Gold World News Flash |
- International Forecaster March 2012 (#9) - Gold, Silver, Economy + More
- Market rigging gets too obvious even for Bill Buckler and Jim Grant
- Silver outperforms the S&P 500 and gold in Q1
- Market Rigging Gets Too Obvious
- Savings, Investment, and the Keynesian Preference
- Romney Says: Russia Number One Enemy – We Say: Debt
- David Morgan with The Doc: Cartel Wearing Out All But the Most Diehard Silver Investors
- Should Investors Activate Gold and Silver Airbags?
- Jim Grant – Will Open Office of Unintended Consequences
- GOLD & SILVER REPORT: South Carolina Office of the Treasurer Concludes Banking Cartel Has Engaged in Illegality and “Artificial Price Suppression”
- In two interviews Biderman stresses bailouts, market rigging
- The Muppets Are Confused How Goldman Is Both Bullish And Bearish On Stocks At The Same Time
- Winners of Great Panther Silver Miners Challenge
- This Past Week in Gold
- GATA's Ed Steer interviewed by Metallwoche about gold manipulation
- South Carolina state treasurer's report notes gold and silver price suppression
- Until This is Fixed... There Will Be No Recovery
- Chris Martenson Interviews Charles Biderman: The Problem With Rigged Markets
- Bernanke - 'The Fed never makes mistakes'
- Ty Andros is Mad as Hell 30.Mar.2012
- Gold Blossoming in Colombia
- Savings, investment and the Keynesian preference
- Rotation into Gold Miners?
- Will the Stock Market and U.S. Dollar Situation Affect Gold?
- 7 Deadliest Sins Causing The American Empire Collapse
| International Forecaster March 2012 (#9) - Gold, Silver, Economy + More Posted: 01 Apr 2012 03:31 AM PDT We lie, you swear to it. That up until now has been the creed of elitist Wall Street. That may be changing to it is every man for himself. We, after months of MF Global lies, have now been told that during the last days of MF, its CEO Jon Corzine, was in direct contact with JP Morgan Chase and arranged the transfer of funds from MF to JPM. This is contrary to what he told Congress and the world. Could it be that the wall of silence on Wall Street is about to be broken?
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| Market rigging gets too obvious even for Bill Buckler and Jim Grant Posted: 01 Apr 2012 03:12 AM PDT Nothing has been more disappointing and frustrating to GATA in its nearly 13 years of fighting gold and silver market manipulation than the refusal to acknowledge the issue by many of those who have affected to be devoted friends of the monetary metals and free markets.
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| Silver outperforms the S&P 500 and gold in Q1 Posted: 01 Apr 2012 02:05 AM PDT US stocks enjoyed their biggest first quarter rise since 1998 with the S&P 500 up 12 per cent to above 1,400. But the price of silver was up 16 per cent in Q1. Gold trailed behind with a 6.3 per cent increase.
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| Market Rigging Gets Too Obvious Posted: 31 Mar 2012 04:54 PM PDT by Chris Powell, GATA, GoldSeek.com:
Nothing has been more disappointing and frustrating to GATA in its nearly 13 years of fighting gold and silver market manipulation than the refusal to acknowledge the issue by many of those who have affected to be devoted friends of the monetary metals and free markets. GATA Chairman Bill Murphy long has called this the Not Invented Here Syndrome, a matter of the intellectual vanity of prima donnas who can't bring themselves to admit that mere upstarts might discover anything profound in the prima donnas' field. From 45 years in journalism the experience of your secretary/treasurer is that most endeavors are full of people whose success has made them so arrogant that they think that nothing could be happening if they don't know about it already. (While journalism inclines its practitioners to the exactly opposite position — to realize every day how much more they don't know — it doesn't necessarily give them the courage to report what they learn.) So how delightful it is to discover that two people of great prominence in the gold community have come round — one completely, one mostly — even if it has taken a long time.
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| Savings, Investment, and the Keynesian Preference Posted: 31 Mar 2012 03:25 PM PDT by Alasdair Macleod, Gold Money:
This causes no concern to mainstream economists. Instead they advocate that savings should support government spending, rather than paying down consumer debt. They regard the second option as recessionary folly. Meanwhile they believe investment can be stimulated through low interest rates with a helping hand from government. The effect of our current predicament in most advanced economies has been to separate savings from industrial investment. This is unwise.
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| Romney Says: Russia Number One Enemy – We Say: Debt Posted: 31 Mar 2012 02:05 PM PDT from GoldSilver.com:
What is the United State's number enemy, geopolitical fallout or something far more sinister? Russian President Dmitry Medvedev took aim at Mitt Romney on Tuesday, telling the GOP frontrunner to "look at his watch," and dismissing his comments that Russia was an enemy of the United States. "We are in 2012 and not the mid-1970′s," Medvedev said Tuesday, on the last day of a nuclear security summit in Asia. His comment came a day after Romney called Russia the United States' "number one geopolitical foe." The pounding of the drums of war is common to both Obama and Romney, so no matter who is elected, we are sure to see gold maintain support when international conflict is held as imminent. After all, how does a nation pay for more concurrent wars if it is bankrupt? Easy, just like all wars have been paid for, from the war against the Vietnamese onward – we print the currency.
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| David Morgan with The Doc: Cartel Wearing Out All But the Most Diehard Silver Investors Posted: 31 Mar 2012 01:40 PM PDT from Silver Doctors: Do you have the fortitude to be right and sit tight? The Doc sat down with silver analyst and guru David Morgan from Silver-Investor.com regarding silver's supply/demand fundamentals, the implications of an Iran invasion on silver, the leap-day take-down, and whether position limits in silver will ever be enforced by the CFTC.
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| Should Investors Activate Gold and Silver Airbags? Posted: 31 Mar 2012 01:35 PM PDT by Eric McWhinnie Wall St Cheat Sheet:
Earlier this week, a fully loaded Brinks truck carrying between $3 million and $5 million in uncirculated loonies and toonies crashed on a snow covered highway in Ontario, Canada. The truck crossed the centre line and slammed into a rock, launching the coins in every direction. The accident is an unfortunate event, but can serve as an analogy about today's fragile fiat currencies. The current financial system serves as a global high-speed economic highway that is filled with many obstacles, including debt, bubbles and politics. Being the world's reserve currency, the U.S. dollar is the truck that is one good bump away from losing control and crashing, causing a chaotic financial wreck. The U.S. official national debt now stands at over $15.6 trillion, representing about $140,000 per taxpayer. The record debt amount continues to increase as Washington gridlock is stronger than ever. The debt ceiling, which was raised last August to $16.394 trillion and initially expected to last well into 2013, is now estimated by Zero Hedge to be reached in September of this year. When Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, was recently asked how much he would raise the debt ceiling if given only one more request, he responded, "No idea." After $20 trillion and $50 trillion were floated as ideas, he finally conceded, "It would be a lot. It would make you uncomfortable." The dire situation in Washington and the dollar is causing states to prepare for a bumpy road ahead. Read More @ WallStCheatSheet.com
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| Jim Grant – Will Open Office of Unintended Consequences Posted: 31 Mar 2012 10:54 AM PDT
Jim Grant (Grant's Interest Rate Observer) tells CNBC's Maria Bartiromo he would set up a new Office of Unintended Consequences – just as soon as the Hon. Ron Paul is elected President and appoints Grant as new Fed Chairman. (Only partly tongue in cheek we reckon.) Grant says that the Federal Reserve got out of the central banking business a long time ago and is now in the central planning business. (More.)
Continued... *** The affable Grant points out that the purpose of a market is to discover true value, true prices through the price mechanism. Thanks to Fed intervention markets are very distorted. "The Fed systematically overrides the price mechanism," Grant said. "The Fed is an anti-capitalism business, which is not what the founders intended," he added. Grant likens the signals being sent by the markets today to the reflections one sees in a hall of mirrors. "What we see is not what we think we see, it's what is distorted through central bank manipulation." So what should the Fed do now? Grant allowed: "They ought to get out of the manipulation business. It (the Fed) ought to begin to normalize interest rates, they ought to forswear intervention in markets, with an eye to improving the macro economy. They ought to let prices tell us something about the nature of value and stop imposing itself between buyers and sellers in the marketplace." He continues to favor gold and especially gold and silver stocks, which he says have not kept up with the metals. He also believes that if the Supreme Court overturns Obamacare in June or if the Republicans retake the White House it would be "hugely bullish – because it would be a step in the restoration of something like capitalism in this country, I say." More in the video above. If the video is not visible try the link below. Source: CNBC Thanks to Vulture C. C. for the link.
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| Posted: 31 Mar 2012 09:13 AM PDT by SGT In 2011, after researching the State's options of investing in gold and silver, The Office of the Treasurer of the State of South Carolina quietly released a ground-breaking "Gold and Silver Investments" report. This incredible report is a must-read for any one interested in gold and silver metals ownership or in understanding the criminality now inherent throughout the fractional-reserve banking and fractional-reserve bullion banking systems. The report specifically cites the rampant illegality which now dominates the banking and bullion banking systems, noting that major components of current banking practices are in direct conflict with South Carolina laws. And in only six pages, one of the highest offices in state government validates all of the most significant precious metals manipulation claims made over the years by GATA, Bill Murphy, Chris Powell, Adrian Douglas, Ted Butler, Eric Sprott and the rest of us in the precious metals news and information community. The author of the report, clearly understands the illegal and deliberate nature of the banking cartel's price suppression schemes and ultimately concludes that investing in gold and silver is therefore too risky for a State government. In the report the Office of the Treasury specifically cites the illegal nature of the fractional reserve bullion banking and COMEX schemes. The author specifically notes that COMEX and bullion banking practices are in direct conflict with the South Carolina Code of Laws, 1976 SECTIONS 11-9-660. On page 1 of its 'Gold & Silver Investments' Report the Office of the State Treasurer reports the following:
Unfortunately (and we would advise the office of the Treasurer to re-examine this specific opportunity), the author concludes that investing directly in physical gold and silver coins and bars is not a practical option for the State given the storage, cost and security issues associated with the ownership of physical bullion. From page 3:
But it gets better… also on page 3 of the report, the Office of the Treasurer also concludes that investing in gold and silver via certificates of deposit is risky because the practice of fractional-reserve bullion banking is so rampant that one cannot count on the "allocated gold certificates" in the event of a banking run. The author concludes that physical gold may not be available in physical form to deliver to those holding allocated gold certificates.
The report goes on to conclude that exposure to gold and silver via Derivatives is equally foolhardy:
The informed author of this report concludes the expose by including a historical Gold/Silver Ratio chart on page 6. By including this chart the author covertly seems to be suggesting, "Though I can't recommend investing in gold and silver based on the many inherent risks within the system, we really ought to figure out a way to take advantage of this opportunity any way. Especially silver."
You can find this incredible report titled "Proviso 89.145 Gold/Silver Investment report to the General Assembly", and read it for yourself here.
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| In two interviews Biderman stresses bailouts, market rigging Posted: 31 Mar 2012 07:30 AM PDT 3:36p ET Saturday, March 31, 2012 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Market analyst and financial letter writer Charles Biderman this week gave two good interviews concentrating on bailouts and market rigging, one with Dan Ameduri of Future Money Trends -- http://futuremoneytrends.com/index.php/category-table/157-charles-biderm... -- and the other with financial writer Chris Martenson: http://www.chrismartenson.com/blog/charles-biderman-problem-rigged-marke... But Martenson himself may have offered the most incisive comment. Introducing Biderman, Martenson said: "The issues before us as investors are as daunting today as they can possibly be, and my position has been that today we are all speculators, not investors, because we have been placed in the uncomfortable position of trying to guess what the central banks are going to do next. Also weighing on investors today is the fact that our official data is what I call fuzzy. That is, it is often statistically massaged to make things look a little bit rosier than they otherwise might." That may be another way of putting what participants in GATA's Washington conference heard four years ago: "There are no markets anymore, just interventions": CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Free Month Subscription to Market Force Analysis for GATA Supporters Market Force Analysis is a unique, patent-pending approach to commodity market analysis. An algorithm has been developed to extract supply and demand weightings from futures market data. The difference between supply and demand is the market imbalance that is called "market force," so named because it is what drives price. It brings clarity to past market action and predicts market trends. Because it is derived from accurate futures market data it is not subject to the errors inherent in macro-level estimates of supply and demand. Learn more here: https://marketforceanalysis.com/About_MFA.html Market Force Analysis focuses on short-term (15 days) and medium-term price predictions to help both short-term traders and long-term investors understand market moves and benefit from the generated prediction of prices. To read subscriber comments that show how much the service is appreciated, visit: https://marketforceanalysis.com/Testimonials.html The MFA service has been pioneered by market analyst and Gold Anti-Trust Action board member and researcher Adrian Douglas. The Market Force Analysis premium service provides: -- A bi-weekly report. -- Access to the MFA hot list of junior mining stocks derived from analysis of more than 800 mining stocks. The MFA hot list consistently outperforms well-known mining share indices like the HUI, GDX, and GDXJ. -- E-mail alerts about actionable trades. -- E-mail updates with important information. To obtain your 1-month free trial subscription to the Market Force Analysis letter, e-mail info@marketforceanalysis.com and put "MFA Free Trial" in the subject field. Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of our London conference in August 2011 or our Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT A Rare Opportunity with Collectible Gold Coins Sovereign debt problems in the United States as well as Europe will worsen this year. The mainstream financial media may never report about the likely inflationary consequences of bailouts and "quantitative easing," nor are they likely ever to recommend tangible assets for financial protection. But at Swiss America Trading Corp. we believe that it is no longer a luxury to own gold and silver coins but rather a necessity. At the moment the public is showing little interest in Double Eagle U.S. $20 gold coins, so the price premiums above the intrinsic melt values (.9675 ounce of gold in each coin) are historically low. The ratio of price to bullion content for these coins has been 2:1 but today it is only about 1.25:1. This is a real opportunity. So give us a call or e-mail and we will be glad to discuss the potential of these coins and how to use a ratio strategy to increase your gold ounces without money out of pocket. In the January edition of his Early Warning Report, Richard Maybury writes: "As they are inherently in very limited supply, I believe that high-quality numismatics will become tulips, eventually rising a thousand percent or more in real terms, when money velocity goes into mid-second stage. In late stage, who knows -- 2,000 percent? 3,000?" All inquiries will receive without charge (while supplies last) our latest book, "The Inflation Deception," as well as our newsletter "Real Money Perspectives." -- Tim Murphy, trmurphy@swissamerica.com -- Fred Goldstein, figoldstein@swissamerica.com Telephone: 1-800-289-2646 Swiss America Trading Corp., 15018 North Tatum Blvd., Phoenix, AZ 85032
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| The Muppets Are Confused How Goldman Is Both Bullish And Bearish On Stocks At The Same Time Posted: 31 Mar 2012 04:47 AM PDT Ten days ago, Goldman's Peter Oppenheimer published the "Long Good Buy, The Case For Equities", a big research piece, full of pretty charts and witty bullets, which actively urged the rotation out of bonds and into stocks, yet not only marked the peak of the market so far, but drew ridicule even from the likes of CNBC. More importantly, it has generated a plethora of questions from the muppets (aka Goldman clients) themselves, who are wondering how Goldman can be both uber bullish, and yet still have a 1250 S&P 2012 YE price target, as per the other strategist, David Kostin ("We expect the S&P 500 will trade at 1325 by mid-year (-5.6%) and 1250 in 12 months (-10.9%)."), or said otherwise, just how is it that Goldman is having its cake and eating it too? Below is David Kostin's attempt to justify how the firm can pull a Dennis Gartman (and virtually any other newsletter and book seller - after all what better way to say one was right than to have all bases covered) be both bearish and bullish at the same time. From Goldman's US Weekly Kickstart Last week, Peter Oppenheimer and our European Portfolio Strategy team published "The Long Good Buy; the Case for Equities" in which they conclude equities are attractive for three reasons: (1) Periods of poor real returns in equities tend to be followed by periods of significantly higher returns; (2) equity valuation appears low versus bonds; and (3) an elevated equity risk premium (ERP) supports a long-term positive view for stocks. We agree with the long-term thesis. Investors willing to position for a normalized growth and risk environment over the next decade should interpret high ERP and low implied growth as an investment opportunity. However, path matters and our price targets reflect short-term tactical risks. We believe equity valuation will remain below average over the next year due to stagnant economic growth and high uncertainty. Both views can comfortably co-exist in the context of different investment horizons. S&P 500 currently trades above fair value on a variety of metrics although the index is attractively valued relative to bond yields given the low interest rate environment. Equity investors fall into many categories and we believe views are currently most differentiated between equity-focused vs. cross-asset investors and short- vs. long-term investment horizons. Investors that actively invest in multiple asset classes and/or can look past near-term risks are generally more positive on US equities. Last week we published three US Equity Views reports on valuation of equities vs. bonds, dividends, and S&P 500 today vs. 2007 peak. We address below questions clients raised most frequently: Q: How do global markets currently trade relative to their previous peaks? A: S&P 500 trades 10% below its 2007 peak, Asia-Pacific ex-Japan is 26% below, Europe is 35% below and Japan is 53% below. TOPIX is 70% below its 1989 level. The level of earnings has recovered and stands at new highs in both US and Asia-Pacific ex-Japan. However, earnings are well below 2007 peaks in Europe (15%) and Japan (50%). In contrast, the expected earnings growth rates increased in Japan (13% to 50%) and are unchanged in Europe at 8%. Forward EPS growth rates have declined in US (13% to 9%) and Asia-Pacific ex-Japan (17% to 13%). Every region has de-rated and remains below 2007 peak levels. Asia Pacific ex-Japan has experienced the largest P/E de-rating despite having the largest forward EPS growth. Earnings grew by 18% but the forward multiple fell by 34% to 11.4x from 17.3x. MXAPJ is 26% below its 2007 peak. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 is 35% below its 2007 peak. Performance can be attributed to both multiple contraction and lower earnings given the expected forward earnings growth has remained unchanged. In Japan, TOPIX sits 53% below the 2007 high. The collapse in earnings, which are 50% below the 2007 "peak," and multiple contraction of 28% are negative impacts to the Japan market level. Relative to the 1989 peak, earnings are flat, but the multiple has compressed by 73%. Q: Do buybacks and issuance affect 2007 and 2012 EPS comparisons? A: S&P 500 EPS is the sum of all constituent earnings divided by the index divisor. Company-level earnings are calculated as the EPS of the firm multiplied by the company's float-adjusted share count. The earnings contribution of a firm earning $2 per share with 50 shares is the same as a company earning $1 per share with 100 shares. The divisor is also adjusted on share changes, and this can affect index-level EPS. We can remove this by calculating earnings growth rather than EPS growth. S&P 500 LTM earnings are 9% above the 2007 level while EPS grew 6%. Q: Earnings and margins recovered. Where are sales relative to peak? A: S&P 500 trailing four quarter EPS and margins peaked in 2Q 2007 but sales, both including and excluding Financials and Utilities, peaked 15 months later in 3Q 2008. Full-year 2011 sales excluding Financials and Utilities are 16% above 2Q 2007 levels but 1% below 2008 peak levels. Q: Isn't EPS growth just the result of higher margins from cost cutting? A: Comparison of full-year 2011 earnings, sales, and margins versus 2007 peak suggests higher sales, not margin expansion, drove the majority of EPS growth. This is because sales and earnings (excluding Financials and Utilities) peaked together in 3Q 2008. Full-year 2011 sales remain just below 2008 levels, but earnings reached new highs, driven by margin expansion. Q: Despite the valuation-driven rally, the S&P 500 trades below the 10-year average P/E. How is the market valued using other metrics? A: With a forward P/E of 13.2x, S&P 500 trades one standard deviation below its 10-year average. S&P 500 trades between 0.5 and 1 standard deviations attractive using most valuation metrics we track (see Exhibit 4). Historical average valuation would imply a rise in S&P 500 of about 14% to 1600. However, we don't view mean reversion as appropriate given margins have started to fall from record levels and US GDP is growing below trend.
And now you know why one can be both bullish and bearish, while soaking up million in soft-dollars.
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| Winners of Great Panther Silver Miners Challenge Posted: 31 Mar 2012 04:26 AM PDT Well, it's been a tough six months for mining investors, and equally so for the 100+ contestants for the 2011-12 Great Panther Silver Miners Challenge. Despite the extremely profitable (and in many cases record) results for these mining companies, we have seen the sector generally grinding lower – in the worst stretch for these miners since the Crash of '08. However, even with the strong "headwinds" that these miners faced, both of our top two performers managed to more than double in price over our six month contest, while the 3rd place finisher posted a very respectable 97% gain. Behind them, ten other miners picked by our contestants recorded gains of 40% or more over these six months. Of course none of this would have been possible without the generous sponsorship of our contest by Great Panther Silver. Not only did Great Panther cover the cost of our contest prizes, but they actually provided the prizes themselves – out of their own inventory of silver bullion products. As a reminder to our contestants (and for any who missed the original announcement of our contest), here is a list of the prizes being awarded to our contestants:
And now to end the suspense, here are our top-three mining companies and the contestants who picked them: 1st place: Unigold Inc ("Valero") 2nd place: Silvercrest Mines ("Investorquest") 3rd place: Rye Patch Gold ("Pioneerurban") | ||||
| Posted: 31 Mar 2012 04:24 AM PDT Summary: Long term - on major sell signal. Short term - on sell signals. A major sell signal is now confirmed, therefore, upon the next cycle bottom, only GLD and CEF remain tradable as long as their configs remain bullish. Read More...
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| GATA's Ed Steer interviewed by Metallwoche about gold manipulation Posted: 31 Mar 2012 04:10 AM PDT 12:10p ET Saturday, March 31, 2012 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: GATA Board of Directors member Ed Steer, editor of Ed Steer's Gold & Silver Daily letter for Casey Research, was interviewed about gold and silver market manipulation last week by the German Internet site Metallwoche. Audio of the interview is 30 minutes long but both audio and full text of the interview are posted at Metallwoche here: http://www.metallwoche.de/ed-steer-the-show-in-commodities-on-the-comex/ CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Prophecy Platinum (TSXV: NKL) and Ursa Major Minerals Company Press Release VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada -- Prophecy Platinum Corp. (TSX-V: NKL, OTC-QX: PNIKF, Frankfurt: P94P) and Ursa Major Minerals Inc. have signed a binding letter of agreement for a business combination through a proposed all-share transaction. In doing so Prophecy and Ursa have acted at arm's length and the transaction has been negotiated at arm's length. Prophecy will issue one common share in exchange for every 25 outstanding common shares of Ursa. Ursa options and warrants will be exchanged for options and warrants of Prophecy on an agreed schedule. Prophecy's offer represents a value of about $0.15 per each common share of Ursa based on Prophecy's share price of $3.70 as at March 1, representing a premium of 130 percent to Ursa's March 1 closing price of $0.065. Prophecy is to subscribe for $1 million common shares of Ursa by way of private placement financing at $0.06 per share, subject to regulatory approval. Upon placement completion, John Lee and Greg Hall, current Prophecy directors, will be appointed to Ursa's board. Prophecy thus will become a mid-tier resource company with a robust and -- The fully permitted open-pit Shakespeare PGM-Ni-Cu mine close to Sudbury, Ontario, infrastructure with near-term production capabilities. -- The flagship Wellgreen (Yukon) PGM-Ni-Cu project with more than 10 million ounces of Pt-Pd-Au inferred resource. Drilling is under way and a preliminary economic assessment study is pending. -- Manitoba's Lynn Lake Ni-Cu project with more than 262 million pounds Ni and 138 million pounds Cu measured and indicated. For the complete announcement, please visit Prophecy Platinum's Internet site here: http://www.prophecyplat.com/news_2012_mar02_prophecy_platinum_ursa_major... Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of our London conference in August 2011 or our Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Sona Discovers Potential High-Grade Gold Mineralization From a Company Press Release VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- With its latest surface diamond drilling program at its 100-percent-owned, formerly producing Blackdome gold mine in southern British Columbia, Sona Resources Corp. has discovered a potentially high-grade gold-mineralized area, with one hole intersecting 13.6 grams of gold in 1.5 meters of core drilling. "We intersected a promising new mineralized zone, and we feel optimistic about the assay results," says Sona's president and CEO, John P. Thompson. "We have undertaken an aggressive exploration program that has tested a number of target zones. Our discovery of this new gold-bearing structure is significant, and it represents a positive development for the company." Sona aims to bring its permitted Blackdome mill back into production over the next year and a half, at a rate of 200 tonnes per day, with feed from the formerly producing Blackdome mine and the nearby Elizabeth gold deposit property. A positive preliminary economic assessment by Micon International Ltd., based on a gold price of $950 per ounce over eight years, has estimated a cash cost of $208 per tonne milled, or $686 per gold ounce recovered. For the company's complete press release, please visit: http://www.sonaresources.com/_resources/news/SONA_NR18_2011-opt.pdf
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| South Carolina state treasurer's report notes gold and silver price suppression Posted: 31 Mar 2012 03:51 AM PDT 11:51a ET Saturday, March 31, 2012 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold (and Silver): Thanks to Christian Garcia of GoldSilver.com for calling attention to the report recently prepared by the office of South Carolina State Treasurer Curtis M. Loftis Jr., at the direction of the state legislature, about the advisability of investing state funds in gold and silver. A GoldSilver.com news video citing the report is posted at YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll-9un7IIfw&lc=hkdJx_zazqJq7sp0G5SgJSAYjS... The state treasurer's office seems to have discovered GATA's work and to have fully adopted our conclusions, as it tells the legislature: "Similar to other commodities, the value of gold and silver is determined by supply and demand, as well as speculation. The Federal Reserve, London Bullion Market Association, JP Morgan Chase, and HSCB Holdings have practiced fractional-reserve banking and engaged in naked short selling causing artificial price suppression." The state treasurer's report is posted at his Internet site here: http://www.treasurer.sc.gov/Documents/Proviso%2089%20145.pdf And, just in case, at GATA's Internet site here: http://www.gata.org/files/SouthCarolinaTreasurerReportOnGold&Silver-2012... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer ADVERTISEMENT Golden Phoenix Discusses Royalty Mining Growth Strategy Golden Phoenix Minerals Inc. has discussed its royalty mining growth strategy on the Fox Business Network program "21st Century Business" with host Jackie Bales. Golden Phoenix's director of corporate communications, Robert Ian, told how the company narrows its focus to project generation and future royalty streams. He explained why Golden Phoenix believes it's better to own joint-venture interests in several producing mines instead of full exposure to just one project. "21st Century Business" has been airing for 15 years. Previous hosts have included Gen. Alexander Haig, Gen.l Norman Schwarzkopf, and Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Golden Phoenix appeared as paid programming on this broadcast. To view the program with Golden Phoenix, please visit Golden Phoenix's Internet site here: http://www.goldenphoenix.us/company-videos.html Support GATA by purchasing DVDs of our London conference in August 2011 or our Dawson City conference in August 2006: http://www.goldrush21.com/order.html Or by purchasing a colorful GATA T-shirt: Or a colorful poster of GATA's full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2009: http://gata.org/node/wallstreetjournal Help keep GATA going GATA is a civil rights and educational organization based in the United States and tax-exempt under the U.S. Internal Revenue Code. Its e-mail dispatches are free, and you can subscribe at: To contribute to GATA, please visit: ADVERTISEMENT Be Part of a Chance to Discover Northaven Resources Corp. (TSX-V:NTV) is advancing five gold and silver projects in highly prospective and politically stable British Columbia, Canada. Check out the exploration program on our Allco gold/silver project : -- A large (13,000 hectare) property, covering more than 15 square kilometers of a regional mineralized trend just 3km from a recently announced 1.2-million-ounce gold and 15-million-ounce silver deposit. -- The property hosts historic high-grade silver workings and many mineral showings as well as former mines at the property's northern and southern boundaries. -- A deep-penetrating airborne geophysics survey has just been completed on the entire property and neighboring deposits and its results are eagerly awaited. To learn more about the Allco property or Northaven's other gold and silver projects, please visit: http://www.northavenresources.com Or call Northaven CEO Allen Leschert at 604-696-3600.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now | ||||
| Until This is Fixed... There Will Be No Recovery Posted: 31 Mar 2012 02:58 AM PDT
A few weeks ago I penned a series of articles relating to the “cancerous” policies of the Federal Reserve and how said policies are killing the basic principles of Democratic Capitalism.
Of those basic principles, one stands out as being absolutely vital in order for business to thrive. That principle is the principle of trust.
Without trust, Democratic Capitalism cannot function. One’s clients remain one’s clients because of trust. Business partnerships are based on trust. Indeed, trust is the underlying principle of every capitalist action whether it be:
Etc.
This trust is established by reputation and by the legal system. The former is earned by businesspeople through consistent work and repeated examples of being trustworthy and producing items of quality. The latter is in place to punish those individuals/ businesses who are fraudulent or breaking the law.
When the Financial Crisis hit in 2008, trust was damaged in a tremendous way. We found out in clear terms that many companies, mainly financials, were lying about their balance sheets. We also found out that many companies were actively engaged in fraud (as they themselves admitted in their Congressional testimony after the fact).
None of these companies or these individuals were punished or prosecuted. Instead, they were given taxpayer money. The argument for this was economic in nature: “if we do not save these businesses, the entire system will collapse.”
This argument completely underestimates both the strength of capitalism and the entrepreneurial spirit in the US. The entire system would collapse and we’d never recover? Really? Dust off your history books, even a brief review of US history shows that this country has been in a perpetual state of collapse and renewal ever since commerce began in this country.
There has never been a collapse from which the US did not recover nor has there ever been a boom that has not been followed by some sort of collapse. That is the nature of Democratic Capitalism: boom and bust.
Businesses collapse and new businesses take their place. This would have happened in 2008 had we let the fraudulent banks go under. Yes, we would have experienced severe short-term pain, but there were hundreds of smaller regional banks that didn’t commit fraud and which could have grown to replace those larger entities that should have failed. We’ve just witnessed a process quite similar to this in Iceland, which did the following between when a Crisis hit it in 2008 and 2011:
Today, just a few years later, Iceland is posting GDP growth of 2.9%: above that of both the EU and the developed world in general. In plain terms, the short-term pain combined with moves that reestablished trust in the financial system (holding those who broke the law accountable) created a solid foundation for Iceland’s recovery.
In the US, we instead chose to undermine capitalism and the economic cycle. In the process we’ve undermined trust in the system. Until this is remedied there will be not REAL recovery.
Best Regards,
Graham Summers
PS. For more market commentary and economic analysis, swing by www.gainspainscapital.com. We offer several FREE Special Reports on how to navigate the market and preserve your wealth.
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| Chris Martenson Interviews Charles Biderman: The Problem With Rigged Markets Posted: 31 Mar 2012 02:36 AM PDT Submitted by Chris Martenson Charles Biderman: The Problem With Rigged Markets "Even Wile E. Coyote had to come back down to earth sooner or later", says Charles Biderman, founder of TrimTabs Investment Research. In his opinion, the prices of stocks and bonds - enabled by excessive financialization of our economy and central bank money printing - have been defying gravity for a dangerously long time. If we continue to do all we can to preserve the status quo -- to maintain "phony" asset price levels as Charles calls them -- at best we will restrict overall growth and handicap the economy. The problem isn't so much the unfairness and malinvestment evident in a rigged market. As Charles shrewdly asks: what happens when the market becomes un-rigged? We've never experienced the unwinding of an entirely manipulated financial system, so we can't predict for sure. But at this point, a painful collapse of our markets and loss of the US dollar as the world's reserve currency seem entirely plausible. On Market Manipulation
On the Future of the Dollar
On the Challenge Facing Investors
Click the play button below to listen to Chris' interview with Charles Biderman (runtime 36m:10s). iTunes: Play/Download/Subscribe to the Podcast Or click here to read the full transcript.
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| Bernanke - 'The Fed never makes mistakes' Posted: 31 Mar 2012 02:33 AM PDT Everyone makes mistakes. The best thing one can do is face up to the facts and acknowledge the error; fix the problem to the extent possible and do what is necessary to avoid repeating the mistake. Ben Bernanke's inability to admit his (and his predecessor's) mistakes condemns the Fed to repeat the sins of the past. In this week's lecture tour at George Washington U, Bernanke spoke to the students about the causes of the economic collapse of 2008. In his presentation, he identified most of the bad actors and the mistakes that those institutions made. He pointed his finger at: -Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -The big banks and Wall Street wire houses -Mortgage brokers -AIG He blamed: -Sub Prime mortgages -Excessive leverage -Banks’ failure to adequately monitor and manage risks -Excessive reliance on short?term funding -Increased use of exotic financial instruments that concentrated risk Bernanke never acknowledged that the Fed contributed to the mess of 2008. If Ben wasn't flat out lying, his head is buried very deeply in the sand. In response to the recession of 2001 the Fed allowed money supply to increase by 30% in 4 years:
The Fed also manipulated interest rates. It drove short-tem rates (Federal Funds) to 1% in 2004.
 When Greenspan tried to normalize interest rates in 2005 he was forced to raise the Fed Funds rate 13 times. This sharp increase was a significant factor in blowing the top off of the real estate market. Greenspan’s Fed contributed to the housing bubble. The Fed's tightening brought on the bust that it helped create. So where are we today on the critical issues that brought about the collapse of 2008? Money supply is zooming:  . 
Inflation is chugging along:
 .
 .
 Interest rates are pegged at zero: . 
. The Fed’s balance sheet is bloated: .  . The government is still making junk mortgages; FHFA is guaranteeing loans at 97.5% of value. .  . Consumers are borrowing more. Debt has grown 6% in the past year, three times the rate of growth in the economy. .  . Student loan balances have been exploding the. They passed the Trillion mark this week: .  . The savings rate is the lowest it’s been since the crisis. Who would want to save money when the return on savings is negative? .  . Junk bonds (and other forms of exotic debt) are back in style, and investors are lapping up the swill up: .  . Funny money credit is back. This outfit is lending money to all comers. I love it when the lady says, “Yes it is expensive”. (11 second video) . . It’s not just expensive money, It’s crazy. Consider this chart of pricing: .  . If you want $10,000, the cost will be $52,343 in interest. If you only need a quick $500, these nice folks will give to you, but the cost will be $1800 or 340%%. For the Chairman of the Fed to stand before all those GWU students and avoid accepting a share of the responsibility for what happened in 2008 is a gross re-write of history. That he does not see that he is making the same mistakes that the Fed made in every prior economic cycle is sad. The audience should have booed him. I am. . 
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| Ty Andros is Mad as Hell 30.Mar.2012 Posted: 31 Mar 2012 01:54 AM PDT Ty Andros of www.Traderview.com and www.TedBits.com is mad as hell and he's not gonna take it anymore. The corruption of the government has reached epidemic proportions. The economy is tanking way more and faster than virtually anyone is aware of. And the political situation is a complete disaster. There's little if any hope that Washington is going to get its act together, certainly not within our lifetimes. So where does that leave you? You to invest what assets you have left into things that will survive the current economic system and its impending collapse. And if you're thinking precious metals, that's a great start. Go to KerryLutz.com or go to our new site FinancialSurvivalNetwork.com to sign up for the instant free Financial Survival Toolkit and free weekly newsletter.
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| Posted: 31 Mar 2012 12:45 AM PDT Impressed by Colombia as a country and as a setting for exciting mining and geological opportunities, Paul Harris relocated from England, by way of Chile, and hasn't looked back. In an exclusive interview with The Gold Report, the publisher of the Colombia Gold Letter offers hope for the near future. The Gold Report: Colombia's mining and energy sectors received about $12 billion (B) in foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2011, making it the largest recipient of FDI relative to gross domestic product of any country in Latin America. Although there are excellent geological potential and dozens of junior mining companies exploring Colombia, not one of those juniors has successfully permitted a mine. Does the country risk losing some of that free-flowing capital if it doesn't start to permit mines?
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| Savings, investment and the Keynesian preference Posted: 30 Mar 2012 11:26 PM PDT The following article has been posted at GoldMoney, here. Savings, investment, and the Keynesian preference2012-MAR-31
 This causes no concern to mainstream economists. Instead they advocate that savings should support government spending, rather than paying down consumer debt. They regard the second option as recessionary folly. Meanwhile they believe investment can be stimulated through low interest rates with a helping hand from government. The effect of our current predicament in most advanced economies has been to separate savings from industrial investment. This is unwise. Healthy economies depend on the right mix of consumer demand and capital investment. You can carry on with the provision of currently available goods and services only to a degree, and a business that neglects capital investment will simply lose sales at a rate that increases with time. It must continually invest in new and improved production, a process that can be delayed in the face of short-term uncertainty, but never abandoned. However, instead of being available to fund productive investment, the necessary savings are being diverted to finance government deficits, so are being extinguished in current spending. This is the Keynesian preference to savings being invested in future production to produce sustainable returns. Those that think this is only the result of our circumstances are being overly generous. It is the direct intervention recommended by Keynes no less, in his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. At the end of Chapter 12 he writes, “I expect to see the State…taking an ever greater responsibility for directly organising investment…” Indeed, interventionist governments have always been ready to do just that. But instead of interposing themselves between saver and industry, their deficits now absorb more than embattled savers can provide. Central banks are replacing these savings with low-cost new money, but are surprised that private investment remains depressed. They think the only criteria for investment is cost of borrowing. This is because governments, in common with their economic advisors, can only understand the economy as it is. In other words they are working from static assumptions. But static economies, like businesses that neglect their capital investment, gradually wither away. This was the basic experience of communism. The reason an economy progresses is because it is dynamic: consumers constantly seek new satisfactions and entrepreneurs try to anticipate them. And if you tell an over-taxed consumer to mortgage his future to the government, no one should be surprised if the dynamism of an economy withers on the vine. So long as governments think they can replace genuine savings with an increase in the quantities of money and credit, they are ensuring no economic progress. Any evidence of economic growth is statistical only, reflecting the creation of extra money by the state; but a GDP number that is puffed up by newly-issued fiat currency should not be confused with a stagnant economy. The conclusion is simple: there is no salvation in supporting a static economy at the expense of the dynamic laissez-faire alternative. Tags: debt crisis, economics, fiat currency, Keynesianism Alasdair Macleod 
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| Posted: 30 Mar 2012 07:00 PM PDT To state the obvious, the gold miners definitely are the forgotten sector of the rally from the October 2011 low in the S&P 500 at 1074.77 to this week's high at 1419.15. This rally amounts to a 32% climb, compared to the performance of the Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF (GDX), which is down 2.7% since its October 2011 low.
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| Will the Stock Market and U.S. Dollar Situation Affect Gold? Posted: 30 Mar 2012 06:57 PM PDT This Wednesday Goldman Sachs reiterated its position that investors should buy gold. Goldman Sachs remains bullish on the precious metal, citing the familiar fundamentals-- low interest rates and subdued economic growth as catalysts for gold prices to rise this year. Goldman economists expect another round of quantitative easing from the Federal Reserve will weigh on the U.S. dollar and push gold higher. From Goldman:
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| 7 Deadliest Sins Causing The American Empire Collapse Posted: 30 Mar 2012 05:50 PM PDT  Many people in America are still holding on to "hope and change" that the Obama administration would save them and the world from a devastating financial collapse. Gerald Celente has called out to the American people to stop believing in hope and change and immediately get into survival mode. As there is no recovery going on in the US (despite everything that the government is telling the people), many economic analysts predict that the American Empire is going to collapse very soon, and the collapse will be as severe as the Zimbabwean collapse. Another forecast say that America is turning into a third world nation, some even mentioned it will become as bad as the Indonesian economy under Soeharto.There is so much that we can learn from people who understand the economy, are economic analysts and/ or are successful business people themselves, such as Robert Kiyosaki, Peter Schiff, Jim Rogers, Gerald Celente and others, I have listed the 7 sins of the American government that have caused them to fall into a great collapse. Here they are Deadliest Sin #1 – Giving Authority and Sovereignty of America into the Hands of Banks and Money Although you may believe all you want that Obama is a good man and a good President, unfortunately he is not the one who is running the country. Politicians and the government are not the ones ruling over America, it is the bank and money. Read more..... 
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