Gold World News Flash

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• News That Matters
• Silver Update: “Boondoggle” September 1st, 2011
• Gold is for Wealth Preservation and Silver is for Bartering
• Chris Whalen - Still Bullish Gold Because of Fear & Uncertainty
• Jobs Report Tomorrow / Surprisingly Gold and Silver Held
• Jewelers may drop gold before World Gold Council dumps jewelry
• Gold Seeker Closing Report: Gold and Silver End Slightly Lower
• EXCLUSIVE: Silver, Gold & Bonds Update With CEO Andy Schectman
• Gold over $2,000, silver over $50 in October if not sooner, Turk tells King World News
• There's a vault with gold somewhere -- but whose vault, and whose gold?
• Harvey Organ's: The Daily Gold & Silver Report
• Even Goldman Sachs Secretly Believes That An Economic Collapse Is Coming
• Cromwell must be laughing over Ireland's forfeited gold
• Things
• Gold and Silver Prices Will Reach New Highs in September
• Tracking Gold
• GATA's London conference described in Anglo Far-East market letter
• Jim's Mailbox
• James Turk - Expect a Big September for Gold & Silver
• James Turk: Expect a Big September for Gold & Silver
• Behind the Scenes at GLD
• Does Upside Remain in Gold and Silver?
• Desperation Trumps Stigma: What's Really Driving the Food Stamp-Ede?
• New York Sun: Looking forward to gold
• How To Get $12,000 Gold?
• We Can Now Rule Out Another Housing Collapse, Can?t We?
• Roubini, Schiff, Rosenberg and Whitney Agree: Another Recession Is At Hand! Here?s Wh
• The “Good Fed” and Other Fairy Tales
• The Credibility Crash
• What Corruption Does to the Markets

News That Matters Posted: 01 Sep 2011 07:37 PM PDT   By thetrader.se Ft.com The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) has asked some high-frequency trading firms to supply details of their strategies and their trading algorithms, reports Reuters. Tom Gira, executive vice president of FINRA's market regulation unit told the news agency that there is something worrying him about the industry. "It's not a fishing expedition or educational exercisehttp://ftalphaville.ft.com/thecut/2011/09/02/667436/us-regulators-order-...   Italy's squabbling centre-right government has cobbled together a compromise austerity package that relies heavily on a renewed crackdown on tax evasion to reach the goal demanded by the European Central Bank of a balanced budget by 2013, http://ftalphaville.ft.com/thecut/2011/09/02/667426/italy-finds-austerit...   Muammer Gaddafi vowed to stage a "long fight" for control of Libya that would see it "engulfed in flames" as world leaders in Paris backed a new administration for the country, reports the FT. His message came as some 60 nations and international organisations gathered at a summit in Paris and recognised the right of the national transitional council, http://ftalphaville.ft.com/thecut/2011/09/02/667406/gaddafi-vows-defianc...   The National Hurricane Center has alerted Gulf of Mexico interests that a low-pressure system in the area will probably strengthen into a storm within two days, Bloomberg reports. The warning has prompted some oil and gas output to be shut in. http://ftalphaville.ft.com/thecut/2011/09/01/667376/gulf-oil-platform-wo...   Russian Railways halted grain deliveries to the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk this week, obstructing Russia's return to global wheat markets after it ended an export ban, the FT reports. The railway said a "massive" backlog of grain wagons was clogging lines linking farmland to the port. http://ftalphaville.ft.com/thecut/2011/09/01/667346/russia-halts-grain-d...   China could move closer to letting its currency float more freely if it was easier for the renminbi to join the mechanism that underpins the International Monetary Fund's own reserve currency, Berlin said on Thursday. http://ftalphaville.ft.com/thecut/2011/09/01/667326/germany-backs-calls-...   The global manufacturing recovery appeared to have come to a grinding halt in August, activity surveys suggested on Thursday, undermining hopes of a vigorous economic recovery in the second half of the year, http://ftalphaville.ft.com/thecut/2011/09/01/667296/global-recovery-veer...       Yoshihiko Noda, Japan's new prime minister, has appointed a first cabinet that puts younger and relatively unknown members of his ruling Democratic party into some key positions. Jun Azumi, 49, a former journalist who was previously the DPJ's Diet affairs chief, was named finance minister, while Koichiro Gemba, 47, becomes foreign minister and Motohisa Furukawa, 46, is minister for economic and fiscal policy http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/7289c934-d512-11e0-a521-00144feab49a.html...   Wsj.com Tracking Wall Street's weak start for September, Japan's Nikkei Stock Average shed 0.9%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.9%, South Korea's Kospi Composite was down 0.5% in choppy trade and New Zealand's NZX-50 lost 0.6%. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures were up 21 points in screen trade. In the foreign-exchange markets, major currencies were locked in tight ranges ahead of the jobs data and key events for the euro over the next week. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190471660457654532006271393...   The British government has ramped up its campaign against Scottish independence, with Chief Secretary of the Treasury Danny Alexander arguing that Scotland's financial position would be far worse if it were to leave the U.K. Mr. Alexander, who is Scottish and held the position of secretary of state for Scotland briefly in 2010 before his promotion to treasury secretary, said Thursday that if Scotland became independent it would have one of the largest deficits in Europe. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190458320457654461061019505...   The Federal Reserve announced an enforcement action against Goldman Sachs Group Inc., saying the company's mortgage-servicing unit had engaged in "a pattern of misconduct and negligence" in its handling of home-mortgage loans. The Fed's action on Thursday seeks changes in mortgage-servicing practices and unspecified monetary damages. It came as Goldman reached an agreement with New York state banking regulators over wrongful foreclosures, allowing it to complete the Sept. 1 sale of its Litton Loan Servicing unit to Ocwen Financial Corp.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190458320457654464427282304...   A global economic slowdown could threaten regions of the U.S. that have managed to outpace the country's sputtering recovery. In recent years, booming growth in China and other emerging economies has driven up demand for coal, oil and agricultural products, as well as for the technology and machinery needed for their rapid industrialization. That has been bad news for many U.S. consumers and businesses facing higher food and energy prices. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190389590457654281031536168...   Business investment in Japan dropped for the first time in four quarters in April-June, due mainly to the March 11 disasters, a finance ministry survey showed, suggesting the economy contracted more than previously thought in the period. Analysts focus on the survey because the government uses it when revising its GDP data. Revised second quarter GDP figures are due out next Friday, and economists expect the data to show a deeper contraction than the preliminary 1.3% reading. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190471660457654541096151814...   Greece is likely to miss its budget-deficit targets this year in the face of a deep economic contraction that is turning out to be even more severe than forecast, government officials said Thursday, conceding that the country is likely to face demands for still more budget cuts. Greece's deficit could exceed 8.5% of gross domestic product, compared with an official forecast of 7.6%, as the government struggles to meet revenue goals, two senior Greek government officials said. The deficit is now estimated at "around 8.5%, or a bit higher. Tax collection remains the main problem," one official said. "Many simply don't have the money to pay taxes. We have to get the economy going but the austerity is holding everything back." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190471660457654446013836787...   French auto maker PSA Peugeot-Citroen said Thursday it plans to invest about €650 million to build a manufacturing facility at Sanand, the rapidly developing automotive cluster in the Indian state of Gujarat. The move fits in with Peugeot-Citroen's goal of reducing its dependence on the mature markets of Europe. The company has said it is aiming to have half of its vehicle sales outside Europe by 2015, compared to 38% at present, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190458320457654551299585395...   China is expanding its economic and political ties with countries across Africa, resulting in a rapid rise in influence here that has sparked concern from the U.S. government. Beijing's investment and aid to African countries aims to tap both natural resources and a growing middle class. As China burrows into local economies, leaders from South Africa to Ethiopia have been touting its model for development—one that stresses state-led growth, validates tight-fisted political control and offers a powerful counterpoint to the free-market democracy mantra promoted by the U.S.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190339290457651027183814724...   Marketwatch.com The island-province of Hainan in China's sun-soaked south is often compared to Hawaii for its lush beach resorts and productive pineapple farms. It's also home to what may be the nation's highest rate of local-government debt, based on reports recently filed with the National Audit Office.  Which begs a question: If debt is dogging a tropical paradise like Hainan, what's it doing to local governments in the country's far less Edenic provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions? Answers are starting to emerge. Hainan was one of 10 governments across the country — ranging from the city of Beijing to Henan province in China's heartland — that recently filed individual debt reports to supplement the audit commission's 2010 nationwide assessment http://www.marketwatch.com/story/chinas-local-governments-admit-being-de...   Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard said Friday she has no plans to step down as leader and intends to stay in office until the next scheduled election in 2013, as speculation swirls in the media that the Labor Party may seek to oust her. "I am not going anywhere," Gillard said in an interview in her office with Sky News television, saying she hasn't been approached by anyone asking her to step down. "We will have an election in 2013," she said. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/australias-gillard-not-planning-to-resi...   President Barack Obama will attempt re-election with an unemployment rate of 8.2%, the White House estimated Thursday as it laid out its economic forecasts. The unemployment rate the White House predicts for the fourth quarter of 2012 would be the highest for an incumbent since Franklin Delano Roosevelt successfully was re-elected in 1936 with a 16.6% unemployment rate. Jimmy Carter lost when he attempted re-election with a 7.5% unemployment rate. The U.S. unemployment rate will average 8.8% this year, falling from a previously estimated 9.3% as the economy grows at a moderate pace, the White House added. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/jobless-rate-to-be-over-8-in-2012-white...   Activity in the manufacturing sector grew slightly in August, according to a closely followed index released Thursday that nonetheless suggests the economy isn't currently in a recession. The Institute for Supply Management said its manufacturing index slowed to 50.6% from 50.9% in July, marking the worst reading since July 2009.  The index extended its string of readings above 50%, which indicate expansion, to 25 months. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/ism-aug-manufacturing-gauge-at-25-month...   Reuters.com Gold seems to have a trading band of $1,810 and $1,840, and is unlikely to break the range ahead of the payrolls data," said David Thurtell, a Citigroup analyst. Spot gold edged up 0.2 percent to $1,828.29 an ounce by 0238 GMT, little changed from a week earlier. U.S. gold inched up 0.1 percent to $1,831.30, headed for a weekly gain of 1.9 percent. Investors will keep an eye on inflation figures from Chinanext week to gauge the progress of Beijing's battle against rapidly rising prices, while a two-day policy meeting of the U.S. Federal Reserve starting September 20 will also be in the spotlight.http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/02/us-markets-precious-idUSTRE778...   U.S. crude ended marginally higher as companies evacuated personnel from platforms in the Gulf of Mexico and shut in 5.7 percent of production there ahead of a tropical disturbance over the central gulf. Front-month Brent settled down 56 cents at $114.29 a barrel, after hitting a low of $113.61. U.S. crude rose 12 cents to settle at $88.93 a barrel, after earlier touching a four-week high of $89.81 a barrel. Traders saw resistance around the $90 level for U.S. crude. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/01/us-markets-oil-idUSTRE77838320...   The global economy faces risks from both slowed growth and persistent inflationary pressure, which is spilling over from emerging to advanced economies, Ma Delun, a vice-governor at China's central bank, said in comments reported on Friday. The People's Bank of China vice-governor's gloom about world economic prospects echoed earlier comments from Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, underscoring that Beijing policy-makers are not counting on major foreign markets to recover quickly. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/02/us-china-cbank-economy-idUSTRE...   Euro zone governments are moving toward a compromise in a row over a bilateral deal between Finland and Greece that gives the Nordic country collateral in return for loans to Athens that other members of the currency bloc do not get. Ireland's Finance Minister Michael Noonan said the initial deal between Finland and the Netherlands, which prompted some other euro zone countries to demand similar treatment, had been axed and that a new compromise was being hammered out. "(The collateral deal between) Finland and Greece, I understand that is off the table now. There are other arrangements being made to compensate," Noonan told a financial parliamentary committee. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/01/us-eurozone-germany-greek-coll...   Bloomberg.com Hiring probably slowed in August as American companies became less optimistic about the strength of the recovery, economists said before a report today. Payrolls climbed by 68,000 workers after a 117,000 increase in July, according to the median forecast of 86 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News before a Labor Department report. The unemployment rate probably held at 9.1 percent, marking 26 out of the last 28 months where it has been at or above 9 percent. The first credit downgrade in U.S. history, political squabbling over debt reduction and fear of a default in Europe caused the Standard & Poor's 500 Index to plummet 17 percent from July 22 to Aug. 8, probably prompting companies to cut back. The lack of hiring is one reason Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke last week said the central bank still has tools available to stimulate growth. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-02/u-s-payroll-gains-probably-slow...   Cnbc.com An age-old idea — the gold standard — is attracting new fans, amid growing investor concern that enormous government borrowing is weakening the dollar and spark hyper-inflation. The day of realization is coming, James Grant, editor Grant's Interest Rate Observer told CNBC Thursday. "What can be said for the gold standard is that it is time tested. It has monetary properties. It worked imperfectly but consistently for a 100 years until it was interrupted," said Grant http://www.cnbc.com/id/44356270   Foxbusiness.com Italian employers' group Confindustria slammed the government's austerity plan as "weak and inadequate" on Thursday and expressed concern about how Italy's economic problems are being handled. The group said that, despite recent amendments, the 45.5 billion euro ($65.29 billion) austerity package, approved by Silvio Berlusconi's government last month, lacked clarity and did not contain structural measures to boost growth. http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2011/09/01/italy-business-group-criti...   USAtoday.com Fixed mortgage rates were mostly flat this week after hitting their lowest levels in decades. But few Americans are able to capitalize on them. Freddie Mac says the average rate on the 30-year fixed mortgage stayed at 4.22% for a second week. The rate hit 4.15% two weeks ago, lowest level on records dating to 1971. The average rate on the 15-year fixed mortgage, a popular refinancing option, fell to 3.39% from 3.44%. Two weeks ago, it reached 3.36%, lowest rate on records dating to 1991. http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/story/2011-09-01/Mortgage-...   Washingtonpost.com Investors are demonstrating a reluctance to trade in U.S. financial markets that's "unlikely to improve substantially" any time soon, according to Mike Lee, a Citigroup Inc. analyst.The CHART OF THE DAY shows how Lee reached his conclusion: by tracking the Citigroup U.S. Market Liquidity Index, derived from five indicators in the swap and option markets. Within the past two weeks, the index rose to its highest level since May 2009, when a global financial crisis sparked by falling U.S. home prices was ending. "Deteriorating economic conditions and volatile markets have raised investor fears about a repeat," Lee, based in New York, wrote two days ago in a report. That concern has weighed on liquidity, or the ease of buying and selling, he wrote. Citigroup's index, which rises when liquidity shows signs of drying up and falls when it improves, reached last month's peak on Aug. 25. The increase resulted mainly from a surge in the Chicago Board Options Exchange Volatility Index, known as the VIX, according to the report. http://washpost.bloomberg.com/story?docId=1376-LQUY3C6S972J01-3LPMK156G3...&l

Silver Update: “Boondoggle” September 1st, 2011 Posted: 01 Sep 2011 05:01 PM PDT from BrotherJohnF:

Gold is for Wealth Preservation and Silver is for Bartering Posted: 01 Sep 2011 04:25 PM PDT Gold is for wealth preservation and silver is for bartering. If we are talking about protecting wealth in the amount of several million dollars then a good spread to own in precious metals would be 80% gold and 20% silver. Read More...

Chris Whalen - Still Bullish Gold Because of Fear & Uncertainty Posted: 01 Sep 2011 04:21 PM PDT With continued uncertainty around the world, today King World News interviewed the man Jim Rickards calls the best bank analyst in the country, Chris Whalen. When asked if the US is going to suffer for another 10 or 15 years with a stagnating economy, similar to what has occurred in Japan, Whalen responded, "Well I think we're going back to a normal run rate for the economy, excluding stimulus, so if that looks like malaise, yes. But I would tell you that is the the real run rate. When you goosed growth, when you goosed housing with policy expedience and low interest rates and everything else, you were creating a boom mentality and people love booms, we're all human. But at the same time that wasn't the normal run rate of the US economy, given the dollar, given all the other factors." This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Jobs Report Tomorrow / Surprisingly Gold and Silver Held Posted: 01 Sep 2011 04:11 PM PDT by Harvey Organ: Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen: Gold closed the comex session at $1826.00 down only $2.50 despite the wild roller coaster ride for this metal. Tomorrow will be the release of the Non Farm payrolls and always our bankers on cue raid both gold and silver. The raid was anemic today as gold and silver basically held their ground. Let us head over to the comex and see how trading fared today. The total gold comex OI fell by 6516 contracts even though gold rose yesterday. The bankers are again getting quite nervous holding huge gold shorts. The OI rests tonight at 502,810 vs 509,325 from yesterday. Read More @ HarveyOrgan.Blogspot.com

Jewelers may drop gold before World Gold Council dumps jewelry Posted: 01 Sep 2011 04:00 PM PDT Gold Wedding Bands Get Dumped for Tungsten By Parija Kavilanz CNNMoney.com Thursday, August 1, 2011 http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/01/news/economy/wedding_ring_prices/index.h... NEW YORK -- Forget about sentimentality and tradition. Skyrocketing gold prices have jewelers and cash-strapped couples clamoring for wedding bands made of less expensive metals like tungsten, cobalt and even stainless steel. Over the past three months, tungsten, a steel-gray hard metal, has become an increasingly popular choice over gold with wedding band shoppers at Blue Nile, said John Baird, public relations director with the online jewelry seller. "The response to our recent men's tungsten collection was immediate," said Baird, adding that the company subsequently debuted a men's Titanium wedding band collection in July. "In 30 days, one in every 10 men's wedding bands we sold that month was titanium," he said. As the economic downturn forces Americans to tighten their belts, consumers shopping for jewelry have become more willing to consider cheaper alternatives, Baird said. Kay Jewelers has also been selling jewelry made of tungsten and titanium for a while. Company spokesman David Bouffard said these "alternative" metals give customers more choice and a wider range of prices to choose from when it comes to wedding jewelry. ... Dispatch continues below ... 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 Blue Nile's tungsten wedding bands cost a little over $200 while the cost of a Titanium wedding band is about $100. Compare that to $1,900 for a classic men's platinum wedding band and $700, or higher, for a white gold band sold at Blue Nile But it's not just those celebrating their nuptials that are feeling the pinch. Jewelry makers and sellers, themselves are also struggling with sharply higher prices for precious metals like gold and platinum. Gold costs about $1,840 an ounce, up 204% from about $605 per ounce just five years ago. So far, jewelers are limiting collections made of these industrial metals to men's lines. "To men, there's a coolness factor with tungsten, titanium, and stainless steel," said Peggy Donahue, spokeswoman with Manufacturing Jewelers & Suppliers of America. Industry experts said male consumers seem to like knowing that these industrial, space-age metals are used in making fighter jets, for example. "Women aren't there yet," said Amanda Gizzi, spokesperson for Jewelers of America. "Especially with wedding jewelry, women want to stay traditional and buy gold or platinum," she said. "They don't want to compromise at all because they're thinking about passing down these rings for generations." Don't tell that to Kyle Marie Lotspeich. Practicality trumps sentimentality for Lotspeich, who lives in Ashburn, Virginia. Kyle and her fiancé James are getting married on Oct. 1. "I would have also bought a tungsten wedding band but Blue Nile wasn't selling one for women," she said. But her fiance did buy a $320 white tungsten wedding band from the jeweler. "Our wedding is on a tight budget and we're mostly paying for all of it ourselves," she said. "A gold wedding band would have cost us close to $1,000. This has definitely helped us save money and maybe put it toward paying for something else for our wedding." Blue Nile hasn't yet debuted a tungsten bridal collection but is looking into it. Until two years ago, American jewelry designer Scott Kay had only used gold and platinum for his unique and popular high-end engagement and wedding rings. In 2009, Kay, who has been designing bridal jewelry for 27 years, became interested in another white metal that has the same sheen as platinum but costs substantially less -- cobalt. Kay also considered experimenting with tungsten but gave up on that because he thinks it's too brittle. Cobalt is an industrial metal, used in aerospace technology and in medical equipment such as joint replacements. "When we looked at this metal, it was a no brainer to us," said Kay. "Why not make men's weddings rings from this?" What's more, the timing for an affordable collection in the $200 to $300 price range was perfect. "It was just when the economy was softening," he said. Today, Kay said, his cobalt collection is in more than 2,000 stores. But Kay offers a reality check: "A person who is fond of gold and platinum will always own it," he said. "But for 20- and 30-year-olds who have become more frugal and practical, if they can buy a hypoallergenic metal that doesn't chip and is less than half the price of a platinum ring, why not?" Kay said. * * * Join GATA here: Toronto Resource Investment Conference Thursday-Friday, September 15-16, 2011 Sheraton Toronto Centre http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/toronto-resource-investment... The Silver Summit Thursday-Friday, October 20-21, 2011 Davenport Hotel, Spokane, Washington http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/the-silver-summit-2011/48 New Orleans Investment Conference Wednesday-Saturday, October 26-29, 2011 Hilton New Orelans Riverside Hotel 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: 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 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

Gold Seeker Closing Report: Gold and Silver End Slightly Lower Posted: 01 Sep 2011 04:00 PM PDT Gold traded mostly slightly lower in Asia and London before it rose to see a modest gain at $1830.39 by about 8:30AM EST and then fell to a new session low of $1813.70 in the next couple of hours of trade, but it then rallied back higher in late trade and ended with a loss of just 0.11%. Silver fell to $41.23 in midmorning New York trade before it also rallied back higher and ended with a loss of just 0.22%.

EXCLUSIVE: Silver, Gold & Bonds Update With CEO Andy Schectman Posted: 01 Sep 2011 03:44 PM PDT Hey friends, Here's my once monthly precious metals update with Andy Schectman, the President and CEO of Miles Frankiln Precious Metals. Stay tuned to the end for a very special free silver offer exclusively for readers of SGTreport. Click Here to visit SGTreport on Facebook. Part 1: Sell Gold, Buy Bonds!? Part 2: $10,000 GOLD

Gold over $2,000, silver over $50 in October if not sooner, Turk tells King World News Posted: 01 Sep 2011 03:35 PM PDT 11:29p ET Thursday, September 1, 2011 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: GoldMoney founder and GATA consultant James Turk, whose stunning predictions of gold and silver rallies this summer have come true with a vengeance, tells King World News today that he expects gold over $2,000 and silver over $50 by the end of October if not by the end of September. (Now if only he'd predict that Eva Longoria will call and say, "I'm really bored!") An excerpt from the interview has been posted at the King World News blog here: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2011/9/1_Jam... King World News also has new gold-bullish interviews with fund manager Stephen Leeb: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2011/9/1_Dr._St... And with market letter writer Gerald Celente: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2011/8/31_Geral... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Platinum Drills 49.5 Meters Grading 1.27 g/t PGM+Au at Yukon Wellgreen Project Company Press Release August 22, 2011 Prophecy Platinum Corp. (TSX-V: NKL, OTC-QX: PNIKF, Frankfurt: P94P) announces results from its 2011 drilling program for its first completed hole on the Wellgreen Project in the Yukon Territory, Canada. Borehole WS11-184 encountered 472.6 meters of mineralization grading 0.43% nickel equivalent from surface to the footwall contact. Within this larger swath of mineralization the hole encountered 49.5 meters of 1.27 grams per ton platinum group metals plus gold, 0.71% nickel, and 0.45% copper (or 1.11% nickel equivalent). The geology transitioned from blebby disseminated to net-textured to massive sulphide approaching the footwall contact grading 6.3% nickel, 1.7% copper, 2.7 grams per ton platinum, 1.6 grams per ton palladium, 0.17 grams per ton gold, and 3.4 grams per ton silver. The drilling zones and results are tabulated here, with more information: http://www.prophecyplat.com/news_2011_aug22_prophecy_platinum_wellgreen_... Join GATA here: Toronto Resource Investment Conference Thursday-Friday, September 15-16, 2011 Sheraton Toronto Centre http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/toronto-resource-investment... The Silver Summit Thursday-Friday, October 20-21, 2011 Davenport Hotel, Spokane, Washington http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/the-silver-summit-2011/48 New Orleans Investment Conference Wednesday-Saturday, October 26-29, 2011 Hilton New Orelans Riverside Hotel 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: 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 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: http://goldenphoenix.us/

There's a vault with gold somewhere -- but whose vault, and whose gold? Posted: 01 Sep 2011 02:57 PM PDT 11:08p ET Thursday, September 1, 2011 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: On CNBC today reporter Bob Pisani was shown being put in a van whose windows had been covered, being driven around London for a while, being walked through an unidentified room containing pallets of gold bars, and then being handed a bar whose serial number, ZeroHedge promptly determined (http://www.zerohedge.com/news/some-observations-bob-pisanis-visit-glds-v...), does not appear on the bar list of the inventory claimed by the sponsor of Pisani's mysterious expedition, the exchange-traded fund GLD, which had meant to dispel suspicions about its gold holdings. You can watch the CNBC report here: http://video.cnbc.com/gallery/?video=3000043030 For all Pisani or anyone besides his handlers knew, he could have been in the basement of the Bank of England, and the bars he saw could have belonged to the bank itself, to Ireland's Central Bank, or maybe even Venezuela's. Indeed, maybe the Venezuelan ambassador to Britain got the same tour last week, without the blindfolds, in an effort to dissuade his master back in Caracas from repatriating anything and thus making trouble for the fractional-reserve gold banking system and its gold price suppression scheme. As the custodian for so much foreign-owned gold, the U.S. Federal Reserve may play the same sort of game at the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. On Mondays the German ambassador may be invited to visit gold he is told is Germany's. On Tuesdays it may be the Italian ambassador's turn. Wednesdays may be reserved for the Swiss ambassador -- yes, even Switzerland, with its mountain fastnesses, is said to keep much of its official gold in New York. (See http://www.gata.org/node/7189.) The Belgian ambassador may visit on Thursdays, as a couple of months ago the Belgian central bank acknowledged that the location of 43 percent of its gold reserves couldn't really be determined, as that much had been lent out. (See http://www.gata.org/node/10031.) Fridays could belong to the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, whose gold, while always being sold or contemplated for sale, has never actually been located either, despite questions posed to the IMF by GATA and clumsily evaded three years ago (http://www.gata.org/node/6242) and a question posed by a member of the U.S. House Committee on Domestic Monetary Policy at a hearing in June (http://www.gata.org/node/10037). Yes, thanks to today's report on CNBC, it seems that there's gold in a vault somewhere in Britain. But whose vault is it really, and to whom does the gold really belong? How many claims are there against it? Keeping CNBC's Pisani in the dark, the GLD people didn't answer those questions, but rather made them only more compelling. For keeping him in the dark, at the end of his report Pisani actually thanked them. We do too. CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. 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 Thursday-Friday, September 15-16, 2011 Sheraton Toronto Centre http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/toronto-resource-investment... The Silver Summit Thursday-Friday, October 20-21, 2011 Davenport Hotel, Spokane, Washington http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/the-silver-summit-2011/48 New Orleans Investment Conference Wednesday-Saturday, October 26-29, 2011 Hilton New Orelans Riverside Hotel 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: 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

Harvey Organ's: The Daily Gold & Silver Report Posted: 01 Sep 2011 02:48 PM PDT There is now evidence - GLD & SLV are paper settling on the comex. Thus a default at either of the LBMA, or Comex will trigger a catastrophic event.

Even Goldman Sachs Secretly Believes That An Economic Collapse Is Coming Posted: 01 Sep 2011 02:41 PM PDT from The Economic Collapse Blog: Goldman Sachs is doing it again. Goldman is telling the public that everything is going to be just fine, but meanwhile they are advising their top clients to bet on a huge financial collapse. On August 16th, a 54 page report authored by Goldman strategist Alan Brazil was distributed to institutional clients. The general public was not intended to see this report. Fortunately, some folks over at the Wall Street Journal got their hands on a copy and they have filled us in on some of the details. It turns out that Goldman Sachs secretly believes that an economic collapse is coming, and they have some very interesting ideas about how to make money in the turbulent financial environment that we will soon be entering. In the report, Brazil says that the U.S. debt problem cannot be solved with more debt, that the European sovereign debt crisis is going to get even worse and that there are large numbers of financial institutions in Europe that are on the verge of collapse. If this is what people at the highest levels of the financial world are talking about, perhaps we should all start paying attention. Read More @ TheEconomicCollapseBlog.com

Cromwell must be laughing over Ireland's forfeited gold Posted: 01 Sep 2011 01:00 PM PDT 9:01p ET Thursday, September 1, 2011 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Our friend R.M. in Ireland acted on GATA's appeal the other day to query his country's central bank about the status of its gold reserves. He wrote: "Could you clarify a number of points on the gold holdings of the Central Bank of Ireland? Note 10 on Page 98 of the bank's 2010 annual report -- http://www.centralbank.ie/publications/Documents/2010%20Annual%20Report%... -- says: 'Gold and gold receivables represent coin stocks held in the bank, together with gold bars held at the Bank of England.' "Of the Central Bank of Ireland's bars held at the Bank of England, could you clarify if any of this holding is swapped or loaned out or has any other receivable status recorded against it, and, if so, what percentage? Additionally, is this held in an allocated account and can you provide a good bar list for the custody? ... Dispatch continues below ... 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: http://goldenphoenix.us/ "Finally, in the Claims Equivalent to the Transfer of Foreign Reserves balance sheet item, it lists E638.836 million. Given that these are the Irish Central Bank's 'claims arising from the transfer of foreign reserve assets to the European Central Bank in accordance with the provisions of Article 30 of the European System of Central Banks statute' and that a number of transfers have been made in the last 12 years (Page 89, Section c-vii), what proportion of this E638.836 million is a gold component?" The Central Bank of Ireland replied promptly, through its senior administrative officer for financial control: "We received your query in connection with gold custody. Please find our response below. "The notes to our accounts confirm the locations at which the Central Bank of Ireland maintains its gold holdings. The bank is not, however, in a position to provide further information, nor to outline its investment strategy in relation to the gold holdings. "The bank transferred foreign currency assets to the European Central Bank in 1999 and in subsequent years up to the end of 2010, with one of the components being gold. The claim that the Central Bank of Ireland has on the ECB amounts to E638.836 million, as recorded in the accounts. "Trusting this is of assistance to you." Oh, yes, it's of wonderful assistance. It adds the Central Bank of Ireland to the long list of central banks that won't be candid about the national patrimony entrusted to them, the gold reserves. Are they being leased or otherwise used for surreptitious market intervention? Apparently the Irish gold reserves are not entirely secure, since the Central Bank of Ireland has an "investment strategy" for them. Does this "investment strategy" involve some disposition of the gold that helps suppress gold's price, so that certain government currencies might look better? Is this strategy in Ireland's interest, or that of some other country? Whatever this strategy is, why shouldn't the Irish people be allowed to know about it? At least the Irish central bank's annual report hints at the answer to such questions, insofar as the report acknowledges that the Irish gold reserves, such as they are, are kept at the Bank of England, long the operational headquarters of the gold price suppression scheme. Will the Irish people note the irony of the location of their gold reserves? As the monetary metals are the currencies of the brotherhood of man, GATA is not one to aggravate national and ethnic grudges, and we have a special feeling for Britain, where we held our conference last month. But Ireland's independence of Britain has been an issue of great importance to Western civilization in recent centuries, regardless of whether that independence is considered to have been achieved in 1921, 1937, or 1949. While Ireland's gold reserves aren't much -- only six tonnes, according to the World Gold Council -- it's the principle of the thing, for any country that would be truly independent. Even now is there really no vault in the republic large enough to hold six tonnes? If not, Cromwell must be laughing -- if he's not burning. CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. * * * Join GATA here: Toronto Resource Investment Conference Thursday-Friday, September 15-16, 2011 Sheraton Toronto Centre http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/toronto-resource-investment... The Silver Summit Thursday-Friday, October 20-21, 2011 Davenport Hotel, Spokane, Washington http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/the-silver-summit-2011/48 New Orleans Investment Conference Wednesday-Saturday, October 26-29, 2011 Hilton New Orelans Riverside Hotel 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: 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 Platinum Drills 49.5 Meters Grading 1.27 g/t PGM+Au at Yukon Wellgreen Project Company Press Release August 22, 2011 Prophecy Platinum Corp. (TSX-V: NKL, OTC-QX: PNIKF, Frankfurt: P94P) announces results from its 2011 drilling program for its first completed hole on the Wellgreen Project in the Yukon Territory, Canada. Borehole WS11-184 encountered 472.6 meters of mineralization grading 0.43% nickel equivalent from surface to the footwall contact. Within this larger swath of mineralization the hole encountered 49.5 meters of 1.27 grams per ton platinum group metals plus gold, 0.71% nickel, and 0.45% copper (or 1.11% nickel equivalent). The geology transitioned from blebby disseminated to net-textured to massive sulphide approaching the footwall contact grading 6.3% nickel, 1.7% copper, 2.7 grams per ton platinum, 1.6 grams per ton palladium, 0.17 grams per ton gold, and 3.4 grams per ton silver. The drilling zones and results are tabulated here, with more information: http://www.prophecyplat.com/news_2011_aug22_prophecy_platinum_wellgreen_...

Things Posted: 01 Sep 2011 12:41 PM PDT The following is automatically syndicated from Grandich's blog. You can view the original post here. Stay up to date on his model portfolio! September 01, 2011 02:50 PM [LIST] [*]Article on Grandich Client Sunridge Gold [/LIST] [LIST] [*]Today's drill results from Crescent Resources, combined with our previous results from July 28, 2011 and results from previous operators, show that there is widely distributed gold mineralization on the project. Crescent will now review all data, including the final results of project wide soil sampling program which are expected soon, in order to plan future programs at the Uncle Sam Project. Crescent's results, and the new discovery made immediately south of Uncle Sam by Sumitomo Mining, continue* to demonstrate that this area of Alaska has the potential to host another large gold deposit similar to Fort Knox, Pogo and Livengood. [*]Will natural gas prices ever rise? [*]14 reasons why the U.S. will never have a balance budget again. [*]Bom...

Gold and Silver Prices Will Reach New Highs in September Posted: 01 Sep 2011 12:35 PM PDT Gold Price Close Today : 1,826.00 Gold Price Close 26-Aug : 1,794.10 Change : 31.90 or 1.8% Silver Price Close Today : 4148.2 Silver Price Close 26-Aug : 4095.2 Change : 53.00 or 1.3% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 44.019 Gold Silver Ratio 26-Aug : 43.810 Change : 0.21 or 0.5% Silver Gold Ratio : 0.02272 Silver Gold Ratio 26-Aug : 0.02283 Change : -0.00011 or -0.5% Dow in Gold Dollars : $ 130.12 Dow in Gold Dollars 26-Aug : $ 130.02 Change : $ 0.09 or 0.1% Dow in Gold Ounces : 6.294 Dow in Gold Ounces 26-Aug : 6.290 Change : 0.00 or 0.1% Dow in Silver Ounces : 277.07 Dow in Silver Ounces 26-Aug : 275.56 Change : 1.52 or 0.6% Dow Industrial : 11,493.57 Dow Industrial 26-Aug : 11,284.54 Change : 209.03 or 1.9% S&P 500 : 1,204.42 S&P 500 26-Aug : 1,176.80 Change : 27.62 or 2.3% US Dollar Index : 74.541 US Dollar Index 26-Aug : 73.710 Change : 0.831 or 1.1% Platinum Price Close Today : 1,854.00 Platinum Price Close 26-Aug : 1,832.70 Change : 21.30 or 1.2% Palladium Price Close Today : 784.35 Palladium Price Close 26-Aug : 762.00 Change : 22.35 or 2.9% Tomorrow afternoon I've got to help with Hoedown preparations, so I am sending out this weekly summary today. By the way, I will also be vacationing from 9 September through 18 September, and won't be sending commentaries then, either. I'll miss y'all, but I've earned a vacation and can't take y'all with me. goldprice.org will be providing daily price summaries like the above table during this time. Y'all, the GOLD PRICE closed down today $2.50 on Comex at $1,826, but with a $15 range that sayeth not a word. It has held above $1,810, hugging onto $1,825 like it was a free teddy bear and gold was three years old. Everybody's loathe to take a position before the weekend. As my old friend Tyrone Pulley used to say, "You put enough of that fertilizer out there and hit'll SOMETHIN' come up." I fell that way about next week. The fertilizer's all been spread through August, now September is about to break and all the Euro-crats will come back from their August vacation and "hit'll somethin' come up." You watch. Wouldn't surprise me if part of that something wasn't much higher gold, through $1,840 and $1,850 and knocking on $1,900 again. That SILVER PRICE was as sleepy as gold today, trading in a tight band from 4180c to 4113c, practically dead in the water. Comex lost 21.7c to close 4148.2c. To confirm that it is rallying, silver needs to close through 4200c first, then 4400c. I remind y'all that silver remains in an uptrend since mid-May. Proverb says, "A trend in force remains in force until violated." 'Tain't been violated yet. Save they close below $1,800 and 3900c, gold and silver will reach new highs in September. Get out of their way. I reckon nobody much came to work today, or they left their ambition at home. Except for stocks falling out of bed and the dollar jumping, things were flat. Nobody wants to carry a position over the weekend. 'Tis instructive that the current Great Prevaricator has to scratch and bite with the Speaker of the House to be allowed to speak to congress. Instructive, too, that he will be the warm-up act for the first NFL game. I don't know what it will take, but I for one will be glad when the adults are in charge once again. But ponder! What exactly could or might Bernard O'Bama say that would make a difference? That he will patty-pat at the problem with another stimulus that sends $1000 checks to everybody to buy big screen TVs with? That he has no clue what time zone he is in, let alone what hemisphere or what the US economy needs? Neither he nor the Bernancubus know as much about the economy or statecraft as a hog knows about a sidesaddle. You have to say one thing for tyrants like Franklin Roosevelt: at least they don't dither. They walk right in the front door and stole the family silver, and dare you to say nay. This lot today, American and European, don't even rank as high as midgets. Mercy, they don't rank as high as WARTS. Let us think about currencies -- fiat currencies. Let's not think about them too long, however, lest the resulting nausea mess up our wastebaskets. The US dollar today ALMOST broke out of the very tight range that has imprisoned it, 73.50 - 74.50. I say "almost" because it is now trading at 74.541, up 42.4 basis points (0.55%), but that's not quite a break out, now is it? Needs to close above the 50 dma (74.55 ) tomorrow at least, and push on toward the top of the larger range, 75.452. The Bundestag, the German parliament, is balking about picking up the tab for these Euro sovereign debt bailouts. They'd better straighten up or their banker bosses will show them who they really work for. Also the catchily named Bundesverfassungsgeright, the German high court charged with protecting the German constitution, is hearing arguments that German participation in the European bail out fund is unconstitutional. Let us say that this uncertainty casts a dark pall over the face of the euro's future, and that showed in the market today. The Franken-currency gapped down again, twinning with two days ago, but worse today. It gapped down plumb past its 20 dma (1.4360) and its 50 dma (1.4315) to close at 1.4260, down 0.83%. Owch. Were it a natural and not a manipulated market, it would sink like a lag bolt in a rain barrel all the way to the bottom. I hope those Nice Government are adept at catching falling knives. Japanese Yen looked a mite peakéd today. Dropped to 130.0c/Y100 (Y76.92/$), down 0.4% and right on its 20 dma (129.97). Look for another samurai stroke from the NGM at the Bank of Japan. After rising four days running the Dow today fell 119.96 points (1.03%) to 11,493.57. S&P lost 14.47 (1.19%) to 1,204.42. Mercy, mercy! I'm just a natural born fool from Tennessee and I don't know nothing 'bout reading these charts, but looks like the Dow is having trouble piercing 11,700. And although I know nothing and claim to know nothing, that Dow chart looks like a completed A-B-C correction somebody told me about once. If it is, Dow will plunge through 11,236 (20dma) soon and then keep on falling so as to make your stomach flip. You will know that is NOT the case if the Dow can overcome 11,700. BWDIK? STOCKS -- the greased rails on the slide to perdition. WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. 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 short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures. NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps. NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced. NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt. What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands. One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. Y'all enjoy your holiday! 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.

Tracking Gold Posted: 01 Sep 2011 11:59 AM PDT http://www.caseyresearch.com/editorial.php?page=articles/tracking-gold&ppref=TBP420ED0911A Recently, we've received a number of emails from readers asking why the primary gold ETF, SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE:GLD), doesn't more closely track the price of gold, and other related questions. For those readers who aren't already familiar with the workings of this innovative way to "own gold," it's worth going over a few [...]

GATA's London conference described in Anglo Far-East market letter Posted: 01 Sep 2011 11:45 AM PDT 7:37p ET Thursday, September 1, 2011 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Longtime GATA supporter Anglo Far-East Bullion Co. was well-represented at GATA's Gold Rush 2011 conference in London a month ago and reports about it at length in its monthly market letter, the Global Insider, which you can find here: http://www.gata.org/files/AngloFarEastGlobalInsiderAugust2011.pdf 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: Toronto Resource Investment Conference Thursday-Friday, September 15-16, 2011 Sheraton Toronto Centre http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/toronto-resource-investment... The Silver Summit Thursday-Friday, October 20-21, 2011 Davenport Hotel, Spokane, Washington http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/the-silver-summit-2011/48 New Orleans Investment Conference Wednesday-Saturday, October 26-29, 2011 Hilton New Orelans Riverside Hotel 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: 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 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 Attachment Size AngloFarEastGlobalInsiderAugust2011.pdf 3.97 MB This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Jim's Mailbox Posted: 01 Sep 2011 11:32 AM PDT Jim Sinclair's Commentary The problem is not only a dollar or euro problem, it is the entire Western world financial structure that is challenged. U.S. has "enormous" debt problem: ECB's Stark CIGA Eric Japan, Greece, and Italy have enormous debt problems. Headline: U.S. has "enormous" debt problem: ECB's Stark ALPBACH, Austria (Reuters) Continue reading Jim's Mailbox

James Turk - Expect a Big September for Gold & Silver Posted: 01 Sep 2011 11:07 AM PDT "I think September is shaping up to be another great month for the precious metals, so don't be misled by today's slow start to the month."

James Turk: Expect a Big September for Gold & Silver Posted: 01 Sep 2011 10:53 AM PDT from King World News: With gold continuing to trade solidly above the $1,800 level, today King World News interviewed James Turk out of Spain. When asked about the action in gold and silver Turk responded, "No matter how you look at it Eric, August was a solid month for gold and silver. Silver was up 4%, while gold climbed a spectacular 12.3%. By any measure that was an awesome performance. I think September is shaping up to be another great month for the precious metals, so don't be misled by today's slow start to the month." James Turk continues: Read More @ KingWorldNews.com

Behind the Scenes at GLD Posted: 01 Sep 2011 10:45 AM PDT If there is a sudden run on physical gold, GLD is not contractually obligated to provide actual metal, in exchange for however many shares, to anyone.

Does Upside Remain in Gold and Silver? Posted: 01 Sep 2011 10:40 AM PDT Author: Vedran Vuk Synopsis: Looking at price history and trends or looking at seasonal and global shifts demand, the picture for gold and silver remains quite shiny. Also in today's issue: should there be concern over the financial markets? Dear Reader, The 2008 crisis caught plenty of investors by surprise. I don't blame folks for not seeing it coming. Discerning between a bubble and strong growth can sometimes be difficult. That's the very reason so many lost big time in the recession. The boom itself must be convincing. Furthermore, even if one saw the crisis coming, the proper reaction isn't obvious. Assume an investor in 2003 saw a major bubble on the horizon. Well, what does he do? Foresight alone can't save him. Of course, the investor could bet against real estate, but that could mean four years of losses until the bubble bursts. There's no value in findin...

Desperation Trumps Stigma: What's Really Driving the Food Stamp-Ede? Posted: 01 Sep 2011 10:28 AM PDT Rakim Brooks The number of food stamp recipients is likely to hit a new high of 46 million when the Department of Agriculture releases its latest report on the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) -- that's over 18 percent of American households. This should drive conservatives through the roof. Fox News and other right-wing pundits have already been bemoaning surging food stamp enrollment, claiming food stamps are "teaching people to be dependent." You can expect those moans to grow louder. But they, like many other commentators are missing the point. Growing dependency is not the issue here. It's growing desperation -- desperation great enough to overcome the deep reluctance among many Americans about using stigmatized safety net programs. Historically, one common explanation for low food stamp participation rates is that many households only qualify for very modest monthly benefits -- which can be under $25 a month -- and don't think it's worth the stigma or hassle to apply. In hard times, though, every dollar counts. And so many have turned to food stamps. After years of swearing off government assistance, manifesting all the characteristics of sturdy self-reliance that the right-wing prizes, these families have finally fallen on times too hard to ignore. Yet, rather than praise them for their courage, conservatives are treating food stamp use as an irredeemable vice, all while they support tax breaks for the wealthy. Guess only low income families need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. More Here..

New York Sun: Looking forward to gold Posted: 01 Sep 2011 10:21 AM PDT 6:16p ET Thursday, September 1, 2011 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Today's editorial in the New York Sun celebrates the rapidly growing consideration of returning the United States to the use of gold as currency, an idea acknowledged at length this week by the cable news network CNBC. The Sun's editorial is headlined "Looking Forward to Gold" and you can find it here: http://www.nysun.com/editorials/looking-forward-to-gold/87469/ CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Platinum Drills 49.5 Meters Grading 1.27 g/t PGM+Au at Yukon Wellgreen Project Company Press Release August 22, 2011 Prophecy Platinum Corp. (TSX-V: NKL, OTC-QX: PNIKF, Frankfurt: P94P) announces results from its 2011 drilling program for its first completed hole on the Wellgreen Project in the Yukon Territory, Canada. Borehole WS11-184 encountered 472.6 meters of mineralization grading 0.43% nickel equivalent from surface to the footwall contact. Within this larger swath of mineralization the hole encountered 49.5 meters of 1.27 grams per ton platinum group metals plus gold, 0.71% nickel, and 0.45% copper (or 1.11% nickel equivalent). The geology transitioned from blebby disseminated to net-textured to massive sulphide approaching the footwall contact grading 6.3% nickel, 1.7% copper, 2.7 grams per ton platinum, 1.6 grams per ton palladium, 0.17 grams per ton gold, and 3.4 grams per ton silver. The drilling zones and results are tabulated here, with more information: http://www.prophecyplat.com/news_2011_aug22_prophecy_platinum_wellgreen_... Join GATA here: Toronto Resource Investment Conference Thursday-Friday, September 15-16, 2011 Sheraton Toronto Centre http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/toronto-resource-investment... The Silver Summit Thursday-Friday, October 20-21, 2011 Davenport Hotel, Spokane, Washington http://cambridgehouse.com/conference-details/the-silver-summit-2011/48 New Orleans Investment Conference Wednesday-Saturday, October 26-29, 2011 Hilton New Orelans Riverside Hotel 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: 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 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: http://goldenphoenix.us/

How To Get $12,000 Gold? Posted: 01 Sep 2011 09:16 AM PDT How Do We Get $12000 Gold? Below is a very insightful interview about the Pan Asian Gold Exchange (PAGE) which touches on the opening of the exchange which is fully backed by gold.  It also touches on the 10 oz mini gold contract that China has made easily available thru Chinese banks than is the case in the West. A couple interesting points raised are, if you want access to physical why would you deal in London anymore?  This in turn leads to the next question, why would you want to be short when people start to focus on this exchange?  There are also some insight on how this new exchange provides international investors exposure to Chinese RMB. Below is some analysis from The Turd on this topic also, but my question is how much gold does China really have right now and when does that become public?  Everyone knows China officially has about 1050 tons which is the public number.  China always has a plan and as the Turd states they are thinking 10-20-50 years out.  Now if you wanted a large holding of gold, you know you have to be somewhat quiet about it because you'll affect prices and you don't want to pay more than you have to, what would you do?  Well buying up everything possible from Chinese owned mines would be a start, why pay spot when you control some at home.  So that's a good place to start.  I'm sure they have strategic control of other deposits also. One thing you wouldn't do is set up easy access to a 10 oz mini contract or a dedicated exchange for gold!  Unless of course you had already gathered enough that you were comfortable with but of course hadn't told the world your true holdings yet.  Given the PAGE exchange is ramping up, which in turn could cause prices to jump significantly, it would seem China likely has significantly more than they have officially stated.  The question is how much do they really control?  The existence of the PAGE exchange will most likely lead to higher gold prices but what will be the impact to the gold price when this becomes public China has significantly higher gold holding than is generally known. Video link from goldmoney.comm on PAGE. Background reference from The Turd.

We Can Now Rule Out Another Housing Collapse, Can?t We? Posted: 01 Sep 2011 09:12 AM PDT According to both the Case Shiller and RadarLogic indices housing prices have been essentially flat for the past 2 years after having fallen by*a third*from their 2006/7 highs. [That being said, surely we can now*rule out another collapse, can't we? Words: 764 So says Scott Grannis, the Calafia Beach Pundit, (scottgrannis.blogspot.com) in an article* which Lorimer Wilson, editor of www.munKNEE.com (It's all about Money!), has further edited ([* ]), abridged (…) and*reformatted*below**for the sake of clarity and brevity to ensure a fast and easy read. Please note that this paragraph must be included in any article re-posting to avoid copyright infringement.*Grannis*goes*on to say*in the article: The chart below compares the Case Shiller index of housing prices in 20 metropolitan markets to the RadarLogic index of prices in 25 metropolitan markets, measured on a price per square foot basis which are doing a remarkable job of tracking each other. [Click all to enlarge] This n...

Roubini, Schiff, Rosenberg and Whitney Agree: Another Recession Is At Hand! Here?s Wh Posted: 01 Sep 2011 09:12 AM PDT Michael Spence, professor at New York University's Stern School of Business and winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in economics, believes there’s “probably a 50%” chance of the global economy slipping into recession. Noriel Roubini disagrees and says flatly that a recession is coming and that it is a mission impossible now to stop it. The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank places the odds at 85% of a recession. David Rosenberg, another very savvy economist, says that by 2012, the chance of a second recession is 99%. Peter Schiff, who with Roubini, correctly and accurately predicted the collapse on Wall Street and ensuing recession, thinks one is 100% certain. [Let's take a look at why they hold such views.] Words: 829 So says Kimball Corson**in an article* posted on SeekingAlpha.com which Lorimer Wilson, editor ofwww.munKNEE.com (Your Key to Making*Money!), has further edited ([* ]), abridged (…) and*reformatted*below**for the sake of clarity and brevity to ensure a fast...

The “Good Fed” and Other Fairy Tales Posted: 01 Sep 2011 09:11 AM PDT "World stock markets rallied on Wednesday," the Associated Press explains, "as investors hoped that the Federal Reserve would respond to mounting signs of weakness in the global economy by providing more stimulus to the US economy." In other words, the worse the outlook for the economy, the brighter the prospects for the stock market. Such is the tortured logic that has been powering the Dow's 1,000-point advance over the last three weeks. Day after day, the Associated Press — along with every other financial news outlet — trots out some version of the "bad is good" storyline to explain the rallying stock market. But don't blame the messengers for publishing and promulgating this popular fairy tale. The media outlets are merely parroting what the professional investors, professional economists, professional politicians and other professional storytellers are saying. The media are merely practicing the American folkloric tradition that brought us all those great stories about Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill and Blackbeard. But those are just stories and everyone knows it. You won't find too many investors placing their trust in Babe, the Blue Ox, to rescue the economy. To be fair, the professional storytellers would not continue telling the "bad is good" story if the investing public were not so eager to hear it. But like a little child at bedtime, most investors turn to the professionals and ask, "Please tell me that story again, Daddy. The one about the really terrible economy that gets rescued by that really good Federal Reserve Chairman… I love that one!" The professionals are only too eager to oblige, especially because the professionals have entrusted their entire careers to the notion that the Federal Reserve has the power to fix broken economies. But fairy tales are supposed to be fairy tales, not investment strategies. Earlier generations of professional investors would respect the Fed's influence over the stock market, without making it a lifestyle. "Don't fight the Fed," they would say. But for most of today's investors, the Fed is not merely one influence among many; it is the only influence that really matters…and it is always a positive influence for the stock market. "Don't fight the Fed" has become "Always jump in bed with the Fed.". Don't believe it, dear reader. The "Good Fed" is a fairy tale. And the Good Fed's activities are mere magic tricks. Ben Bernanke may be able to pull a monetary rabbit out of a hat from time to time, but he can't pull a sick economy out of a recession, especially not when that sick economy is in the midst of a massive de-leveraging cycle. He keeps trying anyway. He keeps reaching up his sleeve to pull out lower and lower interest rates. The audience giddily applauds and squeals with delight, "Wow, that's amazing! Negative T-bill yields! How does he do it?!" And yet, no one in the audience ever seems to budge from his seat and ask, "Hey can I have one of those rates? I'd like to borrow some money to expand my business or buy a house." No one asks, because no one wants to borrow. The US economy is in the midst of a credit contraction, not a credit expansion. Most folks are in re-payment or default mode, not in borrowing mode. As a result, Bernanke's magic works no magic at all. The Fed's wand works no wonders… The stock market may rally for a while in the hope that a QE3 can accomplish what QEs 1 and 2 both failed to do. Ben Bernanke and his magic quantitative easing cannot make jobs appear out of thin air, nor can it "Poof!" into existence an economy that grows or a Congress that cuts spending. If you want an economy that grows, you need entrepreneurs, and if you want a Congress that cuts spending, you need a spaceship that can accommodate 100 senators and 435 representatives. Things are running a bit bassackwards here in the US. The job market is shrinking and the government is growing. The nearby charts illustrate two very dismal effects of these trends. First, as Investor's Business Daily reported recently, the US government's safety-net spending now exceeds every dollar of tax revenue from personal income taxes and payroll taxes. "The federal government will spend about $100 billion more this year on social benefit programs than it will collect in personal income and payroll taxes," IBD explains. "Back in 2000, the government had $720 billion left over from personal tax receipts — more than 7% of GDP — after fulfilling its safety net obligations. This reversal highlights how much the government is supporting household demand amid high unemployment, and helps explain why cutting deficits will be a grind unless growth picks up." This reversal also highlights the tyranny of "wealth re-distribution." The rich pay directly in the form of higher taxation. The poor pay indirectly in the form of diminishing opportunity. Governments that tax production to excess tend to foster less productivity. Such is the trend that has been accelerating for several months, if not several years. As a result, opportunity is on hiatus and the entire citizenry feels the effects, especially that portion of the citizenry that struggles to find work. As the chart below shows, the Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index is languishing near all-time lows. "The index has been stuck below minus 40, the level associated with recessions or their aftermath, since the end of February," Bloomberg News explains. "The overall gauge, which began December 1985, has averaged minus 45.2 this year, compared with minus 45.7 for all of 2010 and minus 47.9 in 2009, the year the last recession ended." At the same time, the index reading just plummeted to an all-time low of minus 90.6 for those individuals in the index who earn less than $15,000, the worst reading for any group since record-keeping began in 1990. "Other measures of sentiment have also shown Americans are downbeat," Bloomberg continues. "The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan final index of consumer sentiment plummeted in August to the lowest level since November 2008. The Conference Board's index of confidence last month plunged to the lowest level in more than two years." At some point, the stock market will notice that economies don't do so well when the public sector is expanding, as the private sector is contracting. At some point too, the stock market will realize that Ben Bernanke is not a miracle-worker, he is merely a magician who can perform some pretty cool tricks…like creating dollars out of thin air. If you need a magician for a birthday party, call Bernanke. But if you need someone to fix your broken economy, call an entrepreneur…if you can find one. Regards, Eric J. Fry, for The Daily Reckoning The "Good Fed" and Other Fairy Tales originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning provides 400,000+ readers economic news, market analysis, and contrarian investment ideas. The 5 Best Ways to Invest in Gold was previously featured in the Daily Reckoning.

The Credibility Crash Posted: 01 Sep 2011 08:47 AM PDT From The August 2011 HRA Journal David Coffin and Eric Coffin Things turned hard in the markets since the last issue, and not in a good way. A lot of bad news has been priced into the market. At this point only time will tell whether that has impacted people hard enough to tip the slow growing developed countries into recession. Whichever way things go, it's going to be close. Gold and, for once, senior gold stocks have been the place to be. Even if markets stabilize, gold has proven itself to more new owners that ever before. It would dip on stronger equity markets but its reached another new plateau. Gold explorers make up the bulk of the updates and we have added a 2011 Yukon Watch list. Northern gold explorers continue to trade very well given the horrible market backdrop. We are still waiting for definitive results on this year's crop but it seems clear a winner in the region will trade better than the markets. Traders are giving up on politicians and ...

What Corruption Does to the Markets Posted: 01 Sep 2011 08:36 AM PDT There's sand in the gears of the world's manufacturing machine. No matter where we look this morning — Asia, Europe, the United States — the pace of "making stuff" is looking sluggish. In a globalized economy, we now have a curious phenomenon: The synchronized release of manufacturing numbers, globally, on the first of the month. Conveniently, they're measured the same way: A number higher than 50 indicates an expanding manufacturing sector. Lower than 50, a contracting one. The numbers for August? In a word: Meh. China: Up slightly from 50.7 to 50.9, according to the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing. A separate survey from HSBC is also up, from 49.3 to 49.9 Eurozone: Down from 50.4 into contraction territory at 49.0, according to Markit — a two-year low United States: Down from 50.9 to 50.6 — the worst reading since July 2009. In the uniquely bent logic of Wall Street, the U.S. number is fodder for a rally — because it beat expectations. The "expert consensus" of economists polled by MarketWatch called for a contractionary reading of 48.8. The actual number of 50.6 was higher than even the most optimistic economist's guess. The resulting rally isn't much to write home about: What was shaping up to be a down day before the open is essentially flat instead. The Dow hovers at 11,600. Bent logic aside, you can't say the stock market lacks a sense of irony. After a sell-off in late July that turned into a rout early last month, the Dow ended August back in positive territory for 2011 — barely. The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq were not so fortunate; both remain down about 2.5%. Now begins September — traditionally the market's worst month of the year. Since 1928, there've been more down months in September than any other month. The worst was in 1931, when the Dow dropped 30%. Heh… then comes October — when outright crashes seem to come. Think 1929, or 1987. As if that's not enough to give ordinary shareholders the willies, there's the growing sense they're playing a game of high-stakes poker… with marked cards. "The fraud, the phony bids and offers and the high-frequency ripoffs have driven everyone away," wrote financial blogger Karl Denninger, giving voice to this sentiment after he examined the negligent volume in S&P futures early in the trading day last Friday. "Go ahead politicians," he then said in a post that went viral this week, "tell us how important 'Wall Street' is to the economy and to you. Let the thieves and liars continue to pollute the markets and screw everyone. Volatility is as high as it is precisely because people are tired of getting buttraped and after a few instances of it they simply say 'screw this,' take their money and go home… "Don't even try to 'invest' in this market, folks, and if you decide to trade, realize that you're playing in a rigged casino and the entire force of the government is not only behind rigging the casino but explicitly endorses and permits the rigging to go on and continue, despite being fully aware of it." "There will be no reason for subscribing to your publications," writes a 5 reader who brought this blog entry to our attention, "if all of us, and mostly you guys, do not do all in your power to see that everyone is made aware of the fact that the game and casino you tout are crooked. "I have been an investor for the majority of my 64 years on this Earth. As far as I know, there has never, in all of history, been a time when the markets have been so corrupted. "The CFTC and the SEC are nothing more then gatekeepers for the thieves that are now in total control. You give advice that may overcome the thieves on occasion, but you will not, in the long run, overcome the bastards that are becoming more voracious every day." It's a serious question, deserving serious consideration. We'll hear from four of our editors today for perspective. "I can't help but think," says Chris Mayer, "that these views echo those of the pre-World War II era about market manipulation. "Especially as they relates to market 'pools,' which were usually piles of money put together by the well-heeled and connected with the intent of making money in the markets. Kind of an early hedge fund." Chris, whose bookshelves overflow with decades-old tomes about the market, cites a book by Fred Kelly, called Why You Win or Lose, published in 1930: "There is widespread myth about a pool's miraculous powers. In the minds of amateur speculators, every pool is rarely gifted at foreordination and omniscience and has a magic wand with which it can put the price of a stock wherever it sees fit. "And so today," says Chris, "every amateur plunger sees forces moving things around just so he can lose money. It's a human reaction to make stories for things we don't understand." "The market has always been rigged," Chris goes on, "against the little man who thinks he is going to whip in and out of stocks and trade with the big boys. "The only real advantage an individual investor has is his ability to sit on his hands. He doesn't have to report to anyone quarterly or monthly about his results. He doesn't have to play the performance game. He can buy what he likes at what prices he wants and wait to sell them at prices more favorable. "I think there are many other stocks in which you could just sit and be much richer, say, three years hence." "Yes, it's a miserable world out there," says sympathetic Byron King. "The markets are rigged and the government is corrupt. There, I said it. Oh, wait… one more thing. Life's a bitch and then you die! "It's not even like the regulators are crooked in the classical sense of taking bags of cash. It's more like the old idea of 'honest graft' — the revolving door, where somebody graduates from law school and goes to work for the SEC, say. Then after a few years, it's off to Wall Street and a nice payday. "Then after a few years of doing deals, and on the side raising funds for a senator or presidential campaign, it's back to the SEC or Treasury. Then a K Street job, lobbying the SEC, Treasury or Congress. Then with a new administration, it's to a much higher assistant secretary of this or that job." "So if you don't want to be part of the rigged marketplace," Byron goes on, "supervised by crooked overseers, then what do you do? Put your money in the bank? At zero interest? "Go offshore? You still have to report that, or the offshore bank will narc you out. "Real estate? OK, but it's all about location, location and location. Plus, you never really own it, because the government wants taxes and you have to pay to play. "Buy gold and silver? Sure…. I discuss physical metals all the time. "But I want to ride the broad trend in energy scarcity and tightening mineral supplies. That means I want to get in early, and at low share price, before the 'quants' and traders figure out that a company is a target. "I want to be in the right sectors — energy and mining — during a global economic buildout. There is a rising tide out there, and energy and minerals are a big part of it. "Over time, markets go up, markets go down. Over a long enough time, the good plays go up more than they go down. Good stuff is scarce in this world. Eventually, people will pay for the good stuff. This last point is your advantage in subscribing to Agora products. We pick out the good stuff." "Most investors don't understand what program trading actually is," says Jonas Elmerraji, turning our attention to the high-frequency trading (HFT) robots. "That includes professionals. "The vast majority of program trade volume is one of two things: arbitrage (which is good because it keeps values in synch with each other) or algorithmic trade execution, which is all about getting big orders (like mutual funds) in at the best price without influencing prices (and resulting in poor fills). "Both of those behaviors are essentially market neutral. There are very few cases in which computers are speculating with/against each other. "When people lose money, they blame program trading. It's been happening since 1987. "Ultimately, for investors, stock prices have a fundamental backstop: a price below which equities look so cheap an investor can collect absurd returns from dividends, or dismantle the company for an instant gain. "If it were really just computers left, anyone who tried would be able to get absurdly rich without any effort at all. The market doesn't work like that." "Institutional advantages are nothing new," says tech maven Ray Blanco, bringing us back full circle. "Decades ago, all retail investors could manage was to phone in a trade from halfway across the continent. "Big institutional traders, however, sat right on Wall Street with immediate, intimate access to the best information and the most up-to-date pricing information. Later, when electronic trading was born, it was institutional traders that first had access to those resources. However, even in that environment, wise investors could still earn hefty profits and build fortunes over time. "As long-term investors, we are scarcely affected by short-term high-frequency shenanigans. As small-cap technology investors, we are even less affected. HFT algos tend to lurk in larger, higher-volume equities. "Yes, HFT unfairly stacks the deck against small retail traders sweating behind their computer monitors, but HFT doesn't affect long term trends — or profits." Regards, Addison Wiggin, for The Daily Reckoning  What Corruption Does to the Markets originally appeared in the Daily Reckoning. The Daily Reckoning provides 400,000+ readers economic news, market analysis, and contrarian investment ideas. The 5 Best Ways to Invest in Gold was previously featured in the Daily Reckoning.

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