Gold World News Flash

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• Gold coins: The Mexican Libertad
• Richard Russell - US Dollar Collapse Will Accelerate
• Will March's Madness lead to April Fools?
• Gold and Silver and The Endgame for U.S.A Inc.
• Gold Seeker Closing Report: Gold Gains and Silver Surges 2% to a New 31-Year High
• BMO On A "New Paradigm For Silver"
• Adrian Douglas Demonstrates How The Fed Cooks Its Books (With PwC's Complicity)
• A Long Day
• Transocean Admits To Vocabulary Malfunction: Says 2010 Safety Wording "May Have Been Insensitive"
• Join GATA's Murphy at Vancouver reception for Japan relief April 21
• Sprott Physical Gold Trust Announces Follow On, Will Sequester Another $300 Million In Physical; PSLV Next?
• The Silver Price Slammed Through the $38 Barrier
• The Curious Case Of Bloomberg's Persistent Treasury "Demand" Disinformation Campaign
• MA Register of Deeds John O’Brien to State Treasurer | Stop Using Bank of America for County Deposits of $25 Millon a Year Because of MERS
• A World of Deficit Spending Without Any Changes
• Gold Bubble? Is There Currently One - I Don't Think So
• New Gold Takeover Re-Emphasizes Gold's Roots
• The Bedrock of the Gold Bull Rally
• U.S. To Reach Debt Limit By May 16: Geithner
• Ron Paul: The Fed's largesse undermines foreign policy
• Jared Sturdivant: Distressed Companies Offer Gold Lining
• Secretary Geithner Sends Debt Limit Letter to Congress
• San Francisco Rainwater Radiation 181 Times Above US Drinking Water Standard
• This time it's Lockhart
• Silver Leads the Metals Charge
• Gold’s historic undervaluation versus oil
• Silver demand huge, supply small, Sprott tells King World News
• The Gate of Tears
• Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts
• S Korea's foreign reserves rise to 298.6 bln USD in March

Gold coins: The Mexican Libertad Posted: 04 Apr 2011 06:00 PM PDT Goldmoney

Richard Russell - US Dollar Collapse Will Accelerate Posted: 04 Apr 2011 05:44 PM PDT With gold and silver strong as of late, the Godfather of newsletter writers Richard Russell had this to say in his latest commentary, "(Bill) Gross warns that 75% of the US budget is nondiscretionary and is entitlement-based. With Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, notes Gross, we are seeing $1 trillion deficits as far out as the eye can see. These three entitlements amount to 44% of Federal spending and their share is steadily rising." This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Will March's Madness lead to April Fools? Posted: 04 Apr 2011 04:58 PM PDT Today was a quiet day in the market (even quieter than Bernie Madoff's trading floor on a triple witching Friday or a Money McBags column without the dick jokes) as investors bask in the fictitious and marginally above consensus guessed jobs numbers from Friday (and if you missed it, Money McBags dove in to the jobs report this weekend with all of the skill, finesse, and aplomb of Kirstie Alley diving in to a vat of Cherry Garcia ice cream) and get ready for tonight's highly anticipated college championship (and Money McBags is taking the Big East entrant and giving the points).   With Money McBags still getting over his hangover from cheering at this weekend's slut walk (though it was nowhere near as fun as watching this slut walk) and with news more non-existent than this second girl's vagina (and note to TLC, really?  No, hold on a second and read that again, really?  Money McBags honestly doesn't know if that whole thing is an April Fool's joke or way too much information but either way he'll be sure to tune in, though with the sound off, his eyes closed, and a barf bag close by) or people who give a shit about Katie Couric leaving CBS news (note to CBS, you have a news program?), today's column is going to be an old school When Genius Prevailed of 800 words and done because sometimes you have to play the cards which you are dealt.   In US macro news, Republicans released their first attempt at a budget which included cutting $4T by taking away many Medicare and Medicaid benefits in their attempt to become even less popular.  Pundits are calling it "Operation Don't Elect Us" because even if the budget deficit is spiraling more out of control than Lindsay Lohan's career or Raj Rajaratnam's phone bill, cutting entitlements before the elections is one of the worst electoral strategies since Alf Landon's refusal to campaign and Alton B. Parker's refusal to be someone else.  And as long as the macro news was driven by political gobbledygook, it is worth noting that President Obama announced his formal re-election campaign bid today and he promises to run on the strength of his accomplishments such as not being Bush, that super cool vegetable garden, and did Money McBags already say not being Bush?   In news you should care about if you've come to the award winning When Genius Prevailed (other than learning about Eva Green's NSWF nude scene in the new show Camelot, where viewers apparently "came a lot," and yes, that wins bad pun of the week so far), oil rose to 30 month highs as the Middle East remains in more turmoil than Southwest Airlines' planes (where fuselages have developed bigger cracks than the one in Kim Kardashian's ass) as Libyan rebels are being recognized as the legitimate government by France, Qatar, Italy, and a bunch of other countries who will run when it is time to support them.  Rising oil prices obviously don't bode well for the Fed led recovery (even though energy prices don't figure in to the Fed's calculation of inflation which is as non-sensical as Snooki getting paid $2k more than Toni Morrison to speak at Rutgers since we all know she should have been paid at least $10k more because let's see Toni Morrison perform a San Diego Sandal while shotgunning a beer) which means the odds of QE3 rise by the day.  The only other US market news was that the SEC is probing backdoor mergers which is bad news for both Chinese companies and Bree Olson.   Internationally, Japan apparently released radioactive waste in to the ocean (and Money McBags has seen this before and does not like where it is going), so it's good to see they have things under control.  The nuclear meltdown and the fact that the Japanese economy has been stagnant since David Vitters was in diapers caused business confidence to sag more than Chelsea Handler's boobs as Japan continues to face more known unknowns than Magic Johnson's wife.   In the market, McDonald's said they will hire 50k workers which means there might eventually be one clean McDonald's bathroom, while semiconductor stocks fell after Nomura Securities said the sector is facing weakening demand, peak gross margins, and higher capital spending which is known as the pu pu platter of bad news.   Money McBags has plenty more today at the award winning When Genius Prevailed and for those of you who got bent out of shape over some of the saltier language in Money McBags' weekend Labor Force Participation Rate Report analysis, you have heard of parody, right?  See, Money McBags though it was funny to take the slogan "It's the economy, stupid," and go all Aristocrats on it.  For those of you who thought the language wasn't salty enough, well, there are plenty of archives to quench your thirst.

Gold and Silver and The Endgame for U.S.A Inc. Posted: 04 Apr 2011 04:17 PM PDT By James West MidasLetter.com April 4, 2011 I'm going to take a leap of faith and assume the reader harbours a sufficiently enlightened mind to be aware of several key facts regarding the world as we know it. The fatuous commentary suggesting gold is a bubble, gold has peaked, gold is a bad investment, etc shall from this point forward be consigned to its rightful place in the Horribly Flawed Thinking dumpster and discussion of same restricted to the hopelessly naïve (or sublimely clever and duplicitous) CNBC. Henceforth we proceed under the assumption that ; The United States dollar is in a state of terminal deterioration, and its continuing viability as a fiat unit of trade value is for a limited time only. 1. Gold and silver, as the principle monetary metals, as well as platinum and palladium (secondary monetary metals) will be part of the formula that determines the fair value of any future global currency. 2. The new global currency must be accepted by the entire G8 b...

Gold Seeker Closing Report: Gold Gains and Silver Surges 2% to a New 31-Year High Posted: 04 Apr 2011 04:00 PM PDT Gold climbed as much as $10.89 to $1438.69 by a little after 8AM EST before it fell back off in New York, but it still ended with a gain of 0.29% and closed just $5.80 from a new all-time closing high. Silver surged to a new 31-year high of $38.593 before it also fell back off a bit, but it still ended with a gain of 2.02%.

BMO On A "New Paradigm For Silver" Posted: 04 Apr 2011 03:32 PM PDT Courtesy of the Village Whisperer, we are happy to present BMO's latest comprehensive report on silver titled "A new paradigm for silver." While we suggest readers skip the part about price expectations for gold, silver and other metals, which at this point nobody save for the Chairsatan has any clue where these will go (and Bernanke's mind is made up for him by Jan Hatzius, so as always pay attention to Goldman buy/sell signals on PMs), the report does have a very extensive section on the key supply and demand drivers, which for anyone new to the metal, is a must read. Additionally, the report covers virtually all the key silver miners of note (incidentally for those wondering, the San Critsobal strike was lifted earlier today). In summary: BMO Research has reviewed a number of supply and demand scenarios for silver through 2015E. The analysis suggests that the projected rise in mine supply should largely be consumed by rising industrial demand through to the end of 2012E. The prospects of further quantitative easing combined with sovereign debt concerns, competitive ‘fiat’ currency devaluation in western economies, and the return of inflation could result in investment demand exceeding BMO Research’s projections and extending the supply deficit through 2014E. This shift in the supply/demand dynamic lies in contrast to the broader investment perception for silver, which is rooted in the 1990’s when the metal was in abundance, driven by the demise of the photographic industry and Chinese selling. The paradigm shift for silver suggests that the traditional benchmarks for silver, such as the long-term historical ratio with gold, are no longer valid. Accordingly, the markets are searching for a new set of criteria againstwhich to benchmark the price of silver, with a bias to the upside. Full report: BMO New Paradigm for Silver

Adrian Douglas Demonstrates How The Fed Cooks Its Books (With PwC's Complicity) Posted: 04 Apr 2011 01:15 PM PDT It turns out that public and private US corporations aren't the only ones cooking their books, and that PricewaterhouseCoopers' consent can be easily purchased. Here is an excerpt from the Fed's 1999 minutes confirming that the books at America's central bank have been "fudged" on at least one occasion: "The Board’s staff and our accounting function at the New York Fed have worked out an accounting treatment to correct for both the $5 million and the $26.6 million errors. That involves reducing the accrued interest asset account by the entire $31.6 million, with an offsetting reduction in interest income on foreign currency investments. We will make that adjustment before the end of the year and spread it among all the Reserve Banks. Of course, for all of us with responsibilities for SOMA this is an embarrassing, indeed humbling, event. As a technical matter, though, I understand that PricewaterhouseCoopers is comfortable with the conclusion of both our accounting and audit function and the Board staff that this is not a material event for purposes of disclosure for any Reserve Bank." Perhaps PwC can come out, unsolicited for now, and disclose just how many other such borderline disclosable events it may have encountered while helping the Fed cooks it books in the past several decades? From Adrian Douglas Of Market Force Analysis Deception and Cover-up at the FED? The title of this article is borrowed and modified from the book “Deception and Abuse at the Fed” by Robert C. Auerbach. The minutes of each Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting are released within weeks of the meeting having occurred. The full transcript is available only five years later. I recently started reading in depth the transcripts of the FOMC meetings and discovered some shocking information. Let’s consider the December 21, 1999 meeting. The minutes can be found here while the full transcript is here. In the minutes the Board unanimously accepted the accounts of the System Open Market Account: The Report of Examination of the System Open Market Account, conducted by the Board's Division of Reserve Bank Operations and Payment Systems as of the close of business on September 10, 1999, was accepted. One would think that there was nothing of interest to see here; just mundane approval of accounting. If we look at the transcript we get an entirely different picture that shows that the FED contemplated that there could have been fraudulent diversion of funds or errors in accounting in the famous Exchange Stabilization Fund (ESF) that has received so much attention from GATA as one mechanism for manipulation of the gold market: CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN. Without objection. Peter Fisher, you wanted to discuss the report of examination, I understand? MR. FISHER. Yes. I wanted to elaborate a little on Louise Roseman’s memo to Don Kohn about the unresolved difference between the internal accounting records of the Markets Group Accounting and Control Unit and those reflected in the Integrated Accounting System regarding the System’s net interest accruals on foreign currency investments. I thought it would be helpful if I gave a couple minutes of background, if you will bear with me. Last spring, as members of the Committee will recall, we entered into a series of transactions with the ESF to re-balance our euro and yen holdings so we could come to a better split both in terms of total holdings and the currency mix. This involved a number of transfers of ownership of a series of investments and resulted in quite a significant amount of accounting activity. In the course of reviewing that, our own accounting staff identified an error that had been introduced in the prior year in our treatment of the premium on bonds held in the accrual account, overstating the accrual account by about $5 million. In the course of confirming that, they identified an additional $26.6 million overstatement in the accrual account for interest on foreign currency investments. We have had a number of staff members working full time trying to trace the source of that $26.6 million overstatement. They have worked back through the records to December 1994, before which detailed records at the transaction level just no longer exist due to the routine and appropriate destruction of documents. The Board examiners were at our Bank to conduct an examination of the System Open Market Account in September and PricewaterhouseCoopers also has looked over our methodology to try to trace this overstatement back through time and find its source. PricewaterhouseCoopers is confident that we have traced it back as far as we can. They have tested our work papers and agree with our conclusion that we simply can’t go back any further. There are two possible causes of this overstatement that we have to confront. One is the diversion of funds and the other is error. Now, we cannot rule out the possibility of a diversion of funds. But people from our own audit function and from Pricewaterhouse-Coopers have reviewed the control procedures we’ve had in place for the last decade and are very comfortable with the conclusion that these control procedures are sufficiently robust that the likelihood of diversion is remote. It cannot be ruled out, but for diversion to have occurred it would have had to involve the collusion of many people--just an extraordinary number of people--on several different staffs. If anything, our control procedures run a little to the “belt and suspenders” direction in regard to control of the flow. So, there is reasonable confidence that no diversion of funds occurred. The much more likely cause is a simple accounting error. The failure to credit the accrual account when cash was received would have left this account overstated. But we have worked the accounting back as far as we can take it and cannot find the erroneous entry or entries. Dave Sheehy, the New York Fed’s General Auditor, and I are both looking into a fundamental reappraisal of our control procedures. We have introduced an additional mechanical check to maintain detailed records of the accrual stream by instrument, so that when a final principal payment is received we can trace the record all the way back on each instrument and double check the accounting. More fundamentally and more importantly, what troubles us is how we could have gone for so many years without scrubbing this account more vigorously. That is something we are looking into and we are going to be revising our control procedures--both the audit procedures and those in our own Markets Group. The Board’s staff and our accounting function at the New York Fed have worked out an accounting treatment to correct for both the $5 million and the $26.6 million errors. That involves reducing the accrued interest asset account by the entire $31.6 million, with an offsetting reduction in interest income on foreign currency investments. We will make that adjustment before the end of the year and spread it among all the Reserve Banks. Of course, for all of us with responsibilities for SOMA this is an embarrassing, indeed humbling, event. As a technical matter, though, I understand that PricewaterhouseCoopers is comfortable with the conclusion of both our accounting and audit function and the Board staff that this is not a material event for purposes of disclosure for any Reserve Bank. I would be happy to try to answer any questions. CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN. Is there any evidence of a surprising rise in standards of living of key people involved? MR. FISHER. No, there is not. CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN. Has somebody looked? MR. FISHER. Yes, we have looked into that. Many of the staff people are still at the Bank, though others are not. But we have found nothing of that nature. CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN. Were it an embezzlement, prior to what period would it have occurred? MR. FISHER. We only know that the difference existed prior to December 1994. CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN. It could have been any time prior to that? Is there a beginning point, other than 1914? MR. FISHER. The details certainly don’t exist for pre-December1994 records, so I don’t know how we could determine the beginning point--in 1973 or 1963 or where. Prior to 1994, the only interest income we were receiving in that account was coming from the BIS, the Bundesbank, and the Bank of Japan. So the source of the income was official institutions. It was really a very simple accounting process to bring that income in at that point; the complexities have been introduced since that time. So, as I say, Pricewaterhouse-Coopers and our audit function are confident in looking over the control procedures we have had in place that it’s implausible that a diversion could have occurred. But we cannot rule it out. What is the solution to this accounting problem? Just fudge the accounts! They reduced reported income to make the 31.6 million dollar problem go away. Here is a repeat of the relevant section: The Board’s staff and our accounting function at the New York Fed have worked out an accounting treatment to correct for both the $5 million and the $26.6 million errors. That involves reducing the accrued interest asset account by the entire $31.6 million, with an offsetting reduction in interest income on foreign currency investments. We will make that adjustment before the end of the year and spread it among all the Reserve Banks. Of course, for all of us with responsibilities for SOMA this is an embarrassing, indeed humbling, event. As a technical matter, though, I understand that PricewaterhouseCoopers is comfortable with the conclusion of both our accounting and audit function and the Board staff that this is not a material event for purposes of disclosure for any Reserve Bank. It is shocking that PriceWaterhouseCoopers should be “comfortable” that this is not a “material event” for the purposes of disclosure! Clearly the system is set up to deliberately deceive the public and avoid any transparency. Full transcripts of the FOMC meetings are only available after five years…and what is the time limit before they destroy detailed records?...you guessed it: five years! But there is more deception revealed in the transcript on an entirely different topic: Greenspan claimed that the Fed can not recognize a bubble until after it has burst. That is a lie as shown by another section of the transcript: MR. PRELL: All of this may well be stretching the point statistically, but I think it’s worth sounding a note of caution that strong productivity gains and intense competition--even accelerating productivity and intensifying competition--do not by themselves ensure that there can be no step-up in inflation. Unless supply is completely elastic, which seems unlikely in the short run, demand can become excessive. That, we fear, is the current situation, with the rising stock market overriding the effects of monetary tightening. Once again in recent weeks, the market has defied our notions of valuation gravity by posting an appreciable further advance. Moreover, it has done so in a way that seems to highlight the risk that it will continue doing so. I refer to the incredible run-up in “tech” and e-commerce stocks, some of which have entered the big-cap realm without ever earning a buck. To illustrate the speculative character of the market, let me cite an excerpt from a recent IPO prospectus: “We incurred losses of $14.5 million in fiscal 1999 primarily due to expansion of our operations, and we had an accumulated deficit of $15.0 million as of July 31, 1999. We expect to continue to incur significant...expenses, particularly as a result of expanding our direct sales force…. We do not expect to generate sufficient revenues to achieve profitability and, therefore, we expect to continue to incur net losses for at least the foreseeable future. If we do achieve profitability, we may not be able to sustain it.” Based on these prospects, the VA Linux IPO recorded a first-day price gain of about 700 percent and has a market cap of roughly $9 billion. Not bad for a company that some analysts say has no hold on any significant technology. The warning language I’ve just read is at least an improvement in disclosure compared to the classic prospectus of the South Sea Bubble era, in which someone offered shares in “A company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is.” But, I wonder whether the spirit of the times isn’t becoming similar to that of the earlier period. Among other things, it may be noteworthy that the tech stocks have done so well of late in the face of rising interest rates. Earlier this year, those stocks supposedly were damaged when rates rose, because, people said, quite logically, that the present values of their distant earnings were greatly affected by the rising discount factor. At this point, those same people are abandoning all efforts at fundamental analysis and talking about momentum as the only thing that matters. If this speculation were occurring on a scale that wasn’t lifting the overall market, it might be of concern only for the distortions in resource allocation it might be causing. But it has in fact been giving rise to significant gains in household wealth and thereby contributing to the rapid growth of consumer demand--something reflected in the internal and external saving imbalances that are much discussed in some circles. Whether our assumed 75 basis point increase in the fed funds rate would be a sufficient shock to halt this financial locomotive is open to question. The FED clearly recognized the tech bubble and even made reference to the infamous and most speculative “South Sea Bubble”. But they did not want to do anything because it was making the whole economy expand due to the wealth effect: If this speculation were occurring on a scale that wasn’t lifting the overall market, it might be of concern only for the distortions in resource allocation it might be causing. But it has in fact been giving rise to significant gains in household wealth and thereby contributing to the rapid growth of consumer demand. Greenspan lied that they could not recognize a bubble in advance. They did recognize it and even compared it to the South Sea Bubble and they purposefully let it continue because it was adding to household demand, a large part of that being driven by housing demand, and it was all founded on companies that had no or little fundamentals that were commanding ridicules valuations that were bound to crash bring the entire economy with it. And that is what happened. This transcript shows that the FED can not even manage the multi-billion dollar ESF fund, how can they be trusted to run a multi-trillion dollar bail-out operation as was instigated in 2008? The answer is we can’t; the recently released list of banks and institutions who received TARP funds and how much due to an FOIA request of Bloomberg reveals that yet again the FED deceived the congress and the public by requesting the TARP funds to bail-out America but much of the funding went to foreign institutions! The transcript shows that when it discovers an accounting problem it fudges the accounts and decides that this is not a material event that needs to be disclosed in the Annual Reports of the Federal Reserve Banks! The Federal Reserve acts as the supervisor and regulator of the banking system. Clearly such breaches in fiduciary duties and accounting standards explains why the banks they supervise can thumb their noses at any banking regulations and run fast and loose with off-balance sheet transactions, report falsely inflated and often record profits coming out of the biggest recession and banking crisis in 80 years and pay their executives obscene bonuses. The FOMC transcripts only give us a small glimpse of what is really happening in secret at the FED but from just scratching the surface one can be justified in extrapolating that it is hiding a web of corruption, lies and deceit. This band of liars and cheats are responsible for the only global reserve currency, the US dollar. If you own and hold bullion instead of US dollars there are no counterparties, let alone counterparties who lie every time they move their lips, and operate under a shroud of secrecy which is only partially lifted after five years, which is coincident with the destruction of all detailed records.

A Long Day Posted: 04 Apr 2011 01:03 PM PDT My Dear Friends, I made a one day trip today from Sharon, Connecticut to Ottawa and back today. This took me slightly away from today's action. In review, the intra-day action in gold is following closely with the dollar's trading. This usually proceeds a full lock up of trading direction and action between gold and the US dollar. One of the worst looking charts belongs to the US dollar. I feel securing the upcoming try at $1444 to be the go sign for the next angel. Respectfully yours, Jim

Transocean Admits To Vocabulary Malfunction: Says 2010 Safety Wording "May Have Been Insensitive" Posted: 04 Apr 2011 12:55 PM PDT A few days ago Transocean stunned every sapient creature (with a memory just a little longer than that of momos chasing every up and downtick of Travelzoo stock) in the world after it announced it had achieved an "exemplary" safety record last year as measured by its total recordable incident rate and total potential severity rate, which in turn justified executives' safety bonuses. For those who may have forgotten last year's unprecedented Gulf oil spill, this is comparable to TEPCO announcing next year that management will receive record bonuses due to the company's unprecedented ability to avoid hazard, not to mention nuclear power plant meltdown and recriticality. Luckily, it only took a few days for the firm's PR division to realize someone may get very angry with the company's spin of events, and as Reuters reports, the company has "acknowledged that its description of 2010 as its "best year in safety" despite a blowout that sank one of its rigs, killing 11 workers and causing a huge oil spill, might be insensitive." More on this unbelievable vocabulary malfunction: Ihab Toma, the company's executive vice president of global business, said some wording in that statement "may have been insensitive" given the Deepwater Horizon accident caused by a blown-out BP well in the Gulf of Mexico last year. "Nothing in the proxy was intended to minimize this tragedy or diminish the impact it has had on those who lost loved ones. Everyone at Transocean continues to mourn the loss of these friends and colleagues." Toma said in a statement on Monday. Earlier on Monday, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar had disputed Transocean's claim that its safety record last year justified executives' safety bonuses. He told reporters on a conference call that Transocean was "at some fault" for causing millions of barrels of crude oil to leak from the underwater well. On Friday, the head of the Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management had chastised Transocean Chief Executive Steven Newman for not doing more to encourage two employees to attend a hearing this week for the government's probe of the oil spill. And while America continues to eat shrimp and who knows what which "most certainly" has far less than the legal threshold of oil content in it, the company's executives keep getting richer. Newman, who became CEO of the rig contractor less than two months before the April 20 blow-out, received $6.4 million in 2010, including $850,000 in base pay and a $5.4 million long-term incentive award, according to the filing on Friday. We can't wait for TEPCO's CEO to emerge from the hospital following his hospitalization for a headache a few days after Fukushima blew up, if only to collect his well-deserved multi-million bonus from a nationalized TEPCO, and for the general irradiated population to simply shrug its shoulders. After all, the conditioning treatment that nothing can ever change in the klepocratic oligarchy is now all too well embedded.

Join GATA's Murphy at Vancouver reception for Japan relief April 21 Posted: 04 Apr 2011 12:26 PM PDT 8:22p ET Monday, April 4, 2011 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Cambridge House, sponsor of the resource investment conferences throughout Canada and in Phoenix, Arizona, is seeking to mobilize the Vancouver-area mining, mine finance, and mine-investing communities in support of Japan disaster relief with a fundraising reception and networking party in the rooftop lounge of the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver, 900 West Georgia St., to be held from 4 to 7 p.m. Thursday, April 21. GATA Chairman Bill Murphy will attend and would love to meet there with GATA supporters in the Vancouver area. Admission will be C$15 and the event will feature snacks, cocktails, a silent auction, musical entertainment, and the rooftop lounge's spectacular view of the beautiful city below. Proceeds will be given to the Canadian Red Cross Japan relief fund. CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. ADVERTISEMENT The Gold Standard Now: It Can Work Today a dollar is worth 80 percent less than it was 40 years ago, and less than 5 percent of its value a hundred years ago. We deserve a dollar that is as good as gold, a dollar that will hold its value from year to year so we can be financially secure and our economy can generate more and better jobs. For most of America's history, our dollar was literally as good as gold. But on August 15, 1971, our politicians destroyed the link between gold and the dollar. They destroyed the foundations of our economic system. A new Internet site, TheGoldStandardNow.org, provides news and cutting-edge analysis about this most important issue and explains how the gold standard worked in the past and how it can work in the future. Visit us today: http://www.thegoldstandardnow.org/about/137-welcome-newsmax Join GATA here: An Evening with Bill Murphy and James Turk Sponsored by Deutsche Edelmetall-Gesellschaft Friday, April 29, 2011 Hofbrauhaus, Munich, Germany http://www.goldmoney.com/munich-2011-april-29.html Support GATA by purchasing gold and silver commemorative coins: https://www.amsterdamgold.eu/gata/index.asp?BiD=12 Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: http://gata.org/tshirts Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon: http://www.goldrush21.com/ Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: http://www.gata.org To contribute to GATA, please visit: http://www.gata.org/node/16 ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Resource Spins Off Platinum/Palladium Venture: World-Class PGM Deposit in Yukon Company Press Release, January 18, 2011 VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Prophecy Resource Corp. (TSX-V:PCY)and Pacific Coast Nickel Corp. announce that they have agreed that PCNC will acquire Prophecy's Nickel PGM projects by issuing common shares to Prophecy. PCNC will acquire the Wellgreen PGM Ni-Cu and Lynn Lake nickel projects in the Yukon Territory and Manitoba respectively by issuing up to 550 million common shares of PCNC to Prophecy. PCNC has 55.7 million shares outstanding. Following the transaction: -- Prophecy will own approximately 90 percent of PCNC. -- PCNC will consolidate its share capital on a 10 old for one new basis. -- Prophecy will change its name to Prophecy Coal Corp. and PCNC will be renamed Prophecy Platinum Corp. -- Prophecy intends to distribute half of its PCNC shares to shareholders pro-rata in accordance with their holdings. Based on the closing price of the common shares of PCNC on January 17, $0.195 per share, the gross value of the transaction is $107,250,000. For the complete announcement, please visit: http://prophecyresource.com/news_2011_jan18.php

Sprott Physical Gold Trust Announces Follow On, Will Sequester Another $300 Million In Physical; PSLV Next? Posted: 04 Apr 2011 11:54 AM PDT It's a good thing that unlike the silver market, which continues to be in backwardation (see chart), the gold market is fully supplied. Otherwise the just released news from Sprott Asset Management that his Physical Gold Trust (PHYS) is pursuing a $300 million follow on would finally send gold breaking out to $2,000, where it will be sooner or later anyway. Amusingly, contrary to various other blogs' expectations that Sprott is top ticking the market with selling shareholder shelf statements, Sprott is doing just the opposite: "certain funds managed by Sprott Asset Management LP, have agreed to purchase no less than $115 million of Units in this Offering." So yeah, no top tick here. Still, the news that Sprott is about to mop up another $300 million in physical gold from the market will likely send gold quite higher. It appears to have already had an impact on silver, which jumped by $20 cents to another 31 year high on the news, as the market now likely expects a follow on offering in PSLV as well imminently. The press release TORONTO, ONTARIO--(Marketwire - 04/04/11) - Sprott Physical Gold Trust (the "Trust") (TSX:PHY.U - News)(NYSE:PHYS - News), a trust created to invest and hold substantially all of its assets in physical gold bullion and managed by Sprott Asset Management LP, announced today that it has launched a follow-on offering of transferable, redeemable units of the Trust ("Units") in an aggregate amount of up to $340 million at a price of $12.54 per unit (the "Offering"). Certain lead investors, including certain funds managed by Sprott Asset Management LP, have agreed to purchase no less than $115 million of Units in this Offering. The Trust will use the net proceeds of this Offering to acquire physical gold bullion in accordance with the Trust's objective and subject to the Trust's investment and operating restrictions described in the prospectus related to this Offering. Under the trust agreement governing the Trust, the net proceeds of the Offering per unit must be not less than 100% of the most recently calculated net asset value per Unit of the Trust prior to, or upon determination of, pricing of the offering. The Units are listed on the NYSE Arca and the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbols "PHYS" and "PHY.U", respectively. The Offering will be made simultaneously in the United States and Canada by Morgan Stanley and RBC Capital Markets.

The Silver Price Slammed Through the $38 Barrier Posted: 04 Apr 2011 11:38 AM PDT Gold Price Close Today : 1432.20 Change : 4.10 or 0.3% Silver Price Close Today : 38.484 Change : 74.7 cents or 2.0% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 37.22 Change : -0.628 or -1.7% Silver Gold Ratio Today : 0.02687 Change : 0.000446 or 1.7% Platinum Price Close Today : 1785.00 Change : 16.50 or 0.9% Palladium Price Close Today : 783.80 Change : 9.30 or 1.2% S&P 500 : 1,332.87 Change : 0.46 or 0.0% Dow In GOLD$ : $178.98 Change : $ (0.16) or -0.1% Dow in GOLD oz : 8.658 Change : -0.008 or -0.1% Dow in SILVER oz : 322.21 Change : 0.54 or 0.2% Dow Industrial : 12,400.03 Change : 23.31 or 0.2% US Dollar Index : 75.90 Change : 0.043 or 0.1% Recognizing the difference between a "bubble" and a "primary trend" (bull market) is like a bakery quality control supervisor distinguishing between a "cookie with a hole in it" and a "doughnut." Lots of those who pose as market quality control supervisors, the gurus and experts, are having trouble making that distinction. Does that make a hill of beans to you? It ought to, since the first and most important principle of all investing is always align your investments with the primary trend. The GOLD PRICE perched precariously just below its last high, closing Comex $4.10 richer at $1,432.20, but without a new high close and a breach of that stubborn resistance at $1,438 under its belt. This performance is not bad, but it accomplisheth not the needful goal: breaking that resistance and running to new all time highs, particularly above $1,451. The momentum indicators I watch all sing a sweet tune of higher prices, and sound no warning sirens. The precarious part reflects gold's danger here. Should it fall through $1,410, then $1,400, it will have posted a double top, or potentially a broadening top. On the other hand, it might be forming a right shoulder on an inverted head and shoulders that promises to add $100 points to a breakout at $1,438. Gold will go higher this week, or, ICBW. The SILVER PRICE slammed through the 3800c barrier and is now gobbling up dollars 50c and 75c at a bite. Comex last saw silver at 3848.4c, up 74.7c (close enough to 75c to scare it to death). Yes, 'tis nuts. Yes, 'tis overbought. Yes, 'twill bring a hangover SOMEday. Yes, 'tis climbing higher still, bet thereupon. US DOLLAR INDEX didn't reveal anything today, just wasted oxygen. Traded flat between 75.70 and 75.98, but didn't violate last Thursday's 75.55 low. The mind says that if QE2 money printing influenced markets before it began, that its impending cessation ought likewise to influence them. Ought to send the dollar scooting up, and bond yields scooting down. Alas, 'tain't so. Bonds are dropping and the dollar has gone from catastrophe to catalepsy. What a currency! Sure proves the wisdom and necessity of central banks, doesn't it? A friend mentioned today that Bumblin Ben Bernanke the Banksters' Bunko Man had after 3 years been forced to reveal what banks got the bailout money. You mushrooms are getting mighty uppity, wanting to know what Bumblin Ben is doing with the dough he took from your treasury. You are a suspicious lot, when he was just trying to save humanity -- oh, AND the bankers' trillions. The euro, scrofulous European phony money that poses as an item of value, could make no headway today. This failure strikes at precisely the last high, and resembleth a double top. Euro must drag its scrofulous, scabrous body through that high, 1.4234, to disprove that double top thesis. Why anybody would buy that trash lies beyond my ken. I'd rather spend my money on a hog scalder or a jet engine or anything that might actually be worth something on its own feet. Gold in euros is building a long even-sided triangle and when it breaks out will shoot a long ways, up or down. Right now its skating along its 200 DMA, so that breakout ought to point toward the moon, and not earth's nether regions. STOCKS, stocks, stocks! What can I say about the investment I love to hate on the day it makes a new high for the move? I'll think of something -- acid. Friday and Monday stocks bumped along and around that 12,400 ceiling. Maybe it will stymie them, or maybe it will break through. Either way, this does not look like the chart of a market I want to own. Why is it levitating? I don't know, but suspect a monetary magician behind the performance, along with lots of legerdemain and illusion. To the chase! Why would one want to own stocks anyway? Because they represent a stream of future revenue. Aha! But what if the future goes dry, and the revenue floweth not? What is, as many have done, they stop paying dividends and keep the future for themselves? Finally, what if Providence locks them into a primary down trend (bear market)? Why, in that case, I wouldn't any more want to own them than I want to own your case of athlete's foot. But reason? Reason? Nay, all reason to own stocks hath fallen in the streets, and been run over by a garbage truck. The Dow today closed at 12,400.03, up 23.31. S&P500 found enough new buyers to add a magnificent 0.46 [sic] point. Can y'all spell d-o-u-b-l-e-t-o-p? Or d-a-w-g? Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought. - Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger The-MoneyChanger.com © 2011, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission. To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate in a bubble, primary trend way down. Whenever I write "Stay out of stocks" readers inevitably ask, "Do you mean precious metals mining stocks, too?" No, I don't.

The Curious Case Of Bloomberg's Persistent Treasury "Demand" Disinformation Campaign Posted: 04 Apr 2011 11:10 AM PDT Less than a month ago, Zero Hedge thoroughly debunked an article written by Bloomberg's Susanne Walker and Wes Goodman, titled "China Adding to $1 Trillion of U.S. Debt Caps Rise in Rates" which had one purpose only: to eliminate public panic arising from the imminent removal of the Fed as a buyer of first and last resort, and attempt to convince naive readers that China is in fact adding to its holdings. To wit: "China, the largest investor in U.S. government debt after the Fed, increased longer-term notes and bonds by 39 percent to $1.145 trillion in December from a year earlier." As we showed previously this statement was based on a completely unfactual apples to oranges comparison of pre and post-revision TIC data, further showing that if the authors had conducted their analysis properly it would have actually shown a decline in China's Treasury holdings in a 12 month period. Then in a development so ironic it would even make Alanis Morisette blush, we disclosed the very next day that Bill Gross dumped all of his Treasury holdings, pending an answer to the question of "who will buy US Treasurys once the Fed stops monetizing", immediately refuting Bloomberg's "all is rosy on the foreign front" argument, reinforcing our thesis that with the Fed gone, foreigners will promptly cease to co-bid alongside the bidder of biggest resort, and in essence ending any artificial attempts to make the US paper demand picture any better. Yet today, less than a month later, Bloomberg's Daniel Kruger, in an article titled "Fed Exit Means No Pain for Obama as Foreigners Buy 60% of Notes at Auction" repeats precisely the same mistakes as his colleagues which we have since corrected, cheery picks some other data, and goes on to present a goalseeked argument to a conclusion that once again appears to have come from "above." Frankly, we are stunned by this persistence to refute Bill Gross' (not to mention Zero Hedge's) factually based view that foreign demand is declining materially for US bonds, and without QE3, it is very possible that it may disappear entirely. So allow us to debunk Bloomberg's second attempt (which we again hope is merely a function of misunderstanding of the subject material) at outright factless spin. First, Kruger repeats the same mistake as his colleagues Walker and Goodman did less than a month ago, and which we took the time to correct: Foreign investors owned $4.45 trillion of Treasuries as of January, up from $3.7 trillion a year earlier, according to the government. China, the largest overseas lender to the U.S., held $1.15 trillion of the debt in January, up from $889 billion a year earlier. Japan’s stake grew 16 percent to $885.9 billion. Since apparently nobody is aware that the TIC data is revised on a periodic basis, we will again present how the data looked like pre-revision. From our previous post: The farthest back one can possibly go back using the most recent data is June 2010, when the revised data begins. Bloomberg, however, completely ignored this, and based its entire article which somehow was supposed to confirm that foreign investors are not concerned about US inflation, and thus are adding to their holdings in droves, based on apples and oranges data. What would the data look like if Blomberg had used a data series that is actually apples to apples, so that the December 2009 Chinese holdings of $894.8 billion data point is applicable? Here is what Treasury data looked like pre-revisions (which includes the June 2009 and prior data as per the revised "Old Series" - luckily Zero Hedge now archives all obsolete, pre-revision government data just for these situations): What is rather apparent is that instead of a surge from $894.8 billion to $1,160.1 billion, or a 30% increase in Chinese holdings, as incorrect as it may have been derived, using just the old data series, Chinese holdings actually declined to $891.6 billion! Of course, this calculation is also irrelevant as the US Treasury revised holdings halfway through the year, and therefore neither of these comparisons are actually relevant any longer. Hopefully this is merely a trivial mistake, although by now we would think Bloomberg editor Dave Liedtka (who oddly edited both articles yet appears very much inexperienced in dealing with Treasury data) would have at least a rudimentary understanding of TIC data. Yet where the Kruger article gets into cherrypicking data is what really disappoints us and makes us truly wonder about the objectivity of Bloomberg. Kruger says: "The class of investors that includes foreign central banks purchased 60 percent of the $66 billion in benchmark 10-year U.S. notes sold this year, up from 42 percent in 2010. Fed data show banks have increased their holdings of Treasuries to the most since December, as a panel of bond dealers and investors that advises the government says lenders may double their stake to $3.2 trillion in 2016." Kruger is correct about the take down of the 10 Year auction, however, he ignores to mention that it is skewed far higher due to the outlier February auction in which Indirects took down a record 71.3%. An in fact in during the QE2 regime (from September 2010 when QE2 was priced in, through March 2010), the 10 Year has averaged a far more modest 53.6% average purchasing rate (take down). And just like in late 2009, early 2010, the foreign take down for the 10 Year is starting to drop precisely on expectations of the end of quantitative easing (not teh plunge from September 2009 to January 2010). Next, and this is far more grievous, Kruger completely fails to mention that the Indirect take down of all other bond maturities is far lower than the 10 Year as the below chart demonstrates. Indeed, while foreigners have an interest in the 10 Year, it is more than offset by a lack of interest in the short-end of the curve. Average indirect take downs in 2011 of the 2 Year are 30.4%, of the 3 Year: 33.8%, of the 5 Year: 40.5%, of the 7 Year: 50.4%, and of the 30 Year: 40.7% - confirming that pretty much everywhere across the curve except at the 10 Year position the Fed is the primary buyer. Alas, you will not find this far less than flattering data anywhere in Kruger's analysis. But where Kruger's analysis falls completely on its face is when looking at Treasury securities held in custody for foreign officials and international accounts, or specifically the place where the bulk of foreign purchases are parked: this is also the best place to get information on weekly foreign demand for US paper, since the Treasury International Capital is not only inaccurate, but comes out with a three month delay. And here is where the data gets really ugly. Let's cut straight to the chart: The chart really says it all: in the three months of 2011, foreign demand has been the "flattest" since the start of the financial collapse. Comparing the change in holdings from December 31, 2010 ($2.618 trillion) through March 31, 2011 ($2.637 trillion) shows a negligible increase of just $19.5 billion, or less than $7 billion per month! This pales even in comparison with the same anemic period from last year when this account changed by $54.9 billion. We wonder if Mr. Kruger can explain to us how a $7 billion run rate in UST purchases per month will sustain the $1.5 trillion in annual debt issuance to fund ongoing US deficits. In addition, Mr. Kruger's analysis also completely ignores that in addition to gross issuance there are things called "redemptions" by the Treasury, or maturing bonds which constitute a cash outflow, an undetermined amount of which goes to Foreign lenders. Alas while it is impossible to break it down by how much Indirects received from the Treasury in maturing debt, we do know that of the $534 billion in gross issuance in 2011, "only" $339 billion was a net cash inflow to the Treasury, or net issuance. In other words $194.8 billion, or 36.5% of total, was redemptions! But this one will also not find mentioned in Mr. Kruger's piece, and this could easily skew the answer and explain why there was any interest in the 10 Year to begin with (or any other maturity). But all of this really is moot as it only looks at primary market analysis, whereas as we wrote yesterday, the bulk of the action is and has always been in the secondary market, where the Fed monetizes debt on a daily basis via POMO. And here, as Zero Hedge demonstrated yesterday, a whopping 83.4% of net issuance (which is the correct number to look at, not the gross, or not net of maturities) since the start of QE2 has been monetized by the Fed. No if, ands, or buts. And no spin by any mainstream media can change this stone cold fact. The bottom line is that when one removes the noise, the propaganda, and the misinformation, foreign interest in US Treasurys is dropping, and the Fed is a net buyer of more than every 8 out of 10 bonds issued. We certainly expect foreign interest to plunge once (if) it is definite that QE3 is not coming. Yet that won't be the end of the world: interest will surely be there.... At a price. We expect that in the absence of QE2, the 10 Year to be fairly priced about 200 bps wide of where it is trading now, somewhere in the 5.50% range. Which, incidentally, will lead to a complete devastation in the US housing market, a plunge in short-end yields, a huge bear flattening in the market, and the next financial system collapse. But something tells us Mr Kruger won't write about this particular story (nor will his "editor" David Liedtka be asked to edit on it.) In the meantime, Zero Hedge will be happy to consult with any and all Bloomberg authors on the matter of Treasury issuance, a topic which it seems very few there have much if any experience with.

MA Register of Deeds John O’Brien to State Treasurer | Stop Using Bank of America for County Deposits of $25 Millon a Year Because of MERS Posted: 04 Apr 2011 11:06 AM PDT Just imagine if a few hundred more counties did this... JOHN L. O'BRIEN, JR. Register of Deeds Phone: 978-542-1704 Fax: 978-542-1706   website: www.salemdeeds.com   Commonwealth of Massachusetts Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds Shetland Park 45 Congress Street Suite 4100 Salem, Massachusetts 01970   NEWS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   Salem, MA April 4, 2011   Contact: Kevin Harvey, 1st Assistant Register 978-542-1724 kevin.harvey@sec.state.ma.us   Register O’Brien requests  Massachusetts State Treasurer Grossman to Pull Bank of America Funds   Following last nights 60 Minutes expose on the Mortgage Paperwork Mess (view at www.salemdeeds.com ) Southern Essex District Register of Deeds, John O’Brien announced that he has written to Massachusetts State Treasurer, Steven Grossman.  He has asked that the Treasurer change depository banks. Register O’Brien has specifically asked the Treasurer to place all deposits from his Registry into a local, non-MERS bank that follows the Massachusetts Land recordation rules. On an annual basis the Southern Essex District Registry of Deeds deposits approximately $25 million dollars into Bank of America.   O’Brien, who is leading a nationwide effort against the Mortgage Electronic Registration System (“MERS”), of which Bank of America is a major shareholder asserts that Bank of America, along with the other MERS member banks have failed to record assignments and pay the associated fees and in doing so has deprived the taxpayers of millions of dollars in lost revenue.  O’Brien estimates that in his county alone the amount is over $22 million dollars and that, he adds, is a very conservative estimate.  According to O’Brien, the loss of revenue to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts could be as high as $200 million dollars and to the nation, possibly in the billions.   O’Brien, who has asked MERS and their lender banks to come clean, open their books, and provide a full public accounting as to how many times and to whom they have sold consumers’ mortgages said, “Perhaps when these lenders lose millions of dollars in deposits, they may begin to understand the seriousness of their actions. It seems to me that their business model which has been referred to as “fees for thee, not for me” needs to be abolished.”   O’Brien further stated, “I find it extremely ironic, that the chief executive of Bank of America, who just last week received a $10 million dollar bonus continues to allow his bank to participate in this scheme. A scheme which has compromised the integrity of the land recordation system in Massachusetts.  MERS has defended their practices by saying that they were helping the registries of deeds by reducing the amount of paperwork that needed to be recorded. This claim is outrageous.  This is help that I did not need, nor did I ask for. It is very clear to me, that the only ones that they were helping were themselves, which I find shameful. For us to continue to reward these banks by depositing taxpayers’ money into them, is clearly not the responsible thing to do.”   O’Brien said he is reaching out to Registers’ of Deeds in Massachusetts and across the nation to ask them to join with him and encourage their state and county governments to follow his initiative and withdraw public funds from MERS’ member banks. O’Brien said, “By doing this we will send a resounding message that government officials are no longer going to stand by and continue to allow MERS and their joint venture banking partners to profit at the expense of the very same people that they are abusing." www.4closureFraud.org

A World of Deficit Spending Without Any Changes Posted: 04 Apr 2011 10:02 AM PDT Junior Mogambo Ranger (JMR) Terry L. sent me the essay "Fiscal Armageddon in the USA" by C. Banesh, who reminds us that "Sometime between now and 2012 the US debt will equal the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the total market value of all the goods and services in our economy for an entire year." Nobody says it, although it is obvious to everyone that I will be a complete raving lunatic by that time, driven out of my mind by the monetary excesses of the Federal Reserve. The facts are pretty stark, in that, "The $1.65 Trillion deficit for 2012 will make the debt grow to 105% of the nation's GDP," which he calls "a perilous milestone." For some reason, perhaps my rising sense of panic, I suddenly wonder if he really means milestone, which it would be, or maybe he means millstone hanging around our necks, which it also is, or maybe this was some oblique reference to tombstone, in that We're Freaking Doomed (WFD), or that we should get stoned on the way to our tombs, or that st...

Gold Bubble? Is There Currently One - I Don't Think So Posted: 04 Apr 2011 10:00 AM PDT An article written by Frank Holmes, CEO and Chief Investment Officer of U.S. Global Investors, is in my view well worth reading. Titled, 'The Bedrock of the Gold Bull Rally' - reading time 7 minutes - Holmes' article principally ... Read More...

New Gold Takeover Re-Emphasizes Gold's Roots Posted: 04 Apr 2011 09:51 AM PDT Streetwise Blog submits: New Gold's (NGD) friendly purchase of Richfield Ventures Corp. (RCVTF.PK) immediately signals two things: the company hasn't forgotten about its gold roots, and investors don't have to worry about the project pipeline. Despite a history rooted in gold, at the moment New Gold has a 30-per-cent stake in Goldcorp's (GG) El Morro project, which has copper assets, and its New Afton mine in British Columbia that is slated to move into production next year is also sitting on a bunch of copper. If any investors worried that the company was moving away from its roots, the Richfield acquisition will quell those concerns because Richfield's Blackwater project is dominated by gold. As for the project pipeline, New Afton is scheduled to move into production next year, which means New Gold will need something else to develop. That 'something' will now be Blackwater, which is also located in British Columbia, making it Complete Story »

The Bedrock of the Gold Bull Rally Posted: 04 Apr 2011 09:36 AM PDT Frank Holmes submits: Last week I had the pleasure of participating in a webcast for Bloomberg Markets Magazine regarding gold investing. It was a very insightful presentation, and I suggest you view the replay at bloombergmarkets.com. What struck me on the call was the negativity surrounding the gold market. Call it a bubble, a frenzy or mania, there seems to be a large number of voices in the marketplace who just are not fans of gold, whether prices are moving up, down or sideways. Naysayers started calling gold a bubble back when prices hit $250 an ounce and though gold's bull market has tossed and flung the bubble callers around for almost a decade now, their voices have only gotten increasingly louder as prices broke through $1,000, $1,200 and now $1,400 an ounce. However, gold prices appear asymptomatic of the signs generally associated with financial bubbles. For instance, we haven't seen price spikes. Complete Story »

U.S. To Reach Debt Limit By May 16: Geithner Posted: 04 Apr 2011 09:31 AM PDT The United States will hit the legal limit on its ability to borrow no later than May 16, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Monday, ramping up the pressure on Congress to act to avoid a default. Previously, the Treasury had warned that the country could hit the $14.294 trillion statutory debt limit between April 15 and May 31. In a letter to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Geithner said that while the projections could change, the Obama administration does not believe they could change in a way that would give Congress more time to raise the debt ceiling. More Here.. March Madness: U.S. Gov't Spent More Than Eight Times Its Monthly Revenue Gold and Silver Coins Continue to Make Headlines Invest In Silver Today! This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Ron Paul: The Fed's largesse undermines foreign policy Posted: 04 Apr 2011 09:24 AM PDT By U.S. Rep. Ron Paul Monday, April 4, 2011 http://paul.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1845:... Last week I was both surprised and pleased when the Supreme Court upheld lower court decisions requiring the Federal Reserve Bank to comply with requests for information made by Bloomberg under the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA"). Bloomberg simply wanted to know who received loans from the Fed's discount window in the aftermath of the 2008 financial market crisis, and how much each entity received. Surely this is basic information that should be available to every American taxpayer. ... Dispatch continues below ... ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Resource Spins Off Platinum/Palladium Venture: World-Class PGM Deposit in Yukon Company Press Release, January 18, 2011 VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Prophecy Resource Corp. (TSX-V:PCY)and Pacific Coast Nickel Corp. announce that they have agreed that PCNC will acquire Prophecy's Nickel PGM projects by issuing common shares to Prophecy. PCNC will acquire the Wellgreen PGM Ni-Cu and Lynn Lake nickel projects in the Yukon Territory and Manitoba respectively by issuing up to 550 million common shares of PCNC to Prophecy. PCNC has 55.7 million shares outstanding. Following the transaction: -- Prophecy will own approximately 90 percent of PCNC. -- PCNC will consolidate its share capital on a 10 old for one new basis. -- Prophecy will change its name to Prophecy Coal Corp. and PCNC will be renamed Prophecy Platinum Corp. -- Prophecy intends to distribute half of its PCNC shares to shareholders pro-rata in accordance with their holdings. Based on the closing price of the common shares of PCNC on January 17, $0.195 per share, the gross value of the transaction is $107,250,000. For the complete announcement, please visit: http://prophecyresource.com/news_2011_jan18.php The Fed fought tooth and nail all the way to the Supreme Court to preserve their privileged secrecy. But transparency and openness won the day. There are some 29,000 pages to decipher, but a few points stand out initially. The Fed lent huge sums of our money to foreign banks. This in itself was not surprising, but the actual amount is staggering. In one week at the height of the crisis, about 70 percent of the money doled out went to foreign banks. We were told that bailing out banks was going to stave off a massive depression. Depression for whom? We now know that the Fed's bailout had nothing to do with helping the American people, who have gotten their depression anyway with continued job losses and foreclosures. But now we learn that a good deal of the money did not even help American banks. In light of recent world events, perhaps the most staggering revelation is that quite a bit of money went to the Arab Banking Corp., a third of whose stock is owned by the Libyan central bank. This occurred while Libya, a declared state sponsor of terrorism, was under strict economic sanctions. How erratic the United States must appear when we shower a dictator alternately with dollars and bombs. Also, we must consider the possibility that those loans are inadvertently financing weapons the Gadhafi regime is using against its own people and Western militaries. This would not be the first time the covert activities of the Fed have undermined not only our economy and the value of the dollar but our foreign policy as well. Of course I can't say I'm surprised by the poor quality of the data provided by the Fed. The category of each loan made, whether from the "Primary Discount Window," the "Secondary Discount Window," or "Other Extensions of Credit," is redacted. Thus we don't know with certainty how much discount window lending was provided to foreign banks and how much was merely "other extensions of credit." Also, some of the numbers simply do not seem to add up. We are of course still wading through the massive document dump, but it does seem as though several billions of dollars are unaccounted for. As the world economy continues to falter in spite of -- or rather because of -- cheap money doled out by the Federal Reserve, its ability to deceive financial markets and American taxpayers is coming to an end. People are beginning to realize that when the Fed in effect doubles the worldwide supply of U.S. dollars in a relatively short time, it has the effect of stealing half your money through reduced purchasing power. Rapid inflation will continue as trillions in new money and credit recently created by the Fed flood into the commodity markets. It is becoming more obvious that the Fed operates for the benefit of a few privileged banks, banks that never suffer for bad decisions they make. Quite the opposite -- as we have seen since October 2008, under our current monetary system politically connected banks are paid to make bad decisions. ----- U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, is chairman of the House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy. * * * Join GATA here: An Evening with Bill Murphy and James Turk Sponsored by Deutsche Edelmetall-Gesellschaft Friday, April 29, 2011 Hofbrauhaus, Munich, Germany http://www.goldmoney.com/munich-2011-april-29.html Support GATA by purchasing gold and silver commemorative coins: https://www.amsterdamgold.eu/gata/index.asp?BiD=12 Or a colorful GATA T-shirt: http://gata.org/tshirts Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon: http://www.goldrush21.com/ Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: http://www.gata.org To contribute to GATA, please visit: http://www.gata.org/node/16 ADVERTISEMENT Sona Drills 85.4g Gold/Ton Over 4 Metres at Elizabeth Gold Deposit, Extending the Mineralization of the Southwest Vein on the Property Company Press Release, October 27, 2010 VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Sona Resources Corp. reports on five drillling holes in the third round of assay results from the recently completed drill program at its 100 percent-owned Elizabeth Gold Deposit Property in the Lillooet Mining District of southern British Columbia. Highlights from the diamond drilling include: -- Hole E10-66 intersected 17.4g gold/ton over 1.54 metres. -- Hole E10-67 intersected 96.4g gold/ton over 2.5 metres, including one assay interval of 383g of gold/ton over 0.5 metres. -- Hole E10-69 intersected 85.4g gold/ton over 4.03 metres, including one assay interval of 230g gold/ton over 1 metre. Four drill holes, E10-66 to E10-69, targeted the southwestern end of the Southwest Vein, and three of the holes have expanded the mineralized zone in that direction. The Southwest Vein gold mineralization has now been intersected over a strike length of 325 metres, with the deepest hole drilled less than 200 metres from surface. "The assay results from the Southwest Zone quartz vein continue to be extremely positive," says John P. Thompson, Sona's president and CEO. "We are expanding the Southwest Vein, and this high-grade gold mineralization remains wide open down dip and along strike to the southwest." For the company's full press release, please visit: http://sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR19_2010.pdf

Jared Sturdivant: Distressed Companies Offer Gold Lining Posted: 04 Apr 2011 09:20 AM PDT Jared Sturdivant, portfolio manager and managing partner of O-Cap Management, LP, likes to find special-situation investment opportunities, which include companies that have "good assets and bad balance sheets." When he finds them, he digs deep to ascertain their value and looks for the catalyst that will turn them into attractive investment opportunities. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, Jared talks about which companies in the metals sector look good to him now. The Gold Report: Jared, welcome to your first interview with The Gold Report. Could you share how O-Cap Management works? Jared Sturdivant: We are an investment fund, really a hybrid between private equity and a traditional hedge fund. We take a long-term approach to investing in public equities and pre-IPO private situations, as well as distressed debt or structured financings. Our investors have to be qualified. TGR: Because you delve into private equity, do investors have to commit for a predefined p...

Secretary Geithner Sends Debt Limit Letter to Congress Posted: 04 Apr 2011 09:17 AM PDT The Honorable Harry Reid Democratic Leader United States Senate Washington, DC 20510 Dear Mr. Leader: I am writing to update you on the Treasury Department's projections regarding when the statutory debt limit will be reached and to inform you about the limits of the available measures at our disposal to delay that date temporarily. In our previous communications to Congress, we provided regular estimates of the likely time period in which the debt limit could be reached. We can now make that projection with more precision. The Treasury Department now projects that the debt limit will be reached no later than May 16, 2011. This is a projection based on the expected level of tax receipts, the timing of our commitments and obligations over the next several weeks, and our judgment concerning the level of cash balances we need to operate. Although these projections could change, we do not believe they are likely to change in a way that would give Congress more time in which to act. Treasury will provide an update of this projection in early May. [source] PG View: The very first "available measure" Geither addresses is the sale of the Nation's gold. Of course, it's not a viable measure because it "would undercut confidence in the United States both here and abroad." No mention of the eroding confidence that stems from the ever-larger debt burden. Geithner reminds us that "Increasing the limit does not increase the obligations we have as a Nation; it simply permits the Treasury to fund those obligations that Congress has already established." What he doesn't say, is that the US has never met a debt ceiling it couldn't meet and ultimately exceed. According to the Treasury Secretary there is simply no option, the debt ceiling must be raised or the US faces a default. However, there is reason to believe that raising that debt ceiling, pushes us irrevocably closer to that same end result. At best, we may be buying some time.

San Francisco Rainwater Radiation 181 Times Above US Drinking Water Standard Posted: 04 Apr 2011 09:15 AM PDT Radiation from Japan rained on Berkeley, California, during recent storms at levels that exceeded drinking water standards by 181 times. A rooftop water monitoring program managed by the University of California at Berkeley’s Department of Nuclear Engineering detected substantial spikes in rain-borne iodine-131 during those torrential downpours. The levels exceeded federal drinking water thresholds, known as Maximum Contaminant Levels -- or MCLs -- by as much as 181 times or 18,100%. Iodine-131 is one of the most cancer-causing toxic radioactive isotopes spewed when nuclear power plants are in meltdown. It is being ingested by cows, which have begun passing it through into their milk and radioactivity has been detected. [Multiple Sources]

This time it's Lockhart Posted: 04 Apr 2011 09:11 AM PDT [url]http://www.traderdannorcini.blogspot.com/[/url] [url]http://www.fortwealth.com/[/url] Last week I posted my views on the "Dueling Fed Governors" which can be found here. [URL]http://traderdannorcini.blogspot.com/2011/04/federal-reserve-confusion-i-dont-think.html[/URL] In that post I explained my rationale for what the apparent conflict between the various Federal Reserve Governors is designed to do, namely, keep the speculative community off balance and unable to lean too hard on either the Dollar or the long bond. You will recall that we were first treated to the "hawks" sounding the warning that QE was going to be coming to an end June 30 with one going as far as saying that the last $100 billion out of the proposed $600 billion in Treasury purchases would not be needed. That talk was enough to RESCUE the DOLLAR from crashing through the 75 level on the chart. In my view that was exactly what it was supposed to do. Then they had to deal with the fallout to the long bond m...

Silver Leads the Metals Charge Posted: 04 Apr 2011 09:08 AM PDT Spot silver continues to lead the charge of the metals and mining complex. The iShares Silver Trust (SLV) and Silver Wheaton (SLW) are in thrust position -- as is the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD) and Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX) -- poised to rally to hurdle key resistance plateaus on the way to new high ground.

Gold’s historic undervaluation versus oil Posted: 04 Apr 2011 08:47 AM PDT The Wikileaks/Financial Times revelations on significant gold buying interest in the Middle East — notably Iran’s central bank, Jordan’s central bank and Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund — brought to mind the story of Saudi Arabia’s King Ibn Saud and his sale of oil concessions to the major oil companies. In payment he received 35,000 British sovereigns — a coin many of you hold in your own sovereign wealth fund. The good king understood the difference between the value of gold and the value of a paper promise.

Silver demand huge, supply small, Sprott tells King World News Posted: 04 Apr 2011 08:47 AM PDT 4:45p ET Monday, April 4, 2011 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver): Sprott Asset Management Chairman Eric Sprott today tells King World News that investment demand for silver has been enormously underestimated even as much more gold is available for sale than silver is. But Sprott still expects gold to surpass $2,000 amid central bank money printing. Excerpts from the interview are headlined "Gold to Go Over $2,000 Because of Money Printing" and you can find them at the King World News blog here: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2011/4/4_Eri... Or try this abbreviated link: http://tinyurl.com/3uwswbq CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. ADVERTISEMENT Sona Drills 85.4g Gold/Ton Over 4 Metres at Elizabeth Gold Deposit, Extending the Mineralization of the Southwest Vein on the Property Company Press Release, October 27, 2010 VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Sona Resources Corp. reports on five drillling holes in the third round of assay results from the recently completed drill program at its 100 percent-owned Elizabeth Gold Deposit Property in the Lillooet Mining District of southern British Columbia. Highlights from the diamond drilling include: -- Hole E10-66 intersected 17.4g gold/ton over 1.54 metres. -- Hole E10-67 intersected 96.4g gold/ton over 2.5 metres, including one assay interval of 383g of gold/ton over 0.5 metres. -- Hole E10-69 intersected 85.4g gold/ton over 4.03 metres, including one assay interval of 230g gold/ton over 1 metre. Four drill holes, E10-66 to E10-69, targeted the southwestern end of the Southwest Vein, and three of the holes have expanded the mineralized zone in that direction. The Southwest Vein gold mineralization has now been intersected over a strike length of 325 metres, with the deepest hole drilled less than 200 metres from surface. "The assay results from the Southwest Zone quartz vein continue to be extremely positive," says John P. Thompson, Sona's president and CEO. "We are expanding the Southwest Vein, and this high-grade gold mineralization remains wide open down dip and along strike to the southwest." For the company's full press release, please visit: http://sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR19_2010.pdf Join GATA here: An Evening with Bill Murphy and James Turk Sponsored by Deutsche Edelmetall-Gesellschaft Friday, April 29, 2011 Hofbrauhaus, Munich, Germany Support GATA by purchasing gold and silver commemorative coins: https://www.amsterdamgold.eu/gata/index.asp?BiD=12 Or a colorful GATA T-shirt: http://gata.org/tshirts Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon: http://www.goldrush21.com/ Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: http://www.gata.org To contribute to GATA, please visit: http://www.gata.org/node/16 ADVERTISEMENT The Gold Standard Now: It Can Work Today a dollar is worth 80 percent less than it was 40 years ago, and less than 5 percent of its value a hundred years ago. We deserve a dollar that is as good as gold, a dollar that will hold its value from year to year so we can be financially secure and our economy can generate more and better jobs. For most of America's history, our dollar was literally as good as gold. But on August 15, 1971, our politicians destroyed the link between gold and the dollar. They destroyed the foundations of our economic system. A new Internet site, TheGoldStandardNow.org, provides news and cutting-edge analysis about this most important issue and explains how the gold standard worked in the past and how it can work in the future. Visit us today: http://www.thegoldstandardnow.org/about/137-welcome-newsmax

The Gate of Tears Posted: 04 Apr 2011 08:47 AM PDT by Addison Wiggin – April 4, 2011 Oil tops $108 as cops shoot protesters in Yemen… How this one country could spark a doubling of the oil priceIsraelis watch nervously, even as they pursue energy independence… Byron King on the resulting bi-fold opportunity… Silver Eagle supply bottleneck… Dr. Ron Paul presses for answers… Utah affirms Gold and Silver Eagles as legal tender… Meanwhile, the curious case of Bernard von NotHaus gets even curiouser… "Shine the light of knowledge and reason"… Early reviews of Bill Bonner's new book… plus, a new text messaging service your trading account may want you to register for 0:00 — Light Sweet Crude is touching another post-Panic of '08 high this morning. At $108.25, we're still a stretch from the record $147 price set in July 2008. But it's $2 higher than it was on this date in April of that year. So we've got time. 0:11 — No single factor lies behind the latest run-up as we begin the trading week. Rather, a confluence of events across the Middle East and North Africa continues to make the markets nervous: The civil war in Libya drags on. Gaddafi's forces and the rebels are stalemated and U.S. airstrikes are doing little to shift the balance Bahrain's government has shut down the leading opposition newspaper. Bahrain's Shiite majority is ruled by a Sunni minority. The U.S. Fifth Fleet, stationed in Bahrain, watches nervously Troops have opened fire on protesters in Yemen, killing 12 and wounding 30 critically. 0:24 — Yemen has little oil to speak of, but it sits on the eastern side of a narrow waterway crucial to the world oil trade, described in Byron King's "New War" scenario as the Bab-el-Mandeb, "the Gate of Tears." Click the map to learn how Yemen is "Flashpoint #2" in Byron King's New War scenario Yemen is home to a volatile religious mix — 52% Sunni, 46% Shiite. The dictator, Ali Abdullah Saleh, has ruled the place for 32 years. Seleh has been helping the United States wage a secret war against al-Qaida sympathizers since Sept. 11. So unlike with Libya, the U.S. government doesn't want to see him go. The problem is how Saleh is suppressing the protests — especially on the country's northern border with Saudi Arabia. 0:45 — "What Saleh's been doing," explains Nation Institute fellow Jeremy Scahill, "is taking sides with really extremist Wahhabi factions from Saudi Arabia and allowing the Saudis to go in and try to exterminate the Shiite minority inside of Yemen. "So the Houthis [Shiite tribesmen] see him as a puppet of the U.S. and the Saudis. "The U.S and the Saudis are creating a situation that could draw in Iran to defend the Shiite population there. The dangerous game the U.S. is playing in the north of Yemen could well draw in the Iranians because this is Shiites being exterminated, and it gets covered a lot on Iranian state television." "Saleh has lost allies," the BBC reports this morning, "Yemen's army is split. The government has lost control of entire areas of the country. And the economy is collapsing." 0:56 — Yemen, as we described in Apogee Advisory a year ago, is a demographic time bomb waiting to blow. Perhaps the fuse has already been lit. The desolate, arid country is also another front in the 1,354 year-old Sunni-Shiite conflict Byron describes in his New War scenario. A year ago, the media laughed when Mr. King suggested the New War could send oil to $220 in a heartbeat. At $108 — and rising — journalists are beginning to sober up and ask different questions. Byron explains the New War scenario here… and will help you get ahead of the news cycle to bulletproof your portfolio… in this presentation. 1:09 — On the other side of the peninsula, Egypt state media reports police have thwarted an attack on a natural gas pipeline that supplies Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Israel. The same pipe was recently reopened after an explosion at a terminal shut the pipe down for six weeks in February and March. In response to the first incident, Israeli leaders ramped up efforts to develop a gas deposit known as Leviathan. With some 16 trillion cubic feet of gas, Leviathan is one of the world's largest new gas fields of the past 25 years: "The geology off the coast of Israel," Byron explains, "has every indication of meeting criteria for a major 'petroleum system.' It has analogues with other of the world's best hydrocarbon-rich areas. There are salt layers similar to, but not as thick as, the pre-salt of Brazil. There are structures and stratographic traps, like off West Africa, with oil plays like Angola and Namibia. "Plus, I think it's fair to speculate that the really deep stuff offshore Israel has some similarity with what I've seen of the Wilcox Trend beneath the Gulf of Mexico." Only two companies are working this region. One is fairly well-known in the oil and gas sector. The other is a newcomer… and Byron says it has enormous potential. Shares can be had right now for a little over $1 each. Byron spotlights the company in the current issue of Energy & Scarcity Investor. New subscribers also get a special report identifying a stock that could beat all the familiar names in the race to ramp up production of rare earths outside China. Learn all about it in this presentation. 1:48 — The strife across the Middle East is helping to push up gas prices here in the United States again. The national average for gas at the pump this morning, AAA tells us, is $3.66 — up 84 cents from a year ago. The highest price ever recorded was $4.11 back on July 17, 2008. As the summer "driving months" are still a few windstorms away, chances are good we'll have a go at that record this year. 1:50 — Stocks are inching up as the week begins, the Dow eclipsing 12,400 and adding onto Friday's gains. "The Fed's money-pumping operations are keeping shares high," says Options Hotline editor Steve Sarnoff. "The assertiveness of demand for stocks didn't look like an April Fools' prank. This strengthens underlying support and forecasts higher prices down the road." 1:59 — Gold is inching back to where it was for much of last week, at $1,436. Silver, meanwhile, has powered to another post-1980 record, currently $38.46. 2:04 — The greenback is treading water as a new week begins. The dollar index is up a skosh, to 75.9. 2:16 — "The Canadian dollar has reached multiyear highs against the U.S. dollar," counsels our currency trader Abe Cofnas. "This is partially due to the loonie's co-movement with oil as well as the more positive U.S. economic outlook. "Remember, the United States is the key export market for Canada, accounting for about 80% of its exports. So better U.S. growth means more demand for Canadian products." On the basis of this action, Abe recommended a Canadian dollar trade to his readers today with the potential for gains of 156% by Friday… maybe sooner. He also recommended a play on a strengthening British pound that could turn every $1 invested into $4… again, no later than Friday. Did you buy it? Last week, Abe's readers collected an average 104% gain on four plays… including a 177% gain on a Japanese yen trade… all in five days or less. The market Abe covers moves fast… and no other North American trading advisory makes trades on it. Yet we're making it easier than ever for you to try it out… as we explain here. 2:35 — Sales of U.S. Silver Eagles in March totaled 2,767,000, according to the U.S. Mint. That's down from February, and less than half of the all-time record set in January — 6,422,000. But put in the context of Silver Eagle sales going back to their launch in late 1986, the upward trend is unbroken. A chart like this reinforces our outlook that silver has the potential to outperform gold by 3-to-1 in the next 12-24 months… a forecast we spell out in detail here. 2:43 — The premium over spot price for a Silver Eagle is up to $4, according to an informal survey we made of dealers today — a signal the Mint can't keep up with demand. "Why can't they keep the supply of coins up?" asks Rep. Ron Paul, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy. That's in part a rhetorical question: The Mint doesn't make its own blanks. "There is a contract with a foreign company, which makes no sense at all." Dr. Paul will bring the Mint's operations under the microscope at his subcommittee's hearing next Thursday. The Eagle program is near and dear to him. In fact, the program likely wouldn't exist were it not for Paul's involvement in the U.S. Gold Commission appointed by President Reagan in 1981. [Ed note. Most of Paul's recommendations during that commission were overlooked. But they were preserved for posterity in a book called The Case for Gold — which is back in print after 28 years, thanks to a joint effort by the Ludwig von Mises Institute and our own Laissez Faire Books. You still have a chance to get your own copy — free. Here's how.] 3:02 — U.S. Gold and Silver Eagles are now legal tender in Utah. Actually, they're legal tender in every state — a 1-ounce Gold Eagle has a face value of $50 — but "the intent would be to see where a gold or silver coin is valued at its market value instead of its face value," says State Rep. Brad Galvez, who introduced the bill. "This allows the people of Utah to protect their assets against what we're seeing in inflation and the devaluation of the dollar." Gov. Gary Herbert signed the bill into law last week. An aide who wished to remain anonymous told CNN, "If somebody is stupid enough that they want to buy a Snickers bar at 7-Eleven with a gold coin worth thousands of dollars, they will be able to do that." Uh-huh. There is one practical effect to the bill: Sales of Gold and Silver Eagles will not be subject to state capital gains taxes; sales of foreign precious metals coins still will. "So alarming has been the collapse of the dollar," says writer Seth Lipsky in The Wall Street Journal, "that the legislatures in as many as a dozen American states are considering using their authority — under Article 1, Section 10 of the Constitution — to make legal tender out of gold and silver coins… "However, the von NotHaus verdict will stand as a warning." 3:34 — You may recall von NotHaus was convicted last month of violating a law that makes it illegal, in the words of the FBI press release, "to create private coin or currency systems to compete with official coinage and currency of the United States." But as Lipsky points out, that's not entirely true. In another wrinkle to an incredibly tangled case, the judge threw out the part of the indictment that claimed "it is a violation of law for private coin systems to compete with the official coinage of the United States." You can't make this stuff up. "It is not clear that there is a constitutional basis or a logic," Lipsky concluded in his piece, "for prohibiting individuals from making and selling pieces of gold and silver and using them, on a voluntary basis, as money — i.e., to 'compete with' the official coinage of the U.S." To be continued… 3:57 — "What was left to convict the man on, we don't know," added our own Bill Bonner to the von NotHaus saga on Friday. "But the court did so. And now he must appeal… or face penalties, possibly time in jail… and possibly a long time. "But what about the rest of us? Are we sentenced too? Will we be forced to pay the price for the feds' goofy monetary policies? "Compare Mr. von NotHaus's money to the money issued by the U.S. Treasury Department. The Treasury's dollars have no precious metal content — none. At best, their content comes from trees and cotton plants, with a scrap value that is probably negative. Meaning, if it loses its value as money, you'll have to pay someone to haul it away. "So who do the authorities haul to the hoosegow? The guy who mints honest money in tiny quantities… or the guy who puts out $2.2 trillion in 'paper' money that is sure to lose its value quickly? "Go ahead…take a guess." 4:19 — "Like P.J. O'Rourke," writes an eloquent reader who's made his way through Dice Have No Memory: Big Bets and Bad Economics From Paris to the Pampas and posted his insights here, "Bill Bonner has the entertaining ability to make us laugh at the stupidity we humans are capable of in large groups while teaching truths that we seem determined to forget. It is indeed a truth that the only animal capable of learning from the mistakes of others is so reluctant to actually do so. Thus, we go round again. "As the Bible teaches: 'Professing themselves wise, they became fools.' The sociopaths craving power that rise like pond scum to positions of authority and become the societal cancer known as government can only be exorcised through an informed populace. "Via the hard-won truths of history, Mr. Bonner provides that necessary information. Exposing the intellectual dishonesty and moral bankruptcy of the 'wise' men, he delivers the education our government-controlled school system totally abdicates — and he does it in a delightful way that will have you impatient for the next installment. "If you enjoy the sarcastic wit of O'Rourke or the finger-pointing ridicule of Monty Python, you will love the quite real education Bill provides. We learn that, far from being doom and gloom, the cure for our economic ills is quite simple — shine the light of knowledge and reason through the fog between the ears of authority. "Through his writings, Bill Bonner hands you that flashlight." The 5: If you have similar visions, and are inclined, please share them on AMZN so you can help introduce The Daily Reckoning to the uninitiated masses. Thanks. 5:00 — "I have been reading The Daily Reckoning for most of its existence," adds another. "You're absolutely right about Bonner shining a light through the fog. He's a great thinker and the best writer out there and has since surrounded himself with a team of (like-minded) outstanding writers and thinkers." The 5: Heh. "Bonner called the 2008 recession," the reader continues "expecting it earlier, however and fully expects a double dip — again expecting it to have manifested itself by now. His team forecast the rise in gold, which would have protected a number of investors through the recession. "When the three car companies went to Washington, two of them with their hands out, it was with the DR in my veins that I recommended to my brother to invest in the third, Ford, which doubled in value in a week or two and has ultimately ten-tupled in value since my recommendation." The 5: "Journalists believe their job is to report the facts," Mr. Bonner writes in the introduction to Dice, commenting on the roots of the project, "not to laugh at them. Even the commentariat and editorialists believe they need to take the news seriously; who will buy their papers and magazines if they make a joke of it? "The lectorat, too, had become convinced that the world of finance, investments and economics was serious business. Many believed that the latest developments — both in technology as well as in financial theory — would make them rich. "They had heard that the Internet made wealth secrets available to everyone. You could now go onto the Internet to find out how to make a nuclear bomb, or a fortune. 'Stocks for the long run' seemed like an almost risk-free road to riches. Readers weren't going to pay someone to mock their ambitions and undermine their hopes. "But The Daily Reckoning was free. Readers could not complain that they were not getting their money's worth." Over the weekend, we posted the introduction to Dice Have No Memory: Big Bets and Bad Economics From Paris to the Pampas to Daily Reckoning website. Take a look: You'll not only relive the last decade of economic and financial folly — but come to new conclusions about what's best for your money. And don't forget to order your copy right here. And a couple more for your friends and family, right here. Cheers, Addison Wiggin The 5 Min. Forecast P.S. "We could see much higher prices in the near-to-mid term," says Jonas Elmerraji of an oil-themed play he recommended this morning to readers of Penny Momentum Trader. He's watching the $108 oil price as closely as the rest of us, and he's suggesting two ways to play it depending on your risk tolerance. In late February, a similar play generated a 27.5% gain in a week, a textbook play for Jonas' S.T.O.R.M. system. Mr. Elmerraji explains how the S.T.O.R.M. works (including a newly minted text messaging service) to quickly grow your trading account in this presentation. border=0 alt="" title="" height=1 width=1>

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts Posted: 04 Apr 2011 08:31 AM PDT This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

S Korea's foreign reserves rise to 298.6 bln USD in March Posted: 04 Apr 2011 08:23 AM PDT April 04, 2011 (Xinhua) — South Korea's foreign reserves rose to 298.6 billion U.S. dollars in March mainly due to increased conversion value of non-dollar denominated assets, the country's central bank said on Monday. … The March reading marked the record high of reserves and the fourth consecutive month of growth. The increase was attributable to rising investment profits and growing conversion value [i.e., exchange rate] of non-dollar denominated assets caused by weaker dollar, according to the BOK. The nation's foreign reserves consisted of 271.71 billion dollars of securities, 21.93 billion dollars of deposits, 3.7 billion dollars of special drawing rights (SDR), 1.19 dollars of International Monetary Fund (IMF) reserve positions and 0.08 billion dollars of gold bullion. [source] RS View: A rationally structured portfolio of reserves, in light of the withering dollar, argues for significantly fewer dollar-denominated items (i.e., fewer U.S. securities and deposits) and significantly more of that universally translatable asset which, at the present time, occupies a space so unjustifiably neglected and underrepresented as a part of the BoK balance sheet.

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