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- Buy the Dips – It’s a Long-Term Bull Market
- Apple, Cisco Or Siemens Should Just Buy VirnetX
- Tuesday's Noteworthy Insider Buys And Sells
- Inflation Ahead: Buy Gold or Buy Stocks?
- Mortgage REITs And Interest Rate Risk II: Strategy Shifts By 2 REITs
- LIBOR Fraud Signals Beginning-of-the-End For Banksters
- Gold Below 200-Day Average, Technical Analysts Point Below $1600
- Bernanke Spooks Gold
- Will the Gold & Silver Smackdown Deter Investors?
- Visual Learners Unite! Two Cartoons & Some Words to Boot
- Germany to Review Bundesbank Gold Reserves in Frankfurt, Paris…
- Gold, Stocks, and Manipulation Issues
- Iraq aims to increase gold production
- The Panic in Needle Park
- $19,000 Shoelaces
- Germany to Review Bundesbank Gold Reserve Controls
- Terence van der Hout: 'We Still Believe' in Rare Earths
- Fit to be Tied: $19,000 Shoelaces
- Gold smashing is just paper manipulation, Embry tells King World News
- Chinese bank leased 63 tonnes of gold in 2011
- Faber: Gold Isn't a Bubble Poised to Pop
- Indonesia Mining Law Showdown Looms
- Bernie O’Brien, the Scammer who can Scam Scammers
- Gold & Silver Market Morning, March 7 2012
- Silver Update: “Sovereign Wealth”
- Crude Oil Spikes On Fundamentals And Technicals.
- Digital Gold is the Game Changer
- Select Gold, Silver Mid Caps for Near-Term Action: Bo Chew
- Gold Gulag Exit Tactics
- Silver Market Update
| Buy the Dips – It’s a Long-Term Bull Market Posted: 07 Mar 2012 05:30 AM PST The reactions to last week's hammering of gold and silver further exhibits that we are still in the early stages of a long-term precious metals bull market. With the declines in gold and silver, sentiment turned bearish almost instantly, which is what the sellers wanted. |
| Apple, Cisco Or Siemens Should Just Buy VirnetX Posted: 07 Mar 2012 05:02 AM PST By John H. Ford: VirnetX (VHC) is suing seven of the big names in tech: Apple (AAPL), Cisco (CSCO), Siemens (SI), Mitel (MITL), NEC, Aastra and Avaya. The issue is alleged patent infringement, and the total dollar value goes into the billions. As you recall, VirnetX sued Microsoft (MSFT) for patent infringement and in 2010 won a $106 million judgment in a jury trial. Microsoft ultimately paid over $200 million. Here's a synopsis of the current legal proceedings as well as my argument on why I think VirnetX is in such a strong position. First, VirnetX shareholders are awaiting Judge Davis' preliminary ruling on the January 5th Markman hearing. He is currently taking all evidence into consideration and is expected to come up with a preliminary ruling any day now. Given the judge's positive rulings on the 135 and the 180 patents in the Microsoft case, (these two patents are included in the current Complete Story » |
| Tuesday's Noteworthy Insider Buys And Sells Posted: 07 Mar 2012 04:56 AM PST By Ganaxi Small Cap Movers: We present here three noteworthy buys and eight noteworthy sells from Tuesday's (March 6, 2012) SEC Form 4 (insider trading) filings, as part of our daily and weekly coverage of insider trades. These were selected by a review of over 380 separate transactions in over 210 different companies filed by insiders on Tuesday. The filings are noteworthy based on the dollar amount sold, the number of insiders buying or selling, and based on whether the overall buying or selling represents a strong pick-up based on historical buying and selling in the stock. Pandora Media Inc. (P): Pandora is a premier provider of Internet radio in the U.S., offering listeners streaming music based on analysis of user listening behavior. Its services are offered on traditional computers and on smart phones such as Android phones, BlackBerrys and the iPhone. On Tuesday, two insiders filed SEC Forms 4 indicating that they sold 83,838 Complete Story » |
| Inflation Ahead: Buy Gold or Buy Stocks? Posted: 07 Mar 2012 04:41 AM PST |
| Mortgage REITs And Interest Rate Risk II: Strategy Shifts By 2 REITs Posted: 07 Mar 2012 04:41 AM PST By James Shell: I wrote this article a while back giving some analysis of the "quantitative risk" associated with some of the mortgage REITs that are a topic of great interest at the moment. This industry has blossomed since the 2008 real estate meltdown mainly because of the historically unprecedented situation of large amounts of money coming into the marketplace at essentially zero interest. Since these companies are borrowing money on the short term and loaning it out over the long term, they need to use various hedging techniques to reduce risk or potentially benefit from an interest rate change. These companies disclose their strategy in their quarterly reports, under the heading "Management Discussion of Qualitative and Quantitative Risk." No one ever talks about this, but it is extremely important because these funds are basically trading in a commodity, money. The difference in performance from one to another is based to a substantial Complete Story » |
| LIBOR Fraud Signals Beginning-of-the-End For Banksters Posted: 07 Mar 2012 04:02 AM PST Precious metals investors are understandably frustrated after the latest in a series of bankster ambushes on the gold and silver markets. It is part of the illusory nature of time that "change" is almost always imperceptible – until some major change is almost complete. Thus many market participants may have formed the conclusion (with seeming justification) that "things will never change" when it comes to the Western financial crime syndicate. Such people couldn't be more wrong. While I share their frustration, I have not come close to succumbing to their sense of hopelessness. My own sense of certainty is formed from one part logic, and one part observation. Logic tells us that the massive, criminal, paper Empire of the Wall Street Vampires must come tumbling down. The reason is simple: all crime syndicates ultimately destroy themselves. They are undone by their own baser instincts – primarily greed. While some readers may have considered it mere rhetoric, I have continually maintained that "all Evil is self-destructive" as an elementary aspect of human behavior. By its very nature, Evil represents an instant-gratification mentality. It is a fact of history that when humans work cooperatively that we all benefit to the maximum degree. Thus the origin of all evil is the obsession of a (fortunately) small minority of individuals with obtaining more for themselves, now. And here we see the fatal flaw in the evil psyche: it is always, unfailingly short-sighted. Evil actors, by their very nature, are incapable of considering anything other than what produces the best result for themselves today. We can illustrate the inevitable self-destructive quality of short-sightedness in many ways. Chess provides a simple, yet eternal example of this doctrine. One can have the most brilliant mind, and be capable of devising the most effective strategies. However, until such an individual developed the capacity to analyze a game of chess by seeing several moves ahead, such a player would be consistently and inevitably defeated by any chess-player of even modest ability – who had developed the capacity to look ahead. In less abstract terms, we need only look to the Crash of '08 as a classic example of the self-destructive quality of short-sighted thinking. As I've mentioned before, market sheep have been conditioned by the propaganda-machine to be entirely focused on short-term micro-indicators of our economy, and to never pay any heed to "big picture" representations, precisely because it leaves them so completely vulnerable to manipulation. The result of the entire "herd" in our markets being conditioned to short-sightedness? They were all "surprised" when the U.S. housing-bubble burst – the largest and most blatantly fraudulent asset-bubble in the history of humanity (at that time). However, the truly remarkable aspect of the Crash of '08 is that the banksters who created all of the asset-bubbles, and scams, and who orchestrated the "crash" itself through deliberately cannibalizing Lehman Brothers managed to also be "surprised" by these events. This is what has necessitated more than $15 trillion in hand-outs to this crime syndicate so far (and counting). Obviously it is taking the flaw of short-sightedness to an absurd extreme when scammers can actually be "surprised" by the consequences of their own scam. However this absurd extreme in short-sightedness is simply commensurate with the absurd extreme in the greed of this class of parasite. And so we now see the banksters on the verge of completing their own self-destruction. While it would be extremely difficult to attempt to narrow-down the endless litany of banker fraud to three pivotal events, I will endeavour to do so – as each event illustrates a different aspect of the inadvertent suicide committed by these evil actors. In just the last few months we have seen the banksters systematically shredding what little "integrity" they are perceived to possess by the brainwashed masses who have allowed their crime-spree to continue this long. The first of these events was the plundering of customer cash from MF Global accounts. While there were various outrageous aspects to this enormous crime (including the near-complete indifference of so-called "regulators"), the perception it left in the minds of the general public can be summed up very succinctly. The bankers steal. |
| Gold Below 200-Day Average, Technical Analysts Point Below $1600 Posted: 07 Mar 2012 03:26 AM PST |
| Posted: 07 Mar 2012 03:19 AM PST Euro Pacific Capital |
| Will the Gold & Silver Smackdown Deter Investors? Posted: 07 Mar 2012 02:42 AM PST It doesn't look like it so far... |
| Visual Learners Unite! Two Cartoons & Some Words to Boot Posted: 07 Mar 2012 01:40 AM PST NFTRHgives few easy answers. That is because its writer has no easy answers, although there are consistent road maps we have used for years now that have never failed to help preserve capital when necessary – which is often – and make outstanding capital gains, when appropriate.These road maps take the form of outliers (to standard technical and fundamental analysis) like the decades long 'Continuum' in US Treasury bonds, which takes on particular significance at limiting boundaries like the upper monthly EMA 100 (red arrows), as inflation expectations get too hot. These have consistently proven to be times when inflation cultists, guru followers and momentum chasers have gotten croaked in the markets at very important turns as the Continuum pings along over the years from inflationary to deflationary (green arrows) fears.  This is my favorite 'big picture' macro indicator, but there are many more markets and ratios that help lend definition to events over the macro swings. But there is another indicator to the times that has remained remarkably consistent in its message since the bull market in the 'value' that is assigned to it began in 2000. Yes of course, I am talking about the barbarous relic. You see it is safe to talk about gold in bullish terms now because the metal is in the grips of an ongoing correction (probably about 2/3 of the way done, time-wise) and the damage done by the massive influx of terror-struck trend followers during the Euro crisis is now near fully digested.  Above is another of those cartoonish charts that is not technical analysis but rather, a story in a picture. The story is rather self-explanatory. Read the story, have perspective and relax if you are a gold bug. If you are a US stock bull, you might be less relaxed with the awesome rally out of the October Bull Pivot running out of gas. But then, that is what this story is all about isn't it? Gas, or fuel. In the age of Inflation onDemand, which was kicked off by Alan Greenspan and continues ever more dynamically to this day, it is all about fuel, or inflationary policy. Recently our dear current monetary leader, Fed Chief Ben Bernanke was able to sit in front of the Senate acting as if he believed in the economic recovery, but with some reservations. I would wager he has more than just some reservations as to the sustainability of this debt ridden, levered up, inflated mess. But the thing is, the great stock rally out of October and the tepidly recovering economy have kept policy at bay. And for their part, gold bugs were never going to get the 'good stuff' (QE3) with Au flying around at $1800 to $1900 an ounce and holding the confidence of so many refugees from a failing system. This is all about confidence my friends. Right now the Fed Chief needs you to have confidence in him; he is in control and furthermore, if anything goes wrong with the recovery, he will stand on guard to help with more policy response. Up until now, the markets have done the heavy lifting for him. He could afford to sit back and let things breathe. But with many global markets now threatening support, the US market eroding from the Small Caps to the Semiconductors on out to an initial crack in the S&P 500, Dow and Nasdaq 100, it is all according to a plan my friends. At least it is according to the ongoing big picture macro plan NFTRH follows over the intermediate swings. The key is to have patience with it, tune down all that intellectual noise in your head and let the process play out. If another yellow oval is to be painted on the top panel SPX chart and gold should happen to find itself at support well… you know the drill. Take your partner by the hand, swing to the right Do-Ci-Do. Think for yourself; don't let the media and certainly not official spokespeople tell you what you think. If you have operated with perspective since the Euro crisis blew out, you should be sitting comfortably right now awaiting opportunity. http://www.biiwii.blogspot.com
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| Germany to Review Bundesbank Gold Reserves in Frankfurt, Paris… Posted: 07 Mar 2012 01:38 AM PST |
| Gold, Stocks, and Manipulation Issues Posted: 07 Mar 2012 01:00 AM PST SunshineProfits |
| Iraq aims to increase gold production Posted: 07 Mar 2012 01:00 AM PST According to Iraq's own data, aside from possessing the world's second largest crude oil reserves, the country also possesses important gold and diamond reserves. The Iraqi government is thus hopeful ... |
| Posted: 07 Mar 2012 12:25 AM PST This morning's opening bids showed a small recovery trying to get underway but gold only added $3.40 to start off the day at $1,678 while silver once again briefly turned negative and fell to $32.92 the ounce. |
| Posted: 06 Mar 2012 11:54 PM PST Fit to be Tied: $19,000 Shoelaces The latest shoe shine: gold laces. You have the necklace and the earrings. But you don't have the gold shoelaces. Kristen Bellstrom discusses on Lunch Break. For bling lovers who have already adorned their ears, wrists and fingers, a company called Mr. Kennedy offers a new way to shine: 24-karat gold shoelaces that will set the wearer back $19,000 (or for style mavens on a budget, $3,000 for a silver pair). The Dublin-based outfit, named after Harvey Kennedy, the reputed inventor of the shoelace, makes the laces out of Colombian gold, which is compressed into thin threads, then hand-crocheted into a fine rope. (Owner Colin Hart says he came up with the idea while shopping for bracelets for his wife on a trip to the South American nation.) The company says it will deliver the laces -- with their own security guard -- anywhere in the world, and adds that wearers don't need to worry about kicking up a little dust with their footwear finery; the laces can be cleaned with simple soap and water. The Reality: Jewelry pros say that, while pressing metals into thread does typically make them more durable, 24-karat gold remains a relatively soft material. Helena Krodel, director of media for trade group Jewelers of America, says that shoelaces made with the metal are probably not made for everyday wear and tear. (The company says its laces come with a lifetime warranty.) As for the price, there's a reason items made of gold are expensive; currently, the precious metal is going for about $1,600 an ounce. But with a pair of laces requiring about 5 ounces of gold, the cost of the shiny stuff accounts for less than half the total price.  http://www.smartmoney.com/spend/dumb...1329252496299/ |
| Germany to Review Bundesbank Gold Reserve Controls Posted: 06 Mar 2012 11:40 PM PST German lawmakers are to review Bundesbank controls of and management of Germany's gold reserves. Parliament's budget committee will assess bullion bars that are believed to be stored in Frankfurt, Paris, London and New York. |
| Terence van der Hout: 'We Still Believe' in Rare Earths Posted: 06 Mar 2012 09:57 PM PST The research analyst with The Gold&Discovery Fund in the Netherlands and editor of Strategy Metals Bulletin says takeovers are his sweet spot and that while gold juniors are very quick to get from discovery to takeover, most rare earth explorers are still early-stage ventures. |
| Fit to be Tied: $19,000 Shoelaces Posted: 06 Mar 2012 09:10 PM PST ¤ Yesterday in Gold and SilverIt was pretty much the same price pattern in gold on Tuesday as it was on Monday, except for the fact that the engineered price decline was more severe. Gold sold off gently in the Far East trading session, but that pace quickened beginning shortly before the London open...and by the time the London a.m. gold fix was in at 10:30 a.m. GMT, 5:30 a.m. Eastern time, gold was down twenty bucks from Monday's close in New York. From there, the price rose gently until shortly before 1:00 p.m. London time. Then the selling really became intense...and around 9:15 a.m. in New York, the bid disappeared entirely...and the gold price cratered over twenty bucks in just minutes. That proved to be the low of the day...$1,661.90 spot. Once that low was in, the subsequent rally took the price back just above the $1,670 spot price...and every tiny rally attempt after that was sold off. That is very obvious from the saw-tooth pattern in the chart after 9:30 a.m. Eastern. Gold closed at $1,674.60 spot...down $31.80 on the day. Not surprisingly, net volume was pretty heavy at just a hair over 200,000 contracts.
A quick peek at the Kitco silver chart below shows that you could pretty much overlay Monday's price action with Tuesday's price action, as the graphs are very similar...something that wouldn't happen in a free market. The only major difference in price pattern between gold and silver was the same difference that occurred on Monday...and that was that the low price tick for the day came many hours after gold's low price was in. Yesterday, silver's low [$32.37 spot] came at precisely 12:30 p.m. in New York. After the low price tick was in, silver gained back 58 cents of its losses...and closed at $32.95 spot...down $1.05 on the day. But at its low, silver was down 4.8% on the day. Net volume was an immense 63,000 contracts.
The dollar index rallied most of Tuesday...and that state of affairs lasted until shortly before 12:30 p.m. in New York. From there, it more or less traded sideways into the close...closing up just about half a cent.
With gold and silver under heavy selling pressure before the equity markets opened [just like on Monday] the gold stocks gapped down...and stayed down. The HUI hit its low of the day shortly before 10:30 a.m...and then bounced off that low until about 2:45 p.m. in New York, before rallying a bit into the close. The HUI finished down 2.09%.
The silver stocks had another lousy day...and Nick Laird's Silver Sentiment Index closed down 3.72%.
(Click on image to enlarge) The CME Daily Delivery Report showed that 125 gold and one lonely silver contract were posted for delivery on Thursday. There were no reported changes in GLD once again yesterday...but over at SLV, every single ounce [plus 59 ounces more] that was deposited on Monday, was reported withdrawn yesterday. I'm not sure what to read into that. There was another sales report from the U.S. Mint. They sold another 4,000 one-ounce 24K gold buffaloes...and 240,000 silver eagles. It was a rather quiet day over at the Comex-approved depositories on Monday. They reported receiving 103,922 troy ounces of silver...and shipped 93,199 ounces out the door. I have the usual number of stories...and, as per usual, I'm delighted to leave the final edit up to you. If I had to bet ten bucks, I'd bet that we saw the lows for this move down yesterday...and if it wasn't the low, then it's close enough for me. Gold smashing is just paper manipulation, Embry tells King World News. Rick Rule - Gold and Silver plunge has quality assets on sale. Faber: Gold Isn't a Bubble Poised to Pop. ¤ Critical ReadsSubscribeHuge Spike in Repeat ForeclosuresThe pig in the python is suddenly moving. Thousands of foreclosures that were stuck in process due to delays over the so-called "Robo-signing" paperwork scandal are working their way through a revamped banking system and heading toward final bank repossession. Foreclosure starts surged 28 percent in January from December, according to a new report from Lender Processing Services. More than 230,000 loans began the foreclosure process in January. Even more indicative of this new surge in processing is that repeat foreclosures hit an all-time high in January, representing 47 percent of all starts, according to LPS. Repeat foreclosures are either failed loan modifications, or loans that banks were attempting to modify but couldn't. This story was posted over a the cnbc.com website yesterday...and is West Virginia reader Elliot Simon's first offering of the day. The link is here.  Fed Study of Student Debt Outlines a Growing BurdenA report released Monday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York renews concerns about the growing debt load of college students and graduates. The report suggests that as many as 27 percent of the 37 million borrowers have past-due balances of 30 days or more. "In sum, student loan debt is not just a concern for the young," the report said. "Parents and the federal government shoulder a substantial part of the postsecondary education bill." The report, which was created by an analysis of Equifax credit reports, said the total balance of student loans was $870 billion. Of the 241 million with Equifax credit reports (there are 311 million people in the United States), 15 percent had student debt. This story appeared in The New York Times on Monday...and was reprinted in this story posted over at cnbc.com. I thank Elliot Simon for his second offering in a row. The link is here.  ECB Balance Sheet Hits Record $3.9 Trillion on History-Making Bank LoansThe European Central Bank's balance sheet surged to a record 3.02 trillion euros ($3.96 trillion) last week, 31 percent bigger than the German economy, after a second tranche of three-year loans. Lending to euro-area banks jumped 310.7 billion euros to 1.13 trillion euros in the week ended March 2, the Frankfurt- based ECB said in a statement today. The balance sheet gained 330.6 billion euros in the week. It is now more than a third bigger than the U.S. Federal Reserve's $2.9 trillion and eclipses the 2.3 trillion-euro gross domestic product of Germany (EUANDE), the world's fourth largest economy. The ECB last week awarded banks 529.5 billion euros for three years in the biggest single refinancing operation in its history, adding to the 489 billion euros it lent in December. The flood of money, which aims to combat Europe's sovereign debt crisis by unlocking credit for companies and households, has increased the risk exposure of the 17 euro-area central banks that together with the ECB comprise the Eurosystem. This Bloomberg story was filed from Frankfurt yesterday...and I thank Washington state reader S.A. for bringing it to my attention. The link is here.  Dutch Freedom Party pushes euro exit as €2.4 trillion rescue bill loomsThe Dutch Freedom Party has called for a return to the Guilder, becoming the first political movement in the eurozone with a large popular base to opt for withdrawal from the single currency. "The euro is not in the interests of the Dutch people," said Geert Wilders, the leader of the right-wing populist party with a sixth of the seats in the Dutch parliament. "We want to be the master of our own house and our own country, so we say yes to the guilder. Bring it on." Mr Wilders made his decision after receiving a report by London-based Lombard Street Research concluding that the Netherlands is badly handicapped by euro membership, and that it could cost EMU's creditor core more than €2.4 trillion to hold monetary union together over the next four years. "If the politicians in The Hague disagree with our report, let them show the guts to hold a referendum. Let the Dutch people decide," he said. The study said the eurozone cannot survive in its current form. The longer Europe's politicians dither, the more costly it will become. "The euro can only survive if it becomes a fiscal transfer union with national sovereign debt subsumed in eurozone bonds," said co-author Charles Dumas. This Ambrose-Evans Pritchard offering was posted in The Telegraph late on Monday night...and I thank Roy Stephens for sending it to me. The link is here.  Italy's Mason-Dixon Line: Euro Crisis Fuels South Tyrolean Separatist DreamsMany in northern Italy have long wanted to secede. Now, the euro crisis is giving the separatist movement new momentum, with the rich north unwilling to pony up for the poor south. Prime Minister Monti's efforts to exert control may be making matters worse. Money is at the core of the dispute. South Tyrol is expected to contribute €120 million ($161 million) to cleaning up the Italian national budget. To do so, it will have to raise real estate, value-added and income taxes, as well as fees paid by farmers -- measures that violate Rome's promise that 90 percent of the taxes collected in South Tyrol will stay in South Tyrol. On an almost daily basis, Durnwalder cites paragraphs from the reform package against which he intends to make his own case before the Constitutional Court. What is happening in Italy's northernmost and wealthiest province mirrors the larger euro crisis: The rich north doesn't want to pay for the poor south. In the 1950s and 60s, this attitude was reflected in the "Away from Rome" movement, which, until recently, was considered just as outmoded as the prejudices of Northern Europeans against Southern Europeans that have now been brought to the surface by the crisis. This is an amazing story...and a part of the Italian socio-political landscape that I knew nothing about. It's another Roy Stephens offering, this one from yesterday's edition of spiegel.de...and the link is here.  Euro Crisis Crucible: Rift Grows Between Germany's Bundesbank and ECBThere are growing divisions among European Central Bank leadership about how to handle the euro crisis, not to mention between the ECB and the Bundesbank, Germany's central bank. While ECB head Mario Draghi is pleased with his recent decision to flood the markets with cheap money, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann warns of the dangers. Weidmann spoke at the Mexico summit, and he had an entirely different message for his listeners. "The crisis cannot be resolved solely by throwing money at it," he said. There is a rift among top-ranking officials at the ECB, and it also extends between the majority of the ECB's Governing Council and the Bundesbank. First, two leading German ECB officials -- chief economist Jürgen Stark and Bundesbank President Axel Weber -- resigned because the monetary authority was buying up sovereign bonds from Greece and Portugal. Then Weber's successor Weidmann objected to the ECB's purchase of government bonds from heavily indebted Italy. Now, Weidmann is rebelling against the manner in which Draghi is giving European banks one new cash injection after another. Although Weidmann admits that the measures are basically correct, their conditions are "very generous," he complains -- and expresses his total opposition to this policy in the jargon of the central bankers: "This can particularly become a problem if banks are discouraged from taking action to restructure their balance sheets and strengthen their capital base." This is another Roy Stephens offering posted over at the spiegel.de website...and the link is here.  |
| Gold smashing is just paper manipulation, Embry tells King World News Posted: 06 Mar 2012 09:10 PM PST  Sprott Asset Management's John Embry told King World News yesterday that the smashes in gold and silver are entirely paper manipulations without real metal being sold, that economic conditions worldwide are deteriorating alarmingly despite enormous propaganda to the contrary, and that the monetary metals will be the ultimate beneficiary. I thank Chris Powell for writing the above introduction for you...and the link to the KWN blog, which is headlined "Conditions are deteriorating at an alarming rate" is here. |
| Chinese bank leased 63 tonnes of gold in 2011 Posted: 06 Mar 2012 09:10 PM PST  Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the world's most valuable lender, said in a statement that its gold leasing business reached 62.8 tonnes of physical metal in 2011. The bank, which started gold leasing in January last year, has more than 100 clients, including jewelers, industrial users, refiners, and miners, who borrow gold for up to a year. The bank charges a fee for the leased gold, which is returned within an agreed time period. China became the world's top gold consumer in the October-December quarter of last year, surpassing India for the first time. |
| Faber: Gold Isn't a Bubble Poised to Pop Posted: 06 Mar 2012 09:10 PM PST  Gold isn't in a bubble ready to pop similar to the tech boom of 2000 or the real estate sector of a few years ago, says Marc Faber, publisher of the Gloom, Boom and Doom report. |
| Indonesia Mining Law Showdown Looms Posted: 06 Mar 2012 09:10 PM PST  Economist Shayne Heffernan reports on a looming showdown in Indonesia over new mining laws. The changes will bring pressure to the supply of Coal, Gold, Copper and many more metals/minerals. Under the regulation, after May 7th no new contracts for exporting raw materials can be signed. The export ban will go into effect in 2014 for all companies, no matter what their existing contract of work stipulates. Local representatives of major business associations in East Kalimantan have protested a government regulation that will ban the export of raw materials and unprocessed commodities, including coal. |
| Bernie O’Brien, the Scammer who can Scam Scammers Posted: 06 Mar 2012 09:04 PM PST By Richard Smith, an inept narrator. Here is the latest instalment of a shaggy dog story that has so far taken us from Oxford to Mauritius and Cape Town, with a disconnected-looking excursion to Colombia tagged on. This time, we are heading for Australia first, then Mauritius again, then to Bristol, UK, and returning to Australia. We'll add an extra sprinkling of the exotic to the itinerary by paying a quick visit to Macedonia, too. One day perhaps I'll do a Google Earth thingie, with pushpins for all the places, people and scams, so that you can see the whole sprawling picture, but there's a lot of ground to cover first, so off we go… R.P. Emery & Associates, PO Box 5197, South Murwillumbah NSW 2484, look exactly like suppliers of cheap (ish) legal documentation to Australians:
There's a vast range of different templates that people might want: business sale documents, NDAs, loan agreements, rentals, and so on and on. There's a bunch of testimonials from happy clients. It all looks rather dull. At the bottom of the home page it says:
Oops, I suppose the above excerpts count as extracts. But hang it, do you know, in an attack of wanton wickedness, I am going to reproduce several more portions of this web site, in the form of screen dumps, without express permission of the publisher. Have I taken leave of my senses? This is a snip of R.P.Emery's home page taken on the 4th of March 2012:
I'm going to zoom in a bit on the embedded video, which shows, as it were, the public face of R. P. Emery (we're going to see more of this chap):
Here he is again, same horrific shirt, same tie, same room, different stuff on the shelves, holding forth on commercial property lease agreements:
So why I am interested in this dreary, unidentified Australian lawyer at this dull web shop? And why am I so unperturbed by the prospect of violating R.P. Emery's prohibition on reproducing anything from their site? Well, the name of the chap in the videos is Bernie O'Brien, and when he's not boring the world, with these videos, and making the world feel queasy, with his shirt, he's running fair-sized international scams. I don't think R. P. Emery should be associating themselves with Bernie in any way whatsoever. So I think those videos will simply vanish, though I hope for another, more entertaining outcome, which I will say more about, if it happens: the ball's in "R.P. Emery"'s court. Let's take a look at some of the fallout from one of Bernie's scams, Discovery Beach. Here's a typically furious and typically misspelled, Ripoff Report:
So Bernie pitches business planning mumbo-jumbo, with a hook: a would-be entrepreneur pays a little bit up front to use the business planning software, or whatever it is, sinks a lot of effort into filling in a questionnaire, gets a voluminous response, and then the sunk cost, effort and visible "results" pull the victim into the bigger scam. Also at Ripoff Report we find a long and not 100% true 2007 sob story from Steven Pitcher, one of the Oxford scammers I posted about here, who, before fleeing to Mauritius to escape his creditors, was, in a splendidly ironic turn, scammed himself, by Bernie:
Well, I don't think it is Bernie's fault that Pitcher's Rock Star Lottery (that was his "existing business": hah!) went belly-up, at all. Nevertheless, some of what Pitcher says about the O'Brien modus operandi is consistent with the other stories. It seems that Pitcher tries to get his revenge by putting up a site www.bastardswhodontpay.com (now defunct, alas) and taking pops at Bernie there. Bernie retaliates, he wants us to think, by writing a letter to an Honorary Consul in Mauritius (who happens to be another O'Brien, presumably only distantly related). The letter will no doubt vanish in due course, when Bernie wants to cover his traces a bit better. In it, Bernie complains that Pitcher is hiding from the UK authorities in Mauritius (true), defaming Bernie (that must have taken some effort) and demanding money with menaces from Bernie (perfectly likely: Bernie's pinched some of it from Pitcher, and Pitcher wants it back). Bernie also claims to have contacted the Australian police and Interpol (relatively unlikely: the last thing Bernie wants is intense police attention). Scammerfight! Even if Bernie really did talk to the Consul in Mauritius, or the Australian police, I doubt whether they, or Interpol for that matter, take Bernie all that seriously now, for Bernie has more respectable victims, who really went public. A number of middle-aged would-be entrepreneurs in Australia fell for Discovery Beach, and they managed to get the Australian TV program "A Current Affair" interested enough to stage one of those cheesy doorstepping stunts where the Victims Confront The Scammer. That's five minutes of Youtube video; it goes out of synch towards the end, but it's still quite compelling viewing. Bernie puts in a couple of appearances, looking somewhat less poised than in his R.P. Emery videos, but at least he's wearing a different shirt… The gist of it, if you didn't want to view it, is that 25 people lost AUD3Mn (one Aussie dollar is roughly one US dollar) by handing over up-front fees to Bernie, for which they got in return a two-page business questionnaire each, and a bunch of empty promises, and no refunds. The ones who dived in deeper with Bernie ended up following worthless "detailed instructions" from him, and lost a lot more money. It didn't quite stop there either. Bernie franchised his scam overseas. There was a UK Discovery Beach, run by a guy in Bristol, one Christopher David Barrell. It's the same sort of thing with the same sort of outcome (sorry about the number fluffs, by the confused victim; I daren't correct them):
Folk seem to be mighty confused about both the Discovery Beach scams. For instance, one chap was ripped off by Chris Barrell in the UK, and finds Bernie O'Brien quite, er, helpful:
Good old feline Bernie, cautiously combining candour with innuendo, and fishing for another upfront fee at the end there, from someone who just wants their money back from the last scam, executed by Bernie's reps in the UK. I hope the mark didn't give Bernie even more money. But scam victims do sometimes fall for a follow-up "money recovery" scam, as Bernie knows; which is why he is fishing. Tip to these very confused victims: Barrell and O'Brien are both crooks. As for Mr Ali Pourtahari, I would ignore his resumé and give him a wide berth, too. That isn't quite the end of Bernie. He seems to be quite adept at making himself look respectable. Here he is at a 2009 seminar at the Converga Green Economy Hub (page 2, 14:00). Bernie's subject is "Making Your Green Idea a Success". A success for whom, one naturally wonders. At that seminar, he is sharing a public platform with Anne Maree Huxley, CEO of the Aussie green sustainable industry body MOSS, who need a big loud wakeup call about Bernie. Here is the last page of Bernie's predictably banal seminar presentation (I will spare you the rest of it), with the names of some more people who could do with a big loud wakeup call.
All of which leads us to Bernie's next vehicle, Green Planet Management. His LinkedIn profile proclaims him to be an analyst there (and we note that he owns at least three shirts):
Oh, I should have asked the Australian Bar Association to confirm that Bernie O'Brien really is a barrister. It just seems so unlikely. From Ripoff Report again:
From the sound of it, when Discovery Beach was rumbled, Bernie changed the name, but not the scam. Since www.greenplanetmanagement.com.au is no longer a live site either, I imagine the outcome for his clients was the same under the new name. But it won't necessarily only be Australian Greens nursing burnt fingers. It may be Macedonians too, and a very embarrassed British Business Group Macedonia, who, in late 2009, put would-be Macedonian entrepreneurs in touch with…Bernie O'Brien:
IFI is presumably pronounced "iffy". I can't imagine it went terribly well. The BBGM has been silent about IFI ever since they announced it. There are plenty of loose ends; but for me that's almost it with Bernie. He puts in a fleeting appearance in my next, doing a favour for another con man. I'd love to know what he is up to now, two years after the most recent sightings. My thanks to NC commenter Lanny Poffo, who put me onto 4chan; I will take a proper look at it. Maybe that's the place to find out how Bernie's getting on. Next time we start in Australia, and dart back to the UK again. It will be like a badly-conceived fairy tale: we will encounter a great racing driver, and a not-so-great one; a Baron who is not a Baron, an Earl who really is an Earl, a Princess from a country that doesn't exist any more, and a Prince, from another imperilled kingdom, who is not a giant lizard; and we will discover that Bradford isn't necessarily a city in Yorkshire (or in Pennsylvania), or a town in Wiltshire, but can be one of two different villages in Shropshire, too. After that, it may get more confusing.
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| Gold & Silver Market Morning, March 7 2012 Posted: 06 Mar 2012 09:00 PM PST |
| Silver Update: “Sovereign Wealth” Posted: 06 Mar 2012 08:54 PM PST from BrotherJohnF: BJF discusses the idea that 1% of Sovereign Wealth would blow up the Ag ponzi in the 3.6.12 Silver Got Physical ? ~TVR |
| Crude Oil Spikes On Fundamentals And Technicals. Posted: 06 Mar 2012 08:53 PM PST Technically, oil has begun its normal spring season of growth and higher prices. Fundamentally, crude is higher on Middle Eastern worries and potential lack of supply. Supplies are fine but we see higher inflation on all commodities driven by fiat money printing-diluting currency values. Those trading oil in currencies other than the dollar will not have much US Dollar effect as some expect. The dollar remains the world's reserve currency and its inverse trade the Euro, is going weaker until its finally reduced to a pittance, or is wiped out. "Oil Rises to 9-Month High And Iran Says It Halts Europe Exports:Oil rose to a nine-month high in New York after Iran said it halted some crude exports and investors bet that fuel demand will increase as Europe moves closer to bailing out Greece." "Futures climbed as much as +2.1% for a fourth day of gains, the longest rising streak since December. Iran will supply crude to "new customers" instead of companies in the U.K. and France, the oil ministry's news website, Shana, said, citing Alireza Nikzad Rahbar, a spokesman. Prices also advanced as European finance ministers prepared to meet to discuss a 130 billion-Euro ($172 billion) aid package for Greece, the country's second rescue in less than two years." "The heightened level of tension surrounding Iran's nuclear program continues to support prices, as does satisfactory growth in the U.S. and China," said Christopher Bellew, a senior broker at Jefferies Bache Ltd. in London, who correctly predicted last week that the price of Brent crude would advance to $120 a barrel." "Iran's suspension of exports followed a warning by its oil minister that Tehran might preempt a European Union ban on purchases of the nation's crude planned to start July 1, Rahbar said without giving further details, according to the Shana report yesterday. The EU and U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran, the second-largest oil producer in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, in an attempt to halt its nuclear program." "EU nations bought a combined 18% of Iran's crude and condensate exports, or 452,000 barrels a day, in the first half of 2011, according to the most recent data on the website of the U.S. Energy Information administration. France purchased 2% of Iran's shipments, or 49,000 barrels a day, while the U.K. took less than 1%, the data showed." "The EU said it has sufficient supplies of oil and petroleum products to weather a disruption in Iranian supplies. Stockpiles are at 136 million tons or 120 days of consumption, "well above the 90-day minimum," Marlene Holzner, an EU spokeswoman, said today in an e-mailed statement. The continuity of supplies of crude oil and petroleum products to European consumers should therefore not be immediately affected, even in case of an abrupt halt of all imports from Iran," Holzner said." "Oil also increased with stocks after China cut reserve ratios at its banks to boost lending and economic growth as the country's housing market cools and the European debt crisis weighs on exports. The MSCI Asia Pacific index was up +0.8+ at 128 in Tokyo, extending the longest run of weekly gains since 2005. China accounted for about 11% of global oil demand in 2010 and the 27 EU member states consumed 16%, according to BP's annual Statistical Review of World Energy." "Hedge funds and other large speculators boosted their net- long position in crude futures to the highest level in nine months, according to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Managed-money bets that prices will rise, in futures and options combined, out-numbered short positions by 233,889 contracts in the week ended February 14, the Washington-based regulator said in its report on February 17. Net-long positions rose by 28,180 contracts, or 13.7%, from a week earlier." -Grant Smith and Yee Kai Pin 2-20-12 Bloomberg.net Watch for crude oil at $115-$120 by summer with $4.50 to $5.00 unleaded gasoline.
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| Digital Gold is the Game Changer Posted: 06 Mar 2012 08:05 PM PST Thiers' law states that good money will drive out bad money when market participants are truly free to decide which currency to accept and trade with. In a globally networked online world, free from national legal tender laws, Thiers' law could one day assert itself. |
| Select Gold, Silver Mid Caps for Near-Term Action: Bo Chew Posted: 06 Mar 2012 06:00 PM PST With high market volatility, running a small fund like the Magna Opportunity Fund, which seeks to deliver exceptional returns, requires nimble management. In this exclusive interview with The Gold... Visit the aureport.com for more information and for a free newsletter |
| Posted: 06 Mar 2012 05:26 PM PST |
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