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Wednesday, March 28, 2012

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Bernanke Sells The Gold Standard Short

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 06:46 AM PDT

By Paul Nathan:

Ben Bernanke has made several negative comments about the gold standard recently. In his lecture at George Washington University, Bernanke asserted that the gold standard is an inferior monetary system compared to the modern Federal Reserve System. So many erroneous points were made regarding the gold standard in his lecture that it would take a book on the subject to properly refute them. I've written such a book, The New Gold Standard, and I feel it is important that I point out some fatal flaws in Bernanke's argument.

First, let it be clear that I am not a Fed basher and fully support Ben Bernanke in trying to prevent a repeat of the Great Depression. I'm one of the few gold standard advocates who applauded the Fed's actions during our great financial crisis. And when it comes to the Fed's anti-deflationary monetary policy and its heroic acts as a lender


Complete Story »

Jim Sinclair Is Getting Out Of Dodge

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 06:31 AM PDT

Jim Sinclair Selling Connecticut Estate: Plans to Expatriate

from Silver Doctors:

The man who predicted gold would reach $1600 while it was trading below $300 and was ridiculed by nearly everyone, has placed his 34-acre Connecticut farm/ estate up for auction and plans to flee from the growing fascism in the US. Sinclair states on JSMineset that those who decide to stay will look back and recall his advice to leave the US come 2015-2017.

Like many, Sinclair can see the writing on the wall for the end of prosperity and freedom in America.

Clearly, putting one's 34-acre estate up for auction with plans of becoming an expatriate is not a small nor an easy decision. Full details of the Sinclair Farm/Estate Auction can be found below.

Click here for a PDF version

Read More @ SilverDoctors.com

Family Dollar Stores' CEO Discusses Q2 2012 Results - Earnings Call Transcript

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 06:30 AM PDT

Family Dollar Stores (FDO)

Q2 2012 Earnings Call

March 28, 2012 10:00 am ET

Executives

Kiley F. Rawlins - Vice President of Investor Relations & Communications

Howard R. Levine - Executive Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and Member of Equity Award Committee

Michael R. Bloom - President and Chief Operating Officer

Kenneth T. Smith - Chief Financial Officer, Principal Accounting Officer and Senior Vice President

Analysts

Aram Rubinson - Nomura Securities Co. Ltd., Research Division

Bernard Sosnick - Gilford Securities Inc., Research Division

Adrianne Shapira - Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Research Division

Stephen Shin - Morgan Stanley, Research Division

Laura A. Champine - Canaccord Genuity, Research Division

Meredith Adler - Barclays Capital, Research Division

Unknown Analyst

Deborah L. Weinswig - Citigroup Inc, Research Division

Matthew R. Boss - JP Morgan Chase & Co, Research Division

Scot Ciccarelli - RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Research Division

John Heinbockel - Guggenheim Securities, LLC, Research


Complete Story »

Hostile Bid For Magma Metals Will Not Suffice

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 06:27 AM PDT

By Felix Pinhasov:

Whether opportunistic or fair, a hostile takeover bid puts an acquisition target at a peculiar place - either find another buyer that will pay more, or give in to the offer.

On February 3, Panoramic Resources Limited (PANRF.PK), an Australian based nickel-gold miner, announced it is proceeding with a hostile takeover bid for Magma Metals Limited (MMTDF.PK), a junior resource company with assets in Canada and Australia. Under the offer, Magma shareholders will receive two Panoramic shares for every 17 Magma shares. The offer represented around 87 percent premium to the prior closing price of Magma shares, however, was it fair or opportunistic?

The offer is subject to conditions of which one is key: a minimum acceptance of the offer by 90 percent of shareholders (Panoramic already owned 9.34 percent of the company prior to the bid) of Magma Metals.

(Click charts to enlarge)

According to Panoramic Resources filing of


Complete Story »

Bob Chapman: Corzine Spends Weekend at Bernie's

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 06:26 AM PDT

From KerryLutz.com:

Bob Chapman joins us again today for our biweekly check-in. Since we've been doing the show together for almost a year, nothing much has changed, except that the elites are getting more and more brazen in their exploitative criminal enterprises. Bob thinks that Corzine maybe spending a weekend at Bernie's or perhaps even several years. While Corzine repeatedly claimed he had no idea where the money was, now it looks like he probably did.

Yet again, and again, and again gold and silver under attack. However, the system is cealrly moving to metals so you need to get there ahead of it. China doesn't have enough gold to back its currency; actually, very few countries do. So there's a scramble taking place by the banks to acquire gold at virtually any cost, regardless what the paper markets say the price is. But we'll know the true value of unbacked paper soon enough.

Much more @ KerryLutz.com or @ 347.460.LUTZ

Interview with The Silver Doctor

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 06:25 AM PDT

In this 25 minute interview, Jason Burack and Mo Dawoud of Wall St for Main St, LLC. interview "The Doc" from the up and coming Precious Metals Information website, Silver Doctors.

from WallStForMainSt:

~TVR

Auxilium Pharmaceuticals Has The Approvals; Can It Get The Revenue?

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 06:13 AM PDT

By Stephen Simpson:

FDA approval is undoubtedly a major event in the life of a biotech company, but it is only a part of the puzzle. Marketing an approved drug is a battle in its own right, as investors in Auxilium Pharmaceuticals (AUXL) know all too well.

The company has found it difficult to drive market acceptance of its Testim testosterone gel and Xiaflex injection for Dupuytren's contracture and expectations have come down markedly. While the company's current products could still have billion-dollar potential, investors need to be prepared for a long, difficult slog to realize that potential.

Testim Testing Patience

While the market for supplemental testerone gel in the U.S. has been growing nicely (from 15-25% a year, depending on whose estimates you accept), Auxilium's Testim has been something of a disappointment. Despite attractive pricing compared to Abbott Labs' (ABT) Androgel, Abbott still holds more than two-thirds of the market according to


Complete Story »

Lessons from the King of Blackjack

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 05:23 AM PDT

I picked up two new heroes last week. The first, amusingly enough, is named Jack.

Lieutenant Colonel John "Jack" Churchill, aka "Fighting Jack Churchill," aka "Mad Jack," was a British soldier in World War II.

"Mad Jack" was known for fighting with a longbow, arrows, and a Scottish broadsword.

In World War II!

His famous quote was, "Anyone who goes into action without his sword is improperly armed."

I'm not sure how that translates to markets. Maybe "Anyone who goes into a trade without his risk point is improperly armed."

But Mad Jack deserves recognition simply for being the ultimate gentleman badass — elegantly dispatching foes, Braveheart style, with his longbow, broadsword and top hat.

(Okay, maybe no top hat.)

The other guy did something of a more recent vintage:

Don Johnson — no relation to the Miami Vice guy — took $6 million in one night from the Atlantic City Tropicana casino. Not long before, he hit Caesars for $4 million and the Borgata for $5 million.

And he did it all playing blackjack.

The tale is fascinating. You can read it here: "The Man Who Broke Atlantic City" from, oddly enough, The Atlantic magazine. Here's an excerpt:

Dozens of spectators pressed against the glass of the high-roller pit. Inside, playing at a green-felt table opposite a black-vested dealer, a burly middle-aged man in a red cap and black Oregon State hoodie was wagering $100,000 a hand. Word spreads when the betting is that big. Johnson was on an amazing streak. The towers of chips stacked in front of him formed a colorful miniature skyline. His winning run had been picked up by the casino's watchful overhead cameras and drawn the close scrutiny of the pit bosses. In just one hand, he remembers, he won $800,000. In a three-hand sequence, he took $1.2 million.

You may think this is another "card counting" story. Some famous and successful traders, like Blair Hull in New Market Wizards, and more notably Ed Thorpe and Bill Gross, got their start counting cards at the blackjack table.

Later on, Ben Mezrich wrote a book called "Bringing Down the House" about an MIT blackjack team that made millions in Vegas.

(The book was later turned into a crappy movie with Kevin Spacey. I normally like Kevin Spacey, but this time he was slumming for a paycheck. Or so I heard. I read the book but missed the flick.)

Anyhow, when you hear about someone making millions at blackjack, you automatically think "card counting" — the spotter, the big player, doing a smash and grab on the casinos, that kind of thing.

But what is so fascinating about Don Johnson's multi-million dollar scores is, he didn't count cards (which would have gotten him thrown out anyway).

The edge he found was actually much more subtle, and brilliant, than that. Here is the money excerpt:

Johnson is very good at gambling, mainly because he's less willing to gamble than most. He does not just walk into a casino and start playing, which is what roughly 99 percent of customers do. This is, in his words, tantamount to "blindly throwing away money." The rules of the game are set to give the house a significant advantage. That doesn't mean you can't win playing by the standard house rules; people do win on occasion. But the vast majority of players lose, and the longer they play, the more they lose.

Sophisticated gamblers won't play by the standard rules. They negotiate. Because the casino values high rollers more than the average customer, it is willing to lessen its edge for them. It does this primarily by offering discounts, or "loss rebates." When a casino offers a discount of, say, 10 percent, that means if the player loses $100,000 at the blackjack table, he has to pay only $90,000. Beyond the usual high-roller perks, the casino might also sweeten the deal by staking the player a significant amount up front, offering thousands of dollars in free chips, just to get the ball rolling. But even in that scenario, Johnson won't play. By his reckoning, a few thousand in free chips plus a standard 10 percent discount just means that the casino is going to end up with slightly less of the player's money after a few hours of play. The player still loses.

But two years ago, Johnson says, the casinos started getting desperate. With their table-game revenues tanking and the number of whales diminishing, casino marketers began to compete more aggressively for the big spenders. After all, one high roller who has a bad night can determine whether a casino's table games finish a month in the red or in the black. Inside the casinos, this heightened the natural tension between the marketers, who are always pushing to sweeten the discounts, and the gaming managers, who want to maximize the house's statistical edge. But month after month of declining revenues strengthened the marketers' position. By late 2010, the discounts at some of the strapped Atlantic City casinos began creeping upward, as high as 20 percent.

"The casinos started accepting more risk, looking for a possible larger return," says Posner, the gaming-industry expert. "They tended to start swinging for the fences."

Johnson noticed.

"They began offering deals that nobody's ever seen in New Jersey history," he told me. "I'd never heard of anything like it in the world, not even for a player like [the late Australian media tycoon] Kerry Packer, who came in with a $20 million bank and was worth billions and billions."

When casinos started getting desperate, Johnson was perfectly poised to take advantage of them. He had the money to wager big, he had the skill to win, and he did not have enough of a reputation for the casinos to be wary of him. He was also, as the Trop's Tony Rodio puts it, "a cheap date." He wasn't interested in the high-end perks; he was interested in maximizing his odds of winning. For Johnson, the game began before he ever set foot in the casino.

Did you catch that? Here's the breakdown:

  • The odds on most casino games are unbeatable, as most everyone knows. (How else could they pay that $500,000 electric bill every month.)
  • "Whales," i.e. players willing to drop huge sums, are a casino's most profitable patrons by far — and the casino will bend over backwards to keep these whales happy. But only if they reliably lose.
  • When times get tough and revenues drop, casinos offer special deals to high rollers to try and pull them in — essentially saying "We will shave down our statistical edge against you, if you agree to come and play."

It's estimated that the house has a 2% advantage over the typical blackjack player.

That 2% edge is like a biased coinflip — big enough for the house to win all the money over time.

With 100% correct theoretical play — not counting cards, just playing every hand in mathematically optimal fashion — it's estimated that the house edge is whittled down to 0.5%.

Now you are getting very, very close to 50/50 odds… but that 0.5% is still enough for the house to make good.

Johnson figured out how to drive the house edge even lower. Through hard negotiations, he got it down to (by his estimate) just one quarter of one percent.

That's super close to dead even — but still not quite enough. And then came the coup de gras: With some negotiated loss discounts on top of that — agreements for the casino to reimburse a certain amount of if Johnson lost — he actually flipped the overall edge in his favor without the casino realizing it.

House management got played by a math shark:

So how did all these casinos end up giving Johnson what he himself describes as a "huge edge"? "I just think somebody missed the math when they did the numbers on it," he told an interviewer.

Johnson did not miss the math. For example, at the Trop, he was willing to play with a 20 percent discount after his losses hit $500,000, but only if the casino structured the rules of the game to shave away some of the house advantage. Johnson could calculate exactly how much of an advantage he would gain with each small adjustment in the rules of play. He won't say what all the adjustments were in the final e-mailed agreement with the Trop, but they included playing with a hand-shuffled six-deck shoe; the right to split and double down on up to four hands at once; and a "soft 17" (the player can draw another card on a hand totaling six plus an ace, counting the ace as either a one or an 11, while the dealer must stand, counting the ace as an 11). When Johnson and the Trop finally agreed, he had whittled the house edge down to one-fourth of 1 percent, by his figuring. In effect, he was playing a 50-50 game against the house, and with the discount, he was risking only 80 cents of every dollar he played. He had to pony up $1 million of his own money to start, but, as he would say later: "You'd never lose the million. If you got to [$500,000 in losses], you would stop and take your 20 percent discount. You'd owe them only $400,000."

In a 50-50 game, you're taking basically the same risk as the house, but if you get lucky and start out winning, you have little incentive to stop.

So when Johnson got far enough ahead in his winning sprees, he reasoned that he might as well keep playing. "I was already ahead of the property," he says. "So my philosophy at that point was that I can afford to take an additional risk here, because I'm battling with their money, using their discount against them."

Now I'm no blackjack player (and never will be). There are bigger games to play, with better odds and less headache (like poker for example!).

But from a trading perspective, what Don Johnson did is absolutely fantastic:

  • He waited patiently for a huge edge to develop (refusing to play on anything but his own terms).
  • He used observation, psychology and math to exploit one of the biggest strategy blunders in casino history (giving big loss rebates to an unknown high roller that wiped out the minimized house edge).
  • He protected his capital and ensured the risk would be minimal, even if he lost.
  • When he saw that he was ahead, he chose to pyramid — press his bets — and absolutely crushed the tables, to the point where they simply wouldn't let him play anymore.

That, friends and neighbors, is the epitome of trading excellence.

Finding an incredible reward to risk opportunity… cultivating your edge through careful analysis and bold decision making… stepping up with proper capitalization and risk control… and then maximizing that opportunity to the hilt.

And as a side note, how many "random walk" academic theoreticians would have said it's even possible, in the known universe as we know it, to make circa $5 million at the blackjack tables in one night… and repeat the feat twice more… and to do it all without counting cards?

"No way," they would say. But of course there was a way. Johnson did it.

Point being, it's no wonder the efficient market theorists have no clue — they cannot conceive of the opportunity sets that arise, or the dynamic features of the fitness landscape, when it comes to the sufficiently motivated and creative human mind.

The edges are out there… and you don't have to be a Don Johnson to find them.

JS (jack@mercenarytrader.com)

Japanese ETFs And Currency Hedging

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 05:12 AM PDT

By Tom Lydon:

Over the past few years, investors that have taken a chance on the iShares MSCI Japan Index (EWJ) have been rewarded by the appreciating yen against the U.S. dollar. As the yen has started to weaken, exchange traded funds that hedge foreign currency exposure could be a better choice.

"The near-term outlook for corporate Japan might finally be improving. Aside from the falling yen, other positive trends include an improving U.S. economy, relatively healthy Asian economies (a growing major export destination for Japanese products), and post-quake-related spending. These factors should support significantly better earnings in the next fiscal year (which ends March 2013)," Patricia Oey for Morningstar wrote in a recent article.

The Bank of Japan recently boosted its asset purchase program with an inflation target of 1%, creating a headwind for the Japanese yen. In turn, Japanese large-cap companies have spurred a rally because most of them are exporters


Complete Story »

Money Printing In Fractals

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 04:54 AM PDT

By Bruce Pile:

In "Money Printing's Biggest Show Of All Time" I looked at some characteristics of the quantitative easing mania beginning to grip our global central bankers. The bull market in creative debt we are witnessing in our day can be studied with fractals the same as other historic bull markets. I've written a series of articles on this, "The 64-Month Bull Market Fractal" and others, as it relates to gold. I can't go over that here, but I recommend you look at these articles to better understand this one. I also show some examples in "The Bull Market In Money Printing" at my blog. I would just like to present here a generic example of the 64-month fractal that is presented by David Nichols, a pioneer in this emerging science of market study. He came across these fractals as it relates to gold. But it is a pattern that is common


Complete Story »

Spain Follows Greece

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 04:14 AM PDT

By Delusional Economics, who is horrified at the state of economic commentary in Australia and is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from MacroBusiness.

Back in November last year I posted on my confusion over the jubilation shown by the citizens of Spain as they elected Mariano Rajoy as their new political leader. Mr Rajoy's strategy during the election campaign was to say very little about what he was actually intending to do to address his country's financial problems, preferring to simply let the incumbent party fall on its own sword so that he could take the reins. It became obvious soon after the election that, despite his party's best efforts to dodge questions, the intention was simply to continue with even more austerity.

Since that post I have continually warned that although Spain is obviously a different country to Greece in regards to how its problems have manifested, it still faces significant macroeconomic challenges that were not being correctly reflected in the bond market.

…. Spain which I consider to be the major unrecognised problem. The country has seen its yields tumble since December on the back of the ECB's 3-year LTRO but there hasn't been anything in the economic metrics of the country to support such action. Spain has 23% unemployment and still rising, the banking system is under-capitalised and still has unknown exposure to the country's housing market collapse. On top of that the rising unemployment rates is pushing up bad loans in the banking system to 7.4%, a 17-year high, and is still rising.

As I mentioned this week, since I made those comments bad loans have risen further , house prices have continued to fall and the government's debt position has worsened.

So it should come as little surprise to MacroBusiness readers that overnight the bank of Spain announced that the country has now fallen back into recession:

Spain's economy is suffering its second recession since 2009, the Bank of Spain said, obstructing the government's efforts to reorder public finances as it prepares the budget for this year.

"The most recent information for the start of 2012 confirms the prolongation of the contraction in output in the first quarter of this year," the Madrid-based central bank said in its monthly bulletin today.

Spain's gross domestic product declined 0.3 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, less than two years after emerging from the last recession. Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy will present his 2012 budget on March 30, amid growing pressure from investors and European peers to rein in the deficit, which was 8.5 percent of GDP last year.

And so, once again, we see failings of economic logic creeping back into Europe. The reason that Spain's economy is suffering is because the government sector is attempting to de-leverage in the face of the same behaviour from the private sector after the collapse of the Spanish housing market. You can obviously point to all sort of things that happened in the past and claim they never should have been allowed to occur. Where were the bank regulators? the macro-prudential oversight ? the fiscal policy in order to push against the housing bubble?. All good questions, but none of them change the fact that the Spanish economy is demonstrating its current behaviour because of the government sectors attempt to lower its deficit.

As I have explained previously in terms of national income, a country with a long running current account deficit has been borrowing goods and services from the rest of the world. In order to support this one, or both, of the non-external sectors of the economy will have expanding debt positions and due to this the economy tends to restructure around consumption over investment and production. Because the external sector is a net drain on capital from the country, the government and/or private sector must continually expand their debt in order to maintain economic growth.

In many cases this debt accumulation leads to asset bubbles, because the expanding debt drives asset prices which attracts speculation and in doing so accelerates the external borrowing. This in turn drives up national income, which in turn drives higher prices and further speculation. In the EuroZone, if either sector's debt is accumulating faster than its income then at some point in the future a limit will be reached and the rate of debt accumulation will fall. This leads to falling asset prices and national income, which ultimately leads to a crisis as accumulated debts start to sour.

This is what we have seen in Spain. The private sector accumulated large debts on the back foreign capital inflows leading to a housing bubble. This bubble has since collapsed leaving the private sector in a position of significant wealth loss and indebtedness, the banking system holding significant and growing levels of bad debts and the economy structured around the delivery of a failed industry.

Prices for Spanish homes fell 3.4 percent in the first quarter from the previous three months as the euro area's fourth-largest economy shrank and reduced mortgage lending crimped demand, according to Idealista.com.

Sellers cut asking prices for existing homes by an average of 2.9 percent in Barcelona, 1.9 percent in Madrid and 2.2 percent in Valencia, Idealista, Spain's largest property website, said in an e-mailed statement today.

"Prices have continued to fall due to difficulty in obtaining mortgage financing," said Fernando Encinar, co- founder of Idealista. "Legislation passed by the government in February to push banks to provision for real estate will result in similar declines over the remaining quarters of the year."

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is battling to turn around a slump in the real-estate industry. His government forecasts an economic contraction of 1.7 percent this year that will push Spain's unemployment rate, the European Union's highest, to 24.3 percent. The government passed a decree in February forcing Spanish banks to make deeper provisions for losses linked to real estate in an effort to push down prices and boost sales.

The growing unemployment is leading to a slowing of industrial production, which means that even though the country is importing less it also appears to be exporting less. Combine this with the interest payments on borrowings from the rest of the world and at this point Spain continues to run a current account deficit which, in the most basic terms, means Spain is still paying others more than it is being paid back. That is, the external sector is still in deficit.

So with the external sector in this state and the private sector unable and/or unwilling to take on additional debt as it attempt to mend its balance sheet after an 'asset shock', the only sector left to provide for the short fall in national income is the government sector. If it fails to do so then the economy will continue to shrink until a new balance is found between the sectors at some lower national income, and therefore GDP.

It may appear logical to you that this must occur, and I don't totally disagree, but that doesn't change the fact that under these circumstances there is simply no way that the private sector will be able to continue to make payments on the debts it has accumulated during the period of significantly higher income. This is a major unaddressed issue.

This is why we continue to see a rise in bad and doubtful debts in the Spanish banking system which, under direction from the Government, banks continue to merge.

Spain's biggest bank in terms of assets has been created after CaixaBank bought Banca Civica for 977m euros ($1.3bn, £817m). The government has amended laws to encourage mergers between banks, many of which collapsed following the bursting of the property bubble.

Banca Civica itself was formed by combining four troubled "cajas", or regional savings banks. The merged bank will have 14 million customers.

CaixaBank will have 342bn euros in combined assets, deposits of 179bn euros and loans totalling 231bn euros, the bank said. The CaixaBank deal will be completed by the third quarter and will generate cost savings and other benefits of 540m euros by 2014.

The problem is that, apart from economies of scale, merging banks doesn't actually help that much because impaired assets don't suddenly disappear. The other issue is that Spanish banks have been large users of the ECB's 3 year LTRO facility which means they have continued to load up their balance sheets with their own countries sovereign debt in order to participate in the carry trade.

It is quite possible, as I explained above, that the LTRO was masking the true value of those sovereign bonds and that Spanish banks have made a terrible decision by making those purchases. Here are the current 10 year yields for Spanish government bonds, courtesy of Bloomberg:

If yields continue to rise, and I see no reason to discount this possibility, then Spanish banks are eventually going to have to front-up more capital to cover those ECB loans. Where exactly is this going to come from?

And so I am starting to get a bit of deja vu.

The eurozone's public debt crisis is not over despite calmer financial markets this year, the OECD said on Tuesday, with a warning that the bloc's banks remain weak, debt levels are still rising and fiscal targets are far from assured.

As the eurozone heads into its second slump in just three years, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) said the 17-nation area needed ambitious economic reforms and there could be no room for complacency.

"Market confidence in euro area sovereign debt is fragile," the Paris-based economic think tank said in a report on the state of the eurozone's health. "The outlook for growth is unusually uncertain and depends critically on the resolution of the sovereign debt crisis," it said.

….

OECD chief Angel Gurria has called for "the mother of all firewalls" – some 1 trillion euros – but finance ministers look more likely to agree to a level nearer 700 billion euros.

I'm sure we've been here before.


Jeffrey Christian on Kitco News

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 04:10 AM PDT

Jeffrey Christian talks with Daniella Cambone Kitco News from 3.28.12.

~TVR

RNN: Gold and Silver Price Action

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 04:07 AM PDT

RNN Midday News for March 28th, discusses the current situation with Paper Gold and Silver pricing. The fact that Silver is the Achilles Heel for the Central Bankers is discussed. We feature an exclusive video of Ben Bernanke at George Washington University giving his Lecture Series about the Federal Reserve. Ben's lecture is disrupted when he receives a phone call from his Mom.

~TVR

The Gold Groundhog Grind

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 03:30 AM PDT

A very important objective change has taken place in the gold market. Its price is not moving above the resistance established in the 1600 to 1900 wide berth range. Its price is not moving below support in the same wide permitted range. When the gold price has approached the 1800 level recently, all manner of naked soldiers emerge with imaginery swords to whack the price down, to bring it under heel. The ruse has a high cost in the real world though, as the gold cartel has been forced to shed an enormous supply of gold as punishment for each naked short episode. The opponents to fraudulent controlled manipulated markets have emerged in force to respond. They fight from the East. They fight for a fair and equitable market. They are poking holes in the floor of the syndicate helm where legs fall through. Demand for the gold core has become acute with pitched battles. The financial presss reports none of it. In desperation, the cartel has conducted regular and routine raids of the Exchange Traded Funds, using shorted shares as the ticket at the rear dock window to cart off gold bars. What a corrupted bill of lading. Meanwhile, the major gold suppliers from mine output appear to be on the defensive or actually on the ropes. The deficit in silver only punctuates the precious metals shortage, as investment demand ramps up. The dutiful lapdog press prefers to tell the story of reduced jewelry demand, without noting how it emphatically signals the powerful bull market. The stories rely on the public being poor students of history. Still, the underlying forces behind the Gold & Silver bull markets remain a team of horses, the 0% cost of money and the debasement of currency in sovereign bond redemptions. The system is broken. Long live the new system that comes, based upon gold and barter, as the USDollar loses its vital ticket in global trade settlement.


GOLD REVOLVING DOOR BLEEDS GOLD

The battle has expanded. It is no longer solely on price. It has focus on draining the crooked camps of their physical gold. The latest wrinkle is the revelation that the derivative sector is as corrupt as the bond core, as banks are liable for hundreds of $trillions they cannot pay following years of hefty ripe fees taken in. The constant backdrop since 2008 is that the big Western banks are almost all hollow bankrupt insolvent and moribund operating zombies. The talk of tight lending standards is intended to conceal their deep insolvency and inability to serve as the economic credit engines. The lack adequate reserves to serve as system lenders. They are slowly having their gold removed, methodically bank by bank, as a consequence of their insolvency and ruin, aggravated by their derivative exposure. The newest agent in the game is the anonymous London Trader, whose activity has been nicely chronicled by King World News in a series of interviews. A central bank has been buying with both hands with lust for the yellow metal. What great news for gold investors, an enforcer.


The Gold Wars have significantly changed in the last two years in particular. From 2004 to 2009, the battle was to win a fair higher gold price. No longer. The war has turned the corner and reached an end game scenario. The objectives have changed. The tactics used have been altered. The upper hand by the Good Guys against the Crooked Boyz is evident. Some new confusion has entered the room. The objective is to remove gold from the bullion bank inventories and major bank inventories, all of it. This is a new battlefield in the war. Being a Zombie bank means losing all the gold in reserves, in a time hourglass process that reflects the reality of their balance sheets. By the end of 2013, no big bank will own any physical gold. They cannot defend against off-side positions in the sovereign bond market and the currency market. See what happened to JPMorgan in such a case, as it preyed upon MFGlobal accounts. Other big banks are losing all their gold from the balance sheet. UBS is a dead body on the field, their false story of a rogue trader having provided a little distraction. Few if any financial press stories are honestly told anymore. Certainly not the Libya story, where 144 tons of gold were confiscated as war booty by London. That supply filled some gaps but only temporarily.


Price implications are part of the sacrifice, as the Good Guys will help to push down the Gold price at times in order to kill a gold cartel player. Like right here, right now. Every couple months (the last being in January), a massive group of orders must be filled at a low price, for the benefit of the Good Guys, with an evil player in a vulnerable position, who knows he is dead and must forfeit its gold. The gold market stalls until the hairball is passed and another gold cartel player is gutted, carried off the battlefield under the cover of press darkness. Therefore the Gold price stays down until the order is completely filled, and only then will recover a couple hundred dollars in price per ounce, but only after this gold cartel player is killed off. The player will be identified later, in the fair market obituaries known to the internet journals. The tombstone epitaph will be carved by an Eastern hand. The US press would never report on a cartel bank having to sell $70 to $100 million worth of gold bullion to remove their big off-side position in bonds or currencies. The Good Guys have put in a series of escalating orders at low prices, from extremely well funded accounts whose war chests boast tens of $billions. The damage done to the gold cartel is immense, yet not adequately reported. The pattern showed itself in January, when after a similar event, the gold price moved from roughly 1600 to almost 1800. By February 29th, the cartel leaped on the day into position to conduct one of the largest naked short events in history. The press never seemed to catch wind, since paid not to notice.


RAIDERS OF THE ETF ARK

Nothing new on this Modus Operandi, used heavily for over three years. The game is easy. The ignorance is widespread. The gold analysts barely notice, certainly not the deaf dumb blind Adam Hamilton. The cartel wrote the GLD and SLV prospectus. They permit shorting of shares for some odd reason, yet pose in legitimacy. They permit satisfaction of short shares in the removal of bullion from inventory. They might not permit altered bar lists that bear no consistency, but that is convenient to cloud the loading docks from which bars are removed in high volume. The gold and silver supply in a pinch for cartel banks is the very metal that stooge nitwit naive folks believe they indirectly hold by exercising their lazy fingers to punch in GLD or SLV while eating at their desks. The smart investors, the intrepid winners, they own vaulted accounts of physical metal in safe distant lands, untouched by the vagaries of paper certificates, the ultimate in forged wealth. The ETFund investors are victims to be revealed at a later date, when those corrupted funds trade at a 25% discount to the spot price and the differential is blamed on something lame like accumulated management fees. The march of lawsuits will make for great theater, possibly more entertaining than the MFGlobal & JPMorgan criminal travesty. The metal taken from these Exchange Traded Funds will soon gather much attention, and high time!


SUPPLY REDUCED FROM THE FIELD

A comment will be made on only two camps, but significant camps. Australian gold production fell in year 2011. Supply is struggling to keep pace with surging physical demand. The dynamics are gradually changing as the gold price rises, making deeper and lower yielding deposits more attractive and profitable. The output might decline, but the profits have continued upward. The consulting firm Surbiton Associates conducted a study on Australian gold production. On a full year basis, for the year 2011, output went surprisingly into decline. Last year, Australia retained its position as the second largest gold producing country after China, but in comparison with 2010, Australian gold production dropped by two tonnes. In 2011 mining companies Down Under produced a total of 264 tonnes (=8.5 million troy oz) of gold. This occurred despite a higher average gold price, proof of my longstanding argument of an inelastic gold supply in the equation. Output does NOT respond to higher price. In 1997-1998 Australian gold production reached a peak of 318 tonnes, a record not matched in recent years despite more attractive prices. Production declined by 6% year-on-year in Q4. Despite the decline, most Australian mining companies increased their profits due to higher gold prices. Last year China produced a total of 300 tonnes. America is the third largest producer.  Couple the burgeoning investment demand with reduced supply to arrive at a simple conclusion that the gold price will rise in a powerful way in the next couple years.


South Africa has become a basket case, predictably though, since the marxist track record is so well established. Gold production has hit a 90-year low in the former gold giant. Multiple factors are involved, from gross mismanagement by the marxist clowns in charge, to labor interruption, and even to deposit depletion. The official blame is given to depletion, but it is a lame excuse actually. A real example is given in contradiction. The scale of the collapse is utterly incredible. The gold output from the former leader in South Africa has fallen by a factor of five or more in the last 40 years. The old Apartheid regime might have exaggerated the volume of their national gold production. In January, a sizeable 11.3% decline was realized, which eclipsed the already hefty December 8.2% gold output decline. The explanation attributed by the Jo-burg government ministry is that many of the country's biggest gold mining operations having reached the ends of their lives and have closed down. They say depletion has occurred. Don't believe it, nonsense. They fail to mention recent attempts to impose higher taxes on the cash cow industry. The higher gold price justifies deeper mining efforts and even lower yields, as seen in the Australian story.


A real example came in response from a gold trader source who has SA contacts. He offered details about a reclamation project that turned into riches, a success story. He wrote, "The white mine owners went underground for centuries, but totally ignored the placer/aluvia deposits. Those are very rich and plentiful. The big mining firms jump for joy if they get 3 to 5 grams per ton of dirt moved. We have a number of aluvia mines exclusively supplying refiner outfits that have 150 to 285 grams per ton. A South African mining engineer recently bought a closed shaft, deep mine from his former employer for peanuts. He turned the mine into an aluvia operation and produced 890 kilograms of nuggets and dust at 94% purity last year. He expects to bring it up to 2 tons this year and beyond for the next 10 years." So opportunities exist is these so-called shut down mines that are supposedly depleted. The Marxist morons cannot even assess what is under their noses, after they destroy an industry.

The global gold investment demand is growing exponentially, while physical gold production in several important nations is flat, in decline, or in South Africa's case in steep chronic decline due to horrendous mismanagement and stupidity. It all adds up to shortage of supply and much higher physical gold price. Observe the reduction since 1970 from 2600 tons of annual SA output, while the SA share of global output has fallen from 80% to 15%. Marxist morons do what they do best, ruin industries amidst elevated crowd support and noise from the dumbest sections of society.

SILVER DEFICIT CHART

Mine output for silver is running a losing battle. Notice how silver demand in 2005 was greater than in 2011. However, the silver price was around $9 per oz a full seven years ago. Higher price does not translate into reduced demand, even four times higher price! It might result in more recycling of scrap and recovery of grandma's silverware from the hope chest though.

The zinger factor is investment demand. Notice the dark green segment on the rise, powerfully so in 2009 after the Lehman, Fannie, and AIG disasters. These were Titanic sink events following in delayed fashion the Pearl Harbor event of 2001. Investment demand has at least tripled from 2005 and 2006 to today. The same surge is seen in coin demand, shown in the darker gray bar segment. Conclude that reduced mine output will come against fast growing investment demand, to produce an upward price spike in silver. Just a matter of time. Actually time is necessary to remover the crooked players who sell silver contracts without the benefit of collateral or metal, with the full permission and blessing of the USDept Treasury, which operates on a leash from Wall Street. Of course, the motive is to keep America strong. For the purchase of exciting Tennessee oceanfront property, enter the room to the left.

GROUNDHOG GOLD PRICE REDUX

The repeated episodes of naked short ambush in price takedown, followed by depletion of gold cartel member banks, followed by swift rising price, all to be replayed in two months, is a pattern made evident. Most within the gold community have little clue of the depletion, except for the London Trader accounts barely heard. The motive for the naked short illicit ambush was clear. On the week of February 29th, the central banks poured $1.2 trillion in funny money into the banking system. To offset the powerful monetary hyper inflation, they sold 22 million oz of gold without the metal. The Bernanke comments this week gave lift to gold. He and Mario Draghi and Mervyn King, along with the other central bank chorus, have no choice except to keep the monetary press running. They begin to comprehend how the economies do not respond to the supposed 0% stimulus, when in fact it kills capital. They must recapitalize the big banks. My guess is that the coordinated Greek solution is not much of a solution, merely a patch job with a focus on covering the newest black hole in the derivative market by pitching paper money at the big banks. The next $trillion joins the previous several $trillions in a great debasement of the USDollar, the Euro, and the British Pound. The Dollar Swap Facilities have been abused to the hilt. The hidden nugget lies in Germany, where vast rescue funds have been replenished for the expressed purpose of aiding their big banks, should the nation depart from the Euro currency. Imagine all that bad debt from the PIGS pen to absorb. The European Monetary Union is doomed. Look for France to be the Lord of the Flies. Great disruption cometh to the FOREX currency market. Big gains lie ahead for Gold.

As the cycle plays out, up and down, up and down, the market forces have set up a potential for a strong reversal with momentum off a familiar reliable pattern. The Head & Shoulders reversal pattern is quite reliable to forecast high breakout prices. Look to the Eastern Coalition to eventually resist the next paper ambush that has contributed to the ruin of the COMEX integrity. Let's watch JPMorgan squirm before Congress. Will it be soft lobs or hard line with prosecution for high financial crimes? Sometime in the near future, the day will come when JPMorgan is brought to trial for $trillion fraud, $billion fraud, and $million fraud, all of which has brought the nation to the brink of systemic failure.

by Jim Willie CB March 28, 2012

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Gold and Silver as Standards of Value

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 02:00 AM PDT

Lysander Spooner

The Sunday Night Paper Silver Massacre – Revisited

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 01:30 AM PDT

Andy Hoffman

Davincij15: Silver Update

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 12:18 AM PDT

The always entertaining Davincij15 with views and prediction for Ag.

from davincij15:

~TVR

Andy Hoffman talks with Alt Investors

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 12:17 AM PDT

Rahul from AltInvestors.com talks with Andy Hoffman about variety of issues including short term gold/silver fundamentals, the govt-media-bank complex, and the implications of an Israeli/Iran strike.

from AltInvestorshangout:
Part One

Part Two

More @ AltInvestors.com

50,000 to spend. Where and on which PM should I spend it?

Posted: 28 Mar 2012 12:15 AM PDT

I value the opinions of the GIMers. Please help me make a good choice. Thanks

Goldman Gold Bullish: $1,940/oz. in 12 Months

Posted: 27 Mar 2012 11:31 PM PDT

Gold traded sideways in Asia prior to seeing slight falls which continued in Europe prior to a bounce to over $1,684/oz. and then further selling saw gold fall back to $1,676/oz.

Current Gold & Oil Trading Patterns Unfolding

Posted: 27 Mar 2012 11:14 PM PDT

By: Chris Vermeulen – www.GoldAndOilGuy.com

The past two months we have seen all the focus from traders and investors be on the equities market. And rightly so and stocks run higher and higher. But there are two commodities that look ready to explode being gold and oil (actually three if you count silver).

Below are the charts of gold futures and crude oil 4 hour charts. Each candle stick is 4 hours allows us to look back 1-2 months while still being able to see all the intraday price action (pivot highs, pivot lows, strong volume spikes and if they were buyers or sellers…).

The 4 hour chart is one time frame most traders overlook but from my experience I find it to be the best one for spotting day trades, momentum trades and swing trades which pack a powerful yes quick punch.

As you can see below with the annotated charts both gold and silver are setting up for higher prices in the next 1-2 weeks from a technical point of view. That being said we may see a couple days of weakness first before they start moving up again.

4 Hour Momentum Charts of Gold & Oil:

Watch Full Video Analysis:

By: Chris Vermeulen – www.GoldAndOilGuy.com

Turkey Once Again Proves That Gold is First and Foremost Money

Posted: 27 Mar 2012 09:09 PM PDT

Yesterday in Gold and Silver

The smallish rally that started in London didn't last long...and certainly didn't make it over the $1,700 spot price level.  The high of the day [$1,698.50 spot] came at the 3:00 p.m. BST London p.m. gold fix...which was 10:00 a.m. in New York.  It was all down hill from there...with the gold price getting sold off in two small stages...and closing virtually on its low.

Gold closed at $1,680.60 spot...down $9.30 on the day.  Because of roll-overs out of the April contract, gross volume was monstrous.  But once all the switches were subtracted, net volume turned out to be a tiny 70,000 contracts.

As it turned out, silver's high of the day came about twenty minutes before I hit the 'send' button on Tuesday's column...around 10 a.m. British Summer Time...with a secondary high at the London p.m. gold fix.

That was the last time on Tuesday that silver had a $33 price handle...as it was quickly sold off from there.  Silver closed at $32.59 spot...down exactly two bits on the day.  Net volume was pretty skinny...around 27,000 contracts.

The dollar index, which had opened the Tuesday trading day in the Far East around the 78.90 level, added a bit over twenty basis points during the next twenty-four hours...and closed Tuesday at the 79.15 mark.  Nothing to see here, folks...please move along.

It should come as no surprise that the high of the day in the gold stocks came at the London p.m. gold fix...and that is the standout feature on this graph.  From there, the shares got sold off in sync with the gold price.  The HUI finished down 1.40%...barely off its low of the day.

The silver stocks didn't do any better...and Nick Laird's Silver Sentiment Index closed down 1.16%.

(Click on image to enlarge)

The CME's Daily Delivery Report showed that zero gold contracts along with 51 silver contracts were posted for delivery on Thursday.  In silver it was JPMorgan on the short/issuer side with all 51 contracts...and the Bank of Nova Scotia being the largest long/stopper with 41 contracts.  For the first time in about four months, Jefferies was nowhere to be found.

The GLD ETF showed that an authorized participant withdrew a rather small 67,995 troy ounces...and there were no reported changes in SLV.

The U.S. Mint reported selling 25,000 silver eagles...and that was it.

Over at the Comex-approved depositories on Monday, they reported receiving 921,251 ounces of silver...and shipped 613,960 ounces out the door.  The link to that action is here.

Here's an interesting chart that Washington state reader S.A. sent me yesterday.  It's the median net worth of the 35 and younger vs. the 65 and older crowd over a 25-year period...adjusted for inflation.

Shortly after I received the above, reader Bob Fitzwilson sent me the Zero Hedge article that this chart came from.  It's headlined "Guest Post: The Chart Of The Decade"...and the link is here.

Washington state reader S.A.'s second graph needs no further explanation from me...as its contents are self evident after a few seconds of study.

I have slightly fewer stories today, so I hope you have the time to sift through most of them.

With net volumes at extremely low levels...especially in gold...it was a very quiet trading day yesterday.
Central banks controlling advance of gold, silver, fund manager Fitzwilson says. Gold, Silver, Oil, Global Turmoil & Quiet Markets: Rick Rule. Big Brother wants your Facebook password.

Critical Reads

MF Global's Top Lawyer Will Break Her Silence

MF Global's top lawyer is expected to break her five-month silence on Wednesday to tell Congress that she was unaware of a gaping shortfall in customer money until hours before the brokerage firm filed for bankruptcy on Oct. 31.

Laurie Ferber, MF Global's general counsel, was expected to tell a House panel that she "had no reason to believe" that the firm had raided customer accounts to meet its own obligations, according to a copy of her prepared testimony. While Ms. Ferber learned of a shortfall in customer money in the afternoon of Oct. 30, she said she believed it to be an accounting error.

"My impression throughout the afternoon and late into the evening was that the apparent deficit was a reconciliation issue and did not represent an actual shortfall in customer funds," she planned to tell the oversight panel of the House Financial Services Committee.

This story was posted over at The New York Times website late on Monday night...and I thank reader Phil Barlett for sending it along.  The link is here.

MF Global Executive Saw Early Warning Sign on Customer Money

An internal MF Global document suggested that the firm was putting customer money at risk days before its bankruptcy filing, an executive said in prepared testimony that was released on Tuesday for a Congressional hearing on Wednesday.

The document showed "a substantial deficit" in the amount of firm money used to protect customer accounts, according to the testimony by Christine Serwinski, the firm's North American chief financial officer. Futures firms typically keep a cushion of cash in customer accounts as a buffer to cover losses in case of volatile market swings.

The deficit, revealed in a report on Thursday, Oct. 27, did not in and of itself violate federal laws, she said. But Ms. Serwinski, who was on vacation during MF Global's final week, had stated "clearly and repeatedly" that the firm should keep a surplus of cash to protect customer money.

This New York Times story was posted on their website at noon yesterday...and is Phil Barlett's second offering in a row.  The link is here.

House votes overwhelmingly to ease financial rules

To the chagrin of consumer groups, the House gave overwhelming bipartisan approval Monday to two bills easing requirements that President Barack Obama's overhaul of financial regulations impose on some exotic financial instruments blamed for helping trigger the 2008 financial crisis.

Lawmakers of both parties said they were relaxing rules that would otherwise inhibit the ability of companies to manage the risks of prices and investments, ultimately reducing their profitability and job creation. Consumer groups said legislators were bowing to the interests of their corporate and finance-world contributors and taking steps that might prove harmful to the public.

The instruments are called derivatives, assets tied to the value of commodities like petroleum or fluctuating economic variables like interest rates.

This AP story was picked up by yahoo.com on Monday...and I thank reader Washington state reader Duane Zelinka for sending it along.  I consider it worth running through...and the link is here.

S&P: Home Prices Fall to New Low

U.S. home prices fell again in January, dropping to their lowest level since the housing crash occurred, according to the latest Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices. 

Home prices in the index of 20 major U.S. cities showed a monthly decline of 0.8 percent in January, dropping to their lowest level since the beginning of 2003. All told, average home prices are now down 34.4 percent since peaking in 2006.

Reader Eddie Costik, who sent me this story had this to add in the covering e-mail..."I can tell you, having been in the lumber business for 37 years, that the housing market will never come back. I know what it's like in this small market here in Pennsylvania. I can only imagine what's happening around the rest of the country. Even though I'm retired from the business, I stay in touch with key contractor friends and my old suppliers. I can report that no one in the industry is busy and wholesalers are either sitting with a lot of inventory, or running lean and mean. No one is making any money. Retailers are giving stuff away just to stay busy which affects margins and wholesales are cannibalizing each others territories...stealing business to stay alive! So don't believe any of the B.S. coming out of any politician's mouth."

This story was posted over a the mortgageloan.com website yesterday...and the link is here.

Big Brother Wants Your Facebook Password

If you want to become a state trooper in Virginia, you should probably delete any indelicate information you have on Facebook. During the job interview process, the Virginia State Police requires all applicants to sign into Facebook, Twitter, and any social-networking site to which they regularly post information in front of an administrator.

"You sign a waiver, then there's a laptop and you go to these sites and your interviewer reviews your information," says Corinne Geller, spokeswoman for the Virginia State Police. "It's a virtual character check as much as the rest of the process is a physical background check." Geller says the practice has been around for only three months and is just one of many ways the state makes sure its law enforcement officials are ethically sound. (Potential troopers also have to submit to a polygraph test).

Virginia is not the only state to do this; other police departments and government entities have similar policies. Until recently, the city of Bozeman, Mont., and the Maryland Division of Correction both asked job applicants to hand over their passwords. Each has discontinued the practice—in Maryland's case it was after a prison security guard named Robert Collins contacted the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and complained. Now they go for the over-the-shoulder approach that Virginia favors. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has a unique method: It requires all student athletes to friend a designated coach or administrative official on Facebook so that he or she can monitor their pages.

This businessweek.com story was sent to me by West Virginia Reader Elliot Simon...and the link to this must read story is here.

Europe Urged to Increase Firewall to a Trillion Euros

The European Union should increase its financial firewall to about 1 trillion euros to restore market confidence in the euro zone and prevent the spread of fiscal contagion, the head of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Ángel Gurría, said on Tuesday.

Mr. Gurría's comments came a day after Germany dropped its opposition to increasing the Continent's total bailout capacity to more than 690 billion euros, or about $920 billion. That could help stop the spread of the crisis to large economies like Spain's.

"The mother of all firewalls should be in place," Mr. Gurría said at a news conference in Brussels. But he also said the current level of political commitment to the funds was not enough.

This is another story from The New York Times yesterday...and another offering from Phil Barlett.  The link is here.

Parties Reach Compromise: German Parliament to Get Greater Say in Euro Bailouts

Under a compromise reached between the ruling parties and the opposition on Tuesday, Germany's parliament will decide on future measures to release billions of euros to bail out troubled EU member states. The deal fulfills a requirement for greater parliamentary powers stipulated by the country's highest court.

According to legislation drafted by the ruling conservative Christian Democrats and Free Democrats, along with the opposition Social Democrats and Greens, the whole parliament will decide on bailouts, even in urgent cases, contrary to earlier plans for a small parliamentary panel to give swift approval.

This story was posted over at the German website spiegel.de yesterday...and I thank Roy Stephens for bringing it to our attention.  The link is here.

A Lesson For Europe: Why Iceland Won't Join The Euro

In a brief but as usual succinct statement, MEP Daniel Hannan points out the country that decided to say no to establishment-rules and stuck to its guns by taking losses, devaluing its currency, and growing its way out of its pit of despair.

The eloquent Englishman notes Iceland's current enviable position in terms of not just growth but Debt to GDP and proffers upon his European Parliamentarian peers that perhaps, just perhaps, there is a lesson in here for all European governments (cough Greece/Portugal cough)...as 67% of Icelanders are now against joining the Euro.

This 1:20 minute video is posted over at zerohedge.com...and I thank Dutch reader Victor de Waal for bringing it to my attention.  It's a must watch...and the link is here.

Will euro last? Let's see what William Hill says

Treasury forecasters rely on odds calculated by William Hill, the bookmaker, to assess the likelihood of another economic collapse, a top official has revealed.

In a candid admission to MPs, Professor Steve Nickell said he turned to the betting shop to find out whether Euro is likely to fail in the course of his work at the Office of Budget Responsibility.

Professor Nickell is one of the independent experts brought in by George Osborne, the Chancellor, to make sure Britain's economic estimates are robust.

You just can't make this stuff up!  This story was posted in The Telegraph late on Monday evening...and it's worth the read.  I thank Roy Stephens for sending this story to us...and the link is here.

Central banks controlling advance of gold, silver, fund manager Fitzwilson says

Fund manager Robert Fitzwilson gave King World News his impression of central bank intervention in the monetary metals markets: "There is a limit that central banks have imposed on the price of gold and silver. When it gets to that limit, the central banks pile in and drive the price of gold and silver back down. The smart central banks then buy the bullion at incredibly cheap and subsidized prices. ... The advance in gold and silver is being managed."

This blog was posted over at the KWN website on Monday...and then appeared in this GATA dispatch from yesterday.  The link is here.

Turkey increasingly recognizes gold as money

Posted: 27 Mar 2012 09:09 PM PDT

Zero Hedge's Tyler Durden calls attention to Turkey's increasing recognition that gold is money, with an important place in the country's banking system.

The Zero Hedge post is headlined "Turkey Once Again Proves that Gold Is First and Foremost Money".  I borrowed the introduction from a GATA release...and I thank reader 'David in California' for being the first one through the door with this story. As you've probably already surmised, this is a must read...and the link is here.

Three King World News Blogs/Interviews

Posted: 27 Mar 2012 09:09 PM PDT

The first blog is with Caesar Bryan, manager of the Gabelli gold fund, and is headlined "Watch Gold as Europe Headed into Crisis Again".  The second blog is with Rick Rule.  Its entitled "Gold, Silver, Oil, Global Turmoil & Quiet Markets".  Lastly is this audio interview with Jim Sinclair.  I posted the blog on this

read more

Central banks controlling advance of gold, silver, fund manager Fitzwilson says

Posted: 27 Mar 2012 09:09 PM PDT

Fund manager Robert Fitzwilson gave King World News his impression of central bank intervention in the monetary metals markets: "There is a limit that central banks have imposed on the price of gold and silver. When it gets to that limit, the central banks pile in and drive the price of gold and silver back down. The smart central banks then buy the bullion at incredibly cheap and subsidized prices. ... The advance in gold and silver is being managed."

This blog was posted over at the KWN website on Monday...and then appeared in this GATA dispatch from yesterday.  The link is here.

Will euro last? Let’s see what William Hill says

Posted: 27 Mar 2012 09:09 PM PDT

Treasury forecasters rely on odds calculated by William Hill, the bookmaker, to assess the likelihood of another economic collapse, a top official has revealed.

In a candid admission to MPs, Professor Steve Nickell said he turned to the betting shop to find out whether Euro is likely to fail in the course of his work at the Office of Budget Responsibility.

Professor Nickell is one of the independent experts brought in by George Osborne, the Chancellor, to make sure Britain's economic estimates are robust.

read more

600k Ounces of Silver Withdrawn from ScotiaMocatta

Posted: 27 Mar 2012 09:03 PM PDT

..Show up in HSBC Vaults Monday

from Silver Doctors:

More apparent shenanigans in COMEX silver warehouses Monday, as a nearly identical 600,000 ounce withdrawal from Scotia's registered vault showed up in Brink's eligible ledger. No need to worry however, as the CME reported the transfers down to the thousandth of an ounce, removing any doubts over the credibility of their reports.

At least the 3-card Monte will be accounted for properly- minus the 1.4 million ounces still missing from MFG clients.

 Read More @ SilverDoctors.com

LISTEN: Marcus Grubb of the World Gold Council

Posted: 27 Mar 2012 08:50 PM PDT

IN this interview Marcus Grubb shares his thoughts on the record gold supply and demand numbers for 2011, the recent pullback in prices and more.

from Tekoa DaSilva of bullmarketthinking.com:

I had the chance to reconnect last week with Marcus Grubb, Managing Director of Investment with the World Gold Council. It was another exciting interview (last commentary available here), as the World Gold Council's influence and access to market data on gold is arguably deeper than any other organization globally.

During the interview, we spoke about the council's recent publication of the "Gold Demand Trends" report published for Q4 and full year 2011 (click here to access the report). Marcus shared his thoughts on the record gold supply and demand numbers for 2011, the recent pullback in prices due to U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's recent statements, and exciting global "blue-sky" potential for gold consumption in the coming years.

More @ bullmarketthinking.com

Fukushima: More Media Blackout than Ron Paul

Posted: 27 Mar 2012 07:09 PM PDT

Fukushima Bio-Plume Currents

First and foremost, this illustration, from ASR, is not a radiation plume.It is a biological matter plume, as free-floating material (fish eggs, algae, plankton, plant life, flotsam) present in the seawater would be the method by which some material will spread. The illustration is a probability heat map, not a radioactive concentration heat map; however, logically, a correlation should be drawn.

By now everyone knows that Japan has admitted that fission reactions at its Fukushima nuclear plant, wrecked by last year's earthquake and tsunami, are restarting, and that boric acid is being injected into at least one reactor to control the rate at which neutrons can be absorbed, slowing the process. Japan is importing more boric acid from South Korea, and that was the end of the story. Unfortunately, for Japan and for Earth itself, that is not where the story ends.

Description: 
Fukushima disaster accelerating Japanese economic collapse, therefore global systemic crisis

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Fatal Flaws and Opportunities in Gold Investing: Brent Cook

Posted: 27 Mar 2012 07:00 PM PDT

Brent Cook, editor of Exploration Insights, describes the past 15 years of change in gold, copper and iron. In this exclusive interview with The Gold Report, he shares what he sees as the fatal flaws...

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