Gold World News Flash |
- CFTC's evasion after 3 years investigating silver is answer enough
- International Forecaster November 2011 (#2) - Gold, Silver, Economy + More
- Watch Junior Gold Equities
- CME To Smash Gold and SIlver
- Laissez-faire: The Best Fed Policy Is To Stand Pat
- G-20 Demands German Gold To Keep Eurozone Intact; German Central Bank Tells G-20 Where To Stick It
- Can Bank Transfer Day Strengthen?
- China Business News notes Chilton, GATA, Butler on silver market manipulation
- Bullion banks, CME try to hobble CFTC, Maguire tells King World News
- Bob Chapman Update (SGTreport Exclusive): Occupy, CFTC, Silver, Tyranny, Gaddafi, B of A Crimes & REVOLUTION
- The Collapse of Our Corrupt, Predatory, Pathological Financial System Is Necessary and Positive
- Inflation in America, Bikinis?? MF Global COLLAPSE
- The EU Debt Crisis Has Not Been Solved: If Europe Financially Implodes it Could Take the Entire Financial World Down
- Andrew Maguire: Silver Manipulation Still Ongoing
- Whistleblower Maguire - Silver Manipulation Still Ongoing
- Endeavour Silver: Broad Mineralization, Broad Shoulders
- ECB Issues Ultimatum To Italy, Threatens To Halt Bond Purchases
- Europe. Is. Finished.
- The CME Margin News Confusion
- Extreme Poverty Is Now At Record Levels
- Trouble Ahead: Employment, Inflation, And The Fed
- Zero Hedge: Futures trading margin to get looser, not tighter
- CME Issues Clarification of Confusing Advisory on Margin-Maintenance Ratios
- Technical Market Report for November 5, 2011
- Guest Post: The Collapse Of Our Corrupt, Predatory, Pathological Financial System Is Necessary And Positive
- Weekly precious metals review at King World News
- Junior Gold Stocks to Watch
- Canada's Mile of Gold regains its luster
- Stock Market Update Still Underway
- British can petition Bank of England to come clean on gold swaps and leases
| CFTC's evasion after 3 years investigating silver is answer enough Posted: 06 Nov 2011 04:00 AM PST Under renewed pressure by Commissioner Bart Chilton to account for itself, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission today issued a statement about its 3-year-old investigation of manipulation of the silver market, asserting only that the investigation continues.
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| International Forecaster November 2011 (#2) - Gold, Silver, Economy + More Posted: 06 Nov 2011 03:52 AM PST t believe the European debt crisis is solved, but not so fast. In spite of being told by the German federal court that leverage could not be applied to bailout loans, but they approved leverage anyway. The court says they will redefine their position by the end of the year. Thus, there is no deal until the court says there is one and constitutionally it's legal. The Bundestag must believe the court will change its mind. Now we will just have to see what transpires. In the meantime Mr. Juncker of the European Union said there would be concessions for financial aid. As a result of those disclosures early last Monday the "President's Working Group on Financial Markets" was busy at work trying to keep the stock market indexes from crashing and viciously attacking gold and silver overnight. What else would one expect in a rigged market?
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| Posted: 06 Nov 2011 02:00 AM PST Junior gold explorers from British Columbia to Colombia are poised to pounce. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, Vikas Ranjan, managing director and principal, Ubika Research, reveals why some companies make a compelling case for success.
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| Posted: 05 Nov 2011 07:05 PM PDT The markets were wild this week and in the end ended up at least 2% lower in the US. Two huge down days, two large up days then Friday saw modest weakness into the weekend. To say the markets are schizophrenic is an understatement and we're sitting on the side-lines in the swing trading portfolio, although these wild gyrations are setting up some pretty sweet charts that may give us a great chance to make some quick profits in the very near term.
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| Laissez-faire: The Best Fed Policy Is To Stand Pat Posted: 05 Nov 2011 04:06 PM PDT By EconMatters There was nothing really new out of the 2-day FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) meeting on Nov. 1-2 without much indication to the widely anticipated further quantitative easing (QE3). For now, the FOMC has basically decided to adopt a wait-and-see stance by maintaining its current policy including Operation Twist through 2012, and keeping the benchmark interest rate near zero to at least mid-2013.
Nevertheless, the more important (albeit coded) message is how much more pessimistic the Fed has gotten just within the past five months. Below are the table from the Fed latest November economic forecast with the prior projection issued in June.
As the table illustrates, the Committee has significantly downshifted the GDP growth outlook, which suggests the Fed is as usual a step behind reality reacting to the summer market sell-off and the weak part of the year that started after Fed's June guidance.
The problem is that by equating past market performance to the real economy, the Fed is once again risking doing too much, too quickly, at the wrong time, as in the case of QE2. Just think about how much better the economy would have been without the QE2-inflated high energy, and commodity prices? (For more detail analysis, see QE2: An Unmitigated Disaster?)
Moreover, Fed's inflation projection, in our opinion, is too optimistic--with a deflationary bias--given the global synchronized liquidity injection since the 2008 crisis, and the robust emerging markets future demand outlook.
The U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI), including food and energy, already jumped 3.9% year-over-year in September, while the wholesale PPI (Producer Price Index) also surged 7% year-over-year. Moreover, most of the recent economic indicators including trade and freight data are pointing to an increasing risk of inflation or stagflation, instead of deflation. (On a side note, we never get the rationale behind Fed's focus on the "core" consumer inflation, i.e., excluding food and energy, since these are necessities that consumers have to pay on a daily basis.)
Moreover, we are also alarmed by the shifting dynamics within the FOMC members which would suggest an increasing likelihood of another QE2-like disaster. The behind-the-scene story inside the Committee is the emergence of one FOMC dissent--Chicago Fed President Charles Evans-- in favor of further policy easing. Chief Economist of JPM, Bruce Kasman, noted in a Bloomberg interview that Evans' dissent probably reflects the concerns of at least three or four other members on the committee.
After the summer doldrums, the Q3 2011 GDP number is already starting to turn around, jobs numbers are getting better, and there are other signs that the economy is on the mend as well. So the best policies right now for the economy is ironically
These need to take place so to give business as well as consumers a break from the continuing legislative burden, and the artificially inflated food, energy, commodity input costs courtesy of Fed's two rounds of QE.
Laissez-faire, literally means "leave it along", is probably a hard concept for the U.S. Keynesian policy makers to swallow, but since nothing else seems to have worked out as planned, now would be a good time to try something different for the greater good of the real consumer economy vs. the Wall Street "trader economy".
Albert Einstein once said "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." QE3, if disbursed with the same methodology as QE2, would be exactly that--Insanity.
Further Reading: The Pitfall of Rock Star Economists Marc Faber: Long The Dollar, But Occupy The Fed
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| G-20 Demands German Gold To Keep Eurozone Intact; German Central Bank Tells G-20 Where To Stick It Posted: 05 Nov 2011 03:49 PM PDT Going back to the annals of brokeback Europe, we learn that gold after all is money, after the G-20 demanded that EFSF (of €1 trillion "stability fund" yet can't raise €3 billion fame) be backstopped by none other than German gold. Per Reuters, "The Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS) reported that Bundesbank reserves -- including foreign currency and gold -- would be used to increase Germany's contribution to the crisis fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) by more than 15 billion euros ($20 billion)." And who would be the recipient of said transfer? Why none other than the most insolvent of global hedge funds, the European Central Bank. Also, in addition to gold, the ECB had set its eyes on that other "fake" currency that DSK had succeded in protecting throughout his tenure, all his other undoings aside, "The Welt am Sonntag newspaper, citing similar plans, said 15 billion euros would come from special drawing rights (SDR) that the Bundesbank holds." Naturally, these discoveries prompted a prompt and furious rebuttal from the very top of German authorities: "Germany's gold and foreign exchange reserves, which the Bundesbank administers, were not at any point up for discussion at the G20 summit in Cannes," government spokesman Steffen Seibert said. The WSJ adds, "A plan to have the International Monetary Fund issue its special currency as a powerful weapon in Europe's efforts to contain the widening euro-zone debt crisis was blocked by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, according to a report in a German newspaper." There are three observations to be made here: i) when it comes to rescuing insolvent countries, Germany is delighted to sacrifice euros at the altar of the 50-some year old PIIGS retirement age; ask for its gold however, and things get ugly; ii) the Eurozone, the ECB and the EFSF are dead broke, insolvent and/or have zero credibility in the capital markets, and they know it and iii) due to the joint and several nature of the ECB's capital calls, while Germany may have had enough leverage to tell G-20 to shove it, the next countries in line, especially those which are already insolvent and will rely on the EFSF for their existence once the ECB's SMP program is finished, may not be that lucky, and in exchange for remaining in the eurozone, the forfeit could well be their gold. WSJ brings details on how German SDRs would be used as a temporary (temporary as in European financial short selling ban, and temporary reduction of initial margin to maintenance for everyone to appease MF Global clients) backstop for Europe:
Reuters brings more on the the logical German reaction to the EFSF and ECB's extortion attempts:
Why will it be debated? Because when at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Germany may be crossed off the list, but here is who is next in order of appearance. Sooner or later, Europe will stumble on that one "leader" whose gold is less valuable than their political stability, because after all, a "united", "EMUed" Europe has the biggest MAD trump card of all.
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| Can Bank Transfer Day Strengthen? Posted: 05 Nov 2011 01:19 PM PDT Today is the day that bank customers nationwide are moving. "Bank Transfer day" began as a grassroots movement began last month advising bank customers to close their accounts at all major banks and transfer to smaller credit unions. The movement has already gathered more than 79,000 supporters on its Facebook page as of Friday. The movement also helped defeat Bank of America's 5 dollar debit card fee. Greg Palast, investigative journalist, gives us his thoughts on whether this will really hurt big banks.
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| China Business News notes Chilton, GATA, Butler on silver market manipulation Posted: 05 Nov 2011 01:01 PM PDT Silver Price Manipulated, Says Regulator By Dominique de Kevelioc de Bailleul http://cnbusinessnews.com/silver-price-manipulated-says-regulator/ Just as the issue appeared to slip into the trash barrel, CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton told readers of King World News that he still believes the silver price has been manipulated at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. "I believe there has been repeated attempts to influence prices in the silver market," Chilton told KWN. "And there's been fraudulent efforts to persuade and deviously control the price." After years of pressure exerted onto the CFTC by the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) and silver market specialist Theodore Butler of Investment Rarities Inc., as well as public disclosure of the scheme from former Goldman Sachs trader Andrew Maguire, the CFTC initiated an investigation against two banks that the regulatory agency suspected of participating in the scheme to suppress the price of silver, JP Morgan and HSBC. ... Dispatch continues below ... ADVERTISEMENT For Continuous Wealth Creation, the Hera Research Newsletter The life cycles of companies that produce natural resources allow investors to allocate assets among companies at different stages of development and to profit from transitions between stages. Based on natural resource company life cycles, the Hera Research Newsletter maximizes profits through deep, fundamental analysis at each stage of development and by moving gains back to earlier-stage companies in a continuous wealth-creation process. Hera Research covers a pipeline of high-quality natural resource companies at different stages of development. The companies span discovery and production of gold, silver, and platinum group metals, select base metals, oil and gas, green energy, agriculture, rare earth elements, uranium, and more. Discover the unique value of the Hera Research Newsletter by visiting: http://www.heraresearch.com/newsletter.html Or call Ron Hera at 360-339-8541x101. Maguire's public acknowledgment of the scheme has since prompted class-action lawsuits against JP Morgan and HSBC. "JP Morgan acts as an agent for the Federal Reserve. They act to halt the rise of gold and silver against the US dollar," said Maguire. "JP Morgan is insulated from potential losses (on their short positions) by the Fed and/or the U.S. taxpayer." Coincidentally or not, one day after Maguire was identified as the possible material witness to the allegations, he and his wife were injured in a hit-and-run accident. "We got hit in the side at full acceleration and tried to corral the cars in a gas station, including the guy who hit us with a commercial vehicle," Maguire was reported as saying following the incident. The police caught the assailant but then he was released. Police will not disclose further information about the man or the incident, according to Maguire. Further support for GATA, Butler, and Maguire came from a leaked State Department U.S. embassy cable, released by WikiLeaks, which strongly suggests that the Chinese are also aware of the scheme to suppress the prices of gold and silver. The cable reads: "According to China's National Foreign Exchanges Administration, China's gold reserves have recently increased. Currently, the majority of its gold reserves have been located in the United States and European countries. The U.S. and Europe have always suppressed the rising price of gold. They intend to weaken gold's function as an international reserve currency. They don't want to see other countries turning to gold reserves instead of the U.S. dollar or euro. Therefore, suppressing the price of gold is very beneficial for the U.S. in maintaining the U.S. dollar's role as the international reserve currency. China's increased gold reserves will thus act as a model and lead other countries toward reserving more gold. Large gold reserves are also beneficial in promoting the internationalization of the renminbi." Chilton told KWN, "When people e-mail me and say, 'You watch the market (silver) between 9:15 and 9:45 tomorrow and it's going to tank or it's going to do this or it's going to do that,' I hold on to it and I watch the market and what they say happens, and I'm not saying this always happens, but it happens even 50% of the time, 60% of the time, there's no way that doesn't raise my antenna, like major, electric antenna goes up." He added, "So to me that was the reason why I thought we needed to look at this (silver), investigate it. ... I believe that there's been violations of the law, the Commodity Exchange Act." The CFTC's five-member panel reviewing the case has yet to take action against Federal Reserve primary dealers JP Morgan and HSBC. Support GATA by purchasing gold and silver commemorative coins: https://www.amsterdamgold.eu/gata/index.asp?BiD=12 Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon: Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Golden Phoenix Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire and Reopen Santa Rosa Gold Mine in Panama Company Press Release SPARKS, Nevada -- Golden Phoenix Minerals Inc. 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| Bullion banks, CME try to hobble CFTC, Maguire tells King World News Posted: 05 Nov 2011 12:41 PM PDT 8:41p ET Saturday, November 5, 2011 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver): Silver market rigging whistleblower Andrew Maguire today tells King World News that manipulation of the silver market continues as bullion banks and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange try to prevent the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission from getting the staff necessary to enforce new regulations. An excerpt from the interview is posted at the King World News blog here: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2011/11/5_Wh... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT The United States Once Again Can Establish a Stable Dollar Worth Its Weight in Gold Lewis E. Lehrman, chairman of the Lehrman Institute, sponsor of The Gold Standard Now project, has released a plan to restore economic growth through a stable dollar. The plan, titled "The True Gold Standard: A Monetary Reform Plan Without Official Reserve Currencies," responds to the recurrent economic crises of the last century and outlines a detailed proposal for America's leadership on "how we get from here to there." That is, how we get from the present unstable paper dollar to a stable dollar as good as gold. James Grant, author and editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, says of the Lehrman plan: "If you have ever wondered how the world can get from here to there -- from the chaos of depreciating paper to a convertible currency worthy of our children and our grandchildren -- wonder no more. The answer, brilliantly expounded, is between these covers. America has long needed a modern Alexander Hamilton. In Lewis E. Lehrman the country has finally found him." To learn 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 Support GATA by purchasing a silver commemorative coin: https://www.amsterdamgold.eu/gata/index.asp?BiD=12 Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon: Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Be Part of a Chance to Discover Multi-Million-Ounce Gold and Silver Deposits in Canada Northaven Resources Corp. (TSX-V:NTV) is advancing five gold and silver projects in highly prospective and politically stable British Columbia, Canada. Check out the exploration program on our Allco gold/silver project : -- A large (13,000 hectare) property, covering more than 15 square kilometers of a regional mineralized trend just 3km from a recently announced 1.2-million-ounce gold and 15-million-ounce silver deposit. -- The property hosts historic high-grade silver workings and many mineral showings as well as former mines at the property's northern and southern boundaries. -- A deep-penetrating airborne geophysics survey has just been completed on the entire property and neighboring deposits and its results are eagerly awaited. To learn more about the Allco property or Northaven's other gold and silver projects, please visit: http://www.northavenresources.com Or call Northaven CEO Allen Leschert at 604-696-3600.
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| Posted: 05 Nov 2011 12:18 PM PDT This is my latest interview with Bob Chapman of the International Forecaster. We cover a wide variety of topics and current events: The OCCUPY movement, the CFTC, Silver, Domestic Tyranny, Gaddafi, Bank of America crimes & REVOLUTION.
| The Collapse of Our Corrupt, Predatory, Pathological Financial System Is Necessary and Positive Posted: 05 Nov 2011 11:37 AM PDT by Charles Hugh Smith, OfTwoMinds.com:
We are being throttled by the Big Lie: we're told that if the predatory financial system implodes, we'll all be ruined. The opposite is true: the only way to save our economy is to let the corrupt, pathological and flawed financial system implode. I was recently challenged by a contributor to write something positive, and so I decided to write about the single most positive outcome of the current financial crisis in Europe: the complete collapse of the corrupt, predatory, pathological global banking sector and its dealers, the central banks. Exploring why this is so reveals the insurmountable internal conflicts in our current financial system, and also illuminates the systemic political propaganda which is deployed daily to prop up a parasitic, corrupting, pathologically destructive financial system.
| Inflation in America, Bikinis?? MF Global COLLAPSE Posted: 05 Nov 2011 11:32 AM PDT from Fabian4Liberty: This is the special inflation report… and in this video I also cover the collapse of MF Global!
| Posted: 05 Nov 2011 11:24 AM PDT by Bob Chapman, The International Forecaster via GlobalResearch.ca:
| Andrew Maguire: Silver Manipulation Still Ongoing Posted: 05 Nov 2011 11:22 AM PDT from King World News:
Andrew Maguire continues: Read More @ KingWorldNews.com
| Whistleblower Maguire - Silver Manipulation Still Ongoing Posted: 05 Nov 2011 09:46 AM PDT  On the heels of the interview with CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton, today King World News interviewed Silver Whistleblower Andrew Maguire. Yesterday Commissioner Chilton remarked to KWN, "I believe there has been repeated attempts to influence prices in the silver market. And there's been fraudulent efforts to persuade and deviously control the price." Maguire had this to say about Chilton and his comments, "Bart Chilton is a man of integrity and he's calling it as he sees it. This is not a typical career bureaucrat when he makes a statement like that. He's not looking for a parking space in a bullion bank down the road when he makes those kinds of remarks."
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now | Endeavour Silver: Broad Mineralization, Broad Shoulders Posted: 05 Nov 2011 09:03 AM PDT Written by Brian Boutilier I returned from Guanajuato Mexico a couple of weeks ago, thankful for the generous offer to tour the operations of Great Panther and Endeavour Silver. They were kind hosts and very approachable. Everyone from the CEO Brad Cooke, through the IR staff of Hugh Clarke and Lana McCray to VP of Exploration Barry Devlin, to the COO Godfrey Walton and several Mine Mangers were all quick to lean in, and add additional information throughout the day. They were all obviously proud of their accomplishments, and wanted me to learn as much as possible during our short visit.
Our tour with Endeavour Silver was on the second day. (We visited Great Panther Silver Operations on the first). We took another Van ride down that winding, dusty road from Guanajauto, to the main operations at Bolanitos. On the way, they pointed out where workers were housed, and the speed bumps they have built to slow down passing traffic near the new school. After another well timed caffeine infusion, the Mine Manager started the briefings on Guanajuato operations.
When briefing an audience, one often is reminded that it is the first and the last thing which is covered that will stick in their minds. David Howe, VP Operations was the first to brief us. It was a safety brief. He spoke for over a half an hour on all the precautions that the workers were taking. He went over the extensive 1 to 2 month training program for all the workers. He pointed out that they have female equipment operators, because they generally are easier on equipment, and have a better safety record while using it. They charted out how their safety record was from inception to date, and that reporting on near accidents was higher now. The reason, he explained, was that workers were encouraged to report near misses, instead of covering up mistakes. Actual accidents are very low, nil during some quarters. They took a good deal of time, and frankly I recall thinking how odd it was that they were pushing this point. Being a veteran of hundreds of safety briefs, I took the liberty of having another cup of joe during this time. Gotta say, I like the local flavor: dark and rich, muddy like the slurry coming out of the ball mill, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
The next briefing was on mine and mill operations by COO David Howe, while CEO Brad Cook, offered color commentary. There was an easy exchange between the Senior Management. The tone of the briefing was confident, upbeat. They had added crushers, had achieved a critical 3/8" diameter ore before entering the ball mill. They had added a 1000 tpd ball mill to the circuit, creating an overall potential capacity of 1600 tpd. They are currently limited by crusher capacity, effectively limiting capacity to 1200tpd. The recapture rates were running around 88% overall. They were very proud of increasing overall silver equivalent production by 2x year over year since inception. They expect to exceed 4 million "Silver Equivalent" oz's this year. The cost of production is around 5$/oz, however with gold credits it is now running below (negative) -$3/oz.
The briefing continued, with reference to the Guanacevi operations in the North, and its ability to process concentrate, and pour dore bars. There was time for an open discussion about operations going forward, and what they forecast. They mentioned the promising new properties in Chile. They understood these to be oxide rich, bulk tonnage low grade deposits. The type of deposits that lend themselves to heap leach cyanidization, which has low start-up costs, and is highly efficient at recapturing gold and silver inexpensively.
Management was clear, and consistent in saying they were on the look-out for new acquisitions. They are consistently seeking to increase mining and milling capacity. That got the room rumbling, as throats were clearing in prep for questions. As was the norm, Bob Moriarty jumped in with the first salvo. Why were they not taking advantage of Great Panthers excess capacity? Why were they not "making hay while the sun shined," while metal prices were high. I couldn't possibly quote him, will not try, for he had much to add to the conversation. These comments and several other questions were met confidently, and with an even tone by Brad Cooke. The respective boards certainly had interacted and had/were investigating synergies. In fact they speak often, and are on good terms with each other. They made no direct mention of combining their companies. I want to point out here, that the thought of consolidation was being circulated by the group, but not by management. | ECB Issues Ultimatum To Italy, Threatens To Halt Bond Purchases Posted: 05 Nov 2011 08:42 AM PDT from ZeroHedge:
Three months ago, in exchange for the ECB's expansion of its sterilized monetizations of bonds to include Italian BTPs, allegedly the only backstop that has prevented Italian bonds from experiencing an all out collapse to date, Italy was presented with a list of strict "austerity" demands, among which were spending cuts, higher revenues and labor reform. Since then none of these has occurred… or will occur, simply because Berlusconi has no control over the government, yet neither does anyone else, although everyone in the local government enjoys having a scapegoat for the total chaos. It appears that the ECB has just made it clear that the status quo is about to end, unless Italy does in fact push with something. And unlike other cases, where politicians on both sides of the table are happy to spout rhetoric while knowing well that nothing will change, in this case, courtesy of Italy largely untenable debt profile in which €166 billion in debt and interest are due in 2012, the ECB will have no choice but to play hard ball. Reuters has just confirmed that, reporting that The European Central Bank often discusses the possibility ending the purchase of Italian government bonds if it concludes Italy is not adopting promised reforms, ECB Governing Council Member Yves Mersch said. "If we observe that our interventions are undermined by a lack of efforts by national governments then we have to pose ourselves the problem of the incentive effect," Mersch said according to extracts of an interview with Italian daily La Stampa to be published on Sunday.
| Posted: 05 Nov 2011 07:54 AM PDT Thus far, my analysis of Europe has focused on the super-leveraged banking system (26 to 1). At these levels, even a 4% drop in asset prices wipes out equity. That alone warrants concerns of systemic risk.
The situation is not much better at non-Financial European corporations. Indeed, the debt situation is so endemic to Europe as a whole that corporate Debt to Equity ratios for ALL of the PIIGS as well as the supposedly fiscally conservative countries of France and Germany are TERRIBLE.
What I'm trying to point out here is that Europe's debt problems extend well beyond Greece's debt. Indeed, the entire European banking and corporate system is over-burdened with debt.
The situation is no better for European Sovereign states themselves, which are facing their own debt roll over issues at a time when investors are rapidly losing their appetite for sovereign debt.
To wit, Spain, Portugal, and Italy have all relied heavily on the ECB to buy their debt at recent auctions. Germany actually just had a failed debt auction this morning. And in this environment , these nations need to meet the following debt roll over obligations:
And this is just maturing debt that's due in the near future: it doesn't include unfunded liabilities.
Jagadeesh Gokhale of the Cato Institute puts the situation as the following, "The average EU country would need to have more than four times (434 percent) its current annual gross domestic product (GDP) in the bank today, earning interest at the government's borrowing rate, in order to fund current policies indefinitely."
As I said before, Europe is finished. The region's entire banking system is insolvent (with few exceptions). European non-financial corporations are running massive debt to equity ratios. And even EU sovereign states require intervention from the ECB just to meet current debt issuance, to say nothing of the huge amount of sovereign debt roll over that is due over the next 14 months.
Again… Europe. Is. Finished.
The Great debt Implosion will hit Europe within the next 14 months and likely much much sooner. When it dues, we will see numerous debt defaults and restructuring on both the corporate and sovereign levels. We're also very likely going to see significant portions of the European banking system collapse "Lehman-style" along with subsequent HUGE losses of capital.
The impact of this will be global in nature. The EU, taken as a whole, is:
1) The single largest economy in the world ($16.28 trillion) 2) Is China's largest trade partner 3) Accounts for 21% of US exports 4) Accounts for $121 billion worth of exports for South America
So if the EU banking system/ economy collapses, the global economy could enter a recession just based on that one issue alone (ignoring the other issues in China, Japan, and the US).
So if you have not already taken steps to prepare for systemic failure, you NEED to do so NOW. We're literally at most a few months, and very likely just a few weeks from Europe's banks imploding. On that note, if you're looking for specific ideas to profit from this mess, my Surviving a Crisis Four Times Worse Than 2008 report can show you how to turn the unfolding disaster into a time of gains and profits for any investor.
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| Posted: 05 Nov 2011 07:39 AM PDT It turns out that once again in the urge to be sensationalistic, Zerohedge shot from the hip and is now getting shot down. This is EXACTLY why I ALWAYS double-check anything zerohedge reports before I make any comments on it. I didnt even start researching this until a few minutes ago and it was apparent to me that it was a mis-worded statement that the CME clarifiied today. Tyler Durden does a good job with a lot of what he reports but he is an amateur in this market and shoots from the hip all the time. Here is the best explanation of the situation, which is a non-event. If anything it makes for the MF account transfers to go more smoothly - see the "kid dynamite" write up: LINK I will note that I found an article in which IB - Interactive Brokers - has said that they want no part of the account transfers. Being that IB was the firm that almost bought the brokerage business from MF until they looked thoroughly under the hood - it tells me that MF is in much worse shape than can be determined from what is being publicly disclosed. I will say that the fact that the Govt sent the FBI in almost immediately tells me that there will be a cover-up similar to what happened with Solyndra. In terms of market action on Monday, if the market sells off Monday its because the metals are still highly correlated with the SPX and both are highly correlated with the Europe situation. Also, India is closed Monday and it sounds like from industry reports on Friday that the physical demand is taking a breather. A brief pullback would be welcome in my view from a technical standpoint. I hate it when we go straight up w/out a break to consolidate. I do think we will break correlation in the metals/miners sometime soon, similar to early 2006. That could be the dynamic that takes silver to $60 and gold somewhere over $2000. 
| Extreme Poverty Is Now At Record Levels Posted: 05 Nov 2011 07:23 AM PDT The extreme the wealth disparity in the U.S. keeps on widening. We already know that people at the higher percentage levels are doing well, particularly at the highest, while the middle class is shrinking rapidly. Here, Michael Snyder presents some handy statistics on the growth at the lowest levels of poverty. ~ Ilene Extreme Poverty Is Now At Record Levels – 19 Statistics About The Poor That Will Absolutely Astound YouCourtesy of Michael Snyder of Economic Collapse
For many people, this is all very confusing because their guts are telling them that things are getting worse and yet the mainstream media keeps telling them that everything is just fine. Hopefully this article will help people realize that the plight of the poorest of the poor continues to deteriorate all across the United States. In addition, hopefully this article will inspire many of you to lend a hand to those that are truly in need. Tonight, there are more than 20 million Americans that are living in extreme poverty. This number increases a little bit more every single day. The following statistics that were mentioned in an article in The Daily Mail should be very sobering for all of us....
Sadly, the wealthy and the poor are being increasingly segregated all over the nation. In some areas of the U.S. you would never even know that the economy was having trouble, and other areas resemble third world hellholes. In most U.S. cities today, there are the "good neighborhoods" and there are the "bad neighborhoods". According to a recent Bloomberg article, the "very poor" are increasingly being pushed into these "bad neighborhoods"....
Of course they don't have much of a choice. They can't afford to live where most of the rest of us do. Today, there are many Americans that openly look down on the poor, but that should never be the case. We should love the poor and want to see them lifted up to a better place. The truth is that with a few bad breaks any of us could end up in the ranks of the poor. Compassion is a virtue that all of us should seek to develop. Not only that, but the less poor people and the less unemployed people we have, the better it is for our economy. When as many people as possible in a nation are working and doing something economically productive, that maximizes the level of true wealth that a nation is creating. But today we are losing out on a massive amount of wealth. We have tens of millions of people that are sitting at home on their couches. Instead of creating something of economic value, the rest of us have to support them financially. That is not what any of us should want. It is absolutely imperative that we get as many Americans back to work as possible. The more people that are doing something economically productive, the more wealth there will be for all of us. That is why it is so alarming that the ranks of the "very poor" are increasing so dramatically. When the number of poor people goes up, the entire society suffers. So just how bad are things right now? The following are 19 statistics about the poor that will absolutely astound you.... #1 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the percentage of "very poor" rose in 300 out of the 360 largest metropolitan areas during 2010. #2 Last year, 2.6 million more Americans descended into poverty. That was the largest increase that we have seen since the U.S. government began keeping statistics on this back in 1959. #3 It isn't just the ranks of the "very poor" that are rising. The number of those just considered to be "poor" is rapidly increasing as well. Back in the year 2000, 11.3% of all Americans were living in poverty. Today, 15.1% of all Americans are living in poverty. #4 The poverty rate for children living in the United States increased to 22% in 2010. #5 There are 314 counties in the United States where at least 30% of the children are facing food insecurity. #6 In Washington D.C., the "child food insecurity rate" is 32.3%. #7 More than 20 million U.S. children rely on school meal programs to keep from going hungry. #8 One out of every six elderly Americans now lives below the federal poverty line. #9 Today, there are over 45 million Americans on food stamps. #10 According to the Wall Street Journal, nearly 15 percent of all Americans are now on food stamps. #11 In 2010, 42 percent of all single mothers in the United States were on food stamps. #12 The number of Americans on food stamps has increased 74% since 2007. #13 We are told that the economy is recovering, but the number of Americans on food stamps has grown by another 8 percent over the past year. #14 Right now, one out of every four American children is on food stamps. #15 It is being projected that approximately 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point in their lives before they reach the age of 18. #16 More than 50 million Americans are now on Medicaid. Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid. Today, approximately one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid. #17 One out of every six Americans is now enrolled in at least one government anti-poverty program. #18 The number of Americans that are going to food pantries and soup kitchens has increased by 46% since 2006. #19 It is estimated that up to half a million children may currently be homeless in the United States. Sadly, we don't hear much about this on the nightly news, do we? This is because the mainstream media is very tightly controlled. I came across a beautiful illustration of this recently. If you do not believe that the news in America is scripted, just watch this video starting at the 1:15 mark. Conan O'Brien does a beautiful job of demonstrating how news anchors all over the United States are often repeating the exact same words. So don't rely on the mainstream media to tell you everything. In this day and age, it is absolutely imperative that we all think for ourselves, and that we have compassion on our brothers and sisters. Winter is coming up, and if you see someone that does not have a coat, don't be afraid to offer to give them one. All over the United States (and all around the world), there are orphans that are desperately hurting. As you celebrate the good things that you have during this time of the year, don't forget to remember them. We should not expect that "the government" will take care of everyone that is hurting. The reality is that millions of people fall through the "safety net". Yes, times are going to get harder and an economic collapse is coming. That just means that we should be more generous and more compassionate than we have ever been before.
| Trouble Ahead: Employment, Inflation, And The Fed Posted: 05 Nov 2011 07:11 AM PDT This article originally appeared in the Daily Capitalist. Yesterday the Bureau of Labor Statistics told us that unemployment was still stubbornly high. While it has improved year-over-year, a 9.0% unemployment rate is still high and does not signal an economy in recovery. And that has political and policy implications for the U.S. Also, the Fed's FOMC (Fed Open Market Committee) minutes were released Wednesday and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke held a press conference as part of the Fed's new openness and desire to clearly communicate policy. They made no policy changes but Bernanke expressed concern about the slow recovery and high unemployment and said "We're prepared to do more and we have the tools to do more." Unemployment, Fed policy, and the coming worldwide economic recession will do more to influence the future of our economy than anything else. Unemployment There was slight improvement in the unemployment rate, but overall, it remains very high at 9.0% of the civilian working population, which is 13,897,000 unemployed people in America. If you look at the wider unemployment measure, known as U-6 unemployment (part-time and marginally attached—see definitions in the chart below), then the rate is 16.2%, or 25 million people. That percentage has stuck at the 16-17% level for about two years.
Here is some interesting detail on employment:
These numbers are the reason why President Obama and the Republican candidates are talking "jobs, jobs, jobs." The Fed The lede in for the article about the FOMC statement was:
To paraphrase the FOMC statement: they noted that unemployment was still high, but they expected modest higher growth in the future, but there are significant downside risks. You can ignore most of what they say about the future because they have been consistently wrong about the future course of the economy. Here are the only important things from their statement:
They are worried about unemployment but they are not worried about "inflation." In fact the statement says that price inflation isn't high enough. There was one dissenting vote from the C0mmittee's statement and that was Charles Evans, president of the Chicago Fed, a well known inflationist, who thought the Fed should go further to stimulate growth. The Fed is watching and waiting for the economy to improve and the Q3 GDP bump up to 2.5% gave them some hope. If they see economic activity and employment worsen or at least stagnate, they will "do more." I saw an interest piece in the Financial Times by Scott Minerd, chief investment officer at Guggenheim Partners, in which he believes the Fed is relying on a Phillips Curve analysis to determine whether or not more monetary stimulus via quantitative easing should be unleashed. That got me to thinking that he may be right. The Phillips Curve is econometric analysis of prices, inflation, and employment in which it was/is believed that mild price inflation causes economic recovery because rising wages make people think they are richer than they are so they spend and thus new jobs are created. It was debunked for the most part after the 1970s when it was discovered that you could have inflation, stagnant economic growth, and high unemployment at the same time. But its supporters still say it only works in the short-term because inflation is "unexpected" and people are fooled into spending. At the point when prices outstrip people's inflation expectations, inflation is "expected", and the wealth effect wears off. Mr. Minerd believes short-term price inflation is a good thing and we'll see QE3 and perhaps QE4 and QE5. I don't accept the Phillips Curve because I don't believe that it is "inflation expectations" that causes inflation. It is an illusion of post hoc ergo propter hoc thinking (because A happened and then B happened, A caused B). You find this all the time in empirical analysis. In fact inflation occurs first and then you have "expectations." It's like saying demand creates supply ignoring the fact that you can't demand something without having first produced something (goods, labor). How else do you pay for the things you demand? Inflation, as we have written many times, is an increase in the supply of and demand for money. It's a monetary phenomenon. When you increase the amount of dollars by fiat, it is, in effect, counterfeit wealth, which is to say that these new dollars aren't wealth (they are just pieces of paper). Inflation causes many harmful economic effects, one of which is that ultimately all prices tend to rise. But the most harmful effect of inflation is that it causes us to consume capital. The destruction of capital is the force that causes the economy to decline. So by printing money you can get price inflation and economic stagnation ("stagflation"). What all this has to do with the Fed is that they believe that short-term price inflation will cause economic growth à la the Phillips Curve theory. That will encourage them to increase the money supply because they believe that "inflation" is low and even if they exceed the Fed's price inflation target (2%±) that will be OK in the short-term because it will spur economic recovery. Thus another round or two of QE. We have been forecasting that the Fed would implement QE3 most likely in QE2 2012. We believe that the Fed will be under political pressure from the Obama Administration to make this happen. The pressure will be due to continued high unemployment. Additional pressure will come from a declining world economy that is paying the consequences of prior monetary stimulus, monetary inflation, and high indebtedness, in much the same way that occurred in the U.S. in 2008-2009. This will cause U.S. exports to shrink affecting the bottom lines of not only the multinationals but also smaller exporters. Exports have been the main driver of the economy post Crash. This will put further pressure on employment as a result of a weakening manufacturing and industrial sector. Will the Fed respond? In his press conference on Wednesday, Bernanke said:
If you believe that the Fed is isolated from political influence you would be wrong. They have always catered to the needs of the existing Administration. The recently released diaries of Arthur Burns (Fed chief under Nixon) detailed his willingness to please the president. I believe Bernanke and the FOMC will respond to the demands of Representatives. Senators, and the Administration to "do something." Seeing that they have almost no other alternative, and with price inflation perceived as being low, with a weakening economy and growing unemployment the Fed will do what it does best: "print" money via QE3. The result of that will be a temporary boon for the financial markets, more price inflation, and more capital will be consumed, further depressing the economy. The implications of that are money flowing into Treasurys, increasing gold prices, and possibly more social unrest.
| Zero Hedge: Futures trading margin to get looser, not tighter Posted: 05 Nov 2011 07:08 AM PDT 3p ET Saturday, November 5, 2011 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Zero Hedge is right on top of today's clarification from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange about its change in futures trading margin rules. As things turn out, the rules are about to get looser, not tighter, which Zero Hedge considers even worse. You can find ZeroHedge's report here: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/cme-issues-clarification-margins-usher-mor... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Platinum Drills 120.9 Meters Company Press Release VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada -- Prophecy Platinum Corp. (TSX-V: NKL, OTC-QX: PNIKF, Frankfurt: P94P) has announced the drill results received from its 2011 drilling Wellgreen platinum group elements, nickel, and copper project in the Yukon Territory. Borehole WS11-188 encountered 457 meters of mineralization grading 0.47% nickel equivalent (including 0.72 grams per ton platinum, paladium, and gold) from surface to the footwall contact. Within this larger swath of mineralization, the hole encountered a high-grade section of 17.8 meters of 3.14 grams per ton platinum, palladium, and gold, 1.03% nickel, and 0.74% copper (1.77% nickel equivalent). The hole was drilled completely outside of current resource boundaries, between the East Zone resource and the West Zone resource that was reported in the company's press release no July 14, 2011. The high-grade intercept located between the two resources not only demonstrates that the East and West Zone resource form a single, geologically contiguous body but also indicates that the higher-grade material in the East Zone continues to the west and at depth at Wellgreen. For drill result tables and maps, please see the company's full press release here: http://www.prophecyplat.com/news_2011_sep26_prophecy_platinum_wellgreen_... Support GATA by purchasing gold and silver commemorative coins: https://www.amsterdamgold.eu/gata/index.asp?BiD=12 Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon: Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Sona Drills 85.4g Gold/Ton Over 4 Metres at Elizabeth Gold Deposit, Company Press Release, October 27, 2010 VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Sona Resources Corp. reports on five drillling holes in the third round of assay results from the recently completed drill program at its 100 percent-owned Elizabeth Gold Deposit Property in the Lillooet Mining District of southern British Columbia. Highlights from the diamond drilling include: -- Hole E10-66 intersected 17.4g gold/ton over 1.54 metres. -- Hole E10-67 intersected 96.4g gold/ton over 2.5 metres, including one assay interval of 383g of gold/ton over 0.5 metres. -- Hole E10-69 intersected 85.4g gold/ton over 4.03 metres, including one assay interval of 230g gold/ton over 1 metre. Four drill holes, E10-66 to E10-69, targeted the southwestern end of the Southwest Vein, and three of the holes have expanded the mineralized zone in that direction. The Southwest Vein gold mineralization has now been intersected over a strike length of 325 metres, with the deepest hole drilled less than 200 metres from surface. "The assay results from the Southwest Zone quartz vein continue to be extremely positive," says John P. Thompson, Sona's president and CEO. "We are expanding the Southwest Vein, and this high-grade gold mineralization remains wide open down dip and along strike to the southwest." For the company's full press release, please visit: http://sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR19_2010.pdf
| CME Issues Clarification of Confusing Advisory on Margin-Maintenance Ratios Posted: 05 Nov 2011 06:41 AM PDT We received the following notice from the CME this morning at 11:59 CT, clarifying the confusing advisory released Friday, after the bell, that many of us thought constituted a margin increase. Apparently the CME received enough frantic communication that they issued a Saturday clarification. Action temporarily reduces margin burden for bulk transferred MF Global customers to new clearing members. The clarification advisory is below: Clearing Advisory
CME Group today is clarifying its notice to clearing firms regarding margins. In light of the issues customers transferring out of MF Global are facing, while still maintaining appropriate risk management protections for the market, CME Clearing is setting the "initial" margin upcharge at zero. This upcharge is normally applied to customer accounts when they are receiving a margin call. The intent and effect of these changes is to decrease the size of any margin calls resulting from the bulk transfer of MF Global customers to new clearing members, not to increase them. Yesterday, CME Group successfully transferred MF Global customer positions to a new clearing member with part, but not all, of their funds, as approved by the bankruptcy trustee and the court. By reducing the initial margin "ratio" to 1.00, we ensure that margin calls that are issued to these transferred MF Global customers will be limited to bringing their accounts into compliance with the lower, "maintenance" margin levels. Maintenance margins are set to provide appropriate risk management coverage. Initial margins are set to provide an additional buffer against future losses in the account. This is a short term accommodation to maintain market integrity and provide temporary relief to customers whose accounts have been disrupted by this event. We apologize for any confusion our initial advisory may have created. (Emphasis ours). You are currently subscribed to ch_list as: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.com. You may unsubscribe or send a blank email to be removed from this list. CME Group is the world's largest and most diverse derivatives marketplace. The company is comprised of four Designated Contract Markets (DCMs). Further information on each exchange's rules and product listings can be found by clicking on the links to CME, CBOT, NYMEX and COMEX. CME Group - 20 South Wacker Drive - Chicago, Illinois 60606 - 1-312-930-1000 - Toll Free 1-866-716-7274
| Technical Market Report for November 5, 2011 Posted: 05 Nov 2011 06:38 AM PDT None of the technical indicators look very bad, but the market has had a very tight correlation with the dollar and the dollar has been experiencing wide swings. Seasonally average returns have been slightly negative for the coming week ... Read More...
| Posted: 05 Nov 2011 05:01 AM PDT Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds The Collapse of Our Corrupt, Predatory, Pathological Financial System Is Necessary and Positive We are being throttled by the Big Lie: we're told that if the predatory financial system implodes, we'll all be ruined. The opposite is true: the only way to save our economy is to let the corrupt, pathological and flawed financial system implode. I was recently challenged by a contributor to write something positive, and so I decided to write about the single most positive outcome of the current financial crisis in Europe: the complete collapse of the corrupt, predatory, pathological global banking sector and its dealers, the central banks. Exploring why this is so reveals the insurmountable internal conflicts in our current financial system, and also illuminates the systemic political propaganda which is deployed daily to prop up a parasitic, corrupting, pathologically destructive financial system. Our first stop is modern finance itself. Modern financial "products" and "instruments" are often highly complex and abstract, but the entire edifice can be distilled down to this: the system is based on the assumption that all risk can be hedged, and the difference between the initial position's yield/gain (i..e. placement of capital at risk for a gain) and the cost of hedging the risk of the wager to zero can be skimmed from the system risk-free. That is the entire system in a nutshell, and we can immediately see the advantages of this system over traditional Capitalism, where risk can be hedged but never to zero, and the return is correlated to the risk taken on. In modern finance, high-risk "investments" (wagers) with high returns can be taken on without worry because any and all risk can be hedged to zero, even in super high-risk wagers. And since even high-risk positions can be seamlessly hedged to zero, then there is no reason not to borrow money to increase the size of your wagers: since you can't lose, then why not? Wagering in risk-free skimming with borrowed or leveraged money is simply rational. Put these together and we see how a system based on risk-free skimming eventually leverages itself to the point that the slightest disruption can bring down the entire over-leveraged, over-extended system. Why is this so? Every hedge has a counterparty who is supposed to pay off if the initial wager blows up. A system based on risk-free hedging is ultimately a self-organizing system which maximizes return by increasing bet sizes, leveraging/borrowing to near infinity and hedging every hedge as well as every wager. This creates long chains of hedges and counterparties. Here's an example based on an asset we all understand, a house. Let's say someone buys a house for $1,000 down, something that was common in the housing bubble. That $1,000 is leveraged up to buy a $200,000 house via a $200,000 mortgage. The "owner" of the house then buys a hedge to protect himself from the house losing value, so the risk is reduced to zero: if the value rises, the owner reaps the gain and if it declines, then he collects the payoff of the hedge from the counterparty, for example, a Wall Street investment firm. The counterparty calculated the risk of real estate declining and then priced the hedge accordingly. There is some small risk that the loss will exceed the cost of the hedge, so the issuer of that hedge bundles similar bets and then buys a hedge or "insurance" from another player, who makes the same calculations of risk and return. Meanwhile, the mortgage has been tranched (sliced into principal and interest and into various pools of risk) and bundled with other "low-risk" mortgages and sold to investors, who also buy a hedge against any loss in the tranch, for example, a credit default swap (CDS) which pays out if a borrower defaults. Those hedges are sold or "insured" with another hedges. All of this debt and all of these hedges are based on a mere $1,000 of actual capital. The players who originated each hedge are similarly leveraged, because since risk can be lowered to zero, who needs capital? So what happens when one counterparty (issuer of a hedge) somewhere in the chain runs into trouble? The entire chain collapses. With razor-thin capital to cover any losses, then each link in the chain dissolves into insolvency if their counterparty fails to pay off. This is how we get hundreds of trillions of dollars in "notational" derivatives: every hedged is hedged with another "instrument," "products" are bundled and insured, and so on. The system is based on the principle that risk can be reduced to zero, and so there is no need for capital. Unfortunately, that premise is demonstrably false. Benoit Mandelbrot dismantled the notion that risk can be reduced to zero in his prescient masterpiece, The (Mis)behavior of Markets. The founder of fractal geometry showed that markets are fractal in nature, and are thus intrinsically prone to unpredictable disruptions. Simply put, risk cannot be massaged away. Thus the fundamental premise of all modern finance is flat-out wrong, and this explains why systemic risk, rather than being eliminated, actually rises with every ratchet up in debt, leverage and counterparty hedging. The entire global financial system is thus based on the equivalent of a perpetual motion machine: money can be borrowed or leveraged into existence in essentially unlimited quantities, and then deployed in risk-free skimming operations to harvest unlimited wealth. What does this promise of using leveraged capital to skim risk-free fortunes do to the "real economy" of production and investment in plant and technology? It guts it. The risk of industrial Capitalism is real and cannot be hedged away; high-risk investments may blow up or they may return high yields. It literally makes no sense to risk real capital in productive Capitalism when a zero-risk skimming operation can be developed that essentially needs near-zero capital. Thus financial capital has come to completely dominate industrial or productive capital. The pernicious consequences of this dominance have poisoned the economy and culture on multiple levels. In the political sphere, the aggregation of hundreds of billions of dollars in skimmed profits gave Wall Street and the banking sector unlimited budgets to buy political influence. This created a monstrously pathological feedback loop: the more political influence Wall Street bought, the higher their returns on financialization skimming. Consider housing as an example. Housing was once a simple, barely profitable long-term investment for both the buyer, who had to place substantial capital at risk (20% down payment) and the holders of mortgages, who took a modest yield for 30 years in trade for low risk. Wall Street and the banks financialized housing via political influence. opening up a vast new territory to be exploited via skimming. Since capital wasn't necessary in no-risk skimming, then down payments were dispensed with to increase the pool of debtors, as they are the foundation of all skimming operations. the cost of servicing that debt was manipulated via "teaser rates" and "interest only" loans, further leveraging up American home buyers' modest income streams. Mortgages were bundled, tranched and hedged, and the mortgage-backed securities (MBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) were sold to trusting investors aroudn the world. It was a bonanza of unprecedented wealth creation from financial skimming. $1,000 down and a few hundred dollars a month for a "teaser rate" interest-only loan was leveraged into a global chain of "products" and counterparties that could be skimmed all along the chain. That deepened the political corruption that fed the skimming operation, and introduced the "no risk" pathology into Mainstream America. Since real estate never went down in value, then buying a second, third or fourth home on leverage was simply rational; in a Federal Reserve-controlled world of near-zero yields on cash, it was irrational not to. But there were two intrinsic flaws in the skimming operation: while the Wall Street players were hedged (or so they reckoned), the average Americans buying homes with near-infinite leverage were not hedged. That meant that when their razor-thin capital went to zero, they were insolvent. Once they defaulted, then the income stream feeding the chain of skimming went away and the chain collapsed. Once one counterparty failed in the chain, the entire chain collapsed as well. As Mandelbroit explained, such disruptions were an intrinsic feature of the system; though the timing of a systemic disruption could not be predicted, the fact that disruptions would occur on a regular basis could be predicted. Some players knew this, of course, but that led to another pathology: those investment players who avoided the "no risk" skimming casino could not generate the yields being "earned" by the leveraged skimmers with legitimate investing, and so their investors abandoned them for the fully rational reason that "no risk" yields were higher elsewhere. This too created a feedback loop, where the capital available to be leveraged grew rapidly, while the pool of capital available for "patient" risky investments in actual productive assets declined. Capital available for productive investment thus became costly and scarce, while capital available for leveraged skimming became cheap and abundant. The Federal Reserve bankrolled the skimming to the hilt. Indeed, the entire pathology of low-interest, unlimited leverage skimming was based on the Federal Reserve's manipulation and intervention. That remains true today. What happens when the whole chain blows up and the foundation of debt is impaired? Since the whole system is based on the debt and the income streams devoted to servicing it, the entire edifice collapses when the debt is impaired--debtors default and the system clogs with bad debt, i.e. uncollectable debt. In a transparent Capitalist system, the debt would be written down and all the insolvent borrowers, lenders and counterparties would be wiped out. But the political corruption that enabled modern finance to poison the American economy and culture has stopped that cleansing from occurring. Such a systemic writedown of bad debt in a system with only razor-thin capital to support a mighty edifice of leverage and debt would wipe out Wall Street and the banks and reveal the skimming operation of modern finance as an impossible perpetual motion machine rigged to enrich a thin crust of citizenry at the expense of the rest. And since they skim enough money to buy political protection, Capitalism has been strangled and tossed in a shallow grave lest it disupt the skimming and the political corruption that keeps the machine running. What we end up with is artificial valuations, endless propaganda and a zombie economy. When borrowers are left dangling in default and the assets left on the books at full value, you end up with zombie debtors, zombie lenders, a zombie government that only has one lever to pull to keep the whole corrupt pathology going--borrow and squander more money-- and ultimately a zombie economy, drifting and decaying in a fetid pool of lies, shadow banking, ceaseless official propaganda, jury-rigged "fixes," manipulated statistics, corruption, predation, exploitation and pathology. That's the U.S. economy, and indeed, the economies of the E.U., China and Japan in a nutshell. The only way to clear a zombie economy is to write off uncollectable debt and liquidate all the assets, loans and hedges. That would collapse our financial system, but since it is the cause of our political and economic dysfunction, that would be the highest possible good and extremely positive. There is a great final irony in the scare-mongering threats of the skimmers and their political toadies. If the taxpayers don't bail out the skimmers, then we'll have martial law by the weekend, the smouldering fires of Europe will rekindle into open warfare, and so on. The irony is the propping up of a deeply, intrinsically pathological and destructive financial system is not saving the economy, it's the reason the economy is imploding. The Big Lie technique of propaganda is to reverse the polarity of reality: we are told up is down until we believe it. We are told that liquidating the overhang of bad debt, leverage and hedges would "destroy the world as we know it." The truth is that keeping the zombie system from expiring and covering up the corruption with propaganda is what's actually destroying the world as we know it. Thus the collapse of the current financial system of central banks, pathological Wall Street and insolvent banks would be the greatest possible good and the greatest possible positive for the global economy and its participants.
| Weekly precious metals review at King World News Posted: 05 Nov 2011 04:47 AM PDT 12:46p ET Saturday, November 5, 2011 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: In the weekly precious metals review at King World News, CMI Gold & Silver proprietor Bill Haynes sees continued consolidation while futures market analyst Dan Norcini speculates on the impact of a new comprehensive margin requirement imposed Friday by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. You can listen to the interviews at King World News here: http://www.kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/Broadcast/Entries/2011/11/5_K... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Sona Drills 85.4g Gold/Ton Over 4 Metres at Elizabeth Gold Deposit, Company Press Release, October 27, 2010 VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Sona Resources Corp. reports on five drillling holes in the third round of assay results from the recently completed drill program at its 100 percent-owned Elizabeth Gold Deposit Property in the Lillooet Mining District of southern British Columbia. Highlights from the diamond drilling include: -- Hole E10-66 intersected 17.4g gold/ton over 1.54 metres. -- Hole E10-67 intersected 96.4g gold/ton over 2.5 metres, including one assay interval of 383g of gold/ton over 0.5 metres. -- Hole E10-69 intersected 85.4g gold/ton over 4.03 metres, including one assay interval of 230g gold/ton over 1 metre. Four drill holes, E10-66 to E10-69, targeted the southwestern end of the Southwest Vein, and three of the holes have expanded the mineralized zone in that direction. The Southwest Vein gold mineralization has now been intersected over a strike length of 325 metres, with the deepest hole drilled less than 200 metres from surface. "The assay results from the Southwest Zone quartz vein continue to be extremely positive," says John P. Thompson, Sona's president and CEO. "We are expanding the Southwest Vein, and this high-grade gold mineralization remains wide open down dip and along strike to the southwest." For the company's full press release, please visit: http://sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR19_2010.pdf Support GATA by purchasing gold and silver commemorative coins: https://www.amsterdamgold.eu/gata/index.asp?BiD=12 Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon: Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Platinum Drills 120.9 Meters Company Press Release VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada -- Prophecy Platinum Corp. (TSX-V: NKL, OTC-QX: PNIKF, Frankfurt: P94P) has announced the drill results received from its 2011 drilling Wellgreen platinum group elements, nickel, and copper project in the Yukon Territory. Borehole WS11-188 encountered 457 meters of mineralization grading 0.47% nickel equivalent (including 0.72 grams per ton platinum, paladium, and gold) from surface to the footwall contact. Within this larger swath of mineralization, the hole encountered a high-grade section of 17.8 meters of 3.14 grams per ton platinum, palladium, and gold, 1.03% nickel, and 0.74% copper (1.77% nickel equivalent). The hole was drilled completely outside of current resource boundaries, between the East Zone resource and the West Zone resource that was reported in the company's press release no July 14, 2011. The high-grade intercept located between the two resources not only demonstrates that the East and West Zone resource form a single, geologically contiguous body but also indicates that the higher-grade material in the East Zone continues to the west and at depth at Wellgreen. For drill result tables and maps, please see the company's full press release here: http://www.prophecyplat.com/news_2011_sep26_prophecy_platinum_wellgreen_...
| Posted: 05 Nov 2011 04:40 AM PDT Junior gold explorers from British Columbia to Colombia are poised to pounce. And they are not your ordinary explorers. The Ubika Gold 50 Index has uncovered one explorer that also produces; another has a "fully earned option" with Goldcorp. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, Vikas Ranjan, managing director and principal, Ubika Research, reveals why these companies make a compelling case for success.
| Canada's Mile of Gold regains its luster Posted: 05 Nov 2011 04:37 AM PDT Long-time GATA supporter and Gold Rush 21 and Gold Rush 2011 speaker Brian Hinchcliffe, CEO of Kirkland Lake Gold, is quoted here. * * * Canada's Mile of Gold Regains Its Luster By Euan Rocha http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/03/us-gold-revival-idUSTRE7A25UY2... KIRKLAND LAKE, Ontario, Canada -- With a gleam in his eyes, Sidney Hamden recalls the glory days of Kirkland Lake, the little Canadian mining town in northern Ontario that was long ago dubbed "The Mile of Gold." Hamden, a spry 82-year-old, remembers his first big break in 1947 at the Lake Shore mine, then one of the deepest gold mines in the world, producing 8.5 million ounces between 1918 and 1965. "We had seven mines. I personally don't know of any other place that had seven major mines within a radius of two miles," said Hamden. "If I'm not mistaken, in 1948 there were approximately 50 different places to buy groceries around town. We had 17 different hotels in the Kirkland Lake area alone." But Kirkland Lake's fortunes waned through the 1950s and 1960s, as costs rose and the price of gold stagnated. One by one, the mines shut down, and by 2000 the town's population had shrunk to 8,500 from over 20,000. Mining jobs vanished, shops and hotels closed and housing prices crumbled, prompting fears that Kirkland Lake -- an eight-hour drive north of Toronto -- could turn into a ghost town. ... Dispatch continues below ... ADVERTISEMENT Sona Drills 85.4g Gold/Ton Over 4 Metres at Elizabeth Gold Deposit, Company Press Release, October 27, 2010 VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Sona Resources Corp. reports on five drillling holes in the third round of assay results from the recently completed drill program at its 100 percent-owned Elizabeth Gold Deposit Property in the Lillooet Mining District of southern British Columbia. Highlights from the diamond drilling include: -- Hole E10-66 intersected 17.4g gold/ton over 1.54 metres. -- Hole E10-67 intersected 96.4g gold/ton over 2.5 metres, including one assay interval of 383g of gold/ton over 0.5 metres. -- Hole E10-69 intersected 85.4g gold/ton over 4.03 metres, including one assay interval of 230g gold/ton over 1 metre. Four drill holes, E10-66 to E10-69, targeted the southwestern end of the Southwest Vein, and three of the holes have expanded the mineralized zone in that direction. The Southwest Vein gold mineralization has now been intersected over a strike length of 325 metres, with the deepest hole drilled less than 200 metres from surface. "The assay results from the Southwest Zone quartz vein continue to be extremely positive," says John P. Thompson, Sona's president and CEO. "We are expanding the Southwest Vein, and this high-grade gold mineralization remains wide open down dip and along strike to the southwest." For the company's full press release, please visit: http://sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR19_2010.pdf With gold now soaring to $1,700 an ounce and higher, the town has begun to regain some of its lost luster. Companies are reopening mines that were mothballed for decades, offering many new jobs and sparking an economic recovery in the area. As geologists hunt for the next big gold prospect among the lakes and forests of Canada's mineral-rich Abitibi-Greenstone belt that runs through Ontario and Quebec, housing prices are soaring and skilled mine workers are in short supply. "I became mayor when there was not much going on, but fortunately things have perked up." said Bill Enouy, a former schoolteacher who took office about a decade ago. "The biggest difference I've noticed in Kirkland Lake now, besides the obvious positive attitude that we have now that we never had for a while, is the price of housing. It's gone crazy." The gold rush here is partly driven by Canada's political and social stability, even as problems like high crime rates, big tax grabs and political instability plague many gold mining hot-beds in Africa and South America. "Costs of production here, on a world scale, are a little bit higher. However, geopolitically, a lot of Canadian miners have found out what all can go wrong in the world," said Duncan Middlemiss, who manages some of St Andrew Goldfields' mines located 65 km (40 miles) northwest of Kirkland Lake. "Miners are certainly quite happy to be in Quebec or Ontario because they are known entities and they are mining friendly and that's why you are seeing reinvestment." Metals Economics Group, which tracks data on exploration spending, notes that Canada's share of global gold exploration spending has doubled in the last 10 years. In 2001 projects in Canada accounted for some 10 percent of the roughly $900 million spent on gold exploration, while in 2010 they accounted for 20 percent of the $5.4 billion spent, according to analysts at the consultancy group. "I still think the best place to find a gold mine is beside one," said Rochelle Collins, a geologist at the Young-Davidson project 60 km west of Kirkland Lake that was recently bought by AuRico Gold. "Here in Timmins and Kirkland Lake, most definitely there is more gold to find." She added: "We are able to go deeper now than back then, when these camps were at their absolute peaks. And there are definitely improvements in technology." There was clearly less focus on getting all of the gold out of the ground in the previous boom, because potential profits were smaller in an era when gold prices were low and stable. "Back in the old days, when the price of gold was $35 an ounce for a long time, they started high-grading the mines and just taking out the high grade ore and leaving a lot of other ore there, because they couldn't really afford to bring it out at that price," said Enouy. "There's lots of gold left in all the mines in the area, and with the price of gold being what it is today, it's economic to get that gold out of the ground. The best part is ... they've realized they can find new discoveries as well." Long-time prospector Michael Leahy and others believe the area around Kirkland Lake may even host iron oxide copper-gold deposits on a scale similar to BHP Billiton's massive Olympic Dam mine in Australia. "There is still some good grass-roots potential here," said Leahy, who has prospected around Kirkland Lake for years. "The subterranean realm is a huge thing, just like the oceans, unexplored. All kinds of things can be hiding right under your nose." As with many old Canadian mining towns, Kirkland Lake's history dates back to the early 1910s. The town grew haphazardly around the mines and its streets are a maze that appear to be ripped out of a jig-saw puzzle. The north end of the town is dominated by a large dry hollow, which was once the lake that gave the town its name. Filled in with mine tailings years ago, the lake has since been dredged, but it is kept mostly dry now to avoid flooding the mine workings that extend deep below the surface. Although many houses in the area date back to the 1920s and 1930s, housing prices have soared as the area booms. "I follow the prices of house sales very closely to see how we're doing and a C$30,000 ($29,600) house from five years ago is selling at C$90,000 to C$120,000 now," Enouy said. The housing market is so tight that St Andrew Goldfields took a drastic step and bought two motels in the nearby town of Matheson to use as worker accommodation. While the boom helps eateries and hotels, not all ventures are enjoying similar success. Many miners are transient, with families in nearby hubs like Rouyn-Noranda, Timmins, North Bay and Sudbury, so much of the money earned in and around Kirkland Lake, ends up outside the area. Nonetheless locals are upbeat. "It's been a really nice turnaround for our community, for Kirkland Lake and the whole area," said Middlemiss. Kirkland Lake Gold was among of the first to spot the opportunity beneath the former mining camp, buying five of the seven old mines along the town's main strip at rock bottom prices in 2001 and restarting production in 2005. Its chief executive, Brian Hinchcliffe, believes old mining towns are a sensible place to operate because of the strong mining culture that still exists in many of them. "One of the themes we're constantly stressing, not just on our behalf, but on behalf of all the mining companies in the area -- is that the next 20 or 30 years are probably going to be even more exciting for these communities than even the '30s and the '40s were," he said. "We've got a bright future ahead." The current boom comes at a time when industrial hubs in southern Ontario and other parts of North America are still struggling with high post-recession unemployment levels. "It's a pity we can't employ all of the unemployed workers from down south, but with the money that's being paid here -- it would be a good idea for some of them to wake up and smell the roses and try mining as a profession," said Leahy. "Miners here are making between C$100,000 and C$150,000 a year - pretty good for someone with a high school education." Kirkland Lake Gold is offering a big relocation allowance to those willing to move to the area and seven-day work week rotations to attract and retain people. "Now we are into hiring people right off the street," said Ray Belecque, who manages Kirkland's operations in the area. Clifford Lafreniere, who owns the local Ford dealership, is seeing huge demand for trucks, "Not just run-of-the-mill work trucks, but luxury trucks." But even he concedes the boom cuts both ways, as small businesses lose good employees to cash-rich mining companies. The boom here reflects similar revivals in former gold mining camps, like Canada's Yukon territory -- home of the famed Klondike rush of the 1890s -- or the Carolinas, where the first U.S. gold rush took place in the 1800s. Mines dating back to the Egyptian, Incan, and Roman Empires are also being revived. In the Yukon, Kinross's $139 million takeover of the high-grade White Gold project last year has triggered renewed interest in the region. Some C$260 million is being spent on exploration in the Yukon this year, two-thirds of it on gold projects, said Patrick Sack of the Yukon Geological Survey. This surge in the number of gold projects has made it hard for mining companies to find talent, said Charles Page, the head of exploration company Queenston Mining, which controls one of the largest land-packages in the Kirkland Lake area. With many experienced miners set to retire, the labor crunch may worsen, as the sector, for the most part has suffered years of negligible investments and numerous job cuts. Some local colleges are now developing training courses to fill the void. Northern College, home to the Haileybury School of Mines, has started short-term courses in drilling and hard rock mining that are attracting a lot of interest, especially given the many jobs and lucrative salaries on offer, said Rose-Lyne D'Aoust-Messier, a training consultant at the college. "When I went to high school there were 1,300 kids in our high school and I just watched one after another just flee, because there was nothing to do. ... Now that we are in growth mode, a lot of the young locals are finding work here and are happy to stay," said Leahy. "We may have a cold winter, but overall Kirkland Lake is heaven." Support GATA by purchasing gold and silver commemorative coins: https://www.amsterdamgold.eu/gata/index.asp?BiD=12 Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon: Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Platinum Drills 120.9 Meters Company Press Release VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada -- Prophecy Platinum Corp. (TSX-V: NKL, OTC-QX: PNIKF, Frankfurt: P94P) has announced the drill results received from its 2011 drilling Wellgreen platinum group elements, nickel, and copper project in the Yukon Territory. Borehole WS11-188 encountered 457 meters of mineralization grading 0.47% nickel equivalent (including 0.72 grams per ton platinum, paladium, and gold) from surface to the footwall contact. Within this larger swath of mineralization, the hole encountered a high-grade section of 17.8 meters of 3.14 grams per ton platinum, palladium, and gold, 1.03% nickel, and 0.74% copper (1.77% nickel equivalent). The hole was drilled completely outside of current resource boundaries, between the East Zone resource and the West Zone resource that was reported in the company's press release no July 14, 2011. The high-grade intercept located between the two resources not only demonstrates that the East and West Zone resource form a single, geologically contiguous body but also indicates that the higher-grade material in the East Zone continues to the west and at depth at Wellgreen. For drill result tables and maps, please see the company's full press release here: http://www.prophecyplat.com/news_2011_sep26_prophecy_platinum_wellgreen_...
| Stock Market Update Still Underway Posted: 05 Nov 2011 04:34 AM PDT After four successive weeks of rising prices the major indices pulled back this week. The hardest hit was Europe with a 4.8% decline, Asian markets were -0.9%, and the US markets were -2.25%. On the economic front upticking and downticking reports were about even. On the upside: ADP, factory orders, the unemployment rate, the WLEI and weekly jobless claims improved. On the downside: ISM manufacturing/services, the Chicago PMI, construction spending, auto sales, the monetary base, and the payrolls report. The economy is still in contraction mode. For the week the SPX/DOW were -2.35%, and the NDX/NAZ were -1.9%. Bonds rose 1.7%, Crude gained 0.7%, Gold gained 0.7%, and the USD was +2.5%. Next week’s economic reports will be highlighted by the Trade/Budget deficits, Import/Export prices and Consumer sentiment.
| British can petition Bank of England to come clean on gold swaps and leases Posted: 05 Nov 2011 04:25 AM PDT 12:22p ET Saturday, November 5, 2011 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: An Internet petition has been started for citizens of the United Kingdom to urge the Bank of England to disclose how much of the British gold reserve has been swapped or leased, thereby reversing the secrecy on which the bank has been insisting. (See http://www.gata.org/node/10635.) You can find the petition here: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/20934 CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT For Continuous Wealth Creation, the Hera Research Newsletter The life cycles of companies that produce natural resources allow investors to allocate assets among companies at different stages of development and to profit from transitions between stages. Based on natural resource company life cycles, the Hera Research Newsletter maximizes profits through deep, fundamental analysis at each stage of development and by moving gains back to earlier-stage companies in a continuous wealth-creation process. Hera Research covers a pipeline of high-quality natural resource companies at different stages of development. The companies span discovery and production of gold, silver, and platinum group metals, select base metals, oil and gas, green energy, agriculture, rare earth elements, uranium, and more. Discover the unique value of the Hera Research Newsletter by visiting: http://www.heraresearch.com/newsletter.html Or call Ron Hera at 360-339-8541x101. Support GATA by purchasing gold and silver commemorative coins: https://www.amsterdamgold.eu/gata/index.asp?BiD=12 Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Or a video disc of GATA's 2005 Gold Rush 21 conference in the Yukon: Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Golden Phoenix Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire and Reopen Santa Rosa Gold Mine in Panama Company Press Release SPARKS, Nevada -- Golden Phoenix Minerals Inc. (OTC Bulletin Board: GPXM) has signed a definitive agreement to acquire a 60 percent interest, with an option to buy an additional 20 percent interest, in the Santa Rosa gold mine in Panama, now owned by Silver Global S.A., a Panamanian corporation. Santa Rosa produced more than 100,000 ounces of gold from 1996 to 1998 before being closed in part to low gold prices, which are now more than five times higher. Golden Phoenix intends to acquire its initial 60 percent interest in Santa Rosa by acquiring 60 percent of the share capital of a recently created company under the name Golden Phoenix Panama S.A., formed to hold and operate the mine. Tom Klein, CEO of Golden Phoenix says: "The agreement establishes a solid framework from which we can advance Mina Santa Rosa to production-ready status." For Golden Phoenix's complete statement, please visit: http://goldenphoenix.us/press-release/golden-phoenix-signs-definitive-ac...
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Most believe the European debt crisis is solved, but not so fast. In spite of being told by the German federal court that leverage could not be applied to bailout loans, but they approved leverage anyway. The court says they will redefine their position by the end of the year. Thus, there is no deal until the court says there is one and constitutionally it's legal. The Bundestag must believe the court will change its mind. Now we will just have to see what transpires. In the meantime Mr. Juncker of the European Union said there would be concessions for financial aid. As a result of those disclosures early last Monday the "President's Working Group on Financial Markets" was busy at work trying to keep the stock market indexes from crashing and viciously attacking gold and silver overnight. What else would one expect in a rigged market?
On the heels of the interview with CFTC Commissioner Bart Chilton, today King World News interviewed Silver Whistleblower Andrew Maguire. Yesterday Commissioner Chilton remarked to KWN, "I believe there has been repeated attempts to influence prices in the silver market. And there's been fraudulent efforts to persuade and deviously control the price." Maguire had this to say about Chilton and his comments, "Bart Chilton is a man of integrity and he's calling it as he sees it. This is not a typical career bureaucrat when he makes a statement like that. He's not looking for a parking space in a bullion bank down the road when he makes those kinds of remarks."
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