Gold World News Flash |
- Gold Stocks Now vs Dow: The No Brainer
- See Mainstream Media Ridiculed for Refusing to Acknowledge Ron Paul
- Fleckenstein - Jim Grant is Right, “A Bonfire of the Currencies”
- Gold Seeker Closing Report: Gold and Silver Gain Over 1% While Stocks Fall
- Charting Japan's Latest Failed Currency Intervention Attempt
- Charting Japan's Latest Failed Currency Intervention Attempt
- Debt Collapse - The Case For $20,000 Gold - Mike Maloney (FULL PRESENTATION)
- Recent Gold Hedging Activity – a Warning Sign?
- JP Morgan's Fractional Gold Scheme Is Working
- Silver Update 8/16/2011 Short Age
- Why gold and silver mine shares keep falling
- Venezuela may try to get its gold back
- The Eurozone Financial Crisis: Feeding the Dragon
- Bill Fleckenstein: Jim Grant is Right, “A Bonfire of the Currencies”
- Peter Schiff: Relentless Rise in Gold to Continue
- Gene Arensberg: Comex commercials, swap dealers put floor under silver
- Gold Standard Institute's letter covers GATA's London conference
- The Gold Price Might Finish the Year Above $2,000, the Silver Price Who Knows Where - Be Patient, be Calm, Hang On
- 16 Statistics Which Prove That The American People Are Absolutely Seething With Anger
- Gold Closes at $1782.40 / Silver Approaches $40.00 / Germany Rejects Eurbond Solution
- COMEX Commercials and Swap Dealers Put Floor under Silver
- Record Number Of People Say They Are Paying More For Groceries Now Than Ever Before
- Gold to Continue Stair Stepping Rally
- Bread and Circuses (for real)
- Open Window
- When Euphoria Wears Off
- Audio of King World News interview with James Turk
- Swiss Ponder Battle Over Runaway Franc
- Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts
- Man Pretends To Be Hank Paulson To Make Fake $353,000 Mortgage Payment To Citi, Succeeds
| Gold Stocks Now vs Dow: The No Brainer Posted: 16 Aug 2011 05:29 PM PDT Graceland Update
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| See Mainstream Media Ridiculed for Refusing to Acknowledge Ron Paul Posted: 16 Aug 2011 04:15 PM PDT In case you've somehow missed it – which is easy enough to do given the explicit lack of coverage — Dr. Ron Paul's (R-TX) second-place finish at the Ames Straw Poll seems to have been practically blacked out by mainstream media. At least Jon Stewart bothers to take great comedic pleasure in calling reporters to task for ignoring his candidacy. From The Atlantic: "Even the folks at Fox News, the network that employed Glenn Beck and signed Sarah Palin to a multimillion dollar contract as a news analyst, acts as if he's too crazy to cover, even though he is sure to influence the race, whatever his prospects for winning." See the clip below, from The Atlantic's post questioning what's up with TV's bias against Ron Paul? See Mainstream Media Ridiculed for Refusing to Acknowledge Ron Paul originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning provides 400,000+ readers economic news, market analysis, and contrarian investment ideas. Follow the Daily Reckoning on Facebook.
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| Fleckenstein - Jim Grant is Right, “A Bonfire of the Currencies” Posted: 16 Aug 2011 04:10 PM PDT  With gold climbing relentlessly higher, today King World News interviewed Bill Fleckenstein, President of Fleckenstein Capital, to get his take on the situation. When asked about the relentless rise in gold Fleckenstein responded, "Obviously as Jim Grant likes to say, 'We are having a bonfire of the currencies'. To think that the Yen is strong given the hand they have to play or that the euro is 1.44, given how bad the euro is it's 1.44 to the dollar, what does that say about the dollar? None of these currencies are any good. All of the Western world save for maybe Australia and Canada is swimming in debt. So I don't know how anyone can feel good about what is occurring. It seems almost impossible to think that this paper money regime that we've been on for the last forty years isn't in the very end game."
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| Gold Seeker Closing Report: Gold and Silver Gain Over 1% While Stocks Fall Posted: 16 Aug 2011 04:00 PM PDT Gold climbed almost 1% to $1769.82 in after hours access trade yesterday and held about $10 higher in Asia before it rose to as high as $1786.54 in New York and then stabilized a bit in late trade, but it still ended with a gain of 1.59% and just fifty cents away from last Wednesday's record closing high. Silver climbed to $39.96 in after hours access trade yesterday before it fell back to $39.26 by a little before 8AM EST, but it then rose to as high as $40.11 in New York and ended with a gain of 1.17%.
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| Charting Japan's Latest Failed Currency Intervention Attempt Posted: 16 Aug 2011 03:54 PM PDT Bloomberg's Mike McDonough has put together the simplest, and thus best, chart of the latest epic collapse in the BOJ's attempt to intervene and keep the Yen from appreciating. The chart needs no explanation, and shows that the half life of BOJ interventions is not only exponentially shorter but now, outright laughable. What does need an explanation, however, is the prevailing quandary of just what sleeping medications Noda and Shirakawa will have to take once USDJPY touches on 75, then 70, then 65, then 60 and so on, and they watch, watch, watch, the "one-sided" moves in the USDJPY, helpless to do absolutely anything as the Chairman drop kicks yet another monetary opponent into a permanent knock out.
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| Charting Japan's Latest Failed Currency Intervention Attempt Posted: 16 Aug 2011 03:54 PM PDT
Bloomberg's Mike McDonough has put together the simplest, and thus best, chart of the latest epic collapse in the BOJ's attempt to intervene and keep the Yen from appreciating. The chart needs no explanation, and shows that the half life of BOJ interventions is not only exponentially shorter but now, outright laughable. What does need an explanation, however, is the prevailing quandary of just what sleeping medications Noda and Shirakawa will have to take once USDJPY touches on 75, then 70, then 65, then 60 and so on, and they watch, watch, watch, the "one-sided" moves in the USDJPY, helpless to do absolutely anything as the Chairman drop kicks yet another monetary opponent into a permanent knock out.
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| Debt Collapse - The Case For $20,000 Gold - Mike Maloney (FULL PRESENTATION) Posted: 16 Aug 2011 03:34 PM PDT In this 90 minute presentation he lays down his 'most likely' scenario for the global economy over the next deacde...
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| Recent Gold Hedging Activity – a Warning Sign? Posted: 16 Aug 2011 03:30 PM PDT Casey Research
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| JP Morgan's Fractional Gold Scheme Is Working Posted: 16 Aug 2011 03:12 PM PDT The real reason JP Morgan recently decided to open and operate a Comex gold vault is now in full view.
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| Silver Update 8/16/2011 Short Age Posted: 16 Aug 2011 03:01 PM PDT From BrotherJohnF Short Age Filed under: austerity, Bank of America, Banks, bond report, budget cutters, Buy Gold, Buy Silver, commodity futures contracts, commodity trades, currency coins, currency systems, Economic crisis, federal debt ceiling, federal reserve chairman ben bernanke, futures market, Global finance, hyperinflation, index futures, inflation rate, international monetary system, jp morgan chase, market confidence, [...] 
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Why gold and silver mine shares keep falling Posted: 16 Aug 2011 02:20 PM PDT If you want to know why your gold and silver mine shares keep falling despite good fundamentals, please read this part from today's Harvey Organ's. "This is getting to annoy me greatly…the short volume on the gold shares in many instances is approaching 50% of total volume on all the gold shares. This is absolute [...] 
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Venezuela may try to get its gold back Posted: 16 Aug 2011 01:21 PM PDT Venezuela May Move Cash, Gold By Daniel Cancel and Corina Rodriguez Pons http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-16/venezuela-may-move-reserves-fro... CARACAS -- Venezuela may transfer billions of dollars in cash and gold reserves held in U.S. and European banks to financial institutions in "allied" countries, opposition lawmaker Julio Montoya said today. Montoya, speaking on the Globovision network from the National Assembly, said the Finance Ministry wants to transfer more than $6 billion of cash reserves to countries including China, Russia, and Brazil. Of Venezuela's $18 billion in gold reserves, $11 billion is held abroad and could be transported back to Venezuela, Montoya said, citing a document he said he obtained from the ministry. "We think that China, Russia, and Brazil have asked Venezuela to transfer the reserves to guarantee the loans that the government has received in recent years," Montoya said. "President Hugo Chavez has not yet approved the plan." Chavez, who says he wants to eliminate the "dictatorship" of the U.S. dollar, has called on Venezuela's central bank to diversify its $28.7 billion in reserves away from U.S. institutions. He has also promoted the expanded use of the sucre, a currency created by the Alba bloc in 2009, for regional trade. Messages left for officials at the Finance Ministry and central bank seeking comment weren't returned. ... Dispatch continues below ... ADVERTISEMENT Sona Drills 85.4g Gold/Ton Over 4 Metres at Elizabeth Gold Deposit, 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 A large-scale repatriation of gold reserves and transfers of assets to non-U.S. and European banks may cause borrowing costs to rise over investor concerns regarding the guarantee of outstanding bonds, Asdrubal Oliveros, director of Caracas-based consulting and research firm Ecoanalitica, said. "The country risk would rise because the reserves are seen as a guarantee of payment for foreign investors," he said. "A repatriation of gold reserves could cloud the transparency over actual holdings." Venezuela has the highest borrowing costs of all emerging-market countries. The extra yield investors demand to own Venezuelan government bonds instead of U.S. Treasuries rose 9 basis points, or 0.09 percentage point, to 1,184, today at 4:15 p.m. in New York, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s EMBI+. Venezuela's government may want to move funds out of the U.S. to avoid any possible freezing of funds in the future, said Montoya, without providing more details. Venezuela sold $4.2 billion of bonds due in 2031 on Aug. 5 with an interest rate of 11.95 percent. The government had previously sold $3 billion of securities with a coupon of 12.75 percent in 2010. The central bank has also transferred some $40 billion of international reserves since 2005 to a government-run development fund known as Fonden to finance infrastructure projects, including $3.25 billion this year. China has lent Venezuela as much as $32 billion since 2008 to finance infrastructure and social development projects. The South American country, in turn, ships more than 200,000 barrels of oil a day to China to repay the loan. The government is in talks with both Brazil and Russia for new multibillion-dollar loans, Chavez said on Aug. 11. Join GATA here: Toronto Resource Investment Conference http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/toronto-resource-investment... The Silver Summit http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/the-silver-summit-2011/48 New Orleans Investment Conference http://www.neworleansconference.com/ 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: 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: 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: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Lewis E. Lehrman on How to Solve the U.S. Debt Problem Lewis E. Lehrman, chairman of the Lehrman Institute, sponsor of The Gold Standard Now project, advises that to reduce the $1 1/2 trillion U.S. deficit, the Republican Party must initiate an investment program. Working Americans are not saving, which enables the banks to lead the country into a cycle of debt, leverage, boom, panic, and bust. To read more and to sign up for The Gold Standard Now's free, noncommercial, weekly report, "Prosperity through Gold," please visit: http://www.thegoldstandardnow.org/gata
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| The Eurozone Financial Crisis: Feeding the Dragon Posted: 16 Aug 2011 01:18 PM PDT Winston Churchill defined appeasement as "feeding the dragon hoping he will eat you last." As the eurozone banking crisis has morphed into a sovereign debt crisis, it is worth reconsidering the wisdom of appeasing the bond market in an attempt to stave off the possibility of default. As the Financial Times stated in an editorial published towards the end of last year: "Each time the eurozone rediscovers its resolve and finds a policy to damp the sovereign debt crisis it makes the situation worse." ( 'Europe's financial plague rages on', Nov 26 ). |
| Bill Fleckenstein: Jim Grant is Right, “A Bonfire of the Currencies” Posted: 16 Aug 2011 12:28 PM PDT from King World News:
All of the Western world save for maybe Australia and Canada is swimming in debt. So I don't know how anyone can feel good about what is occurring. It seems almost impossible to think that this paper money regime that we've been on for the last forty years isn't in the very end game." Fleckenstein continues: Read More @ KingWorldNews.com
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| Peter Schiff: Relentless Rise in Gold to Continue Posted: 16 Aug 2011 12:23 PM PDT from King World News:
I mean the Swiss are actually thinking about pegging their currency to the euro. One of the reasons people were buying the Swiss Franc was to get out of the euro. Now they are threatening to turn the Swiss Franc into the euro. So what's the one asset that central banks can't print? That's gold and so gold is the last man standing and everybody is going to be piling into it."
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| Gene Arensberg: Comex commercials, swap dealers put floor under silver Posted: 16 Aug 2011 12:02 PM PDT 8p ET Tuesday, August 16, 2011 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver): The Got Gold Report's Gene Arensberg reports tonight that the big silver futures players are moving from short to long. Arensberg's commentary is headlined "Comex Commercials and Swap Dealers Put Floor under Silver" and you can find it at the Got Gold Report here: http://www.gotgoldreport.com/2011/08/comex-commercials-and-swap-dealers-... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Platinum Reports 10.97 Million Ounces Inferred An independent resource report on the Wellgreen project in the Yukon Territory in Canada has just confirmed that it as one of the largest platinum group metals projects in Canada and one of the few outside South Africa, Prophecy Platinum Corp. Chairman John Lee says. The report, compliant with Canadian National Instrument 43-101, was written by geologist Todd McCracken of Wardrop Engineering Inc., a Tetra Tech company. It incorporated drill data from 701 diamond drill holes (182 surface and 519 underground) totaling more than 53,222 metres. Using a 0.4 percent nickel equivalent cutoff grade, the Wellgreen deposit now contains a total inferred resource of 289.2 million tonnes at an average grade of 0.53 g/t platinum, 0.42 g/t palladium, 0.23 g/t gold (1.18 g/t PGM and gold), 0.38 percent nickel, and 0.35 percent copper. Separately, the deposit also contains an indicated resource of 14.3 million tonnes at an average grade of 0.99 g/t platinum, 0.74 g/t palladium, 0.52 g/t gold (2.25 g/t PGM and gold), 0.69 percent nickel, and 0.69 percent copper. Prophecy Platinum Corp. trades on the Toronto Venture Exchange under the symbol NKL, on the pink sheets in the United States as PNIKD, and in Frankfurt as P94P. For the complete press release on the Wellgreen report, please visit: http://prophecyplat.com/news_2011_july14_prophecy_platinum_new_resource_... Join GATA here: Toronto Resource Investment Conference http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/toronto-resource-investment... The Silver Summit http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/the-silver-summit-2011/48 New Orleans Investment Conference http://www.neworleansconference.com/ 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: 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: 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: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Golden Phoenix Q2 2011 Conference Call Posted at Company Internet Site The second quarter 2011 conference call of Golden Phoenix Minerals Inc. (GPXM) has been posted at the company Internet site for immediate playback. The call includes updates on the start of gold production at the company's Mineral Ridge gold project in Nevada, the letter of intent to acquire the Santa Rosa gold mine in Panama, and the company's due-diligence efforts to secure a senior stock exchange listing. The conference call is 18 minutes long and you download an mp3 of it here: http://www.goldenphoenix.us/audio/GPXMCC071211.mp3 Or play back the call here: http://goldenphoenix.us/conferencecalls/ Golden Phoenix is a U.S. mining company with international exposure to gold, silver, and strategic metals. The company's business model combines project generation and royalty mining that offers the potential for exploration upside, coupled with the backing of production and future royalty streams. View company videos here:
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| Gold Standard Institute's letter covers GATA's London conference Posted: 16 Aug 2011 11:53 AM PDT 7:51p ET Tuesday, August 16, 2011 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: The August 15 edition of The Gold Standard, the newsletter of the Gold Standard Institute, has, as usual, several interesting essays, but GATA supporters may be particularly interested in Louis Boulanger's report on GATA's Gold Rush 2011 conference in London, which he attended. You can find the newsletter here: http://www.goldstandardinstitute.net/GSI/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/TheG... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Golden Phoenix Q2 2011 Conference Call Posted at Company Internet Site The second quarter 2011 conference call of Golden Phoenix Minerals Inc. (GPXM) has been posted at the company Internet site for immediate playback. The call includes updates on the start of gold production at the company's Mineral Ridge gold project in Nevada, the letter of intent to acquire the Santa Rosa gold mine in Panama, and the company's due-diligence efforts to secure a senior stock exchange listing. The conference call is 18 minutes long and you download an mp3 of it here: http://www.goldenphoenix.us/audio/GPXMCC071211.mp3 Or play back the call here: http://goldenphoenix.us/conferencecalls/ Golden Phoenix is a U.S. mining company with international exposure to gold, silver, and strategic metals. The company's business model combines project generation and royalty mining that offers the potential for exploration upside, coupled with the backing of production and future royalty streams. View company videos here: Join GATA here: Toronto Resource Investment Conference http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/toronto-resource-investment... The Silver Summit http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/the-silver-summit-2011/48 New Orleans Investment Conference http://www.neworleansconference.com/ 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: 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: 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: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Platinum Reports 10.97 Million Ounces Inferred An independent resource report on the Wellgreen project in the Yukon Territory in Canada has just confirmed that it as one of the largest platinum group metals projects in Canada and one of the few outside South Africa, Prophecy Platinum Corp. Chairman John Lee says. The report, compliant with Canadian National Instrument 43-101, was written by geologist Todd McCracken of Wardrop Engineering Inc., a Tetra Tech company. It incorporated drill data from 701 diamond drill holes (182 surface and 519 underground) totaling more than 53,222 metres. Using a 0.4 percent nickel equivalent cutoff grade, the Wellgreen deposit now contains a total inferred resource of 289.2 million tonnes at an average grade of 0.53 g/t platinum, 0.42 g/t palladium, 0.23 g/t gold (1.18 g/t PGM and gold), 0.38 percent nickel, and 0.35 percent copper. Separately, the deposit also contains an indicated resource of 14.3 million tonnes at an average grade of 0.99 g/t platinum, 0.74 g/t palladium, 0.52 g/t gold (2.25 g/t PGM and gold), 0.69 percent nickel, and 0.69 percent copper. Prophecy Platinum Corp. trades on the Toronto Venture Exchange under the symbol NKL, on the pink sheets in the United States as PNIKD, and in Frankfurt as P94P. For the complete press release on the Wellgreen report, please visit: http://prophecyplat.com/news_2011_july14_prophecy_platinum_new_resource_...
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| Posted: 16 Aug 2011 11:49 AM PDT Gold Price Close Today : 1782.00 Change : 26.90 or 1.5% Silver Price Close Today : 39.821 Change : 0.523 or 1.3% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 44.75 Change : 0.089 or 0.2% Silver Gold Ratio Today : 0.02235 Change : -0.000045 or -0.2% Platinum Price Close Today : 1821.00 Change : 8.00 or 0.4% Palladium Price Close Today : 760.00 Change : 16.00 or 2.2% S&P 500 : 1,192.76 Change : -11.73 or -1.0% Dow In GOLD$ : $132.31 Change : $ (2.92) or -2.2% Dow in GOLD oz : 6.401 Change : -0.141 or -2.2% Dow in SILVER oz : 286.43 Change : -5.77 or -2.0% Dow Industrial : 11,405.93 Change : -76.97 or -0.7% US Dollar Index : 74.00 Change : 0.162 or 0.2% Apparently suspicion, fear, and panic continue to drive SILVER and GOLD PRICES, which refuse to collapse and crawl into a cave. After gold's fall four days ago we had a right to expect lower prices today, but forget the follow-thru. the GOLD PRICE added $26.90 for a new all-time high Comex close at $1,782. This is nice, but high was $1,786.40, not $1,815. Any close above that takes GOLD higher. Any close below that leaves gold accused with reason of intending to move lower. $1,720 remains the must-hold point. Now delving into opinion instead of fact, it seems to me that gold proved awfully strong today. Of course, that could be nothing more than typical B-wave strength that can fool almost anybody. Reactions usually trace out in an A-down, B-up, and C-down, and B-up is notoriously strong and seductive. You can only tell the difference when the break the boundary upside or downside, but the weight of experience leaves this move suspect. A close over $1,800 gainsays that and means the GOLD PRICE will keep on rallying. The SILVER PRICE worked manfully all day to climb and even reached 4013c, but at Comex close fell back to close up only 52.3c (1.33%). Good progress, yes, but not a victory over 4000c resistance, and above that lies 4100c with even stronger resistance. All this leaves me nervous because a financial panic can overwhelm all reason and experience and take markets wherever it listeth. Still, I have to follow the main chance and expected outcome. SILVER and GOLD PRICES remain in a long term bull market. That will last another three to 10 years. The GOLD PRICE might finish the year above $2,000, the SILVER PRICE who knows where. Be patient, be calm, hang on. Nicholas Sarcophagus of France and Angela Ferkel -- no, no, Merkel -- of Germany are top contenders for the Foolscap Crown of Dimwit of the week. In press releases from their summit they advocated a transactions tax on equities, derivatives, and currencies, which promptly tanked European equity markets. Wait! That's not all. It gets dumber and meaner. They also want "common governance" -- read, "top-down centralized control -- in the Eurozone, forcing member nations to adopt a deficit limiting rule into their constitutions. Good-bye fiscal independence for member nations, and with it all other independence. As Patrick Henry trenchantly observed, there are only two powers worth having, the power of the purse and the power of the sword. Give up one and you won't hang on to the other. STOCKS today backed off 76.97 points (0.67%) to 11,405.93. S&P lost 11.73 (0.97%) to 1,192.76. Nothing in nowhere-land. Stocks are trying to climb up off the floor of 10,600 and reach for their 200 day moving average at 11,994.95. Actually, they've fallen so far so fast the 20 dma (11,827) now stands below the 200 DMA, a sign confirming momentum now points downward. This won't end well for stocks. Stocks -- the Maginot Line in the 2011 Inventory of Investment Defensive Fortifications. US DOLLAR INDEX gained 16.2 stubborn basis points to end at 73.998, not quite 74. Weighty here is the dollar's refusal to drop below 73.80. Wants to move higher. Euro gave up some of yesterdays gains to close 1.4404, down 0.28% and destined for lesser things. Japanese nice government men have a problem on their hands, a yen that refuses to close below 130c/Y100 (Y76.92/$). Closed today 130.23, up 0.8%. 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. Be advised and warned: Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures. 
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| 16 Statistics Which Prove That The American People Are Absolutely Seething With Anger Posted: 16 Aug 2011 11:42 AM PDT from The Economic Collapse Blog:
Read More @ TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com
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| Gold Closes at $1782.40 / Silver Approaches $40.00 / Germany Rejects Eurbond Solution Posted: 16 Aug 2011 11:39 AM PDT by Harvey Organ: Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen: Before commencing, I would like to point out that this Friday is options expiry on shares (equities) and it is quite customary for the bankers to orchestrate a metals raid. The gold and silver share equities were hammered today despite gold and silver's big rise so expect a big raid tomorrow. I will be emailing the CFTC early tonight warning that a raid is eminent. Gold finished the comex session at $1782.40 a rise of $26.90. The silver price also participated in the rally climbing 54 cents to $39.83. Right now here are the prices for gold and silver at 7 pm: Gold: Read More @ HarveyOrgan.Blogspot.com
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| COMEX Commercials and Swap Dealers Put Floor under Silver Posted: 16 Aug 2011 10:42 AM PDT Combined COMEX commercial traders and Swap Dealer net buying in part responsible for $37 silver support. HOUSTON – The CFTC commitments of traders (COT) report for last week showed that commercial traders covered or offset a considerable amount of their net short positioning in gold futures as we reported in these pages yesterday. The report also showed a similarly large 'get-out' by the commercial traders in silver, but that's not the only thing analysts find interesting in the government reports covering the positioning of the largest metals futures traders. As we reported in our linked charts for Vultures (Got Gold Report Subscribers) on Sunday: As silver fell $3.25 or 8% Tuesday to Tuesday (the cutoff for COT data released each Friday), to close at $37.52 on the Cash Market, the collective net short positioning of the traders the CFTC classes as 'commercial' (LCNS) dropped by a very large 9,247 contracts or 20.7% from 44,588 to 35,341 contracts net short. Silver -8%, LCNS -20.7%. Just below is our graph showing the commercial net short positioning and the price of silver. Sources: CFTC, Cash Market. If any of the images are too small click on them for a larger version. Continued… It is interesting to note that in the five reporting weeks from June 28 to August 2, as silver traveled from $33.91 to $40.77 (+$6.86 or 20.2%) the combined commercials, which include the Producer/Merchants and Swap Dealers, increased their net short bets on silver futures by 15,422 contracts, each covering the action of 5,000 ounces of silver metal. Thus, in the five weeks prior to this latest report, as silver rose just under $7, the Big Sellers of silver futures added about 77.1 million ounces worth of bets that would benefit if silver fell in price.As we noted above, in the past reporting week, as silver gave back $3.25 or roughly half of the 5-week price advance, the combined commercials covered or offset contracts representing 46.2 million ounces or roughly 60% of what they put on net short for the period. For each $1.00 drop in the price of silver, the combined commercial traders covered or offset about 14.2 million ounces worth of futures contract net short exposure. We compare the commercial net short positioning to the total open interest to determine the positioning of the commercials relative to the entire futures market (LCNS:TO). This reporting week the open interest actually fell by 4,446 contracts to 115,939 lots open, so the LCNS:TO falls and falls sharply from 37% to a low 30.5% of all futures contracts open on the COMEX bourse. Just below is our graph of the relative commercial net short positioning for silver futures with the silver price. Sources: CFTC, Cash Market We believe that when the LCNS:TO reaches the lower third of the graph it is generally more bullish than bearish. We also believe that the higher the LCNS:TO goes, the more confidence the traditional Big Sellers of silver futures have in lower silver prices and vice versa. A low reading of 30% or below suggests to us that the Big Sellers are not, repeat not, confident in lower silver prices near term. Recall that in yesterday's (Monday's) report we noted that the traders the CFTC classes as Swap Dealers were aggressively covering or offsetting their gold net short positioning? And remember that occurred as gold was on a sharp rise in price? (Swap Dealers were in full retreat with gold shorts.) Well, note just below what the more mercenary Swap Dealers were doing in the silver department as they were getting the heck outta' Dodge with their gold shorts. Just below is our graph of the Swap Dealer commercials in COMEX silver futures. Swap Dealers were adding to their net long positioning in silver as they were covering their net shorts in gold. To quantify that blue line in the chart, from August 2 to August 9 the Swap Dealers collectively increased their silver futures net long position from 1,772 to 7,722 contracts, an increase of 5,950 contracts net long. So when silver had gotten to the $37.70s that was apparently low enough for the Swap Dealers to become aggressive on the long side of silver futures. Clearly the Swap Dealers' "confidence in lower silver prices" is a great deal less than that of the combined commercial traders. Indeed, if their net long positioning is any guide, they have instead positioned for the price of silver to move higher, not lower. As it happens, since that Tuesday data cutoff, the price of silver has recovered back up to a high $39 handle and traded as high as the low $40s today (Tuesday, August 16, 2011). Note that since about July of 2008 the Swap Dealers have been net long silver futures more than not, while their commercial compadres, the Producer/Merchants', (the largest hedgers and short sellers of silver futures), have, of course, remained net short. Notice, however, in the graph just below that the Producer/Merchant's are a great deal less net short than they have been in the recent past. Sources: CFTC, Cash Market. Note that the net position is expressed as a negative number, so when the net short position of the PMs decreases the blue line rises and vice versa. The Producer/Merchant's also took advantage of the $3.25 drop in the silver price to cover or offset some of their collective net short positioning. For the week they covered or offset 3,297 lots or 7.1% of their hedges/short sales to show 43,063 contracts net short silver. As of Tuesday, the Producer/Merchants, the category that includes bullion banks and the largest users/dealers, still held approximately 215.3 million ounces worth of bets that would benefit if the price of silver fell. If that sounds like a lot of net short "action" then compare to their net short positioning on October 27, 2009 when the PMs held a collective net short silver position of 64,125 contracts (320.6 million ounces or 9,973 tonnes with silver then $16.70 the ounce). That net short position was their second highest "opposition" to silver in the CFTC disaggregated data set (since 2006), second to their 64,216-contract net short position set February 26, 2008 with silver then $18.76. Indeed, without putting too fine a point on it, take an objective look at the PM graph just above and just note that as silver has broken out to its new higher zone in price, notice what the trend of Producer/Merchant net short positioning has been since about last September as the second most popular precious metal has more than doubled in price. Wouldn't it be correct to say that the Big Sellers of silver futures have been generally getting smaller in the net short silver business since then? With good reason. Just look at the price for the reason. Bottom line: The COMEX combined commercial futures traders strongly reduced their net short positioning for silver futures on that $3.25 drop in the price of silver and the Swap Dealers increased their long position significantly. Since then the price of silver has crawled its way back to almost where it was the prior Tuesday, so the commercials apparently had good instincts when they decided to get smaller on the short side with silver in the $37s. We can say that their short covering and the Swap Dealers long position taking helped to put the floor under silver in the $37s instead of a lower mark, can we not? And can't we then say that it looks like the largest, best funded and presumably the best informed traders of silver futures were positioning more for higher prices than lower prices as silver only dipped to the $37s? We certainly cannot say that the Big Sellers were even net sellers over the past week. They were net buyers instead. That is all for now, but there is more to come.
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| Record Number Of People Say They Are Paying More For Groceries Now Than Ever Before Posted: 16 Aug 2011 09:48 AM PDT Somehow even as all that deflation in home prices continues, like perfectly joined communicating vessels, countervailing inflation continues seeping into pretty much every other aspect of society. But don't take our word for it, (or even gold's, which is just under all time record notional highs): according to Rasmussen, "Americans nationwide continue to lose faith in the Federal Reserve Board to keep inflation under control, with the number who say they are paying more for groceries now at an all-time high." Specifically, "93% of adults report paying more for groceries now than they did a year ago, the highest finding to date. Only four percent (4%) say they're not paying more for groceries now compared to a year ago. Prior to the latest results, the number that said they are paying more for groceries ranged from low of 75% in April 2010 to a high of 91% in May of this year." However, since many of these same adults are transferring intangible "savings" from their non-payable mortgage check courtesy of a home market that has now ground to a halt for over 6 months, aka squatters rent, to pay for staples, few really mind. They just like to bitch and moan about it because it means fewer Apps downloaded for the iPad. What is probably just as interesting, is that when it comes to trusting the Fed: that source of unlimited liberal policy, Democrats, as is to be expected, are far more confident that the Fed can keep inflation under control. Or, in other words, have faith that it can do anything at all correctly: a faith that has long since been lost virtually in every other segment of society. Not surprisingly, those whose money is in the market, and are invested in the US, are also hoping the Fed knows what it is doing. Then again as we presented recently, this is a very paltry number on a relative basis, one can see why the bulk of the population is starting to loathe Bernanke and all he represents with a vengeance:
Yet no matter how they feel about hopium, when it comes to moneyum, everyone is angry:
Speaking of confidence, there is none:
Bottom line, some may be surprised to see that a media campaign focused on bashing Perry and his incendiary anti-Fed remarks, may backfire massively:
Indeed, this is already happening:
(Naturally Ron Paul somehow as usual did not make the cut: Rounding out the field, the poll showed Texas Rep. Ron Paul received 9% of the vote; businessman Herman Cain, 6%; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, 5%; former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania and former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman each got 1%.) The take home message here is that i) deflation, especially for things that people need, is rampant, ii) everyone loves the Fed, and iii) sarcasm is a popular trope on the pages of Zero Hedge. h/t John Lohman
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| Gold to Continue Stair Stepping Rally Posted: 16 Aug 2011 09:45 AM PDT price is expected to reach a new before the next 4th wave begins. Look higher.
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| Posted: 16 Aug 2011 09:11 AM PDT Every dollar of Food Stamp benefits generates $1.84 in the economy in terms of economic activity. Wiki: “Bread and Circuses” (or bread and games) (from Latin: panem et circenses) is a metaphor for a superficial means of appeasement. In the … Continue reading
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| Posted: 16 Aug 2011 08:33 AM PDT I continue to believe that silver is a broken market searching for significantly lower prices. From my perspective, the window for the next leg lower is wide open and upon us. Read More...
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| Posted: 16 Aug 2011 08:21 AM PDT Dave Gonigam – August 16, 2011
After a steady climb the last three trading days, stocks are taking it on the chin this morning. The Dow is down about 100. Yesterday, traders cheered merger news and ignored bad economic numbers. Today, they're ignoring good earnings reports from Wal-Mart and Home Depot… and paying heed to bad economic numbers:
For the moment, the rest of the day's market action hinges on a meeting between German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Heh, we already know they won't do anything to substantively resolve the debt that's choking Europe. The only question is whether the post-meeting news conference will fool the market into thinking they will.
If you like, you can click to listen to the first couple of minutes and follow along with the two charts below: From a top on July 21 at 12,724, the Dow shed just over 2,000 points in 12 trading days.  The decline in 2008 started out more gently. From a high of 11,782 on Aug. 11, the 2,000-point drop took nearly two months… an orderly rush for the exits. The real panic came in the ensuing three weeks:  And of course, there were several head fakes before the market hit bottom in early March 2009.
In plain English, this means that "relative to Treasuries, stocks haven't been this attractive in more than 30 years. This gap is called the equity risk premium, and you can see it in this next chart:  Now… the last three times the S&P made a huge drop, the equity risk premium was negative: Treasuries offered more yield than stocks. And never has a crash occurred when stocks earned nearly three times T-bonds. "During this panic," Chris notes, "a lot of money flowed to U.S. Treasuries — the so-called safe haven. I can't imagine that money stays there for long earning those puny yields. Stocks are a better bet by comparison." Indeed, "one of the most remarkable things about the August market crash is how insiders are buying into it. Insider buying has reached levels not seen since the March 2009 bottom."
"The economy is soft, at best, in the developed markets," Chris goes on. "The emerging markets are starting to choke and slow down. The political situation is a mess in many of the biggest economies. There is too much debt, too much red ink spilled by sovereigns. Banking systems are still fragile and overleveraged." And yet… "These kinds of environments can be the best to invest in. You just have to get your money in the right hands" — which for Chris means companies run by the sort of "owner-operators" who care more about building their company's value than beating analysts' quarterly estimates. Chris names a couple during our teleconference. Byron King offers up some resource names you can snap up at post-correction bargain prices. Jim Nelson has an eye toward the plays best suited for income investors. Meanwhile, our trading specialists have some ideas about how to capture the upside of all this volatility — grabbing short-term gains that can make you a bundle even while everyone else is losing his shirt. We're cleaning up the audio and adding some helpful slides to make the whole presentation as user-friendly as possible. Reserve members will have instant access when we post this tomorrow after the market close. As part of our 3-Part "Market Volatility" Strategy, we're also preparing a special report featuring our editors' best precious metals plays right now… and we're convening an "Emergency Summit" of our editors, affording Reserve members a chance to meet them face to face in a few weeks' time. Invitations to this event will go out tomorrow. To make sure you receive yours, just drop us your email address here.
Silver is within striking distance of $40 again at $39.57.
At that pace, August sales could end up reaching the second-highest monthly level this year… and the third highest of all time. [Ed. Note: Demand is so intense that last spring, the Mint started making Silver Eagles at its San Francisco location — in addition to those already made at West Point. For collectors, this move opens up a unique opportunity. As an Agora Financial reader, you have an exclusive window in which to snap up these San Francisco Silver Eagles, graded MS70 and certified "Early Release" by the independent grading agency NGC. The window closes at midnight tonight. To learn more about what makes this issue so special, check this out. Be advised we may be compensated if you buy.]
"It must be unprecedented that an important asset class can go up for such a long period with so few investors participating. In my view, this is the most bullish sign ever for gold. "There are many ways to project how high the gold price can reach. The following chart shows where gold would be if the U.S. gold reserves were at the same percentage (52%) of U.S. debt as in 1913 when the Fed was founded. "Gold would then be $27,000 today and going up to $33,000 in 2015 with a projected increase in debt of $6.5 trillion.  OK, that's an illustration, not a guarantee. The point is, "Gold is undervalued on any measure," Egon concludes. But aside from bullion holdings, what's the best move now? That's the question we're posing as an essential element of our 3-Part "Market Volatility" Strategy. We're assembling a "Reserve members-only" report pulling together the best gold recommendations from our editorial team. Along with the aforementioned teleconference and face-to-face gathering, we're going all out to help you preserve your essential capital while seizing the opportunities these rocky conditions bring. Invitations for the gathering are being prepared as we speak. To make sure you receive yours, here's where to go.
Last month, we told you how an American blogger discovered three "Apple Stores" within a 10-minute walk of each other in Kunming. Only she could tell they weren't for real… because, for instance, the words "Apple Store" sat beneath the logo. Fast-forward three weeks… and China's Administration for Industry and Commerce has uncovered at least 22 more fake outlets in China selling gray-market Apple goods.  The ministry has sent a letter to the offending businesses, ordering them to cease and desist from using the Apple logo. Meanwhile, back in Kunming, two of the fakes have been shut down, not for unauthorized use of the logo… but because they didn't have the proper business permits. Some things don't change no matter where in the world you are.
"They tapped five bank accounts for records and spent an untold amount of money. Not sure of the result yet. My accountant told me that at a seminar put on by the IRS, they revealed 13,000 new agents were hired to audit all 1040s with Schedule C in the Western Region. "So much for tax the rich, cause I ain't."
"It's been profitable at times and a little costly at others, but it's always been fun. I don't know how many times I've cut and pasted some great quote out of your writings and forwarded them to others. "Anyway, my son ships out to basic at Fort Benning in three weeks to join the Army. I have a bet with him: that he'll point his gun at someone in Baltimore before Baghdad. "'London,' coming to a city near you?" The 5: Can't rule it out. Effective last weekend, anyone under 18 in Philadelphia has to be off the streets by 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday nights, at least in certain "troubled" parts of the city. It's the mayor's response to the "flash mob" phenomenon — large groups of young people materializing as if from nowhere to clean out stores or mug passersby. As with London, they frequently organize their attacks via text message or social media. Nor is it an "inner city" phenomenon. Check out this viral video of a 7-Eleven getting cleaned out last weekend in the D.C. suburb of Germantown, Md.  If this is what life is like with current rates of inflation and unemployment, just imagine what it would be like if America's foreign creditors shut off Uncle Sam's credit card. Actually, you don't have to imagine. Addison spells out the consequences… and the steps you need to take to protect yourself… right here. Regards, Dave Gonigam P.S."The economy is significantly moderating right now and also over the next couple of months," says Bart van Ark, chief economist for the Conference Board. What makes this remark notable is that he's not talking about the United States. He's talking about China. A new Conference Board report corroborates what we've suspected for weeks now: China is slowing "significantly" — its leading indicators rising a meager 1% in June. A Chinese slowdown could put a serious hurt on commodities in the coming months. As it is, copper prices have been stuck at or below $4 a pound for the last week. The broad CRB commodity index is off its recent lows… but that only means it's back where it was at the start of this year. That's just one more element of uncertainty we've been hearing about from concerned readers, with one question on their minds: "What now?" That's why we're developing our 3-Part "Market Volatility" strategy — the teleconference presentation that will be ready by day's end tomorrow… the special report detailing our analysts' best gold-related plays… and a face-to-face summit with our editors and interested Reserve members here in Baltimore, scheduled for October. Invitations go out later this week. To make sure you receive yours, sign up here.
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| Audio of King World News interview with James Turk Posted: 16 Aug 2011 08:19 AM PDT 4:18p ET Tuesday, August 16, 2011 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Audio of GoldMoney founder and GATA consultant James Turk's latest interview with King World News has been posted and finds Turk advising, among other things, a little more patience with the mining shares. The interview is 10 minutes long and you can listen to it here: http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2011/8/16_J... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Lewis E. Lehrman on How to Solve the U.S. Debt Problem Lewis E. Lehrman, chairman of the Lehrman Institute, sponsor of The Gold Standard Now project, advises that to reduce the $1 1/2 trillion U.S. deficit, the Republican Party must initiate an investment program. Working Americans are not saving, which enables the banks to lead the country into a cycle of debt, leverage, boom, panic, and bust. Lehrman says: Eliminating the budget deficit of a trillion and a half dollars cannot be done overnight. The proposal by U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan was very dramatic -- one Republican called it radical -- but it was not happily received. The solution, of course, is to design an American program for prosperity, because you can solve these entitlement problems with a growing economy. We need a tremendous program of investment, and investment comes from savings. When you pay savers, middle-income professionals, and working people 0 percent at the bank, you are not going to encourage them to save. Then we are left with a bank cycle of debt, leverage, boom, panic, and bust." To read more and to sign up for The Gold Standard Now's free, noncommercial, weekly report, "Prosperity through Gold," please visit: http://www.thegoldstandardnow.org/gata Join GATA here: Toronto Resource Investment Conference http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/toronto-resource-investment... The Silver Summit http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/the-silver-summit-2011/48 New Orleans Investment Conference http://www.neworleansconference.com/ 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: 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: 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: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Sona Drills 85.4g Gold/Ton Over 4 Metres at Elizabeth Gold Deposit, 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
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| Swiss Ponder Battle Over Runaway Franc Posted: 16 Aug 2011 08:12 AM PDT August 16 (Bloomberg) — Switzerland, the nation that hasn't gone to war with a foreign power since Napoleon, is reluctantly debating a generational taboo: ceding monetary independence to win a battle over its runaway currency. Swiss National Bank Vice President Thomas Jordan said the central bank is assessing "a whole range of options" to prevent the franc, which reached a record against the euro this month, from making Swiss goods prohibitively expensive. Even a cup of coffee at Cafe St. Gotthard in Zurich costs $8.30, with one Swiss franc buying $1.2816 at today's exchange rate. Billionaire entrepreneur Christoph Blocher, one of the politicians who called on SNB President Philipp Hildebrand to resign after the bank lost $21 billion last year in a vain attempt to restrain the currency, now supports a franc target. "The franc is catastrophically overvalued," said Blocher, a former justice minister for the People's Party, Switzerland's largest. "It's almost like economic warfare — to wage a war, you must use all measures at your disposal, and you must win." [source] PG View: Again I ask; "catastrophically overvalued" against what? It's pretty hard to assert with a straight face that the euro, sterling or the dollar are "catastrophically undervalued" given their respective fiscal and monetary woes. I would also contend that there's nothing "almost" about the economic warfare that is emerging.
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| Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts Posted: 16 Aug 2011 08:09 AM PDT |
| Man Pretends To Be Hank Paulson To Make Fake $353,000 Mortgage Payment To Citi, Succeeds Posted: 16 Aug 2011 07:50 AM PDT
Perhaps the most surreal fact about the case of 35 year old Bryan Gardner who back in 2009 sent CitiMortgage a $353,000 money order "drawn on the account of the 'Secretary of the Treasury Hank M. Paulson, Jr." in order to satisfy the final payment for a property in Bowie, Md, is that.... he succeeded. Fox Biz has more: "CitiMortgage erroneously accepted the document and credited Gardner's mortgage account in full," according to a Secret Service affidavit. Within months, Gardner sold the property for $254,900 and then "distributed the proceeds to others," according to public records and the Secret Service affidavit. Investigators believe Gardner may have initially secured the mortgage under false pretenses. Through a spokesman, an FBI agent who investigates mortgage fraud said he was surprised the scheme succeeded, and a former Justice Department official who helped lead fraud enforcement efforts in the wake of the financial meltdown agreed, calling the approval of the money order "bizarre." Perhaps what is more bizarre is just how a plan like this, which a 3 year old could concoct, but not even a 3 year old would be dumb enough to believe it would fly, actually succeeded. Just how big is the pool of "unclaimed" cash on deposit at CitiMortgage is there was i) no actual account was debited for the full amount and ii) nobody noticed that the Treasury department was paying off a private mortgage. Unfortunately, we are confident that by the time the entire mortgage fraud house of cards is unwound, we will learn of cases in which President Lincoln personally prepaid mortgages closing in 2010. But have no fear: this is only money that will be funded out of the general Treasury ledger, and which you, dear taxpayer, will foot the bill for. Nobody else. It gets even funnier as our law enforcers realize that merely the tip of the iceberg in mortgage fraud land is beyond ridiculous:
As for Citi, why they have no idea what this means.
We feel bad for Citi: perhaps the mortgage agent just thought they were returning a modestly reduced favor:
As for the brilliant Mr. Gardner...
If nothing else, and TARP 2 is certainly not nothing else, the full extent of the fraud, potentially reaching well into the trillions, will provide for countless hours of late night and blogging humor. We can't wait.
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With gold climbing relentlessly higher, today King World News interviewed Bill Fleckenstein, President of Fleckenstein Capital, to get his take on the situation. When asked about the relentless rise in gold Fleckenstein responded, "Obviously as Jim Grant likes to say, 'We are having a bonfire of the currencies'. To think that the Yen is strong given the hand they have to play or that the euro is 1.44, given how bad the euro is it's 1.44 to the dollar, what does that say about the dollar? None of these currencies are any good. 
With gold consolidating recent gains, today King World News interviewed Peter Schiff, CEO of Europacific Capital, to get his take on where things stand. When asked about the run in gold Schiff responded, "Well it's going to continue, gold is going to go higher because people want refuge. In fact the other safe havens in the currency world, like the Swiss Franc or the Yen, the central banks there are trying to undermine their currencies.
According to a whole host of polls and surveys, the American people are incredibly angry right now. The American people are hopping mad at the government, the American people are hopping mad about the economy and the American people are hopping mad about the direction that this country is headed. Never before in modern U.S. history have the American people been this angry. There is vast disagreement about what the solutions to our problems actually are, but what everyone can agree on is that the American people are absolutely seething with anger right now. The statistics that you are about to read are mind blowing. We used to be such a happy country. Once upon a time we were one of the happiest places on earth. But as the economy has fallen to pieces anger has been steadily growing. If something is not done to turn the economy around eventually this anger is going to erupt in frightening and unpredictable ways.
Well, the euphoria couldn't last forever.
The downturn this summer has actually been sharper than it was at the beginning of the crash in 2008 — a point Addison underscored yesterday at the outset of an urgent teleconference, assembling our editors for their ideas about what you should do at this critical juncture.
"I offer one cheery observation," wrote Chris Mayer yesterday to readers of Mayer's Special Situations. "The spread between the earnings yield on the S&P 500 (which is simply the inverse of the price-earnings ratio) and the Treasury yield is as wide as it has been in more than a generation."
If after reading this you're still not convinced it's time to buy an index fund with both hands… you're right.
Proving you can't keep a good metal down, gold has recovered nearly $40 in the last 24 hours. The spot price at last check was $1,773.
Silver Eagle sales at the U.S. Mint are on a tear for the first half of August. Through yesterday, 1,959,500 Silver Eagles went out the door.
"In spite of a sevenfold increase in the gold price since 1999," writes 
Seems the "fake Apple Store" phenomenon is China is far more widespread than first thought.
"The IRS audited me over a three-year period," writes a reader who sympathizes with the subject of an audit who wrote in yesterday. "I had to account for deposits down to $100.00 — what a task.
"I've been following your musings along with those of Bonner and the boys over at The Daily Reckoning for over a decade now.| You are subscribed to email updates from Save Your ASSets First To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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