Mark Leibovit

Liebovit VR Gold Trader

Monday, August 15, 2011

Politicians, governments, media, etc. seem to overlook the true value of precious metals and try to deter individuals from owning them. This has been going on for centuries. Most recently, the United States government prohibited American citizens from owning gold between 1933 and end of 1974.

They continue to mislead people into believing that paper currencies are the real wealth. We hear from the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, that gold is not money, just "tradition." Despite Bernanke's comments, gold is indeed a currency that competes with government-issued currencies and helps determine not only the value of those currencies but also the level of interest rates and the value of government bonds.

Do they inject this propaganda to take attention away from what the central banks are actually doing with gold and the price of gold? Are they really overlooking or ignoring the true value of gold, or is this smoke and mirrors in front of what they are actually doing?

The gold-exchange standard protected citizens from hyperinflation and other abuses of monetary policy. President Nixon ended the gold-exchange standard on August 15 1971, which meant the end of direct convertibility of the dollar to gold. This removed the restrictions put on governments and central banks as to what they could do with the money supply.

Central banks want to continue to expand the money supply but not face the consequences. They seek ways to force down the price of gold because the price of gold is an indicator of central bank monetary policy.

How do the central banks continue to increase money supply while trying to keep the price of gold down?

The most common policy is to lease gold to a specialized group of insiders known as bullion banks. The central banks call this leasing, but it is operationally a form of gold sales.

The central bank leases gold at well under 1 percent per year to bullion banks. Bullion banks then sell the gold into the private market, take the money, and invest it in government bonds or other investments that pay far more than 1 percent per year.

That gold is gone. To get the gold back, the central banks would have to demand payment in gold by the bullion banks. The bullion banks could not repay this gold without going into the gold market and purchasing it. This would drive up the price of gold. It would bankrupt the bullion banks.

So central banks do not require the bullion banks to repay the gold the bullion banks borrowed. The central banks simply roll the loans over, year after year, and the bullion banks invest the money they get from selling the gold. These central bank sales are not recorded as sales by the central banks. The public remains oblivious.

The central banks maintain the fiction that they still own the gold. They report their holdings of gold as not having changed. But from an economic standpoint, the gold is gone and there is no possibility of central banks will ever get it back from the bullion banks.

Another way central banks and governments battle investors in gold is to announce from time to time that they are contemplating the sale of gold. This scares some gold investors, who sell. By threatening to sell gold, central banks are attempting to push down the price of gold.

The latest example of this came at the G20 meeting on April 2. An announcement was made that the International Monetary Fund would make available special drawing rights (SDRs), which serve as money for central banks. To raise some of this money, the IMF was to sell some of its gold. That was the official announcement.

The IMF has been threatening to sell gold for years. To do this takes a majority vote of the member nations of the IMF. It is clear that the member nations are willing to allow the IMF to do this. Previously, this was not clear.

Why would a central bank or the IMF say in advance that it planned to sell a large portion of its gold holdings? When a large holder of commodities is going to sell into the open market, he does not announce this in advance. His goal is to maximize the money he gains by the sale of the asset. If he warns the world how much he plans to sell and over which time period, this will depress the price if the sale constitutes a significant quantity.

It is economically irrational for a seller of commodity to say in advance how much he plans to sell. I say "economically irrational" on the assumption that the goal is to make a profit. But if the goal is not to make a profit but rather to harm people who hold a particular commodity as an investment, the announcement makes good sense.

A rising price of gold warns the public that the government's tax policies and the central bank's monetary policies cannot be trusted.

How do we believe our governments when they tell us that precious metals have no real value even as foreign governments and foreign banks continue to buy billions of dollars of the metals and some are even buying mining companies and mines to ensure continued supply?

In April 2009 China announced that its gold reserves had increased by 76 percent, from 600 tonnes to 1,054 tonnes. For the previous six years China had been reporting to the IMF only 600 tonnes. Had China acquired those 454 new tonnes only in the past year? Experts believe that China acquired those 454 new tonnes over at least several years, largely by purchasing the production of China's own fast-growing gold mining industry.

Global financial institutions continue to create paper contracts not backed by the physical metals. Is this their way to show plenty of supply in order to keep prices down so that they can continue to accumulate the bullion?

In 2000 CPM Group, a commodities market research, consulting, asset management, and investment-banking firm) released a document stating, "With the start of the London Bullion Market Association's release of monthly trading data, the market has become aware that 100 times more gold and silver trade hands each year, just in the major markets, than is produced or used. Some market participants have wondered aloud how 10 billion ounces of gold could trade via the major markets each year, compared to 120 million ounces of total supply and demand, while roughly 100 billion ounces of silver change hands, compared to around 628 million ounces of new supply."

Years ago GATA disclosed that the IMF, the leading compiler of official gold reserve data, allowed member nations to count gold they had leased, gold that had left their vaults, as if it was still in their vaults. The effect of this accounting fraud was to deceive the gold market into thinking that central banks had much more gold left with than they really did.

While the major gold and silver exchange-traded funded frequently report their metal holdings, studies by GoldMoney founder James Turk and former GATA board member Catherine Austin Fitts and her lawyer, Carolyn Betts, suggest that this data is unreliable too. For the major ETFs won't disclose exactly where their metal is, and indeed their prospectuses say it's OK for the ETFs not even to know where their metal is kept among custodians and sub-custodians.

And the custodians for the major gold and silver ETFs are, perhaps not so coincidentally, also the two major international banks that report having the biggest short positions in gold and silver, short positions that give these banks and metal custodians a powerful interest in suppressing the price of the assets they supposedly are holding for investors who want those assets to rise in value.

The biggest so-called "physical" gold market in the world is the one run by the London Bullion Market Association. The LBMA publishes statistics on how much gold and silver is traded by its members. But these statistics show spectacular volumes, more metal than could possibly exist. Of course much of this metal could be sold and resold back and forth many times every day. But an expert in that market, Jeffrey Christian of the CPM Group, acknowledged at the March 25 hearing of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, as he had acknowledged in that explanatory report published in 2000, that the London bullion market is actually a fractional-reserve gold banking system built on the presumption that most gold buyers will never take delivery of their metal but rather leave it on deposit with the LBMA members from whom they bought it.

"Why is gold such a mystery? Why is it, along with silver, kept such a mystery? It's because the two precious metals are not only money but, from the point of view of free individuals, the best sort of money, less susceptible to what governments see as the most desirable quality of money -- the susceptibility to control by government and particularly its susceptibility to devaluation. You can print or otherwise issue gold and silver derivatives to infinity, but not the metals themselves."

What will this do to the price of gold and silver when the holders of these paper-backed securities realize that the actual supply does not meet the demand, that they will not be able to receive the bullion they paid for? We are already seeing the results of the increased demand as the price of gold continues to move higher.

* * *

The Gold Standard Institute journal

The July edition of the journal of the Gold Standard Institute leads off with an essay by financial writer Louis Boulanger, who argues that while people may ignore reality, they do so at great peril, as there is no guarantee that reality will ignore them. 

Boulanger concludes that the Internet revolution is moving sovereignty away from the state and back toward individuals -- which is, of course, the moral claim for ensuring that the precious metals trade freely as independent currencies. May it come to pass in our time. 

You can find the July edition at the Gold Standard Institute's Internet site HERE

Gold: the secret weapon in the worldwide financial war

A "full-scale financial war" is raging around the world and gold is the secret weapon, geopolitical analyst James G. Rickards tells King World News today.

Rickards says China's new gold exchange is retaliation for the refusal of the United States to restrain paper currency and help control inflation. He agrees that the exchange has the potential to explode demand for gold.

As for the proposal for Switzerland to create a "parallel" gold-backed franc, Rickards says it would create a massive case of Gresham's Law, where everyone would dump the unbacked franc for the gold-backed franc. Indeed, Rickards says, the first country that goes to a gold-backed currency will have the only currency anyone wants, the strongest currency in the world. Swiss legislators, he adds, can't possibly understand the global implications of the proposal.

Holes in the fiat currency dike are popping out all over the place, Rickards says, and in the face of the collapse of their paper currencies, governments will either have to convert their currencies to gold or resort to unprecedented coercion, outlawing gold or punitively taxing it and imposing capital controls.

As usual Rickards has thought things through far more extensively than most analysts. You can listen to his interview at the King World News Internet site HERE

Erste Bank Gold Report

Erste Group Bank's new report on gold as an investment and currency, written by Ronald-Peter Stoeferle and published today, may be the most comprehensive and profound of its type. Its major conclusions include:

• Negative real interest rates are the main driver of the gold price and will continue to be powerfully supportive.

•  The arguments supporting a return to some form of gold standard are strengthening.

• Government debt burdens could be sustantially eased by a higher gold price.

• There is no "bubble" in gold, as the public is hardly invested in it and has little interest in it.

• Increasing dependence on government transfer payments for the public's income works against restoring solvency to government.

• Many paper pledges of gold cannot be fulfilled by real metal, a point credited to GATA.

The report concludes, in part:

"Given that the majority of debt has neither been written off nor paid off but simply transferred, the problem of excessive debt is still waiting to be resolved. There has been no deleveraging, only an adjustment of booking entries from the private to the public sector. The quantitative easing has left monetary stability short on credibility, and it will be very difficult to remedy this situation. In this fragile environment gold will continue to thrive."

ErsteGroupGoldReport-07-04-2011

Gold standard back?

Richard Russell: the only true standard of value

The Only True Standard of Value

from  Richard Russell's Dow Theory Letters

April 20, 2011 -- The dollar is doing just what the Fed wants it to do -- it's sinking, sinking and sinking more. Sadly, the great American public doesn't understand what's happening, and if they were told they couldn't care less. Of course, what the public does notice is the painful result of the dollar's bear market. The result is seen every time Joe six-pack and his wife hit the neighborhood super-market. The rising prices are a shocker.

And if the price of your favorite cold cereal has not been raised, there is less of the cereal in the box. Then when Joe has to fill up the buggy to get home, he groans as he sees the gasoline tab. "Sixty bucks to fill up this lemon. I'm going to get a motorized bike," growls Joey. "This country is going to hell in a hand-basket."

The US has been getting away with spending more than it takes in, ever since World War II. It's a process that isn't sustainable, and if a process is unsustainable it will end. The US's habit of spending more than it's paying for has finally hit a brick wall. The wall is the demise of the famous "Yankee dollar." In order for the US to live over its head, it must borrow.

Half of the US's borrowing comes from foreign sources. And that's a problem. The fiat US dollar has no fixed value. It's worth must be measured against other currencies. "The dollar is worth so much in relation to the Brit pound -- or the dollar is worth so much in terms of the euro." Our foreign creditors, many of whom are loaded with dollars, keep a sharp eye on the comparative value of the dollar, and they're now frightened and mulling over the credit-worthiness of the US. The recent warning from the S&P rating agency heightened our creditors worries about both the US and the dollar.

The disgraceful battle between Obama and the Democrats vs. Paul Ryan and the Republicans is further raising the fears of our creditors. With commodity inflation now out in the open, Fed head Bernanke has a problem. His absurd defense is to refer to "core inflation" (without the cost of food and energy). Bernanke announces to the world that there's "no inflation," and besides if there is inflation the Fed can end it any time they want.

What Bernanke and the Fed can not control is the tell-tale price of gold.

As I write the battle is on to keep June gold from closing above 1500. Yesterday June gold hit an intra-day high of 1500, but can it close there? "Ah," Bernanke must be thinking, "If I could only control the price of that damn gold."

Yesterday, as I looked at my computer, and I could see the fierce struggle that was going on as gold whipped up six dollars, then five minutes later it is up a dollar-fifty. There must be a powerful contingent (perhaps backed by the Fed) that is desperate to keep the price of gold DOWN and below 1500. But alas for the Fed, gold is traded internationally across the face of the

planet and 24 hours a day. Gold is out of the hands of the Fed and Goldman Sachs, and it trades everywhere and where it wants.

This year I've been telling my subscribers to think in terms of two concepts:

(1) Think in terms of avoiding losses (rather than thinking in terms of building fat profits).

(2) Think in terms of PURCHASING POWER. Are you gaining or losing purchasing power?

For ten years I've advised my subscribers to climb aboard the great bull market in gold. Early subscribers who have followed my advice now have huge paper profits, many have become millionaires, others have been able to retire on their gold positions. Even new-comers have benefited from their belated investments in gold.

Over the last 12 months, the dollar price of gold is up 31.32 percent. Gold is the only true standard of value. The value of everything else must be measured in terms of gold. "How many ounces of gold does it take today to buy a new Ford?" "How many ounces of gold did it require to buy a new ford in 1932?" It costs a lot more (in dollars) to buy a new Ford today. But how many ounces of gold does it cost to buy a new Ford today compared with the ounces required in 1932 to buy a new Ford? What has changed, gold or the dollar? Gold hasn't changed, what has changed is the dollar, which has lost purchasing power.

The US public is rapidly being educated about money and gold. Ads are appearing almost daily in the newspapers, telling readers how and why to buy gold. The ads are being confirmed by the rising price of gold. The public is finally "getting it". I've been in this business since 1958, and I've seen a lot of advisory services come and go -- a lot! What I notice is that there are a number of fairly new advisories that are climbing (entering) on the back of the gold bull market. These advisories are sending out mass mailings to the public -- educating them on the fact of the dying dollar and the Fed's plan to solve the debt problem by diminishing the purchasing power of the dollar. As Lincoln put it, "You can't fool all of the people all of the time." Clueless as the American populace is, they are finally learning about gold, something that their great grandparents took for granted.

In terms of gold: Assessing real estate values in terms of gold. At its peak, the housing market in March 2007, the median US home price was $262,600, which was equivalent to 340.6 ounces of gold. Today's median income price is $186,100 or 109.2 ounces of gold. So in terms of real money, gold, the US median home price has lost 47% since 2007.

Applying the same measurements to the Dow, from the end of 2001 to the end of 2008 an investment in the Dow would have lost 81% of its purchasing power in terms of gold (statistic courtesy Larry Edelson of the outstanding "Uncommon Wisdom" advisory).

The great and harsh lesson of history now stares Americans in the face -- no fiat currency in history has ever survived. This fact underscores the growing panic to get out of dollars and out of all fiat currencies.

This emphasizes the irony of those who are rushing into dollars or dollar denominated bonds and blue-chip stocks on the thesis that these are "safe havens." It's a rush out of dollars to get into other forms of dollars. What's happening now is on a greater scale than has ever occurred before in the history of mankind. It's going to hit the current generation of Americans like a whirlwind. It will be historic in its intensity and destructiveness.

The great gold rush of 1849 opened up the American West. This gold rush of the early 2000's will open up the eyes of Americans to the danger of the Federal Reserve and fiat money.

Below in log scale -- one of the greatest and most significant bull markets in US history.

Below, the Dow over the exact same period.

Richard Russell

Gold Coin Value Guide

Here's an excellent guide for those looking for up-to-date gold and silver coin (US and foreign) face or melt (pure metal spot price) values: Coinflation.com

Richard Russell: Gold. Out in the Open

Out in the Open

Clipping from Richard Russell's "Dow Theory Letters"

March 24, 2011 -- "There is only one certainty regarding paper money -- the longer you hold it, the less it will buy in terms of real goods or real money -- gold." Richard Russell.

Yesterday was a banner day for the precious metals. Gold closed at an all-time high in terms of dollars. Silver moved into the 37 dollar zone for the first time since the precious metal bull market of the 1970s (today it's above 38 dollars an ounce!).

But there's a big difference between the current precious metals bull market and the bull market of the 1970s. The 1970 bull market drew tremendous interest (I was there). Everybody I knew (even the gold haters) were watching that bull market with keen interest, particularly during the wild "blow off" days of the late 1970s, when silver was rocketing higher -- rising every day by "limit up."

In comparison, today's huge precious metal bull market is greeted with yawns, that is, if it is greeted at all. I've been calling the current gold/silver market the "great stealth bull market." Ask the average man or woman on the street what's happening to precious metals, and they'll give you a blank stare and maybe a "Duh." Ask them if they own any gold or silver, and they'll give you a sheepish "Nah."

Gold (April) closed on March 2 at 1437.40, a record high. On March 9 silver closed at 36.04, highest since 1981. Yesterday both marks were bettered. Where's the excitement, where's the interest, where are the articles in the newspapers?

Time to study the chart below. As I've been saying, gold in its advance has periodically tested its 150-day moving average over the past few years (150-day MA is shown as the blue line on the chart). Note that on the most recent "correction," gold didn't even test its 150-day MA. When I saw this, I realized how powerful the forces under gold were.

Gold is now "out in the open" with no overhead resistance and no overhead supply. So far the bull market advance since 1999 has been steady, quiet, and orderly. Except for its spectacular slow and relentless climb, there's been no excitement in the gold bull market.

I don't think this is going to continue. Somewhere ahead the precious metals bull market is going to turn wild and speculative. Only one phenomenon will serve to create this excitement. That phenomenon is HIGHER PRICES. The public can resist anything in markets except steadily rising prices.

As for steady higher prices and excitement, I suspect that silver is about there. As for gold, maybe not yet. But somewhere ahead gold is going to catch fire. That will be the time when the great American public will decide that they have to have some gold, maybe just a coin or two, or maybe just a few shares of GLD -- but that time is coming.

Question -- As a new subscriber what should I do?

Answer -- Buy a position in GLD or SGOL or SLV. Assume a conservative position, one that you can sit with.

Question -- "What about older subscribers? What should we do?"

Answer -- Never mind timing this bull market. It can't be done, even by Goldman. You can add to your gold position. If possible, buy some one-ounce gold coins. One advantage of coins is that you're probably not going to trade them in and out. Sit tight with your coins, Put them in a place that's difficult to get at; in that way it will be a nuisance to sell them, even if you're tempted to.

***

Richard Russell

Eric Sprott: Gold Tsunami

by Eric Sprott & David Franklin

Ignoring real estate, most people invest their hard earned money in paper things. Stocks, bonds, annuities, insurance - it's all paper, and it sits nicely in our bank accounts and shows up on our computer screens. Halfway across the world, investors in China and India have never trusted paper investments as a store of value - and they're converting their hard earned paper money into gold and silver bullion. Not that this is anything new. It isn't. But the scale and speed with which they are accumulating precious metals IS new, and it'€™s driving the fundamentals that we believe will lead to higher prices in 2011.

Demand for the metals is literally exploding in Asia, and it'€™s creating shortages of physical bullion around the world. The statistics are extraordinary. China, the world'€™s largest gold producer, now requires so much of the precious metal (in addition to what it already mines) that it imported over 209 metric tons (6.7 million oz) of gold during the first ten months of 2010. This represents a fivefold increase from the estimated 45 metric tons it imported in all of 2009.¹

According to the World Gold Council, Chinese retail demand for gold increased by 70% from October 2009 to September 2010, representing a total of 153.2 tonnes of gold imports. Yet, over the same period, the demand for gold jewelry rose by only 8%.² There is a clear trend developing for Chinese investment in gold as a monetary asset, and China is buying so much gold for investment purposes that it now threatens to supercede India as the world'€™s largest gold consumer. Chinese demand in 2010 is expected to reach approximately 600 tonnes, just behind India'€™s 800 tonnes.³ To put that in perspective, 2010 world mine production is forecasted to be 2,652 tonnes, which means China and India could collectively lock-up over half of global annual production.

Even more surprising is the increase in Chinese demand for silver. Recent statistics show that silver imports have increased fourfold from 2009 to 2010. In 2005, the Chinese exported just over 100 million oz. of silver.⁴ In 2010, they imported just over 120 million oz. This represents a swing of 200 million+ oz. in a market that supplied a total of 889 million oz. in 2009 - a truly tectonic shift in demand!⁵

We are seeing widespread evidence of major shortages of physical gold and silver bullion across the globe. The Perth Mint recently stated that: "Demand for our coins and medallions is strong, but the biggest demand is coming from banks and traders looking for kilo bars."⁶ Three weeks ahead of Chinese New Year, Asian dealers were reporting premiums in mainland Chinese gold exchanges of $23 per ounce.⁷ Even Jim Cramer has acknowledged the current shortage in minted US gold coins, stating on his CNBC television show in December that: "As someone who tried to buy U.S. coins in December, there was a real scarcity. My dealer reportedly just couldn'€™t get any coins - tried to sell me Australian bullion. Said there was a shortage. Very telling."⁸

While Chinese New Year celebrations typically drive gold demand in the month of January, there are stronger forces at work here. The Chinese are fighting the resurgence of inflation. To protect their wealth, the populace is turning to gold and silver as a store of value. Precious metals ownership is a relatively new phenomenon in China, where Chinese citizens have only been able to purchase gold freely within the last ten years. Ownership restrictions were lifted in 2001 when the Chinese central bank abolished its long-term government monopoly over gold. The Shanghai Gold Exchange was then created in October 2002 to replace the People's Bank of China'€™s gold purchase and allocation system, thus ushering in a new era of gold investment in China.⁹ Investor interest in precious metals has increased dramatically since then, and new investment products are making gold more convenient to purchase and easier to own.

One such program recently caught our eye and speaks to the new era of gold investment within China. On April 1, 2010, the World Gold Council and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) issued a press release announcing a strategic partnership.¹⁰ Though seemingly innocuous, this press release introduced a completely new investment product for Chinese investors: The ICBC Gold Accumulation Plan ("ICBC GAP"). ICBC GAP allows investors in mainland China to accumulate gold through a daily dollar averaging program. The minimum investment required is either 200 RMB per month or 1 gram of gold per day (equivalent to approximately US$42).¹¹ Customers may renew the contracts at maturity, convert them into cash or exchange them for physical gold. The accounts are perfect for investors who want to accumulate gold over the long-term. While gold accumulation plans exist in Japan, Switzerland and other countries, this is a first for mainland China. Kudos to the World Gold Council for their efforts in setting up and promoting the program.

The most significant fact related to the ICBC GAP program is how fast it has captured the investing public in China. One million accounts have already been opened since the program launched on April 1st, resulting in the purchase of over 10 tonnes of gold thus far. According to press releases, the ICBC GAP plan was taken up by a mere 20% of total depositors at ICBC, and was only launched in select Chinese cities during the test phase. The ICBC bank just happens to be the largest consumer bank on earth with approximately 212 million separate accounts. If we apply some realistic assumptions and arithmetic, it'€™s easy to imagine how large this program could potentially become.

Suppose, for example, the ICBC GAP plan were expanded to cover all ICBC depositors, and also expanded to the next four largest Chinese banks. Let's further assume that the gold purchases within the plan enjoyed the same rate of growth as the test phase mentioned above. If we add all these numbers together, it results in gold purchases of an extra 300 tonnes of gold per year, or over 10% of the estimated 2010 global gold production.

The implications of this burgeoning Chinese demand for the gold market are immense. If these predictions prove accurate, the ICBC GAP plan could become the single largest buyer of physical gold on the planet. Considering that the program has only been launched in one Chinese bank thus far, imagine if it were extended to other institutions or other large gold consuming countries such as India, Russia or Turkey?

Speaking from Japan, the head of the World Gold Council recently commented on the early success of the ICBC GAP plan in China: "Here in Japan, it has taken over 10 years for the gold-savings account industry as a whole to reach 700,000 accounts. It is impressive that only one Chinese bank can exceed that level so easily, within one year, without PR or active marketing in-branch." The World Gold Council does their own arithmetic on how much gold the Chinese can consume: "In 2009, per capita gold consumption in China was 0.33 grams, up from 0.17 grams in 2002." Based on this data total Chinese gold consumption could range from 1,000 tonnes per year or more.¹² This implies that the Chinese could consume almost half of the gold produced globally on an annual basis.

The ICBC Gold Accumulation Plan and other alternate methods of investing in gold have the potential to overwhelm current supply in the gold market. If a similar program were launched for silver accumulation, in the same dollar terms at current prices, it would consume over half of the silver produced each year! In Asia, only physical gold and silver will do and unlike the supply of treasury bills, bonds or paper currencies, the supply of physical gold and silver is undoubtedly finite.

We believe Asian demand for physical gold and silver is akin to a tsunami. While precious metals prices have corrected on the paper exchanges, the inflation resurgence in Asia is quietly driving new, unforeseen levels of physical demand for the metals. While the world continues to float on a sea of paper, this massive wave of physical demand silently threatens to crash into the physical gold and silver market, potentially wiping out tangible supply.

_______________________________

1. Hook, Leslie. (December 2, 2010) China'€™s gold imports surge fivefold. Financial Times. Retrieved on January 31, 2011 from:

http://www.gold.org/download/rs_archive/WOR5797_Gold_Invest_Report_China_Web.pdf

2. D'Altorio (December 30, 2010) China'€™s Gold Rush. Investment U. Retrieved on January 31, 2011 from:

http://www.investmentu.com/2010/December/chinas-gold-rush.html

3. Pearson, Madelene. (January 12, 2011) Gold Imports by India Likely Reached Record, WGC Says. Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved on January 31, 2011 from:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-01-12/gold-imports-by-india-likely-reached-record-wgc-says.html

4. (December 2, 2010) Gold Imports by China Soar Almost Fivefold as Inflation Spurs Investment. Bloomberg. Retrieved on January 31, 2011 from:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-12-02/china-gold-imports-jump-almost-fivefold-as-inflation-outlook-spurs-demand.html

5. The Silver Institute. Demand and Supply in 2009. Retrieved on January 31, 2011 from:

http://www.silverinstitute.org/supply_demand.php

6. Campbell, James (January 12, 2011) Unrelenting demand for gold below $1400 - Perth Mint. Retrieved on January 30, 2011 from:

http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page103855?oid=118307&sn=Detail&pid=102055

7. Ash, Adrian (January 12, 2011) Shanghai Gold Premium Hits $23/Oz, China Opens 1 Million Gold-Savings Accounts. London Gold Market Report. Retrieved on January 31, 2011 from: http://www.resourceintelligence.net/shanghai-gold-premium-hits-23oz-china-opens-1-million-gold-savings-accounts/14715

8. CNBC: Buy this pause in gold'€™s bull run, "Mad Money" host Jim Cramer advises. Retrieved on January 31, 2011 from:

http://www.blanchardonline.com/investing-news-blog/econ.php?article=1697&title=CNBC:_Buy_this_pause_in_gold%27s_bull_run%2C_%22Mad_Money%22_host_Jim_Cramer_advises

9. China Gold Report: Gold in the Year of the Tiger. The World Gold Council (March 29, 2010). Retrieved on January 31, 2011 from: http://www.gold.org/download/rs_archive/WOR5797_Gold_Invest_Report_China_Web.pdf

10. World Gold Council (April 1, 2010) World Gold Council and ICBC Enter into Strategic Partnership to Promote China'€™s Gold Market. Retrieved on January 31, 2011 from: http://www.gold.org/download/pr_archive/pdf/ICBC_MOU_010410_pr.pdf

11. World Gold Council. (December 16, 2010) World Gold Council and ICBC launch first gold accumulation plan in China. Retrieved on January 31, 2011 from: 
http://www.gold.org/download/pr_archive/pdf/2010-12-16_ICBC_GAP_release.pdf

12. Ash, Adrian (January 31, 2011) Gold Shorts Beware China'€™s Million-Strong Gold Savers. Forbes. Retrieved on January 2011 from: 
http://blogs.forbes.com/greatspeculations/2011/01/13/gold-shorts-beware-chinas-million-strong-gold-savers/

Professor Fekete: Is There Life After Sudden Death of the International Banking System?

Is There Life After Sudden Death of the International Banking System?

Dr. Antal Fekete

The debate on the Real Bills Doctrine (RBD) within the sound money movement is important because the international banking system, financing world trade as well as domestic trade, is facing its greatest challenge in all history. Indeed, it may succumb to the sudden death syndrome, and all efforts to resuscitate it may fail. Worse still, banks have by now acquired such a bad name, and they have earned such a universal hatred for their role in the global destruction of capital and of individual savings, that any new financial institution in whose name the word "bank" figures may be rejected out of hand by the people, should anyone try to make a fresh start in the banking business after the collapse.

Banking systems have been wiped out before under both deflationary and hyper-inflationary conditions. But there were always at least some banks that survived the cataclysm, namely, banks of countries that have stayed the course of financial rectitude and did not listen to the siren song of zero interest and perpetual debt. Countries that continued to observe the sanctity of contracts anchored in gold. Today the entire world entrusted its fortunes to the dinghy of global fiat money. If the dinghy is smashed to pieces on the reefs, not a single bank will survive.

Under these circumstances detractors of the RBD will discover that the singing the praise of "100 percent reserve" will bring no comfort. It will not save the skin of their pet banks. They will not be trusted any more than the fractional reserve banks, so called, will. The RBD, nothing less, will have to come to the rescue and make the survival of people possible.

I have never been able to persuade my detractors to debate my theory on the sole reasonable premise that the merits or demerits of the RBD can only be assessed in a context where banks are completely absent. Ludwig von Mises described such a scenario prevailing in Lancashire before the Bank of England opened its branch office in the city of Manchester. The absence of banks did not frustrate the growth and flourishing of the wool trade, the staple industry of the region at the time. Weaver-on-clothier bills, spinner-on-weaver bills, woolman-on-spinner bills circulated as cash in the local economy. The absence of banks could hardly be a handicap in any vibrant community eager to make most of its endowment and potential. It wasn't in Lancashire.

I have lived in Newfoundland for forty years and had the opportunity to study the monetary conditions in the "outports", as the isolated small fishing villages scattered along the rugged coastline are known where boats carrying fresh supplies and buying up the catch call only a couple of times a year. People in the outports had no use for the word "bank": they have never heard of, much less seen one. Pre-confederation Newfoundland was a dominion of Britain (same as Canada) with its gold and silver coinage. Among others, they had the distinctive $2 gold and 5¢ silver piece. There was a perennial shortage of coins. The shortage did not rule out trade. People wanted to eat, get clad, shod, and keep themselves warm in winter. Coin circulation was substituted by real bill circulation. Unlike on the continent, in the outports real bills were of small denomination. They were not called real bills either. They were called "chits" drawn by the fishermen on the local fish processor when they delivered their catch on the wharf. Chits would circulate from hand to hand. You could buy supplies from the local store against payment in chits. You could pay for the repair of your nets, and the lumberman was happy to supply you with firewood if you offered him chits in payment. Maturity date on the chits was dove-tailed with the arrival of the next cargo boat bringing in fresh supplies. The captain of the boat would pay in gold and silver coins for the catch, so the fish processor could meet the demand for coins when redeeming his chits.

My detractors theorize that prices would be lower in the absence of real bills circulation. They conclude that clearing devices are inflationary as they "reduce the demand for gold". This theorizing is just as idle as trying to find out how much carting would cost if the carter shunned the cart and started carrying heavy loads on his own back once more. Guess what: this question could never be answered. No carter would undertake carting on his own back after the wheel has been invented! Likewise, real bills would step into the shoes of money whenever gold coins were in short supply. Like it or hate it: the wheel has been invented.
The debate on the RBD is dismally lowbrow. It uses terms totally inappropriate in the present situation, such as supply of and demand for gold, the equilibrium price of gold, and the like. Participants of the debate are utterly unprepared for the event when all offers to sell gold against irredeemable paper currency are abruptly and simultaneously withdrawn. To deal with the present financial crisis and its aftermath we have to develop the prerequisite linguistic tools. In this effort Carl Menger's work is the only help we have. Menger had no use for the language of equilibrium analysis. According to him what makes gold special among marketable goods is its unsurpassed liquidity. This means that the spread between the asked and bid price of gold increases more slowly than that of any other marketable good, as ever larger quantities are thrown on the market. This is the property that makes gold superbly qualified to play the role of the ultimate extinguisher of debt: the asset into which all credit instruments must mature if the credit system is to last.

In a sense credit can still be said to mature into gold, albeit at a variable price. But if the gold basis goes negative and stays negative, in other words permanent backwardation of gold strikes, it will herald the advent of Armageddon. The overwhelming majority of working economists don't see that gold still plays an indispensable role in the credit system. The U.S. Treasury bond market has a sine qua non adjunct in the gold futures market. Without it bonds would be irredeemable: they would be promises maturing into more promises. But once permanent gold backwardation strikes, the prop of gold futures is removed, and the U.S. Treasury bond market will succumb to the sudden death syndrome. For the time being it is supported by speculative demand, but the demise of the gold futures market will make the bond speculators scurry for cover.

As long as confidence in the monetary system is unimpaired, gold will be widely available and the credit system will work properly. Increasing unavailability of gold indicates the threat of a breakdown of the credit system. Gold is going into hiding. Watch for the day when it will not be for sale at any price. When this happens, the credit system and along with it trade will collapse. It is not a matter of equilibrium or the lack of it. It is a matter of life or sudden death.

Detractors of the RBD do a great disservice to society when they try to force their narrow parochial and cultist viewpoint, the quantity theory of money and the supply/demand equilibrium theory of price, on everybody at a time when the problem is the relentless drying-up of liquidity. What we need is a theory of hoarding to supplement the theory of marketability. The theory of interest describes how gold is exempted in part from serving as a medium for saving. There is a complementary theory: that of discount, describing how gold is exempted in part from serving as a medium of exchange. That economy is best where gold is hoarded least. In such an economy gold is not needed in the cash balances of traders and, for that reason, is widely available to serve as the ultimate extinguisher of debt.

Time has long since passed when bickering about the number of angels that can simultaneously dance on the point of a needle has added anything material to our knowledge. Fractional reserve banking is a red herring. Tinkering at the edges with 100 percent reserve requirements leads nowhere. You will never understand RBD if you try to approach it through abuses of banks. What needs to be explained is why real bills can circulate on their own wings and under their own steam — banks or no banks.
Real bill circulation will start spontaneously after the total prostration of the world's banking system. Yes, there is life after the sudden death of the banking system. People are not going to commit collective suicide at the altar of fiat currencies. People want to live. They will use whatever little gold is available to them to trade by drawing real bills against the production and distribution of goods they want to consume. It will be a repetition of the miracle at the end of the Middle Ages, when the bill of exchange was invented in Italian city-states such as Florence, Venice and Genoa. It will happen again. The world will do very well with real bills and without banks, thank you very much.

When contract law will once again reach the level of highest respect, and promises to pay gold can once again be believed, banks may once again be in vogue. When that day dawns, the best earning assets of the new banks will be real bills drawn on consumer goods in most urgent demand maturing into gold coins. The criterion by which banks are judged is not going to be the prohibition against less than 100 percent gold reserves. It will be the prohibition against borrowing short in order to lend long.

Source: "The Daily Bell"

Sprott's Embry on King World News: the fun is just beginning!

Sprott Asset Management's chief investment strategist, John Embry, covers many topics related to gold and silver in a 14-minute interview today with Eric King of King World News, which you can listen to at the King World News Internet site here:

http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2010/10/29_John_Embry.html

Or try this abbreviated link:

http://bit.ly/bQKZSR

Rob McEwen expects gold to reach $5,000

Rob McEwen, CEO of U.S. Gold and creator of Goldcorp, may be too soft-spoken and cautious ever to be caught wearing a tin-foil hat, but in a brief interview broadcast yesterday with TheStreet.com's Alix Steel he forecast a gold price of $5,000 per ounce....

Egon Von Greyerz: Gold Entering a Virtuous Circle

GOLD ENTERING A VIRTUOUS CIRCLE

By Egon von Greyerz
September 7, 2010

Fundamental and technical factors for gold are now in total harmony and gold is entering a virtuous circle that will drive the price up at its fastest pace since this bull market started in 1999.

• It is a fact that gold in US dollars (and many other currencies) has gone up 400% in eleven years or 16% per annum annualised.
• It is a fact that the US dollar has declined 80% in value against gold since 1999.
• It is a fact that the dollar and most other currencies have gone down 98-99% against gold since 1913 when the Federal Reserve Bank of New York was created.
• It is also a fact that the Dow Jones (and many world stock markets) has declined over 80% against gold since 1999.
• It is a fact that gold has made a new all time monthly closing high in dollars in August 2010.

Gold trend

We expect gold to start a substantial rise now which will continue for 5-10 months before any major correction. Gold’s technical picture is extremely strong with a continuous rising pattern of higher highs and higher lows with the steepness of the curve increasing. From much higher levels we are likely to see a correction that could last up to a year before the next rise which will last several years before we see a significant peak. Once gold has topped we do not expect the same kind of decline as after the 1980 peak since gold is likely to become part of a future reserve currency. At that point gold will be a solid but unexciting investment with very little upside potential. But that is likely to be a few years away.

For the full article please click the following link: GoldSwitzerland Market Update

September 2010

Egon von Greyerz

GoldSwitzerland.com / MatterhornAssetManagement.com

Robert Kientz: Gold, silver market suppression failures flash buy signal

Gold and Silver Market Suppression Failures Flash Buy Signal

"I am writing this in a 5-part series. The first three parts will document in as much detail as space allows the methods and actors involved in the historic and current price suppression of the gold market.

The fourth piece will tell you how to profit from gold, and the fifth from silver. These last two parts are really how to survive it first, and then profit from it. I say this because the gold market is an economic signal that cannot be ignored, no matter how much the powers that be want you to. If the powers that be are trying this hard to suppress this invaluable economic signal, then this is one ominous sign that we are in for a large economic ‘adjustment’ period.

Each piece will be released on consecutive days. Please be patient as the story is gradually told. I endeavored to put as much information here as to make this a solid basis for gold (and silver) market investment analysis, and not a typical ‘one-off’ chart and recommendation piece ..."

A series of essays that has begun to be posted at Seeking Alpha by Robert Kientz, an auditor and former broker and currency market analyst, is worth looking up at the Seeking Alpha website.
The essays are titled "Gold and Silver Market Suppression Failures Flash Buy Signal". You can find the first of the series HERE, and the second one HERE ...

Richard Russell: my take on gold

Here's a short extract from from Richard Russell's Dow Theory Letters reiterating his position and strong commitment in gold's generational bull market:

August 25, 2010 -- Dennis Gartman is an experienced commodity trader. Dennis has been very cautious about gold; he “sort of “ likes gold, so he calls himself a “gold agnostic.” For this reason it’s most interesting to read what Dennis says about gold in today’s report.

“Turning, then to gold and other metals, prices turned sharply for the better yesterday as the world rushed out of equities and looked for any safe harbors that were available. Certainly the rush to the Swiss franc was obvious, as noted above, and so too the rush into sovereign debt securities. But frankly, the rush was on to gold once again. We remain long what we have referred to as an ‘insurance’ position in gold, but we own it in terms of EUROs and /or of British pounds sterling, otherwise we remain an agnostic. To assuage our friends who are gold-bug-leaners, we shall not be short of gold. Nothing likely shall ever turn us manifestly bearish of it. But for the moment we are simply hard upon the sidelines, owning only this small ‘insurance’ position and comfortably in that position.

“Might we be enticed back to the bullish side of the market eventually? Of course we might. If the situation in the global equities markets became dire, we might move from agnosticism to ‘faith.” If we were to see the monetary authorities throwing caution to the wind and massively explode their balance sheets, we might be enticed away from our agnosticism to ‘faith.’ If the political situation were to become untoward, and patently uncomfortable, we’ll throw our agnosticism into a heap and join the gold market faithful. But until then, agnosticism works for us.”

Russell response — I can understand Gartman’s caution. Dennis is an old-time trader, and he’s seen a lot of traders get killed by taking huge and wrong positions.

My own position is that gold is in a clear and obvious primary bull market. These situations come along maybe two or three times in a lifetime. I was convinced back in 1999 that the bear market in gold had ended with gold selling at 256. In the year 2000 they were literally giving gold mining shares away. At that time gold shares were so ridiculously cheap that I told subscribers that they should buy these stocks (many selling for just a few dollars a share) and hold them as perpetual warrants.

At the same time I told my subscribers to start buying bullion one-ounce coins and “put ‘em away.” I’ve suggested that my subscribers do the same thing ever since.

I know bull markets, and I’ve never seen or experienced a primary bull market that didn’t end with a third speculative phase—this is the time when a bull market “blows its top”. I feel certain that the current huge bull market in gold will do the same.

But I have other reasons for being bullish about gold. Gold is the only real Constitutional money. The fiat paper that we’ve been using as money is only money because our government says “it’s money.” If the US government told you that printed paper was real money and legal for the payments of all debts, would you believe them. Well, you already have believed your government.

But I maintain that the truth will out, and that fiat paper is a fraud that will be found out. When that happens and people realize that they have been hoodwinked by their government, there will be such a rush (including both fear and greed) for gold that it will make the recent tech mania look like conservative investing.

As I write at midday, Dec. gold is up over nine dollars. Gold has been up 8 out of the last 10 days. As the months go by, we are pressing ever-closer to the speculative phase of the gold bull market. That will be something and even terrifying to see.

I am pleased to say that many of my older subscribers are now in the process of getting rich on their gold holdings. I’ve said over and over that one of the most difficult things to do in investing is to get in early on a primary bull market and ride the bull through to the latter part of its final speculative third phase.

The market seldom gives you the chance to get rich. This gold market has defied the odds and allowed its early followers and believers to get rich.

Anyway, that’s my take on gold and why you should own it and why you should follow my advice.

Richard Russell

Kitco's Jon Nadler still can't make up his mind about central bank gold price manipulation

Here's a special case of split identity in the person of  Kitco's analyst Jon Nadler and a brief story of gold price manipulation, as reported by GATA:

"How does Kitco senior gold market analyst Jon Nadler get away with it?

Interviewed Thursday morning by TheStreet.com's Alix Steel, Nadler dismissed complaints that central banks and their agents, bullion banks, collude to suppress the price of gold. As he did at the Vancouver resource investment conference in June (http://www.gata.org/node/8717), Nadler insisted, "There's no vested interest on anybody's part to suppress prices here."

You can find Nadler's comment to TheStreet.com here:

http://www.thestreet.com/story/10760375/1/top-5-reasons-gold-prices-move.html

But just a few hours later, interviewed about gold on the "Trading Day" program of Business News Network in Canada, Nadler remarked that a gold price of $5,000 would signify "disruptions on a major scale" and a price like that is "something that the central bankers of the world have decided probably not to allow to happen."

You can find Nadler's interview with BNN here:

http://watch.bnn.ca/#clip341191

So if central banks have no interest in suppressing the gold price, why should they decide not to allow gold to reach $5,000? Indeed, why should central banks care about the price of gold at all?

Of course the answer is well documented in history. Indeed, the modern history of gold is almost entirely a matter of central bank price manipulation and suppression, because gold is a currency that competes with central bank currencies and profoundly influences interest rates and the price of government bonds.

Much of the modern history of gold has been outlined well by Bill Buckler, publisher of The Privateer financial letter, particularly in regard to the London Gold Pool of the 1960s and the gold dishoarding by the International Monetary Fund and the U.S. Treasury Department in the 1970s, two acknowledged mechanisms of price suppression. You can find The Privateer's outline here:

http://www.the-privateer.com/gold2.html

And at least four chairmen of the Federal Reserve maintained or expressed interest in suppressing the gold price.

-- William McChesney Martin Jr., the longest-serving Fed chairman, kept in his archive a detailed plan, dated April 1961, for surreptitious government intervention to rig the currency and gold markets to support the U.S. dollar and to conceal, obscure, or falsify U.S. government records and reports so that the rigging might not be discovered. This document remains on the Internet site of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Along with some explanatory commentary it can be located here:

http://www.gata.org/node/7096

-- In June 1975 Fed Chairman Arthur Burns wrote a seven-page memorandum to President Ford about controlling the gold price through foreign policy and defeating a free market in gold. That memorandum can be found here:

http://www.gata.org/files/FedArthurBurnsOnGold-6-03-1975.pdf

-- In November 2004 former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker published an excerpt from his memoirs in the Nikkei Weekly in Japan in which he regretted that central bank intervention was not undertaken to suppress the price of gold during a currency revaluation in 1973. Volcker wrote: "That day the U.S. announced that the dollar would be devalued by 10 percent. By switching the yen to a floating exchange rate, the Japanese currency appreciated, and a sufficient realignment in exchange rates was realized. Joint intervention in gold sales to prevent a steep rise in the price of gold, however, was not undertaken. That was a mistake." The excerpt from Volcker's memoirs can be found here:

http://www.gata.org/node/8209

-- And former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan has acknowledged or remarked favorably about central bank intervention to suppress the gold price a number of times, including during the May 1993 meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee. According to the minutes of the meeting, Greenspan said: "I have one other issue I'd like to throw on the table. I hesitate to do it, but let me tell you some of the issues that are involved here. If we are dealing with psychology, then the thermometers one uses to measure it have an effect. I was raising the question on the side with Governor Mullins of what would happen if the Treasury sold a little gold in this market. There's an interesting question here because if the gold price broke in that context, the thermometer would not be just a measuring tool. It would basically affect the underlying psychology." You can find the May 1993 minutes of the FOMC meeting here:

http://www.gata.org/node/8208

GATA has compiled so much more evidence of central bank manipulation of the gold market here:

http://www.gata.org/taxonomy/term/21

Given the U.S. government's fierce secrecy about gold -- GATA has had to sue the Fed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for access to the Fed's gold records, including gold swap agreements the Fed acknowledges having with foreign banks -- we seldom can be sure of what central banks are doing in the gold market at any particular time. But central bank interest in controlling the gold price -- what Nadler keeps denying -- is the gold market's first and overwhelming fact.Any analysis that denies this is disinformation. And any analyst who denies and acknowledges it on the same day to different news organizations must be very confident that they're not paying attention and not inclined to do any research. Unfortunately Nadler probably has that much right."

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer

Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.