Gold World News Flash |
- Time For Bernanke To Retract His Sworn Testimony To Congress
- Confiscation, Price Suppression & The True Gold & Silver Price
- Gold Seeker Closing Report: Gold and Silver End Modestly Higher
- Here Is What Will Break The Massive Silver Short Positions
- The Evolution Of US And UK Central Banking: An Infographic
- Commodity Technical Analysis: Gold Range Tightens above 11/15 Low
- Guest Post: India's African "Safari"
- A Guide to Buying a Safe for Your Silver and Gold
- The Gold Closed Up But can it Climb to $1,755 and Better it's Last Peak?
- Maxed Out Our Credit Card Limit On Silver
- Jim's Mailbox
- First Guns... Now Gold
- The United (Police) State of America
- Equities End At Low-Of-Day In Catch-Down To Risk
- Headed Toward the 11th Hour Compromise
- French economy buckles as car sales collapse
- Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Swiss Franc Cash Account Rates Negative
- Bitcoin gets set to take over the world! (you heard it here first)
- The Fiscal Distraction
- Rick Mills: Low-Cost Producers Trump Larger Mines in Costly Market
- Use Logic, Not Your Emotions
- The Daily Market Report
- First Guns… Now Gold
- Low-Cost Producers Trump Larger Mines in Costly Market
- The China Factor In Upcoming Gold Supply Crunch
- LGMR: Gold "Remains in Long Run Uptrend", Euro Gains After Merkel Comments on Greece
- U.S. Mint Gold Coins Set for Strongest November Sales in 14 Years
- Gold, Silver and Miners in Stage 1 Accumulation Mode
- Fear Index November 2012: The Faustian bargain
- Here Is What Will Break The Massive Silver Short Positions
| Time For Bernanke To Retract His Sworn Testimony To Congress Posted: 03 Dec 2012 10:17 PM PST from Zero Hedge:
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| Confiscation, Price Suppression & The True Gold & Silver Price Posted: 03 Dec 2012 10:01 PM PST  Today 40-year veteran, Robert Fitzwilson, wrote the following piece exclusively for King World News. Fitzwilson, who is founder of The Portola Group, discusses the true price of gold and silver, confiscation, price suppression, coming shortages, and what powerful entities are doing in this chaotic environment. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Gold Seeker Closing Report: Gold and Silver End Modestly Higher Posted: 03 Dec 2012 10:00 PM PST Gold dropped back to $1712.80 by a little after 9AM EST before it jumped to as high as $1721.60 in the next hour of trade and then chopped back lower midday, but it still ended with a gain of 0.12%. Silver slipped to $33.38 before it rose to as high as $33.821 and then also fell back off, but it still ended with a gain of 0.66%. |
| Here Is What Will Break The Massive Silver Short Positions Posted: 03 Dec 2012 09:00 PM PST from KingWorldNews:
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| The Evolution Of US And UK Central Banking: An Infographic Posted: 03 Dec 2012 07:50 PM PST Investors once knew: Focusing on assets without understanding monetary matters can get you into trouble. They have since forgotten this. Ironically, then, there's great value in remembering it. As "Vermont Ruminator", Humphrey B. Neill, wrote in The Art of Contrary Thinking:
This addogram delves into the evolution of the two most prominent reserve currencies of the past 350 years: The pound sterling and the dollar. It features visualizations of a collection of extremely rare (if not entirely unique) data-sets. The Bank of England's assets and liabilities since Robert Peel's Bank Act of 1844 (monthly). And the Federal Reserve System's assets and liabilities since shortly after its creation (weekly). The yield, equity index and gold price section goes back as far as 1840. This pairing of comprehensive monetary and asset price data gives the addogram an intensely practical feel.
Click chart below for huge version...
Click here for zoomable super hi-res version
Put this on your wall and you'll soon be operating from a 400-year context of price and monetary history. Chart courtesy of Addogram |
| Commodity Technical Analysis: Gold Range Tightens above 11/15 Low Posted: 03 Dec 2012 06:30 PM PST courtesy of DailyFX.com December 03, 2012 04:53 PM Daily Bars Chart Prepared by Jamie Saettele, CMT Commodity Analysis: “Weakness off of the 61.8% retracement demands respect but a drop below 11/20 high (1735.51) would create overlap and suggest that an important top is in place.” Gold didn’t just create overlap…the price nearly broke the 11/15 low. Viewed in light of the 3 wave advance from 1672.50, the trend is lower. Commodity Trading Strategy: Given market conditions lately, there is nothing at this point that would surprise me but a move back to former resistance at 1735 would present a short opportunity against the 11/23 high. LEVELS: 1673 1684 1705 1735 1745 1754... |
| Guest Post: India's African "Safari" Posted: 03 Dec 2012 06:30 PM PST Submitted by Sudha Ramachandran via The Diplomat, Although its interests in the continent are broadly similar, India's engagement with Africa differs significantly from China. Will it prove sustainable? India's engagement with Africa has grown remarkably over the past decade. Trade with Africa jumped from U.S. $3 billion in 2000 to $52.81 billion in 2010-11 and is expected to exceed $90 billion by 2015. India has emerged as Africa's fourth largest trade partner, after the European Union, China and the United States. Its cumulative investment in the continent exceeded $35 billion in 2011 in industries diverse as energy, pharmaceuticals, agriculture and telecommunications. Close ties between India and Africa are not new. Trade has flourished between East Africa and India's west coast for centuries. India also supported Africa's struggle against colonial rule and apartheid, and its freedom movement inspired the anti-colonial struggles of African countries, Ruchita Beri, an expert on India-Africa relations at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) in New Delhi told The Diplomat. Throughout the 1960s and 70s, India worked closely with the newly liberated African countries to forge common positions on global issues. However, New Delhi's interest in Africa waned in the 1990s. With the end of the Cold War, India was preoccupied with mending relations with the West and establishing ties with the newly independent former Soviet republics in Central Asia. As a result Africa moved to the margins of India's foreign policy. Rapid economic growth and soaring energy requirements, however, forced India at the turn of the new millennium to rethink its neglect of Africa. India imports 70% of its oil, much of it from the politically volatile Middle East. Finding new suppliers to diversify its oil sources is crucial to its energy security and Africa is an attractive option. Besides oil, Africa is rich in gold, diamonds, platinum, copper, manganese and uranium. India's diamond-cutting industry – the world's largest – depends on rough diamonds from Africa, while uranium in Niger, Uganda and Tanzania is vital for India's nuclear power industry. There are other reasons too for India's renewed interest in Africa. Africa is rich in votes at the UN General Assembly, which India needs when it pushes for a seat in the Security Council. Realization of its strategic ambitions too hinge on cooperation with Africa. India is keen to assert its naval power across the Indian Ocean from Africa's east coast to the western shores of Australia. This has prompted it to step up naval cooperation with Africa's Indian Ocean littorals like Seychelles, Mauritius and Madagascar. Tackling problems like piracy off Somalia's coast too requires India to work with Africa. India's interest in Africa is thus multifaceted although its focus is on the economic dimension. Historically, India was active in Africa's Anglophone countries and in East Africa. It was the large Indian diaspora in countries like Kenya, Tanzania and Mauritius that facilitated close economic relations. Over the past decade, however, India is looking beyond East Africa. With oil and other natural resources emerging as key drivers of its engagement, West Africa and South Africa are the focus of its attention. Nigeria's immense oil wealth has contributed to its emergence as India's top trading partner in Africa, accounting for roughly 30% of India's trade with the continent. India's imports from Africa consist mainly of primary commodities (91% of its imports from Africa in 2010). Oil accounts for 61% of Africa's exports to India. The continent also provides a market for India's manufactured goods – over two-thirds of African imports from India are manufactured goods such as pharmaceuticals, machinery and transport equipment. The domination of oil and natural resources in India's imports from Africa and of manufactured goods in its exports to the continent has drawn criticism that India is indulging in a "neo-colonial grab" for Africa's resources. Critics liken its trade with Africa to that which the European powers engaged in with their colonies. "This is an uninformed view," argues HHS Viswanathan, a distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi and India's former ambassador to Nigeria and Cote d'Ivoire. "Africa of today is not the same as during colonial times. When countries exploit the resources of Africa today, the terms are set by the African nations and not by outsiders. The deals are mutually beneficial." Echoing this view, IDSA's Beri said that India's relationship with Africa is "not a one-way street," with benefits flowing to one side only. "India is sharing its own development experience with Africa," she said. It was its services sector that spurred the Indian economy and India is now helping Africa achieve a similar growth by building its services sector. "Capacity building is an important component of India's engagement of Africa," says Aparajita Biswas, head of the Department of African Studies at the University of Mumbai. India is supporting institutional capacity building at the pan-African, regional and bilateral levels. It is setting up scores of institutions in areas as diverse as food processing, agriculture, textiles, weather forecasting and rural development. A pan-African e-network linking schools and hospitals across Africa with top institutions in India will make Indian expertise in healthcare and education accessible to the African people. Illustrating the mutually beneficial nature of India's ties with Africa, an official in India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) drew attention to training in diamond cutting, polishing and grading that India is providing to the people of Botswana. "While India's diamond cutting industry has benefitted from Botswana's diamond roughs, India is enabling Botswana to move up the value chain in the diamond business," he pointed out. Similarly, while Africa provides a major market for India's pharmaceutical industry – 14% of India's $8 billion pharmaceutical exports in 2009 went to Africa, "the role it has played in controlling the spread of HIV/AIDS and other diseases by making treatment affordable cannot be ignored," the official said. Besides pharma companies like Ranbaxy are not just selling to Africa but have set up production facilities there. India's investments in African land have drawn criticism too. It has been accused of engaging in a "land grab," especially in Ethiopia where Indian companies like Karturi Global, one of the world's largest exporters of roses, have leased vast tracts of land to cultivate cash crops. This could undermine Africa's food security, critics charge. "Land grab is too strong a term" to describe Indian companies' cultivation on Africa's land, counters Viswanthan, "So far, the projects have benefitted both parties," he says. However, he cautions that such projects have to be "constantly monitored for any adverse effects on local food security." Parallels are often drawn between India and China's African "safaris." Indeed, their trade with Africa has grown at similar rates; India's at a compounded annual growth rate of 24.8% and China's at 26.3%. More importantly, access to natural resources and especially oil is the main driver of both Asian giants' engagement of the continent. There are important differences though. For one, India's footprint in Africa is small compared with that of China. Take their role in Africa's trade for instance. In 2011, India accounted for 5.2% of Africa's global trade compared with China's 16.9%. Besides, unlike China's investment in Africa, which is led by state-owned companies, Indian investment is mainly driven by the private sector. In another contrast with Chinese companies, India hires local laborers while many Chinese companies bring Chinese laborers to their projects in Africa. Indian officials admit that China's aid-for-oil strategy, which involves extension of soft loans for massive infrastructure projects in return for African oil, used to impress them as it helped Beijing secure deals in its favor, according to the MEA official. This prompted India to follow the Chinese strategy in some countries where it was seeking oil deals. However, India was unable to match the aid the Chinese offered. It underscored the need for an approach that built on India's strengths, which ultimately resulted in India focusing on capacity building in Africa. India is upbeat over its relations with Africa. It has reason to be. With regard to oil for instance, not only has its access to African oil grown significantly – Africa now accounts for 20% of India's fuel imports – but also it has been successful in acquiring equity in African oilfields, observes Viswanathan. The question is how secure are its investments in Africa? Its experience in Sudan underscores the need for caution. ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas unit of India's state-run Oil and Natural Gas Commission, invested $2.5 billion in oil exploration and production in an undivided Sudan. This investment came under threat with South Sudan's secession from Sudan in 2011, with three OVL blocks in the Muglad Basin straddling the border between the two Sudans and one entirely in South Sudan. This situation became especially precarious earlier this year when Sudan forced South Sudan to halt oil production, resulting in massive losses for OVL. As for allegations of neo-colonial exploitation, these have been leveled largely by the western media. Will such a view eventually be echoed by Africa, potentially jeopardizing India's presence there? India hopes that its capacity building, people-centric approach and efforts to build a sustainable partnership with Africa will keep such allegations at bay. |
| A Guide to Buying a Safe for Your Silver and Gold Posted: 03 Dec 2012 06:30 PM PST by Larry LaBorde, SilverBearCafe.com:
Two Ways Safes Are Rated The ratings for safes are separated into two categories, performance ratings and general construction ratings, which were established decades ago and reflect widely accepted manufacturing standards. Construction ratings, while still useful, are less popular since there is only an implied level of security versus a tested level of security. |
| The Gold Closed Up But can it Climb to $1,755 and Better it's Last Peak? Posted: 03 Dec 2012 06:03 PM PST Gold Price Close Today : 1719.60 Change : 8.70 or 0.51% Silver Price Close Today : 33.681 Change : 0.477 or 1.44% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 51.055 Change : -0.471 or -0.91% Silver Gold Ratio Today : 0.01959 Change : 0.000179 or 0.92% Platinum Price Close Today : 1612.30 Change : 9.20 or 0.57% Palladium Price Close Today : 689.45 Change : 3.20 or 0.47% S&P 500 : 1,409.46 Change : -6.72 or -0.47% Dow In GOLD$ : $155.86 Change : $ (1.50) or -0.95% Dow in GOLD oz : 7.540 Change : -0.073 or -0.95% Dow in SILVER oz : 384.95 Change : -7.34 or -1.87% Dow Industrial : 12,965.60 Change : -59.98 or -0.46% US Dollar Index : 79.92 Change : -0.064 or -0.08% The GOLD PRICE added $8.70 to $1,719.60 and silver gained 47.7 cents to 3368.1. That thrills me none at all. Today I am going to tell y'all all the things I DON'T like about silver and gold right now. The GOLD PRICE chart has become equivocal. The MACD might be fixing to blow a negative crossover. The RSI is drifting. Gold has been moving sideways since mid October, and last week, after outlining an upside down head and shoulders, came back to the neckline rather than breaking away from it. Nasty too, is gold's location below its 20 DMA ($1,724.92). Today gold closed up $8.70, but without enough skyward conviction to get over $1,725 resistance and that 20 DMA. Nothing goes sideways forever. The GOLD PRICE must either climb to $1.755 and better that last peak, or fall back toward the early November low at $1,672.50. There are things I don't like about silver, too, but not as many. RSI is headed down from a November high. MACD might be crossing over downside. Volume is rising on the falls, and falling on the rises, like gold's. But the SILVER PRICE also offers things to like, things gainsaying gold's gloom. Silver has unequivocally trended up since that early November low, up and out of that upside-down head and shoulders, as it should. It stands above its 20 DMA (32.97) and 50 DMA (3314c). What I don't like about silver's strength against gold's is that often -- not always, but often -- silver strength appears late in any move. But silver can also lead the way up early in a rally, too. I went back and checked the bull market Decembers, those through 2001. I keep telling y'all that December normally is a strong month seasonally for silver and gold, but I hadn't looked at it from this angle. I compared the last trading day of November to the last trading day of December. Of those 11 years, both metals rose seven years out of eleven. All Decembers averaged for silver show a 0.65% rise and for gold 1.06%. Average of the downs took silver lower a painful 12.36% while the up years saw it gain 8.9%. Gold's average of losing Decembers was -6.08%, of gaining Decembers plus 5.14%. Of course, those are all just dead numbers. An average takes a fellow who makes $15,000 a year and adds him to a fellow making $1,000,000 a year and invents a mythical man who makes $507,500 a year. That predominance of up Decembers carries more weight with me. What persuades me more that I am right and that the next big silver and gold rally has begun is that all this is happening after a 1-1/2 year and 1 year correction in silver and gold. Just not time for another big fall, unless something goes horribly awry. Here are the boundaries: gold must clear $1,755 and not fall through $1,705. Silver must o'erleap 3450c and must not fall below 3314c (50 DMA and uptrend line). In any event, those "averages" I quoted say that the maximum downside for silver is 2910c and for gold is $1,594. Gold will lay bare its intentions in the next day or two. If they break, likelier downside targets are support at $1,640 and 3050c. Bear in mind I'm not an optimist or pessimist on silver or gold, I am merely riding the bull market and for entertainment meantime reading the charts. It appears to me still that the correction from the August-September rise has been completed, but another leg down is possible. Longer metals stall here, more likely that becomes. Now here's a news item that would warm a banker's ventricles: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the Franken-lenders sponsored by the yankee government, will suspend "some" foreclosures for the holidays. Just brings a tear to the eye, don't it? The US dollar index at last fell through support at 80, which might break up the congestion in other markets. Closed today at 79.917, down 6.4 basis points, not a significantly sized drop but a significantly placed one. Punches through the 50 day moving average and that mid channel support reaching back to July 2011. Bad juju. Dollar is straining at the leash to move lower. Yen and Euro fed off the dollar's fall. Euro climbed 0.52% to $1.3055, through $1.30 and all the way to the short term downtrend line from the previous two peaks. If the euro can burst that resistance, it can reach $1.3400. Yen rose 0l30% to 121.62 cents/Y100. That filled the gap left on Friday, but not much more. US$1=Y82.22=E0.7660=0.029 690 oz Ag=0.000 582 oz Au. Stocks finally breached the downtrend line last week, but couldn't guess what to do today. Dow lost 59.98 (0.46%) to 12,965.60, closing below its 200 DMA (12,996). S&P500 looks much better. It lost 6.72 (0.47%) to 1,409.46 and remains above both its 200 DMA and 20 DMA, and today actually touched its 50 DMA. Don't let my kind words confuse you: I still don't want to own stocks. Stocks valued in silver and gold are near the bottom (and past, for gold) of a congestion stretching back to September. Next big move will be down. AT HOME IN DOGWOOD MUDHOLE Because I like to put my money where my mouth is, I asked my design genius Collin the Magnificent to put up a website at www.dogwoodmudhole.com. There you can read not a measly first page or copyright page or chiseling title page like you get on Amazon, but an ENTIRE chapter called "Pig Persuader." If you read it and don't laugh out loud at least once, probably with loud snorting, I will send you a quarter. And all the rest of the book is just as good, lots of it better, but this is one of my personal favorites. Go. Read. Buy At Home In Dogwood Mudhole. Unsolicited one reader wrote me that he had laughed himself "SILLY" reading it. More than one reader has bought a case or half a case, reckoning they could give no better Christmas gift. I am humbled and gratified, and I bet if you'll read that chapter, you'll like it too. Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought. - Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger The-MoneyChanger.com 1-888-218-9226 10:00am-5:00pm CST, Monday-Friday © 2012, The Moneychanger. May not be republished in any form, including electronically, without our express permission. To avoid confusion, please remember that the comments above have a very short time horizon. Always invest with the primary trend. Gold's primary trend is up, targeting at least $3,130.00; silver's primary is up targeting 16:1 gold/silver ratio or $195.66; stocks' primary trend is down, targeting Dow under 2,900 and worth only one ounce of gold; US$ or US$-denominated assets, primary trend down; real estate bubble has burst, primary trend down. WARNING AND DISCLAIMER. Be advised and warned: Do NOT use these commentaries to trade futures contracts. I don't intend them for that or write them with that short term trading outlook. I write them for long-term investors in physical metals. Take them as entertainment, but not as a timing service for futures. NOR do I recommend investing in gold or silver Exchange Trade Funds (ETFs). Those are NOT physical metal and I fear one day one or another may go up in smoke. Unless you can breathe smoke, stay away. Call me paranoid, but the surviving rabbit is wary of traps. NOR do I recommend trading futures options or other leveraged paper gold and silver products. These are not for the inexperienced. NOR do I recommend buying gold and silver on margin or with debt. What DO I recommend? Physical gold and silver coins and bars in your own hands. One final warning: NEVER insert a 747 Jumbo Jet up your nose. No, I don't.  |
| Maxed Out Our Credit Card Limit On Silver Posted: 03 Dec 2012 05:40 PM PST from TruthNeverTold : |
| Posted: 03 Dec 2012 05:02 PM PST Dear Jim, Reflecting on CIGA Richard's charts from a day or two ago (inflation and dollar value), we need to constantly remember that our US tax system taxes inflation. Maintain your purchasing power in the face of inflation, pay homage to the tax collectors. Nothing new or wisdom revealed, but this fact deserves constant Continue reading Jim's Mailbox |
| Posted: 03 Dec 2012 04:14 PM PST December 3, 2012 [LIST] [*]Record Gold Eagle sales? No... but high-net-worth individuals want gold... and they want the metal in their hands. [*]Hostage drama... or not: Are politicos truly holding the stock market captive as the "fiscal cliff" looms? [*]U.S. investors piling back into stock mutual funds at the fastest rate in over a year: compelling evidence of a trend just getting started, and the best way to play it [*]"Give me some DOOOOM!" readers demand... Reviving the who-creates-jobs debate... a fiscal cliff or a fiscal bluff? And more! [/LIST] It's not only gun sales that spiked after Election Day. So did the sale of Gold Eagles from the U.S. Mint. While Eagle sales hardly set a "record" last month, as touted at the Drudge Report, they did turn in the best number since July 2010, and the best November since 1998. The final figures out this morning from the Mint indicate 136,500 ounces. "There is a huge influx of new hi... |
| The United (Police) State of America Posted: 03 Dec 2012 02:30 PM PST Louis James: Doug, after conversations like the one we had last week, we often get letters from angry readers who accuse you of hating America, disloyalty, and perhaps even treason. These people don't know or understand what I do about you — that you love the idea that was America. It's the United State it has become for which you have nothing but contempt. Perhaps we should try to explain this to them? Doug Casey: I doubt it would work; it's a tough row to hoe, trying to explain things to people who are so set in their thinking that they truly and literally don't want to hear anything that might threaten their notions. A person who feels threatened by ideas and who responds with emotion is acting irrationally. How can we have a discussion with someone whose emotion trumps their reason? How do we even begin to untangle the thinking of people who [gathered two weeks ago] to give thanks for the bounty produced by freedom and hard work — the famous puritan work ethic — by eating a turkey bought with food stamps? But we can outline the ideas, for the record. Louis: I'll bring a copy if they ever do put you on trial for thoughtcrime — which is frighteningly close to being real these days and called treason to boot. Doug: It's not just close; it's here. Just try telling an unapproved joke in a security line in an airport these days. Louis: True enough. Where to begin? Doug: At the beginning. America was founded as a confederation of independent countries — that's what a state is. Or was, in our language. The original United States of America was a confederation of countries that banded together for protection against larger and more powerful countries they feared might be hostile. This is not a disputed interpretation of history, but as solid a fact as the study of history produces — and yet a largely neglected one. Louis: We did cover this ground briefly in our conversations on the Civil War and the Constitution. Doug: So we did… the short version being that the US Constitution was essentially a coup; the delegates to what we now call the Constitutional Convention were not empowered to replace the existing government — only to improve upon the Articles of Confederation between the then-independent states. The framers of the Constitution drafted it with the notion of a national government already in place, but calmed fears of loss of state sovereignty by calling the new government the "United States of America" — a verbal sleight of hand that worked for over half a century. Then the southern states decided to exercise what these words imply, their right to leave the union. While slavery was and is a wholesale criminal activity I object to in every way possible, the southern states did have the right to secede, both legally and ethically. But the question was settled by force, not reason, and the wrong side won. Louis: Another coup? Doug: More like an exposure of the first one for the whole world to see. But by then it was way too late. Despite this, the relative freedom of the US — because it was for many years far freer than other countries — made it possible for artists, engineers, inventors, and businesspeople to flourish and create a society more wealthy and powerful than any the world had ever seen. This is what I call the idea of America — the America That Was. But the seeds of destruction were already sown at the very beginning — with the Alien and Sedition Acts being perhaps the first highly visible step in the wrong direction. Then came the forceful assertion of one national government, with states reduced to administrative regions via the War of Southern Secession, from 1861-'65. I'm no fan of state governments, incidentally, but at least they're smaller and closer to their subjects than the federal government. Another major step in the wrong direction occurred with the Spanish-American War of 1898, where the US acquired an overseas empire by force. The next major step downhill was the creation of the Federal Reserve and the income tax, both in 1913, just in time for World War I. It took time for these things to make the system crash, because it was still a fairly free economy. Louis: But crash it did in 1929… Doug: Yes. And it led to the Great Depression of 1929-'46, which lasted so long entirely because of the unmitigated disaster of the New Deal (which we discussed recently). The New Deal injected socialist-fascist ideas into mainstream American thought like a poisonous acid, corrupting the heart of the idea of America that once made the place great. The process was completed with Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, which really established the basis of the welfare-warfare state. It truly set the stage for the total ethical, economic, social, political, and even military disaster now unfolding before our eyes. Still, the beating heart of the idea of America — which is to say both social and economic freedom — took time to corrupt. Like a strong man who doesn't know he's headed for a heart attack, American culture didn't really peak until the 1950s. The bullet-finned 1959 Cadillac is a symbol of this peak, in my mind. Louis: Then we had Johnson and his "guns and butter" policy — War in Vietnam and War on Poverty at the same time — followed by tricky Dick kicking the last leg out of under the stool by taking the dollar off an even theoretical gold standard. Doug: Yes. Nixon was arguably even a worse president than Johnson, with the devaluation of the dollar in 1971 and his creation of the War on Drugs. Things have spiraled out of control since then. In The Casey Report, we've written reams about these last decades and how they led to and shaped what's happening now. But I have to say, the focus has been largely financial. Louis: Which is as it should be, in a publication designed to help investors navigate these turbulent times. Doug: Yes, but the corruption goes way beyond that, beyond even the senseless wars and idiotic foreign policy we discussed last week. America, once the land of the brave and the home of the free, is well on its way to becoming a police state — worse than any we've seen in the past, including the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Louis: How could it get worse than that? Doug: Because Big Brother has better technology now, allowing possible manipulation and control of the population that Stalin and Hitler never dreamed of. And because the US used to be such a great place, a lot of people have been tricked into believing it's the same as it was. But there's no more resemblance between the America of old and the US of today than there was between the Rome of the Republic and the Rome of the later emperors. Furthermore, most Americans have conflated the government with society. They're not only different things, but often antithetical. Louis: I thought you said you're an optimist! Doug: I am. But that's for the survivors who make it through the wringer the global economy — and every person on this planet — is about to go through. I keep telling you that the coming Greater Depression is going to be even worse than I think it is. You may think I'm joking, but I'm not. I do think that, primarily for reasons we discussed in our conversation on technology, what comes next will not only be even better than I imagine, it will be better than I can imagine… but first we have to go through the wringer. I see no way around it. I truly don't. Louis: Okay, I know you believe that. Can you substantiate the police-state claim? Doug: Well, rather than give you anecdotal evidence — of which there are masses more each day — let me refer to a rather perceptive blog post by a George Washington law professor named Jonathan Turley, titled 10 Reasons Why the US Is No Longer the Land of the Free. I'm sure I don't see everything the way the professor does, but the list struck me as quite accurate and very important for people to understand. Louis: I'm sure I don't want to hear this, but okay, shoot. Doug: [Chuckles] Maybe you don't, but I know you value the truth. These points underline something I've said for years: the Bill of Rights is a completely dead letter. It's essentially meaningless and rarely even gets the benefit of lip service. Quoting it will result in derision, if not arrest as a dangerous radical. Frankly, I didn't think the civil liberties situation could get worse than it was under Cheney-Bush, but it has. Obama has repealed none of what they did — and added more… Regards, Doug Casey and Louis James, The United (Police) State of America appeared in the Daily Reckoning. Subscribe to The Daily Reckoning by visiting signup for an Agora Financial newsletter. |
| Equities End At Low-Of-Day In Catch-Down To Risk Posted: 03 Dec 2012 02:24 PM PST Europe started to bleed after the Spain bailout debacle but from the open, US markets fell. They plunged on the ISM miss, bounced to VWAP in their wonderfully efficient way, and then spent the rest of the day shaking off the idiocy of last week's window-dressing. S&P 500 futures (ES) fell from 1424 highs to close at the day's lows around 1407 (still around 10 points rich to short-term Treasuries). When the ISM hit we saw Gold rally and Stocks dump to recouple the two assets for the day but overall it was stocks that were harder hit than other risk assets today - though evidently they were also major outperformers last week, so this is catch down as opposed to over-pessimism for now. Stocks were weak today in the face of a weaker USD (correlations breaking down) and a relatively unchanged Treasury market. Gold, Copper, and Oil all closed clustered together just in the green with Silver outperforming and VIX jumped 0.75 vols to 16.6% (highest in two weeks). High-yield credit had quite a day...
S&P was unable to get back to VWAP in three pushes late on - suggesting significantly more selling pressure than normal...
Dow Transports suffered the most today...
And while Gold and stocks recoupled after ISM (black oval), as the afternoon progressed stocks slid to the lows of the day, leaving the rest of risk behind...
Materials were the hardest hit - despite stronger than expected PMIs from Asia (which clearly investors have priced in or do not believe)...
And finally, HYG lost ground early on its dividend but into the close saw a huge ramp up to VWAP on significant volume - which looked like some kind of arb catch up to stocks...?
a world of volume went through in HYG in those last few minutes... which we can;t help but notice dragged the stock up to Friday's closing VWAP...which suggests a lot of professional sellers as block size picked up notably (though it is so technically noisy in this stock)...
Charts: Bloomberg |
| Headed Toward the 11th Hour Compromise Posted: 03 Dec 2012 02:13 PM PST As the year draws to an end, America faces yet another Congressionally-manufactured crisis which will likely end in yet another 11th hour compromise, resulting in more government growth touted as "saving" the economy. While cutting taxes is always a good idea, setting up a ticking time bomb with a sunset provision, as the Bush tax cuts did, is terrible policy. Congress should have just cut taxes. But instead, we have a crisis that is sure not to go to waste. The hysteria surrounding the January 1 deadline for the Budget Control Act's spending cuts and expiration of the Bush tax cuts seems all too familiar. Even the language is predictably hysterical: if government reduces planned spending increases by even a tiny amount, the economy will go over a "fiscal cliff." This is nonsense. This rhetoric is based on the belief that government spending sustains the economy, when in fact the opposite is true. Every dollar the government spends ... |
| French economy buckles as car sales collapse Posted: 03 Dec 2012 02:13 PM PST December 03, 2012 11:58 AM - Industrial woes deepened last month as car sales crashed 19pc. Read the full article at the Telegraph...... |
| Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Swiss Franc Cash Account Rates Negative Posted: 03 Dec 2012 02:05 PM PST This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| Bitcoin gets set to take over the world! (you heard it here first) Posted: 03 Dec 2012 01:57 PM PST Dollar-Less Iranians Discover Virtual Currency |
| Posted: 03 Dec 2012 01:31 PM PST You keep lying, when you oughta be truthin' — "These Boots Were Made For Walkin'", written by Lee Hazlewood, performed by Nancy Sinatra. Where did we leave off last week? Oh yes…right where it began. Nothing new. Stocks were virtually flat. Gold hemmed and hawed. And Facebook tore up a contract with a social gaming company called Zynga. We have no idea what that even means…but the papers assure us it's important. We'll see… Meanwhile, the whole world — or at least the portion of it concerned with investing — seems to be on edge. Folks want to know what's happening with the "fiscal cliff." You remember that oh-so-fateful precipice, right? Of course you do. How could you forget! Here, The Washington Post delivers the latest: As the White House and Republican leaders enter the final month of negotiations to avoid a year-end "fiscal cliff," both sides struck an uncompromising tone Sunday, as warnings mounted that they will be unable to forge an agreement to stop an automatic series of deep spending cuts and large tax hikes that could push the economy into recession. You've gotta give it to the mainstream media. They know how to make a silk purse from a sow's ear…a tsunami of a story from a ripple in a millpond… "Roll up, roll up! The world economy is going to self-destruct in 10…9…8… "…But wait! Here comes a bipartisan subcommittee! The world is saved!" The Post continues, citing the Republican's man in the ring, John "The Bruiser" Boehner: "Right now, I would say we're nowhere, period. We're nowhere," House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) said on "Fox News Sunday." Boehner added that the Republicans have offered a way to break the stalemate — by compromising on an overhaul of the tax code that would limit deductions that disproportionately benefit the rich… Does this mean that the Republicrats have the Democricans on the ropes? Ah, not so fast. Here comes the Dem's slugger, "Tiny" Tim Geithner: …Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner rejected that proposal Sunday, insisting that the wealthy pay higher tax rates and that Republicans come forward with a plan that meets that requirement. "There's no path to an agreement that does not involve Republicans acknowledging that rates have to go up on the wealthiest Americans," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." So, how is this going to end? Jittery investors need not wait any longer for an answer. We'll tell them exactly what'll happen. Right here in this space. And for free! Are you ready? Really? Ok…you asked for it… Nothing. That's right: Nothing. Nothing will happen. Nothing of substance, anyway. Politicians will bloviate…the media will pontificate…and the real, underlying situation will continue to deteriorate. At this stage, there's nothing one man…or even one party…can do. The ship isn't headed for an iceberg (or a fiscal cliff)…it has already hit it. The collision happened in stealth, under cover of Fed-sponsored market meddling, interest rate fiddling, EZ credit…and the usual mix of lying, politicking and electioneering. During the night, while passengers and crew slept, ice struck metal, wrenching huge chunks of iron from the ship's hull…which now has a $16 trillion, national debt-size hole in it. The vessel is taking on water…fast, at a pace never recorded in its history. Worse than that, the total drag on the ship — when one takes into account unfunded liabilities — comes to five times GDP, or roughly $86 trillion. That's a lot to tow…especially for a sinking ship. All this yapping on television and in the papers, the incessant chatter about "eleventh hour saves" and "reaching across the aisle" is really just one big distraction…something to keep the masses well-fed and looking the other way. The Romans called it The Great Circus. They built a Colosseum in which to play out their distractions. And the crowd cheered while Rome burned to the ground. Regards, Joel Bowman The Fiscal Distraction appeared in the Daily Reckoning. Subscribe to The Daily Reckoning by visiting signup for an Agora Financial newsletter. |
| Rick Mills: Low-Cost Producers Trump Larger Mines in Costly Market Posted: 03 Dec 2012 01:23 PM PST The Gold Report: Rick, is this a good time to be buying gold? Rick Mills: There are three key reasons to have exposure to gold bullion. The traditional reason is to protect against inflation. We're printing money. More quantitative easing has taken place and inflation looks to be coming down the pike. I buy groceries. I pay for gas. I can see inflation. I firmly believe it's going to get higher over the coming months and years. Buying gold as a protection against inflation is realistic. The second reason investors have traditionally bought gold is as a safe-haven investment. There's a lot going on in the world—from secession talk in the U.S. to turmoil in Israel, Iran, Syria, the South China Sea region and Turkey. One of the things that most investors don't know about gold is that adding a gold allocation to your portfolio, especially over the last decade or so, has provided substantial enhancements to the portfolio's return. Gold helps minimize the downside deviations in an over... |
| Posted: 03 Dec 2012 12:51 PM PST Jim Sinclair's Mineset My Dear Extended Family, If you believe that fiat paper will survive this you are so wrong. Gold is the only asset that will survive the constant manufacturing of paper money and the dynamic expansion of debt. Pension funds, if they had to mark their assets to market, would be as broke as the Student Loan Program is. If student loans get forgiven it is a direct payment, in a sense, to each loan holder for their loyalty. How can ANYONE even think about such a thing as the country approaches the popular new MSM boogey man, the Fiscal Cliff? So many of you are being fooled by the gold and silver manipulators. Gold is no different today than it was at $248. We were being hit then on every move up. It was 10 steps forward and 9 steps back. The only thing is that gold then had little volatility, and today it is getting wild. If manipulation was to forbid higher prices, how come it got from $248 to here with as much or more manip... |
| Posted: 03 Dec 2012 12:51 PM PST Gold Consolidates as Fiscal Cliff Talks Remain Stalled
The dollar was pressured by increasing concerns that Congress is going to take these fiscal cliff/debt ceiling negotiations right down to the wire. This morning's manufacturing ISM data added fuel to the fire: US manufacturing ISM tumbled to 49.5 in November, well below expectations of 51.4. The employment component plunged to 48.4% from 52.1%, its lowest reading since September 2009, creating some downside risk for this Friday's November jobs report. While a better than expected construction spending print offset this news to some degree, it is likely the fiscal cliff concerns are weighing heavily on the manufacturing sector. I suspect we'll see additional downward revisions to Q4 GDP expectations. One thing is for certain, the U.S. is facing a far larger problem than the fiscal cliff. In talking about a 'cliff', it's sort of implied that there's a bottom. In reality, we may be facing a fiscal 'black hole', from which there is no easy means of escape. So, whether we get another kick of the fiscal can from Congress, or they allow us to topple over the cliff, the real question becomes, 'what is the Fed going to do about it?' That may be what the gold market is waiting for. Given the precedent, I would imagine they will throw the kitchen sink at the economy in an effort to avert another recession and a corresponding rise in the jobless rate. |
| Posted: 03 Dec 2012 12:50 PM PST It's not only gun sales that spiked after Election Day. So did the sale of Gold Eagles from the U.S. Mint. While Eagle sales hardly set a "record" last month, as touted at the Drudge Report, they did turn in the best number since July 2010, and the best November since 1998. The final figures out this morning from the Mint indicate 136,500 ounces. "There is a huge influx of new high-net-worth individuals that are buying a lot of gold, and they are taking physical possession of it," David Beahm tells Reuters: He ought to know: He's vice president at bullion retailer Blanchard & Co. "This quarter," he adds, "is shaping up to be one of the best since the last quarter of 2008." Hmmm, we seem to recall something about the world coming to an end back then… The rolling 30-day average of sales, measured in dollars, does indeed look impressive on a chart going back to February of this year and likely prompted Drudge's careless headline…
Anonymous "analysts" reaching for explanations are chalking it up to "political uncertainty due to a heated U.S. presidential race and $600 billion automatic cuts in government spending and tax increases early next year," according to Reuters. Ah, yes, the fiscal cliff — the handy explanation for everything from growing gold sales to an epidemic of nail fungus… On the other side of the world, a new catalyst for gold is taking shape in China. Banks there can trade gold among themselves over the counter, starting today. "From a government perspective, gold is seen as currency, and the government is slowly releasing the controls on currency. We expect the [gold] market will be opened up to more foreign banks," Standard Chartered global chief of metals trading Jeremy East tells The Wall Street Journal. Indeed, Mr. East says China aims to build up Shanghai into a competitor with London as a major gold trading center. Next step: the development of a gold ETF to trade on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Cheers, The preceding article was excerpted from Agora Finacial's 5 Min. Forecast. To read the entire episode, please feel free to do so here. First Guns… Now Gold appeared in the Daily Reckoning. Subscribe to The Daily Reckoning by visiting signup for an Agora Financial newsletter. |
| Low-Cost Producers Trump Larger Mines in Costly Market Posted: 03 Dec 2012 12:36 PM PST Rick Mills isn't looking for huge producers with so much overhead that they can't profitably mine an ounce of gold. Instead, Mills, the publisher, editor and president of Aheadoftheherd.com, seeks out the smaller mines with low capital costs. That's where the money will be made in the next two years, he tells The Gold Report. |
| The China Factor In Upcoming Gold Supply Crunch Posted: 03 Dec 2012 12:01 PM PST Gold Supply Crunch Coming? By Alena Mikhan | Casey Research A number of market analysts and gold-industry insiders are warning about a possible shortage of gold supply. Barrick CEO Jamie Sokalsky recently stated that since gold production is inelastic (i.e., insensitive to price changes) there will be a very limited increase in supply from gold producers, [...]  This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
| LGMR: Gold "Remains in Long Run Uptrend", Euro Gains After Merkel Comments on Greece Posted: 03 Dec 2012 11:55 AM PST London Gold Market Report from Ben Traynor BullionVault Monday 3 December 2012, 07:30 EST SPOT MARKET gold prices fell back below $1715 an ounce Monday morning in London, more-or-less in line with where they were two weeks ago after failing to hold gains made during Asian trading. "Gold is still following its long term uptrend from 2008 lows," say technical analysts at Scotiabank, "with support from the uptrend at $1632." Silver fell back to around $33.50 an ounce, also in line with last week's close, while stocks edged higher and commodities were broadly flat. Euro gold prices meantime came close to one-month lows as the Euro rose to a one-month high against the Dollar after comments from German chancellor Angela Merkel that suggested more Greek debt might eventually be written down. Greece revealed details Monday of the bond buyback program announced last week, through which the government will buy back its bonds currently trading at a discount to par value. The... |
| U.S. Mint Gold Coins Set for Strongest November Sales in 14 Years Posted: 03 Dec 2012 11:51 AM PST "Ever present is the record Commercial net short position in silver...and an almost equally large short position in gold" [COLOR=#7f4028] Yesterday in Gold and Silver Gold traded quietly higher during the early portion of Far East trading on Friday...but by 2:00 p.m. Hong Kong time, the price flat-lined until 1:00 p.m. GMT in London...about twenty minutes before the 8:20 a.m. Eastern time Comex open. At the point, the selling pressure began...and by the time the absolute low of the day [$1,707.50 spot] was in about five minutes before the Comex close...about $23 had been carved off the gold price from its London high. The subsequent rally pared those losses. Gold closed at $1,715.20 spot...down $10.60 from Thursday's close. Net volume was decent at around 146,000 contracts. Silver got sold off during early morning trading in Hong Kong, but by 1:00 p.m. in London...8:00 a.m. in New York...the price was back to unchanged from Thursday's close. T... |
| Gold, Silver and Miners in Stage 1 Accumulation Mode Posted: 03 Dec 2012 11:03 AM PST We don't hear much about gold and silver anymore on the news. This time last year you could not go 5 minutes without a TV or radio station talking about them. Why is this? Simple really, precious metals have been building a Stage 1 Basing ... Read More... |
| Fear Index November 2012: The Faustian bargain Posted: 03 Dec 2012 10:45 AM PST US M3 grew by another $46 billion in October, reaching an estimated $14.8 trillion. At the same time the gold price weakened, taking a small break after the substantial run-up in September. As a ... |
| Here Is What Will Break The Massive Silver Short Positions Posted: 03 Dec 2012 10:21 AM PST  Today John Embry spoke with King World News about the recent action in gold and silver, and what will overcome the massive paper short positions in the silver market. Here is what Embry, who is chief investment strategist at Sprott Asset Management, had to say: "I was struck by a comment from Tim Geithner that the US is going to be phasing out pennies and nickels in early 2013. The reason he gave was that it costs a great deal more to make them than they are technically worth."This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now |
Three months ago, as part of our ongoing explanation of what happens next to the Fed's balance sheet (which is now established as official canon in advance of the December 12th FOMC, when Bernanke will effectively announce QE4 consisting of $40 billion in MBS and $45 billion in unsterilized TSY purchases as we 
Today John Embry spoke with King World News about the recent action in gold and silver, and what will overcome the massive paper short positions in the silver market. Here is what Embry, who is chief investment strategist at Sprott Asset Management, had to say: "I was struck by a comment from Tim Geithner that the US is going to be fazing out pennies and nickels in early 2013. The reason he gave was that it costs a great deal more to make them than they are technically worth."
Recently at a local social event, I met a locksmith, and we started talking shop on the topic of securing assets with locks and the what's what in the safe world. After a brief but very interesting conversation, I felt inspired to do a little research about the wide world of safes. What I learned was both fun and fascinating. 
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