Gold World News Flash

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• Gold’s rise will make your head spin
• By the Numbers for the Week Ending September 6
• By the Numbers for the Week Ending September 6
• Loans: Facebook Friends Mean You’re Creditworthy?
• COMEX Deliverable Gold Bullion Drops To Levels Not Seen Since 2003
• COMEX Deliverable Gold Bullion Drops To Levels Not Seen Since 2003
• Silver and Gold Prices Closed Lower This Week with the Gold Price Closing at $1,373.00
• Silver and Gold Prices Closed Lower This Week with the Gold Price Closing at $1,373.00
• Math Not Allowed In McDonald's New "Dollar Menu"
• The Ultimate Chartbook For Gold Bulls And Debt Bears
• The Week That Was: September 2nd - 6th 2013
• Here's Your "Efficient" Market!!
• The Dollar Collapse - Homeless America
• Jack Lew: Debt Ceiling Drama To Return in October
• Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Holding the Line On a Breakout
• Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Holding the Line On a Breakout
• Gold and Silver Disaggregated COT Report (DCOT) for September 6
• Gold and Silver Disaggregated COT Report (DCOT) for September 6
• As The Fantasy Dies, Panic Will Ensue & Gold Will Soar
• How to Become Investment Royalty
• Gold: An attitude adjustment for institutional banks
• Cashing In Your Golden Insurance
• India’s Middle Class Hit Hard as Rupee Pushes Up Prices
• Busted governments will try to grab assets, von Greyerz warns
• Oh No, Not More Checks!
• India Gold Soars
• Why investors like silver more than gold
• Why investors like silver more than gold
• Gold: An Attitude Adjustment For Institutional Banks
• The Daily Market Report
• Gold Price Peak, Two Years On
• Gold Price Peak, Two Years On
• Gold Price Peak, Two Years On
• The Poor Are Better Off Poor: Bloomberg
• Indian Gold Price Soars, Neear Collapse of Another Fiat Currency
• This Is Why Gold Will Soar To $2,500 & Silver Will Spike To $70
• Wars and Rumors of Wars
• Gold: An Attitude Adjustment For Institutional Banks
• Gold marks 2 years from top with $30 jump on weak US data
• SA gold strikers settle for 8% wage increase – source
• Overall gold demand to increase as India comes back into play
• Some South African gold miners end strike
• SA gold producers revise wage offer to striking NUM
• Gold Marks 2 Years from Top with $30 Jump on Weak US Data
• Sell Gold, Buy Stocks: Really Dumb Idea
• Inside Scoop on the Next Fed Chairman
• Sell Gold, Buy Stocks: Really Dumb Idea
• Historic Event As Gold Slips Into Backwardation Once Again
• Historic Event As Gold Slips Into Backwardation Once Again
• Gold Confiscation

Gold’s rise will make your head spin Posted: 06 Sep 2013 11:30 PM PDT by Tommie Humphreys, SilverBearCafe.com: Mr. Lassonde is one of the world's most credible and successful gold speculators. He built the original Franco Nevada and is currently Chairman of Franco Nevada Corporation, a seven billion dollar gold royalty company. He was previously CEO of Newmont Mining, the United States's largest gold miner. Mr. Lassonde is a Director of New Gold and a past Chairman of the World Gold Council. Shopkeepers and taxi drivers in France tell him business has fallen 10-40% this year alone. The situation is no better in Germany, Spain, Italy and Portugal, Lassonde added. "What are they going to do, if not devalue?" Lassone asked the interviewer rhetorically. Read More @ SilverBearCafe.com

By the Numbers for the Week Ending September 6 Posted: 06 Sep 2013 07:53 PM PDT This week's closing table is just below.   Vultures, (Got Gold Report Subscribers) please note that updates to our linked technical charts, including our comments about the COT reports and the week's technical changes, should be completed by the usual time on Sunday (by 18:00 ET), Monday at the latest.

By the Numbers for the Week Ending September 6 Posted: 06 Sep 2013 07:53 PM PDT This week's closing table is just below.   Vultures, (Got Gold Report Subscribers) please note that updates to our linked technical charts, including our comments about the COT reports and the week's technical changes, should be completed by the usual time on Sunday (by 18:00 ET), Monday at the latest.

Loans: Facebook Friends Mean You’re Creditworthy? Posted: 06 Sep 2013 05:52 PM PDT Follow ZeroHedge in Real-Time on FinancialJuice It's science-fiction but it's true. The next time you need a loan, it'll be your friends that will be analyzed to see if you arebone fide enough to borrow the money that the bank is considering lending you and above all if you are able to pay that money back to them. Wealthy people have wealthy friends. The poor don't have friends, so they should be ok, probably the banks already believe. Yes, the banks and the loan companies will run checks on Facebook and LinkedIn or Twitter to see if you arebankable enough to lend their (!) hard-earned cash to. If your friends have a good credit-rating, then you can get the money. Isn't that a wonderful piece of societal cohesion taking place? This is really going to get us into trouble, isn't it? Since when did I become dependent on Tom, Dick or Harry, just because they are in my friends list? I don't even talk to any of them, anyhow. It's just for show. To boot, I paid a company to make me look popular in a moment of isolated depression. Does that mean that a few hundred people that never existed anyway will have credit-checks done on them too to see if I am solvent or insolvent and to be dropped like a hot potato? Your FICO score determines whether you are high risk or no risk. Some risk is better than none always since if you are no-risk, there's no point lending to you, is there? Repossession is always good business for banks and loan companies, isn't it? But now the Fair Isaac Corporation Score will not just take into account the payment history of the borrower, nor just the current indebtedness, the credit history or the type of credit that you have used in the past, but also your friends' histories. The banks and the loan companies will be using start-ups that are opening up across the USA today offering their analytical services at a price to determine whether you are good or bad money-wise. Lenddo is one of those companies. It's not just the fact that they will check your friends, but they will also see if you interact with the slow-payer or the guy that has defaulted and how often. If you communicate with them regularly, it's bad news for you if it's the new mortgage you're going for this week. There are other companies that even end up knocking you out of the game if you fill out your application form on line using all-caps. People don't write like that when they're trustworthy, apparently. It's not just the National Security Agency that is on our backs, it's the others too. If you didn't fill out the application form from the address that you stated was your work address or your home address, then you aren't likely to get a loan either. At least, not at the rate you thought you were going to get it at. We should have realized long ago that Facebook and other such social networks would be put to good use for someone. We don't have things created just for our own benefit. We were lulled into a sense of security; a false one, admittedly. We believed that it would bring us all closer. How little did we imagine just how close! If all else fails, ask Warren Buffet to be your friend. Septaper Will Open Floodgates | How Sinister is the State? | Food: Walking the Breadline | Obama NOT Worst President in reply to Obama: Worst President in US History? New Revelations: NSA and XKeyscore Program | Obama's Corporate Grand Bargain Death of the Dollar | Joseph Stiglitz was Right: Suicide | China Injects Cash in Bid to Improve Liquidity Technical Analysis: Bear Expanding Triangle | Bull Expanding Triangle | Bull Falling Wedge | Bear Rising Wedge | High & Tight Flag

COMEX Deliverable Gold Bullion Drops To Levels Not Seen Since 2003 Posted: 06 Sep 2013 05:36 PM PDT

COMEX Deliverable Gold Bullion Drops To Levels Not Seen Since 2003 Posted: 06 Sep 2013 05:36 PM PDT

Silver and Gold Prices Closed Lower This Week with the Gold Price Closing at $1,373.00 Posted: 06 Sep 2013 04:24 PM PDT Gold Price Close Today : 1,373.00 Gold Price Close 23-Aug-13 : 1,396.10 Change : -23.10 or -1.65% Silver Price Close Today : 23.21 Silver Price Close 23-Aug-13 : 23.463 Change : -0.25 or -1.08% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 59.17 Gold Silver Ratio 23-Aug-13 : 59.502 Change : -0.33 or -0.56% Franklin didn't publish commentary today, next commentary will be on 16 September. Y'all enjoy your weekend! 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 © 2013, 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.

Silver and Gold Prices Closed Lower This Week with the Gold Price Closing at $1,373.00 Posted: 06 Sep 2013 04:24 PM PDT Gold Price Close Today : 1,373.00 Gold Price Close 30-Aug-13 : 1,396.10 Change : -23.10 or -1.65% Silver Price Close Today : 23.21 Silver Price Close 30-Aug-13 : 23.463 Change : -0.25 or -1.08% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 59.17 Gold Silver Ratio 30-Aug-13 : 59.502 Change : -0.33 or -0.56% Franklin didn't publish commentary today, next commentary will be on 16 September. Y'all enjoy your weekend! 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 © 2013, 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.

Math Not Allowed In McDonald's New "Dollar Menu" Posted: 06 Sep 2013 03:55 PM PDT As fast-food workers of the world unite under a common banner of "higher minimum 'livabale' wages", one can't help but reflect on the terrible jobs data this morning and the potential inability of workers to get anything but a low-skill 'part-time' job flipping burgers. But most importantly, these workers may soon not be able to afford the product they manufacture. Concerns over rising wage costs can be put aside for now as it is the soaring costs of beef (as we discussed here previously) that are causing "Dollar Menu" items to be adjusted upwards. "You can't sell a burger for $1 anymore because the cost of beef has gone up so much," and sure enough, as Bloomberg reports, McDonalds is testing a new version, dubbed 'Dollar Menu and More', that includes items selling for as much as $5. As one analyst notes, the industry's "definition of value has moved up from the Dollar Menu to $1.50 or $2."   Via Bloomberg, McDonald's Corp.'s Dollar Menu is primed for inflation.   The burger chain is testing a new version, dubbed Dollar Menu and More, that includes items selling for as much as $5. The new lineup is being tested in five markets in the U.S., Ofelia Casillas, a spokeswoman for the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company, said in an e-mail. One test includes $1, $2 and $5 fare; another has $1, $1.79 and $4.99 items.   "It just sounds like they'll be raising prices," Peter Saleh, a New York-based analyst at Telsey Advisory Group, said in an interview. The industry's "definition of value has moved up from the Dollar Menu to $1.50 or $2."   McDonald's earnings have trailed analysts' estimates for the past two quarters amid shaky consumer confidence and more competition from rivals introducing new food. The chain also is facing a franchisee revolt. One point of tension is the increasingly difficult economics of the Dollar Menu, according to a document obtained by Bloomberg News recapping an April franchisee meeting. Store operators also have met to discuss rising costs, including higher rents, as well as how an increasingly complex menu slows down service.   ...   Restaurants including McDonald's have faced higher beef prices after a drought last year made it more expensive for farmers to feed cattle.   "You can't sell a burger for $1 anymore because the cost of beef has gone up so much," Saleh said. Is this like the opposite of 7-Minute Abs?

The Ultimate Chartbook For Gold Bulls And Debt Bears Posted: 06 Sep 2013 03:10 PM PDT With gold 'handled' back below $1,400 and bonds 'tapering' through 3.00% yields as equity bulls proclaim 'Mission Accomplished' today on the Dow 15,000 trigger, it seems markets remain entirely confused as to whether there will be moar printing, less-and-then-moar printing, or no moar printing. The following 61 page compendium from Incrementum offers 'everything you wanted to know about gold and bonds' but were afraid to source yourself as a guide for debt bears and bullion bulls... with a sprinkling of china bubbles, wealth effect lies, and regulation imbecilities.   Gold is in a mid-cycle correction?   And no its not a bubble...   And is among the most liquid investments in the world...   This won't end well...   Here is the ultimate chart compendium for debt bears and bullion bulls... Chartbook Incrementum - The Gold Bull and Debt Bear

The Week That Was: September 2nd - 6th 2013 Posted: 06 Sep 2013 02:52 PM PDT Succinctly summarizing the positive and negative news, data, and market events of the week... Positives Gold surges as COMEX shorts hit 7 month low In the new normal, pending war means precious metals and crude oil slide… lower Fed indicates that there is just too much housing demand, and too little workers… let’s take a look How the market was impacted by a week’s worth of war talk – Confusion is good Want $15 dollar fries with that? August non-mfg index surges to 58.6, highest since 2005 Biggest initial claims beat in three months, however labor costs stagnate ECB leaves marginal lending rate unchanged at .5% JPY tested 100 again, as the UST curve flattens significantly NASDARK black-out odds surge WTI is expensive, which must be good for EBITDA right? What does he know? As he did with sub-prime in 2006-07, Dimon has JPM pulling out of student loans… US 10yr breaks 3%, will this lead to a rotation to equities? We propose it may lead to a disorderly exit from risk to cash Ze bounce – totally normal move in SPX starting at 10am today   Negatives Available for Sale Securities showing unrealized net losses at commercial banks The Rupee is collapsing Trade deficit widens to $39bn in July Goldman’s Stolper stopped out at a loss on EUR/GDP long… again Housing affordability plummets This indicator of economic activity has completely stalled Moar rhetoric required, as Euro bond spreads are blowing out Japanese stocks get hammered… Careful with those Nobel Peace War plans, as China and Russia own 25% of all foreign owned Treasury Securities Stocks tumble on ugly August jobs data (psst, check July’s revision Record number of people out of labor force   Additional August & YTD performance by asset class Here are the senators who voted to start another war in Syria     (h/t @ZH_Crown)   And a little more color from Rodrigo Serrano (of RCS Investments)   Weekly Bull/Bear Recap: Sept. 2-6, 2013 by Rodrigo Serrano

Here's Your "Efficient" Market!! Posted: 06 Sep 2013 02:34 PM PDT Today's price action in Chevron will come as no surprise to any reader of ZH, but maybe, just maybe, in flipping from porn site to porn site, the SEC will stumble across our earlier note on unemployment in the 'adult movie' business and will look at the following remarkable charts. As Nanex shows, with 37 seconds to the close, one of the largest market-cap firms in the entire world saw its stock price attacked by an HFT algo that oscillated it by +/-2% about twice-per-second. As Nanex exclaims, "no longer can any HFT'ers or exchange or regulator blame THIS on humans." Perhaps the odds of another black-out on NASDARK should be higher than the current 28%.   Via Nanex, HFT Rocks Chevron On September 6, 2013, beginning at 15:59:23, the stock of Chevron Corporation (Symbol CVX, market capitalization $234 Billion) was rocked by an HFT algorithm gone awry. No longer can the High Frequency Traders or exchange blame this on humans. This can only be the work of computers delerious from dollar signs flashing in their CPUs. The charts below show the price of Chevron oscillating over 2% about twice per second. 1. CVX - Trades color coded by reporting exchange. 2. CVX - Bids and asks color coded by reporting exchange. 3. CVX - Trades color coded by reporting exchange. Zoom of Chart 1. 4. CVX - Trades color coded by reporting exchange. Zoom of Chart 3. 5. CVX - Trades color coded by reporting exchange. Zoom of Chart 4. 6. CVX - Best bids and offers color coded by reporting exchange.

The Dollar Collapse - Homeless America Posted: 06 Sep 2013 02:19 PM PDT "America was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free. So they killed a lot of white English people in order to continue owning their black African people, so they could wipe out the rest of the... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://FinanceArmageddon.blogspot.com or http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Jack Lew: Debt Ceiling Drama To Return in October Posted: 06 Sep 2013 02:04 PM PDT Oh, debt ceiling battles… what wonderful political theater you are. The next battle is coming this fall, although no one seems quite sure when. Regardless, it will have an impact on markets, as before, and could send gold shooting skyward. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is urging lawmakers to raise the $16.7 trillion ceiling by mid-October to avoid a catastrophic default. Skeptical Wall Street firms are scrambling to figure out when exactly the Treasury Department’s emergency funds will run out: Jefferies LLC predicts they’ll have enough money through the end of October, while Credit Suisse sees enough cash until mid-November. Bloomberg reports, "'It's important for Treasury to have some kind of a deadline because Congress tends to work better when they come up against a deadline,' Ira Jersey, an interest-rate strategist in New York at Credit Suisse, one of the 21 primary dealers of U.S. government securities that trade with the Federal Reserve, said of Lew's Aug. 26 letter to lawmakers." "If this were easy to do," says House Speaker John Boehner, "somebody over the last 20 or 30 years would have gotten it done." This upcoming act of the debt ceiling drama should prove to be even more enthralling than the last. President Obama has vowed not to negotiate over the debt ceiling and is calling for Congress raise it without conditions. This is a pipe dream, since the fiscal year will begin Oct. 1, and Republicans will use the debt ceiling as leverage on budget talks. Republicans are demanding cuts accompany any ceiling deal. Both parties are expected to dig their trenches even deeper this time… making the fireworks even more explosive than usual. Since the gridlock in Congress seems unlikely to change, expect this to become a new annual national pastime… something like D.C.'s version of the Super Bowl. Get out your popcorn… and don’t forget to keep an eye on gold prices. Remember this chart. Jason Farrell For The Daily Reckoning P.S. Get even more great tips and big ideas than we publish on the website by subscribing to the The Daily Reckoning email edition. Click here.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Holding the Line On a Breakout Posted: 06 Sep 2013 01:33 PM PDT

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Holding the Line On a Breakout Posted: 06 Sep 2013 01:33 PM PDT

Gold and Silver Disaggregated COT Report (DCOT) for September 6 Posted: 06 Sep 2013 12:44 PM PDT HOUSTON -- This week's Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) disaggregated commitments of traders (DCOT) report was released at 15:30 ET Friday. Our recap of the changes in weekly positioning by the disaggregated trader classes, as compiled by the CFTC, is just below.  As we have done for some time now, this week we are also adding in the net positioning of traders the CFTC classes as "Commercial" in the Legacy COT report.  *** (DCOT Table for September 6 and Legacy COT commercial positioning for data as of the close on Tuesday, September 3.   Source CFTC for COT data, Cash Market for gold and silver.)  Please note: Data auto retrieved and unverified until this note removed.  In the DCOT table above a net short position shows as a negative figure in red. A net long position shows in black. In the Change column, a negative number indicates either an increase to an existing net short position or a reduction of a net long position. A black figure in the Change column indicates an increase to an existing long position or a reduction of an existing net short position. The way to think of it is that black figures in the Change column are traders getting "longer" and red figures are traders getting less long or shorter. All of the trader's positions are calculated net of spreading contracts as of the Tuesday disaggregated COT report. We also focus on the Legacy COT positioning of traders deemed "Commercial" by the CFTC, which includes Producers, Merchants, Processors and Users, plus Swap Dealers in a single category.  The Legacy COT report preceded the Disaggregated COT report and we have tracked and charted it for many years, focusing on the movement and positioning of commercial traders – The "Big Hedgers."

Gold and Silver Disaggregated COT Report (DCOT) for September 6 Posted: 06 Sep 2013 12:44 PM PDT HOUSTON -- This week's Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) disaggregated commitments of traders (DCOT) report was released at 15:30 ET Friday. Our recap of the changes in weekly positioning by the disaggregated trader classes, as compiled by the CFTC, is just below.  As we have done for some time now, this week we are also adding in the net positioning of traders the CFTC classes as "Commercial" in the Legacy COT report.  *** (DCOT Table for September 6 and Legacy COT commercial positioning for data as of the close on Tuesday, September 3.   Source CFTC for COT data, Cash Market for gold and silver.)  Please note: Data auto retrieved and unverified until this note removed.  In the DCOT table above a net short position shows as a negative figure in red. A net long position shows in black. In the Change column, a negative number indicates either an increase to an existing net short position or a reduction of a net long position. A black figure in the Change column indicates an increase to an existing long position or a reduction of an existing net short position. The way to think of it is that black figures in the Change column are traders getting "longer" and red figures are traders getting less long or shorter. All of the trader's positions are calculated net of spreading contracts as of the Tuesday disaggregated COT report. We also focus on the Legacy COT positioning of traders deemed "Commercial" by the CFTC, which includes Producers, Merchants, Processors and Users, plus Swap Dealers in a single category.  The Legacy COT report preceded the Disaggregated COT report and we have tracked and charted it for many years, focusing on the movement and positioning of commercial traders – The "Big Hedgers."

As The Fantasy Dies, Panic Will Ensue & Gold Will Soar Posted: 06 Sep 2013 12:37 PM PDT Today Bill Fleckenstein warned King World News that "as the fantasy dies," panic will ensue and gold will soar. Fleckenstein also predicted that the staggering 24% unemployment in the United States will get much worse in the future as people realize the Fed is trapped and the great unwind finally begins. Below is what Fleckenstein, who is President of Fleckenstein Capital, had to say in this powerful interview. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

How to Become Investment Royalty Posted: 06 Sep 2013 12:05 PM PDT Unless you've been under a rock this week, you've read about Chaffee Royalties. Simply put, they're the safest investment to build wealth — some showing investors 4,900% gains in the past. You see, Chaffee Royalties work well in times of economic uncertainty. Their income streams are locked-in agreements for decades of payments, the wealth of which they pass on to their shareholders. Often these payouts are a fixed percentage of a product — say gold or palladium — or a piece of the business. One Chaffee Royalty payer I've looked into gets over $57 million per year from 12 different income streams in all areas of the market — not just resources! In fact, though it's a Canadian company, it doesn't deal with miners at all. Chaffee Royalty stocks avoid shouldering the risk and increase of costs to produce that plague young explorers and producers. Instead, they just deliver some upfront money to the mining company in exchange for a fixed percentage of production, locked in at a fixed price… Often these agreements will even adjust should inflation rear its ugly head. These companies are safe, historically lucrative, and very easy to collect, as we'll cover down below. In 2002, the same royalty “paycheck program” — that paid out $50 for every $1 invested — decided to shut the door to new “members.” In 2008, that door opened again… "There was no telling," Chris advised readers, "when the door will shut again." About 1,800 readers got in on that Chaffee Royalty Program. And it's been doing well since… There are plenty of Chaffee Royalty Programs out there. And they aren't strictly resource plays. They collect income on everything from healthcare to retail, manufacturing to home improvement, and even agriculture and scientific data. In fact, it's easy to achieve portfolio diversity using Chaffee Royalty Programs. The key is getting in when the young and nimble players are starting to attract their income streams who haven't hit the big time… yet. After all, Franco-Nevada is an old bird… started back in 1983. Today, you probably want something newer to the market to see the bigger gains. For example, take a look at this chart. Had you gotten into Royal Gold Inc. (NASDAQ: RGLD), right when this Chaffee player kicked into action, you'd be up 4,536%. Yes, you read that right…4,536%. That's the kind of explosive power these royalty plays have once they start collecting on their income streams and passing the gains directly to you. And when I say 4,536% gains, I'm not even including the dividends Royal Gold has paid out. Today Royal Gold pays out an annual 80-cent dividend — which, based on today's $57 share price, puts you at a 1.4% yield. But that's the thing. Now everyone knows about how great Royal Gold is… and so the price has driven higher to match. So you should be looking for something smaller, newer and ready to grow. Chris Mayer, editor of Capital & Crisis, has been sniffing around the market for the next opportunity, and now he's found one, a tiny $45 million market cap company. In fact, he liked it so much he owned it himself… that is, until readers petitioned him to let them have a crack at it. There are others Chris is eyeing too. We can't share the names (it just wouldn't be fair to Chris' paid up subscribers). However, I do want to show you how they're doing… Since March 2012, Chris' readers had a chance at 170% gains so far. We call it making royalties off "treasure maps". And there's more money to be made. Plus we've seen nearly $1 in dividends to boot. Here's another one that's given us 61% gains so far… and we'll keep holding. We call it the "Only Diversified Canadian Royalty Play." Pretty juicy, right? So you're probably wondering: how short a time window do I have? Well, I can tell you that things can change on a dime in the Chaffee Royalty arena. As I mentioned, the last go-round, in 2008, when Chris and I let readers in on another favorite Chaffee Royalty, it didn't stay open very long… That's because the two big players decided to duke it out and snap up the company as spoils to pad their own income streams. Franco-Nevada (which turned every $1 into $50) tried its best to use all-cash to outbid Royal Gold for the prize of International Royalty Corp. Those who did get in ended up holding shares of Royal Gold… in exchange for their old IRC shares… and their investment has grown 60% since, excluding dividends. The bottom line is, having more than one Chaffee royalty investment will provide great income streams in the years ahead, no matter what Mr. Market holds in store. It's cheap to get started… and as easy as sitting there and watching the money come in. Regards, Samantha Buker for The Daily Reckoning P.S. I've posted all of the details on Chaffee stocks on our website for free. My research includes how to start investing in them today and how to stay updated on new Chaffee plays. Readers of the Daily Reckoning email edition were given access to the link in today's issue. If you're not receiving The Daily Reckoning email, you probably missed out on it. Sign up for The Daily Reckoning for free, right here, and never missed another opportunity like this one.

Gold: An attitude adjustment for institutional banks Posted: 06 Sep 2013 12:02 PM PDT Clif Droke

Cashing In Your Golden Insurance Posted: 06 Sep 2013 11:55 AM PDT One nation's recovery is another's credit crisis. Time to sell gold. Cotton is it, for the second anniversary? Today marked two years since gold hit its all-time peak so far. Read More...

India’s Middle Class Hit Hard as Rupee Pushes Up Prices Posted: 06 Sep 2013 11:09 AM PDT 06-Sep (Bloomberg) — Mumbai taxi driver Saiyad Ahmed Ali has cut back on fruit and fish, from about twice weekly to once a month these days as prices surge. He'll tell you the culprit: India's weakening currency. "The rupee's value has been falling, gas is getting more expensive and fewer people want to take cabs," said Ali, who has seen his daily income fall by about a third, to less than 400 rupees ($6.05) after the costs of running his taxi. "Life here in the big city has become more difficult." A 17 percent plunge in the rupee this year has driven up the cost of imports such as petroleum and chemicals used in packaging. As a result, companies have raised prices for consumer staples like cooking oil and soap to compensate for imported raw-material and transport costs. [source] PG View: Not surprisingly demand for gold has been robust throughout the rupee’s plunge, even as the government erected ever higher barriers in an attempt to choke off imports of the precious metal.

Busted governments will try to grab assets, von Greyerz warns Posted: 06 Sep 2013 11:03 AM PDT 2p ET Friday, September 6, 2013 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Swiss gold fund manager Egon von Greyerz today explains to King World News why propaganda about improving economies in Europe and in the United States is a cosmic fraud, why governments are busted, and why the Polish government's seizure of pension assets this week is a warning to investors to get their wealth out of banking systems if not to some other planet. An excerpt from the interview is posted at the King World News blog here: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/9/6_Thi... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. ADVERTISEMENT How to profit with silver -- and which stocks to buy now Future Money Trends is offering a special 16-page silver report with our forecast for 2013 that includes profiles of nine companies and technical analysis of their stock performance. Six of the companies have market capitalizations of less than $800 million and one company has a market cap of only $30 million. The most exciting of these companies will begin production in a few weeks and has a market cap of just $150 million. Half of all proceeds from the sale of this report will be donated to the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee to support its efforts exposing manipulation and fraud in the gold and silver markets. To learn about this report, please visit: http://www.futuremoneytrends.com/index.php?option=com_content&id=376&tmp... Join GATA here: Gold Investment Symposium 2013 Luna Park Conference Center, Sydney, Australia Wednesday-Thursday, October 16-17, 2013 http://gold.symposium.net.au/ Mines and Money Australia Melbourne Conference and Exhibition Centre Tuesday, October 29-Friday, November 1, 2013 http://www.minesandmoney.com/ New Orleans Investment Conference Sunday-Wednesday, November 10-13, 2013 Hilton New Orleans Riverside Hotel New Orleans, Louisiana https://jeffersoncompanies.com/landing/speakers?IDPromotion=613011610080... * * * 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: http://gata.org/tshirts 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: http://www.gata.org To contribute to GATA, please visit: http://www.gata.org/node/16 ADVERTISEMENT Buy metals at GoldMoney and enjoy international storage GoldMoney was established in 2001 by James and Geoff Turk and is safeguarding more than $1.7 billion in metals and currencies. Buy gold, silver, platinum, and palladium from GoldMoney over the Internet and store them in vaults in Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, ­taking advantage of GoldMoney's low storage rates, among the most competitive in the industry. GoldMoney also offers delivery of 100-gram and 1-kilogram gold bars and 1-kilogram silver bars. To learn more, please visit: http://www.goldmoney.com/?gmrefcode=gata

Oh No, Not More Checks! Posted: 06 Sep 2013 10:57 AM PDT September 6, 2013 “The Super Terrific Happy Hour”: How to apply Seinfeld’s secret for effortless investing gains Where’s my recovery? Not in today’s jobs numbers China loads up on gold, shores up yuan’s position as a global player Pensions nationalized… but the news from Poland isn’t all bad “Careful what you wish for”: Readers warn about nixing the income tax in the Tar Heel State   We pull back the curtain of today’s episode with a short bit from Seinfeld: KRAMER: Hey. Well. (proffers the envelope) This was downstairs for you. Ker-ching. JERRY: (taking the envelope) Oh no, not more checks. They’re coming in faster than I can sign ‘em. GEORGE: What checks? KRAMER: Oh, you didn’t hear? Jerry’s a big star in Japan. JERRY: I don’t know why. There’s a one-second clip of me in the opening credits of some Japanese comedy show. KRAMER: Yeah, the Super Terrific Happy Hour. JERRY: (opening the envelope and pulling out a stack of checks) They run it all the time, and now I’m starting to get all these royalty checks. GEORGE: Look at all those! You’re rich!   Alas, due to exchange rates, Seinfeld’s checks netted him only 12 cents a pop. Comedy bits aside, in the world of the contrarian investments, royalty checks are among the most lucrative — yet extremely elusive — ways to collect checks for years without lifting a finger. That’s why we were so keen on our own Chris Mayer unlocking the details to his “Chaffee Royalty” program which, as we’ve mentioned, is known to have the potential of delivering up to a 50-to-1 payoff… As you may’ve suspected, the petition response far exceeded the goal. You should’ve received full details on the “Chaffee Royalty” strategy in your inbox at 9:30 a.m. EDT. Now that the secret’s out, here’s the lowdown on just one of Chris’ opportunities straight from the horse’s mouth — one of the youngest and most successful CEOs in the mining industry…  “So what we do,” the profiteering CEO begins, “is we give people money to go build mines or develop oil fields or gas fields, and what we get in return is a contract that allows us to purchase a certain percentage of their production for the life of that [field], and we purchased it at X price. “So for example,” he goes on, “on a gold mine, we might give someone $50 million, and what we’ll get in return is the right to purchase 20% of their gold at $500 now. “And then we just take the ounce of gold every time we buy it for $500, and we sell it at spot rate, which today is about $1,430 an ounce. The difference between $500 is our profit margin and our cash flow, and we continue to reinvest our cash flow into purchasing new contracts. “If we negotiate a contract or buy gold at $500 an ounce, we know we’re buying it at $500 now, this year, next year or for several years to come. So that really decreases the risk to the operating process for our investors.” That’s the genius of his model: As prices go up across the board, this CEO’s royalty company is locked in at a fixed price. And where you come in, the profits are doled out to investors in the form of royalties. [Ed. Note: Again, that's only one of the ways Chris' most elite readers have been receiving royalty checks. To see just how lucrative they could be, click here to see eight Americans who cashed in big on "Chaffee Royalties"... and how you can too.]   The “robust recovery” narrative in the media took a hit this morning with the release of the government’s August jobs report. Let’s hit the lowlights… The Bureau of Labor Statistics conjured 169,000 new jobs for August — less than the “expert consensus” was counting on. Worse, June and July were revised down The “U-3″ unemployment rate dropped to 7.3% — but only because people are dropping out of the labor force. And we assure you most of those people did not retire with a gold watch Indeed, the labor force participation rate — the percentage of the working-age population in the labor force — has dropped to 63.2%. That’s the lowest since summer 1978, when the Rolling Stones topped the charts with “Miss You” and the big box-office draw was Animal House. Meanwhile, the employment-population ratio remains mired in its post-recession funk… The real-world unemployment rate compiled by John Williams at Shadow Government Statistics is unchanged from a month ago, 23.3%.   The markets have been all over the place this morning. Stocks first rallied on the rotten jobs numbers, on the theory the Fed is now less likely to “taper” its money printing program later this month. Then they tanked when leaders at the G-20 summit in St. Petersburg announced — surprise, surprise — they didn’t see eye to eye about Syria. Who’da thunk it, right? Anyway, as of this writing… The Dow is down modestly, a hair below 14,900. The S&P is squeaking its way back into the green 10-year Treasury yields, which nearly touched 3% yesterday, are backing off to 2.9% Crude is only a dime away from $110 The dollar index has slipped half a percent, to 82.2 Gold has recovered a healthy chunk of yesterday’s losses at $1,387. Silver has rallied to $23.84.   Sales of U.S. Silver Eagles so far in 2013 have already topped the total for all of 2012. Last year’s total was 33.74 million ounces. As of this morning, it’s 33.75 million. At that pace, the annual record — 39.87 million in 2011 — is in jeopardy.   China has once again notched a substantial increase in gold imports year over year. The July total for shipments via Hong Kong totaled 129 metric tons, compared with 76 in July 2012. The number was also a slight increase from June. China is set to knock India off from its perch as the world’s leading bullion consumer this year. Act accordingly.   Meanwhile, China just passed another milestone on its way to becoming a major player in world currencies. The yuan has cracked the top 10 of most traded currencies as ranked by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). No. 9, to be precise — up from No. 17 during the last survey, in 2010. Yuan trading volume now equals $120 billion a day. “Ten years ago, when we first offered renminbi deposits, there weren’t but a handful of dealers that even would mess with renminbi,” writes EverBank’s Chuck Butler in this morning’s Daily Pfennig. “But I think that the trading of renminbi goes hand in hand with the Chinese government’s plans to gain a wider distribution of the currency.” Indeed, Chuck’s long-standing forecast is playing out before our eyes…   Poland is slipping back into some bad old communist ways. The government is taking over a sizeable chunk of private pension funds — booking them as assets to offset public debt on the state balance sheet. “Announcing the long-awaited overhaul of state-guaranteed pensions,” Reuters reports, “Prime Minister Donald Tusk said private funds within the state-guaranteed system would have their bond holdings transferred to a state pension vehicle, but keep their equity holdings. “He said that what remained in citizens’ pension pots in the private funds will be gradually transferred into the state vehicle over the last 10 years before savers hit retirement age.” Says Nomura analyst Peter Attard Montalto: “The government has an odd definition of private property given it claims this is not nationalization.” So far, workers are not reacting with the fervor of their parents three decades ago… If this news is setting off “401(k) confiscation” alarm bells in your head, you can rest easy: These are state-guaranteed pensions, akin to the traditional defined-benefit pension plans in this country backed by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. If you still have one of those plans, we daresay you’re justified in worrying a bit…   But on the positive side of the Polish ledger, we see a move afoot to repatriate the country’s gold. “In the face of the ongoing financial crisis and monetary tightening in every major conflict,” the “Give Our Gold Back” website reads after we ran it through Google Translate, “the country should keep the gold in such a place [that] would be available at any time. “It is important to guarantee,” the site goes on, “that gold will not be anyone ‘leased’ and its resources will always be precisely defined. This is one of the foundations for a strong currency and economy.” Hey, all the cool countries are doing it. Venezuela’s already done it. Germany is likewise taking back its gold, although the New York Fed prevailed upon the Bundesbank to drag out the process through 2020. The movement began, according to its vice chairman Piotr Wojda, when two economists became “worried about the safety of more than 100 tons of Polish gold held in the vaults of Bank of England for the last 70 years.” After meeting with members of the Polish parliament, Wojda explained, “The members of parliament agreed that Polish gold reserves deserve an independent audit…” An audit? Well, it’s a first step anyway…   “North Carolina, you better watch out what you wish for, or more appropriately what your legislature wishes,” writes a reader after our item yesterday about a move to nix the income tax there. “I live in Washington State, and we don’t have an income tax. What we do have is one of the highest sales taxes in the country. When the 2008 recession hit, our state’s budget was hundreds of millions of dollars in the red, because no one was spending. Also, all our ‘sin’ taxes, on cigarettes and booze are exorbitant. Throw in the fourth-highest gas tax in the country and, well, there you go. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. “To make matters worse, every other year or so, either the legislature or some kind of special interest group brings an income tax to the ballot, with the promise of ‘cutting’ the sales tax. Never any ‘elimination’ of the sales tax, but we will ‘reduce’ it, hint, hint, hint, wink, wink, wink. North Carolina, be very wary of any promises to cut back other taxes in exchange for a new tax.”   “I can see what will happen in North Carolina is the way it is in some socialist countries,” adds another reader. “I recently moved back to the U.S. from New Zealand because the cost of living was so high. Your personal income tax and property taxes were very low, but boy, did you ever pay through the nose for everything else. So one way or another, the government gets your money. The ‘free’ health care there really isn’t free when you get right down to it.”   “I agree with your readers that complain about the long presentations,” a correspondent writes as we wind down the week’s mailbag. “In training salesmen for over 40 years, I can assure you, with most intelligent buyers, less talk is more effective. Once the customer is ready to buy, shut up and take the order. A suggestion: Have two versions — a short one for buyers who want to make a quick decision and a long-winded one for you to bore the rest of us.”   “Thanks for all the informative work you guys are doing there! Of course, even Ichiro Suzuki, late of the Mariners (and now gone over to the dark side, aka Yankees), doesn’t bat 1.000. “From the commentary this week, I would like to tactfully and gracefully agree with the sentiments the others expressed about the length and tenor of the — as one writer called them — presentations. I do, in fact, like the fact that if one exits the videos, you can get a text transcript — that helps a lot. A lot of us like text, so we can speed-read — and knowing this may help as you seek to optimize your advertising process. “Just a (hopefully) helpful observation. You guys are great, and certainly more than the equal of Ichiro in terms of batting average!” The 5: Gosh, we’d hope so. “Baseball,” said Ted Williams, “is the only field of endeavor where a man can succeed three times out of 10 and be considered a good performer.” Have a good weekend, Dave Gonigam The 5 Min. Forecast P.S. “I only learned about ‘Chaffee Royalties’ from an ex-commercial banker who used to handle $400 million contracts for breakfast,” says Chris Mayer. “He discovered them after years of researching looking for unique new way for investors to get very rich. And I’m convinced, along with some very smart and very rich investors, that this may be one of the best undiscovered ways to ‘make money while you sleep’ available today.” Thing is, the window of opportunity on these plays can close with little or no warning. So check it out while there’s still time.

India Gold Soars Posted: 06 Sep 2013 10:57 AM PDT Gold denominated in Indian rupees just skyrocketed up near record highs, a far cry from recent dollar-gold action. Much of this extraordinary rally was fueled by the near-collapse of the Indian currency to new record lows against the US dollar. Read More...

Why investors like silver more than gold Posted: 06 Sep 2013 10:46 AM PDT Myra Saefong, SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Investors have taken a big interest in silver lately and their infatuation looks set to continue this year, despite gold's advance.True, both metals haven't done very well most recently, posting losses in five out the last six sessions, but a big-picture view on prices and exchange-traded funds shows just how much silver's turning heads. In August, gold futures climbed more than 6% and since the end of June, they are up about 12%. Those figures pale in comparison to the 20% increase in silver futures for last month and quarter to date. Click to Play Focus on funds: Silver rising The economically sensitive metal headed higher, thanks in part to news from China. Also: Frontier markets are having a good year, and a new way to invest in hedge funds. Silver's also set for the first quarterly gain since the third quarter of last year. "Given the outperformance in silver over gold, we can assume that there are factors in play other than traditional safe-haven demand," said Tom Lydon, editor and publisher of ETFtrends.com. Silver exchange-traded funds were the best performing ETFs in August, Lydon said in a report this week, noting that they were bolstered by bargain-hunting speculators as well as by escalating geopolitical tensions surrounding Syria. The physical-silver-backed iShares Silver Trust SLV +2.68%  saw net fund inflows of $88.2 million last month as of Aug. 30, according to IndexUniverse. That compares with gold-backed SPDR Gold Trust's GLD +1.35%  fund outflows of $227 million as well as outflows of $15.9 billion among U.S. equity funds and $6.66 billion among U.S. fixed-income funds, IndexUniverse data show. "Psychologically, the slow money likely sees SLV as more attractive than GLD for the simple fact that it hasn't been talked about for the past half decade," said Adam Koos, president of Libertas Wealth Management Group. "People like new and exciting, and gold might be [psychologically] becoming old hat to some," he said. "It also goes without saying that the price per share is cheaper when buying SLV." Broad demand But demand for silver is broader than that. "For investors, silver is much more of an industrial material than gold and accordingly has potential double benefits from both industrial and investment demand," said Michael Haynes, chief executive officer at online precious-metals dealer APMEX Inc. The U.S. Mint said sales of its American Eagle silver bullion coins remain "brisk." They're up about 45% year to date, compared with the same period last year, according to spokesman Michael White. The Mint sold a total of nearly 39 million of those one-ounce coins in 2011, which was its record for a single calendar year. So far in 2013, the Mint accepted orders for more than 33 million coins. At the current demand pace, the Mint will set a new record for sales this year, White said. APMEX.com Silver's much more affordable than gold for individual investors, and their interest is in holding physical silver, according to Edmund Moy, chief strategist at gold-backed IRA provider Morgan Gold. Moy pointed out that while he was director of the U.S. Mint, from 2006 to early 2011, sales of the number of ounces of American Eagle silver bullion coins outpaced sales of American Eagle gold bullion coins. The ratio of silver ounces to gold ounces, based on U.S. Mint sales, has been roughly 48 to 1 this year, he said. In July, it was 87 to 1 and in August, it was 315 to 1. "When gold prices start to go beyond the reach of small investors, they resort to silver," Moy said. The silver market tends to be highly volatile and it is much smaller than the market for gold. "The higher volatility attracts momentum investors who favor [ETFs] to take advantage of the price without the burdens of holding the physical silver," said Moy. "That's the primary driver behind the growth of silver ETFs. With volatility, you have the potential for greater gains but also greater losses." Shares of the iShares Silver Trust have climbed about 18% for the quarter so far. Demand for silver also shows in the climb among total overall silver holdings in ETFs physically backed by the metal. "The notable elastic measurable demand increases have been reflected by new all-time highs in total ETF holdings," said Mike McGlone, director of research at ETF Securities U.S. He said total ETF silver holdings ended August at 645 million ounces, a record high and up from around 582 million ounces at the end of 2012. Global silver mine production totaled 787 million ounces in 2012, according to data from The Silver Institute. And "while silver prices can be more volatile, they are anchored around industrial use, which gives it some non-sentimental stability," said Moy. About half of all silver mined, compared with about 12% of all gold production, goes to industrial uses, he said. On that front, silver, which is a major component in the auto, chemical, electronics and solar industries, has been doing well. Auto producers are experiencing their best year since 2007, and the solar photovoltaic industry is "experiencing a boom," said ETFtrends.com's Lydon. And the "improving economy is also bolstering consumer spending and demand for everything including electronics." Outlook For now, silver prices are poised for a loss of roughly 23% for 2013, and they're set for a volatile final quarter of the year.   "Gains for silver depend half on the economy because of its industrial uses and consumption, and half on gold prices as a little brother store of value," said Thomas Winmill, portfolio manager of the Midas FundMIDSX -2.92% . He expects silver to "outperform gold through the end of the year." Of course, silver will be moving based on much of the same factors that influence gold. Near term, silver's likely to see some "whipsaw action" based on daily talk of Federal Reserve stimulus tapering, the U.S. debt ceiling and Syria, according to Christopher Blasi, president of Neptune Global Holdings. He expects prices to end the year at around $25 an ounce. Silver futures settled Thursday at $23.26 an ounce. Beyond this year, Winmill expects silver to underperform gold in 2014. "Underperformance, we believe, will occur due to a leveling of gold prices, increased inventories of silver and a slowing global economy," said Winmill.  Myra Saefong is a MarketWatch reporter based in San Francisco. Follow her on Twitter@MktwSaefong. September 6, 2013 (Source: Market Watch) http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-investors-like-silver-more-than-gold-2013-09-06?pagenumber=2

Why investors like silver more than gold Posted: 06 Sep 2013 10:46 AM PDT Myra Saefong, SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — Investors have taken a big interest in silver lately and their infatuation looks set to continue this year, despite gold's advance.True, both metals haven't done very well most recently, posting losses in five out the last six sessions, but a big-picture view on prices and exchange-traded funds shows just how much silver's turning heads. In August, gold futures climbed more than 6% and since the end of June, they are up about 12%. Those figures pale in comparison to the 20% increase in silver futures for last month and quarter to date. Click to Play Focus on funds: Silver rising The economically sensitive metal headed higher, thanks in part to news from China. Also: Frontier markets are having a good year, and a new way to invest in hedge funds. Silver's also set for the first quarterly gain since the third quarter of last year. "Given the outperformance in silver over gold, we can assume that there are factors in play other than traditional safe-haven demand," said Tom Lydon, editor and publisher of ETFtrends.com. Silver exchange-traded funds were the best performing ETFs in August, Lydon said in a report this week, noting that they were bolstered by bargain-hunting speculators as well as by escalating geopolitical tensions surrounding Syria. The physical-silver-backed iShares Silver Trust SLV +2.68%  saw net fund inflows of $88.2 million last month as of Aug. 30, according to IndexUniverse. That compares with gold-backed SPDR Gold Trust's GLD +1.35%  fund outflows of $227 million as well as outflows of $15.9 billion among U.S. equity funds and $6.66 billion among U.S. fixed-income funds, IndexUniverse data show. "Psychologically, the slow money likely sees SLV as more attractive than GLD for the simple fact that it hasn't been talked about for the past half decade," said Adam Koos, president of Libertas Wealth Management Group. "People like new and exciting, and gold might be [psychologically] becoming old hat to some," he said. "It also goes without saying that the price per share is cheaper when buying SLV." Broad demand But demand for silver is broader than that. "For investors, silver is much more of an industrial material than gold and accordingly has potential double benefits from both industrial and investment demand," said Michael Haynes, chief executive officer at online precious-metals dealer APMEX Inc. The U.S. Mint said sales of its American Eagle silver bullion coins remain "brisk." They're up about 45% year to date, compared with the same period last year, according to spokesman Michael White. The Mint sold a total of nearly 39 million of those one-ounce coins in 2011, which was its record for a single calendar year. So far in 2013, the Mint accepted orders for more than 33 million coins. At the current demand pace, the Mint will set a new record for sales this year, White said. APMEX.com Silver's much more affordable than gold for individual investors, and their interest is in holding physical silver, according to Edmund Moy, chief strategist at gold-backed IRA provider Morgan Gold. Moy pointed out that while he was director of the U.S. Mint, from 2006 to early 2011, sales of the number of ounces of American Eagle silver bullion coins outpaced sales of American Eagle gold bullion coins. The ratio of silver ounces to gold ounces, based on U.S. Mint sales, has been roughly 48 to 1 this year, he said. In July, it was 87 to 1 and in August, it was 315 to 1. "When gold prices start to go beyond the reach of small investors, they resort to silver," Moy said. The silver market tends to be highly volatile and it is much smaller than the market for gold. "The higher volatility attracts momentum investors who favor [ETFs] to take advantage of the price without the burdens of holding the physical silver," said Moy. "That's the primary driver behind the growth of silver ETFs. With volatility, you have the potential for greater gains but also greater losses." Shares of the iShares Silver Trust have climbed about 18% for the quarter so far. Demand for silver also shows in the climb among total overall silver holdings in ETFs physically backed by the metal. "The notable elastic measurable demand increases have been reflected by new all-time highs in total ETF holdings," said Mike McGlone, director of research at ETF Securities U.S. He said total ETF silver holdings ended August at 645 million ounces, a record high and up from around 582 million ounces at the end of 2012. Global silver mine production totaled 787 million ounces in 2012, according to data from The Silver Institute. And "while silver prices can be more volatile, they are anchored around industrial use, which gives it some non-sentimental stability," said Moy. About half of all silver mined, compared with about 12% of all gold production, goes to industrial uses, he said. On that front, silver, which is a major component in the auto, chemical, electronics and solar industries, has been doing well. Auto producers are experiencing their best year since 2007, and the solar photovoltaic industry is "experiencing a boom," said ETFtrends.com's Lydon. And the "improving economy is also bolstering consumer spending and demand for everything including electronics." Outlook For now, silver prices are poised for a loss of roughly 23% for 2013, and they're set for a volatile final quarter of the year.   "Gains for silver depend half on the economy because of its industrial uses and consumption, and half on gold prices as a little brother store of value," said Thomas Winmill, portfolio manager of the Midas FundMIDSX -2.92% . He expects silver to "outperform gold through the end of the year." Of course, silver will be moving based on much of the same factors that influence gold. Near term, silver's likely to see some "whipsaw action" based on daily talk of Federal Reserve stimulus tapering, the U.S. debt ceiling and Syria, according to Christopher Blasi, president of Neptune Global Holdings. He expects prices to end the year at around $25 an ounce. Silver futures settled Thursday at $23.26 an ounce. Beyond this year, Winmill expects silver to underperform gold in 2014. "Underperformance, we believe, will occur due to a leveling of gold prices, increased inventories of silver and a slowing global economy," said Winmill.  Myra Saefong is a MarketWatch reporter based in San Francisco. Follow her on Twitter@MktwSaefong. September 6, 2013 (Source: Market Watch) http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-investors-like-silver-more-than-gold-2013-09-06?pagenumber=2

Gold: An Attitude Adjustment For Institutional Banks Posted: 06 Sep 2013 10:41 AM PDT The last couple of weeks have witnessed changing attitudes of large institutions concerning the gold price. A growing number of institutional analysts are become bullish - some them ultra bullish - on gold's near-term outlook. Read More...

The Daily Market Report Posted: 06 Sep 2013 10:35 AM PDT Diminished Taper Expectations, Heightened Geopolitical Tensions Boost Gold 06-Sep (USAGOLD) — Gold snapped back smartly from new two-week lows after the August jobs reported proved to be a big disappointment, diminishing expectations that the Fed will announce a tapering of asset purchases later in the month. Tensions in the middle east seem to be ratcheting higher as well, adding additional support to the yellow metal. The headline payrolls figure for August at +169k was only modestly below expectations of +177k and the unemployment rate actually ticked lower to 7.3%. However, the underlying data were pretty bleak indeed. There were combined negative revisions to June and July payrolls totaling -74k, leaving July in particular at a dismal +104k jobs. Neil Irwin of the Washington Post noted that the “pace of job growth now showing visible downward trend.” While a declining jobless rate is on its surface good news, it’s not such good news when it comes as a result of denominator reduction. The labor-force participation rate fell to 63.2% in August thanks to 312k people dropping out of the workforce. That’s the lowest rate in 35-years. Ben Casselman of the Wall Street Journal tweeted that “For the 40th consecutive month, more unemployed workers left the labor force than found work.” There seems to be a growing realization that the Fed is failing massively at the full employment portion of its dual-mandate, even as inflation (the second half of the mandate) is well contained; at least by government measures. This suggests that the Fed may wait to start removing accommodations. The bond market sure seems to think so initially. The yield on the 10-year note plunged from 2.96% before the NFP report to 2.84%. Yields subsequently rebounded to the 2.90% zone. On the other hand, maybe the Fed is beginning to grasp how ineffectual QE is. Do they continue to throw good money after bad, or do they commence with the taper and force Congress to get to work on fiscal reforms? As the old saying goes: ‘If the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem begins to look like a nail.’ The Fed’s only tool is monetary policy; when in doubt throw money at it. The Obama Administration continues to seek support for a military strike against Syria. However, doubts remain that he will get that support from Congress next week. That had tempered safe-haven demand for gold earlier in the week. If we do nothing, the Syrian civil war should remain contained. However, some saber-rattling from Russian President Putin today and reports of threats against U.S. interests in the region from Iranian surrogates provide examples of just how a limited missile strike could dramatically escalate the situation. Putin said that Russia would “help Syria” in the event of a U.S. attack. He later seemed to clarify that Russia would just continue to send arms to the Assad government. However, he also ordered additional Russian naval assets to the eastern-Mediterranean. According to The Wall Street Journal, U.S. intelligence sources also “intercepted an order from Iran to militants in Iraq to attack the U.S. Embassy and other American interests in Baghdad in the event of a strike on Syria.” Decreased likelihood of Fed tapering, combined with rising geopolitical tensions in the middle east would be generally construed as supportive to the gold market. It will be interesting to see if the President does indeed win approval to strike Syria next week.

Gold Price Peak, Two Years On Posted: 06 Sep 2013 10:32 AM PDT Crisis has slipped back, for the rich West at least. So who needs insurance...?   COTTON is it, for the second anniversary? Today marked two years since gold hit its all-time peak so far, writes Adrian Ash at BullionVault.   Tuesday 6th Sept 2011 was wet and windy, both in London and gold. Late Asian trade had seen the wholesale gold price rise 1.4%, reaching $1921 per ounce. Prices then turned lower, and by the time New York opened the air was hissing out of gold futures.   London's benchmark gold price fixed at $1895. That repeated the Monday's PM Fix and came just shy of Monday morning's record Fix of $1896.50. The gold price then dropped $300 within three weeks. It's since dropped $740 from 2011's peak to June 2013's low. Wet and windy indeed.   Prices need money, however. And the Sterling gold price also hit record highs two years ago today. Peaking at £1194 in the spot market, gold was fixed at a record high of £1182.82 per ounce on 6th Sept 2011.   But the peak gold price in both Euros and Swiss Francs didn't come for another 12 months. Japanese savers got their peak price in April 2013. The world's biggest buyers, Indian households, paid the very highest prices in history only last month. Because the Rupee has, yet again, become a miserable way of trying to store wealth.   Might the Dollar, Sterling or Euro join the Rupee anytime soon? No one rings a bell at the top, nor the bottom. (Although we should have spotted the irony in gold's new fan on 7 September 2011.) So buying gold or silver is always a choice. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. But a private decision, freely made – and freely rejecting cash, stocks and bonds with a little or more of our savings.   Added together, such private choices make a market. And that choice was the market's to make once again today, as the US jobs data was released for August. A strong number, and everyone thought the Federal Reserve would be sure to start cutting its quantitative easing at this month's policy vote. Weak growth, however, might keep Ben Bernanke's QE tapering in the bathroom cabinet, next to his beard trimmer, until October or perhaps year-end.   Quite what the outcome means – being neither strong nor weak (if you discount the LA porn industry's brief shutdown) – we'll have to wait and see. Either way, less money printing equals lower gold, apparently, the obvious "vice versa" of what QE did for gold investing when it began in 2009. Quanticipation in gold certainly helped drive 2012's rally, alongside that peak in Eurozone stress. Then the mere thought of less QE did for gold prices this spring. It's hammered emerging-market economies, too. And fundamentally, gold and the rise of emerging Asia have been joined at the hip during the 21st century so far.   Back here in the tired old West, meantime, the immediate panic over Syria has ebbed, even with the US and Russia going head-to-head over Assad's chemical weapons. That leaves pundits and analysts to claim gold's two-month rally is done. The longer-term bear market is back.   Who are we to argue? There are plenty of bullish analysts besides, and it's important to see what the other side thinks. Precious metals are about insurance, however. And the sense of crisis has plainly receded since the financial meltdown peaked in 2011.   But waiting for a crisis to make headlines is no way to buy insurance. And if not war today, with Obama and Putin squaring up at the G20 summit in St.Petersburg, there's still lots of good reason for a financial backstop. Central bankers are committed to creating inflation, in the hope of juicing up growth. The Western world's debt has yet to stop growing, even 5 years after the Lehmans' collapse. Asian standards of living continue to rise long term, leaving fewer resources for the rich world to squander.   Gold and silver are a big part of that story. Because they're the first thing most Asian households will buy when allowed discretionary savings. But the picture is mixed short-term, of course. This week we heard that China's gold imports climbed yet again at last count. Indian households, in contrast, are locked out of the imports they would otherwise buy. Tight supplies in the domestic market have in fact prompted a wave of Indian selling, say jewelers.   Amid India's financial crisis people need the money, because bank lending has dried up. The current high prices – due to the collapse of the Rupee – make this a good time to take profits on previous gold investing.   Sell high, in short. For Indian households who need it, now is the time to cash in some of their golden insurance.

Gold Price Peak, Two Years On Posted: 06 Sep 2013 10:32 AM PDT Crisis has slipped back, for the rich West at least. So who needs insurance...?   COTTON is it, for the second anniversary? Today marked two years since gold hit its all-time peak so far, writes Adrian Ash at BullionVault.   Tuesday 6th Sept 2011 was wet and windy, both in London and gold. Late Asian trade had seen the wholesale gold price rise 1.4%, reaching $1921 per ounce. Prices then turned lower, and by the time New York opened the air was hissing out of gold futures.   London's benchmark gold price fixed at $1895. That repeated the Monday's PM Fix and came just shy of Monday morning's record Fix of $1896.50. The gold price then dropped $300 within three weeks. It's since dropped $740 from 2011's peak to June 2013's low. Wet and windy indeed.   Prices need money, however. And the Sterling gold price also hit record highs two years ago today. Peaking at £1194 in the spot market, gold was fixed at a record high of £1182.82 per ounce on 6th Sept 2011.   But the peak gold price in both Euros and Swiss Francs didn't come for another 12 months. Japanese savers got their peak price in April 2013. The world's biggest buyers, Indian households, paid the very highest prices in history only last month. Because the Rupee has, yet again, become a miserable way of trying to store wealth.   Might the Dollar, Sterling or Euro join the Rupee anytime soon? No one rings a bell at the top, nor the bottom. (Although we should have spotted the irony in gold's new fan on 7 September 2011.) So buying gold or silver is always a choice. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. But a private decision, freely made – and freely rejecting cash, stocks and bonds with a little or more of our savings.   Added together, such private choices make a market. And that choice was the market's to make once again today, as the US jobs data was released for August. A strong number, and everyone thought the Federal Reserve would be sure to start cutting its quantitative easing at this month's policy vote. Weak growth, however, might keep Ben Bernanke's QE tapering in the bathroom cabinet, next to his beard trimmer, until October or perhaps year-end.   Quite what the outcome means – being neither strong nor weak (if you discount the LA porn industry's brief shutdown) – we'll have to wait and see. Either way, less money printing equals lower gold, apparently, the obvious "vice versa" of what QE did for gold investing when it began in 2009. Quanticipation in gold certainly helped drive 2012's rally, alongside that peak in Eurozone stress. Then the mere thought of less QE did for gold prices this spring. It's hammered emerging-market economies, too. And fundamentally, gold and the rise of emerging Asia have been joined at the hip during the 21st century so far.   Back here in the tired old West, meantime, the immediate panic over Syria has ebbed, even with the US and Russia going head-to-head over Assad's chemical weapons. That leaves pundits and analysts to claim gold's two-month rally is done. The longer-term bear market is back.   Who are we to argue? There are plenty of bullish analysts besides, and it's important to see what the other side thinks. Precious metals are about insurance, however. And the sense of crisis has plainly receded since the financial meltdown peaked in 2011.   But waiting for a crisis to make headlines is no way to buy insurance. And if not war today, with Obama and Putin squaring up at the G20 summit in St.Petersburg, there's still lots of good reason for a financial backstop. Central bankers are committed to creating inflation, in the hope of juicing up growth. The Western world's debt has yet to stop growing, even 5 years after the Lehmans' collapse. Asian standards of living continue to rise long term, leaving fewer resources for the rich world to squander.   Gold and silver are a big part of that story. Because they're the first thing most Asian households will buy when allowed discretionary savings. But the picture is mixed short-term, of course. This week we heard that China's gold imports climbed yet again at last count. Indian households, in contrast, are locked out of the imports they would otherwise buy. Tight supplies in the domestic market have in fact prompted a wave of Indian selling, say jewelers.   Amid India's financial crisis people need the money, because bank lending has dried up. The current high prices – due to the collapse of the Rupee – make this a good time to take profits on previous gold investing.   Sell high, in short. For Indian households who need it, now is the time to cash in some of their golden insurance.

Gold Price Peak, Two Years On Posted: 06 Sep 2013 10:32 AM PDT Crisis has slipped back, for the rich West at least. So who needs insurance...?   COTTON is it, for the second anniversary? Today marked two years since gold hit its all-time peak so far, writes Adrian Ash at BullionVault.   Tuesday 6th Sept 2011 was wet and windy, both in London and gold. Late Asian trade had seen the wholesale gold price rise 1.4%, reaching $1921 per ounce. Prices then turned lower, and by the time New York opened the air was hissing out of gold futures.   London's benchmark gold price fixed at $1895. That repeated the Monday's PM Fix and came just shy of Monday morning's record Fix of $1896.50. The gold price then dropped $300 within three weeks. It's since dropped $740 from 2011's peak to June 2013's low. Wet and windy indeed.   Prices need money, however. And the Sterling gold price also hit record highs two years ago today. Peaking at £1194 in the spot market, gold was fixed at a record high of £1182.82 per ounce on 6th Sept 2011.   But the peak gold price in both Euros and Swiss Francs didn't come for another 12 months. Japanese savers got their peak price in April 2013. The world's biggest buyers, Indian households, paid the very highest prices in history only last month. Because the Rupee has, yet again, become a miserable way of trying to store wealth.   Might the Dollar, Sterling or Euro join the Rupee anytime soon? No one rings a bell at the top, nor the bottom. (Although we should have spotted the irony in gold's new fan on 7 September 2011.) So buying gold or silver is always a choice. Sometimes better, sometimes worse. But a private decision, freely made – and freely rejecting cash, stocks and bonds with a little or more of our savings.   Added together, such private choices make a market. And that choice was the market's to make once again today, as the US jobs data was released for August. A strong number, and everyone thought the Federal Reserve would be sure to start cutting its quantitative easing at this month's policy vote. Weak growth, however, might keep Ben Bernanke's QE tapering in the bathroom cabinet, next to his beard trimmer, until October or perhaps year-end.   Quite what the outcome means – being neither strong nor weak (if you discount the LA porn industry's brief shutdown) – we'll have to wait and see. Either way, less money printing equals lower gold, apparently, the obvious "vice versa" of what QE did for gold investing when it began in 2009. Quanticipation in gold certainly helped drive 2012's rally, alongside that peak in Eurozone stress. Then the mere thought of less QE did for gold prices this spring. It's hammered emerging-market economies, too. And fundamentally, gold and the rise of emerging Asia have been joined at the hip during the 21st century so far.   Back here in the tired old West, meantime, the immediate panic over Syria has ebbed, even with the US and Russia going head-to-head over Assad's chemical weapons. That leaves pundits and analysts to claim gold's two-month rally is done. The longer-term bear market is back.   Who are we to argue? There are plenty of bullish analysts besides, and it's important to see what the other side thinks. Precious metals are about insurance, however. And the sense of crisis has plainly receded since the financial meltdown peaked in 2011.   But waiting for a crisis to make headlines is no way to buy insurance. And if not war today, with Obama and Putin squaring up at the G20 summit in St.Petersburg, there's still lots of good reason for a financial backstop. Central bankers are committed to creating inflation, in the hope of juicing up growth. The Western world's debt has yet to stop growing, even 5 years after the Lehmans' collapse. Asian standards of living continue to rise long term, leaving fewer resources for the rich world to squander.   Gold and silver are a big part of that story. Because they're the first thing most Asian households will buy when allowed discretionary savings. But the picture is mixed short-term, of course. This week we heard that China's gold imports climbed yet again at last count. Indian households, in contrast, are locked out of the imports they would otherwise buy. Tight supplies in the domestic market have in fact prompted a wave of Indian selling, say jewelers.   Amid India's financial crisis people need the money, because bank lending has dried up. The current high prices – due to the collapse of the Rupee – make this a good time to take profits on previous gold investing.   Sell high, in short. For Indian households who need it, now is the time to cash in some of their golden insurance.

The Poor Are Better Off Poor: Bloomberg Posted: 06 Sep 2013 09:49 AM PDT The realm of precious metals is a broad and diverse one. Indeed, for those who heed the propaganda of the mainstream media; nearly anything can "cause" the prices of gold and silver to go higher or lower (usually lower). For investors inside the sector; an important facet of precious metals is economic justice. In societies with "honest money", not only are workers able to keep their daily wage (rather than have it relentlessly clawed away from them by banker "inflation") but that wage tends to rise steadily with time – reflecting increasing overall prosperity. Conversely, the One Bank's dishonest world of fiat, paper currencies is an entirely opposite regime. Here workers see their wages directly stolen from them at an ever-increasing rate via the Banksters theft-by-currency dilution. The chart below illustrates this serial theft. According to the Corporate Media and our lying governments; we live in a "low inflation" world (while a "food inflation crisis" ravages the planet). Believe that lie, and we get the blue line; pretending that wages have remained roughly flat over the past 40 years. Move to the Real World, however, and we see an entirely different reality (the green line). In the Real World; ever-increasing money-printing causes ever-increasing currency dilution (i.e. inflation). And when we discount wages with realistic inflation numbers to express wages in "real dollars"; we see the average wage of the U.S. worker plummeting by more than 50% -- all the way to Great Depression levels (and still falling). The Middle Class have become the Working Poor. But that still isn't good enough for the One Bank and its minions in the Corporate Media. Not only do they want to see these slave-wages continue falling lower and lower; they want to hear the Slaves say they like it this way. Hence the September 4th lecture to the Little People from Bloomberg, (maliciously) released right after Labour Day. The cynical title of this attack on all workers was Can We Pay A Minimum Wage Which Makes Everyone Rich? This sort of straw-man analysis is typical of these Corporate elitists as they "explain" why the Rich should (always) get richer and richer, and the Poor (i.e. everyone else) should (always) get poorer and poorer.

Indian Gold Price Soars, Neear Collapse of Another Fiat Currency Posted: 06 Sep 2013 09:39 AM PDT Gold denominated in Indian rupees just skyrocketed up near record highs, a far cry from recent dollar-gold action.  Much of this extraordinary rally was fueled by the near-collapse of the Indian currency to new record lows against the US dollar.  India’s deepening currency crisis has major implications for domestic gold demand and thus global gold prices.  Nothing ignites gold buying like a collapsing currency! Indians’ deep cultural affinity for gold is legendary.  For decades it was the world’s biggest consumer of gold, although China is overtaking it now.  According to the World Gold Council, in the first half of 2013 India still accounted for a staggering 28% of global consumer gold demand!  The 566.5 metric tons of the yellow metal Indians bought in the last two quarters greatly dwarf Americans’ 83.4t purchased.

This Is Why Gold Will Soar To $2,500 & Silver Will Spike To $70 Posted: 06 Sep 2013 09:26 AM PDT With fear escalating around the world about the state of the global economy, and potential conflict in the Middle East, today a 42-year market veteran told King World News why gold is now set to soar to $2,500, and silver will spike to $70. He also discussed the collapse the world is facing and why it is set to accelerate. Below is what Egon von Greyerz, founder of Matterhorn Asset Management out of Switzerland, had to say in his interview. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Wars and Rumors of Wars Posted: 06 Sep 2013 09:24 AM PDT Dear Reader, I'll only be making sort of a cameo appearance this week. That's due to a very poor decision I made several weeks ago when agreeing to partner up with a friend for a rather serious four-day golf tournament hereabouts. Now that the event has arrived, I find myself suffering deep regrets. For instance, when dredging my carcass out of bed at 4:00 am in order to dent the workload before setting off to the links. Still something of a newcomer to the sport, I am also discomfited by just how serious tournament golf is compared to an everyday friendly game, what with its steely-eyed competitors and course "marshals." While casual golf is generally enjoyable, tournament golf  feels distantly related to laboring in a Soviet-era work camp, trudging up and down hills carrying heavy sticks under the supervision of uncompromising officials ready to penalize you for the slightest infraction. In any event, you have better things to do than read about my golf game. As one quipper once quipped, "No one cares about your golf score except you." The full truth of those words is brought home to me every time I return home all excited, or dejected, about a game and try to share my travails with the family unit. Out of kindness and consideration, they (usually) manage to stifle their collective yawns. And so, dear reader, let's move along to the meat of today's issue, most of which has been provided by two guest contributors. The first is our own Bud Conrad, and the second is Professor Walter Block, both of whom share a different perspective on the goings-on in the Middle East where it is clear as a bell that the US is about to let loose the missiles of war. Maybe even by the time you are reading this. First, however, a quick aside. Flatline Economy "So, how's business?" I asked the finance manager at the local car dealership during my visit last week to buy out the lease on my car. As there wasn't all that much left to pay, I had planned on writing a check. But that was before the dealer offered me a three-year 100% loan at well below 3%. Figuring I could generate a significantly better return than that on the money, I accepted the financing. That's how a Fed-induced money bubble works. Rather than trading my capital for the tangible asset of a used car, the freakishly low rates resulting from the Fed's loose money policy seduced me to take a loan instead. The financing company technically retains title to the (rapidly deteriorating) asset and of course the loan, which it can then package up and sell off for a profit. And my capital remains free to circulate in bank and brokerage accounts, and through the economy in general. Everyone's a winner! Until, of course, interest rates rise. In which case whoever gets stuck with the loan—like the old kids' game of musical chairs—gets it in the neck. Especially if I were to run into financial hardship and default on the loan, forcing them to send some bull-necked fellows to repossess my car, hoping I haven't been using it as a dog kennel so they'll be able to claw back some small amount of their loan. That kind of sums up what happened in 2007/2008. Back to the finance manager. Unlike the car salesmen with their dancing-bear demeanors, the finance manager was entirely down to earth. You know the sort, no nonsense and entirely confident in her knowledge of financial calculus and how to properly execute the required legal documentation. In response to my question about the state of her business, she peered over the top of her glasses with a look of serious contemplation. "Interesting," she answered, followed by a pregnant pause during which she chewed thoughtfully on her pencil's eraser. "We like to think our clientele is more resilient to a bad economy, and to some extent they were during the recession. But lately, as soon as interest rates ticked up, our business stopped cold. Sales just flatlined." I think it is worth considering that, not unlike the auto dealer's too-good-to-pass-up offer, the US government has had, until recently, almost unlimited access to essentially free money. Initially this was thanks to the trade gap with Japan, China, and the Middle Eastern potentates who recycled the river of US dollars they were earning back into Treasury debt. As that river began to dry up, the Fed then stepped in with its quantitative easing… money from nothing. While acronyms such as LOL and OMG have joined the lexicon thanks largely to the economic incentive for those who text to save money on letters, there is a longer acronym coined by Robert Heinlein the public may want to become acquainted with, TANSTAAFL. Because as everyone will soon be learning, There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. As we discussed yesterday in our special online video program, America's Broken Promise—Strategies for a Retirement Worth Living (now available as a free replay), the one group losing, and losing big, from the Fed's policies are the savers and retirees who need to earn a decent yield on their money in order to keep their heads above water. However, as the finance manager's comments make clear, the end of the free lunch will coincide with interest rates starting to move higher, a certainty as foreign investors, spooked by the Fed's wanton monetization, continue to avoid Treasuries in droves. Given the US government's fundamental inability to step off the path leading to complete insolvency—and stepping off would mean to ultimately return to surpluses in order to even nibble at the edges of the $70 trillion in debt and unfunded liabilities—the idea that the Fed will be able to curb its quantitative easing without sending interest rates soaring is ludicrous. Simply, absent foreign demand at today's low rates, rates will have to go up to fill the gap between what the Fed finances and the amount of Treasuries the US government needs to sell in order to keep the lights on. One might note that demand for US Treasuries historically goes up during periods of crisis. War, for example, almost invariably triggers a rush of money into the "safe harbor" of good old-fashioned US government debt. Bringing us nicely to the door of Bud Conrad's contribution this week in which he looks at the precarious finances of these United States, and how the imminent military adventure in Syria (and beyond) will, in the end, only further weaken those finances. Wars and Rumors of Wars Bud Conrad, Chief Economist This article is about why I think interest rates are heading higher, viewed through the context of the politics of the US government's next war. While I'd prefer to convince the world to change its course toward a more peaceful future, given the futility of trying to do so, I'll use my time with you today presenting data, analysis, and a few opinions about the economic consequences of the march toward war that US policy is now set upon. The chart below combines defense, veterans benefits, homeland security, the State Department, and defense-related interest payments, to create a more comprehensive picture of our military spending. The chart shows the dollars spent each year; no correction is made for inflation or the relative growth of our economy and population. Such re-jiggering would make World War II and earlier wars appear more dramatic. The key point is that the US is spending a huge amount of money on its international security. With each war, or rumor of war, that came along, military spending increased. With the Senate Foreign Relations Committee passing a recommendation to bomb Syria, including McCain's amendment to directly support the rebels, we are moving toward a new rise in the war spending trajectory. For a historical perspective, below you see a chart I developed in 2007. It calculates the inflation-adjusted costs of the Vietnam War and estimates that the war with Iraq would cost over $1 trillion or 37% more than the Vietnam War. Expenditures in Vietnam led to a self-reinforcing cycle of higher interest rates and inflation during the 1970s—leading in no small part to Nixon's decision to remove the $35 per ounce gold exchange rate for the dollar, and to interest rates eventually rising to almost 20%. Following Iraq, we added another war in Libya and extended the war in Afghanistan far longer than planned. The combined costs, by my calculations, have now reached around $3.4 trillion. My method is simple: I add up the military spending that exceeds the 2002 level for all the years since then. If we hadn't been facing significant international conflicts, I believe the military spending baseline of $507 billion in 2002 would have remained fairly static. The $3.4 trillion is just the increase over that baseline to date. Using the modest projections from the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB), my estimate is that by 2018, all future increases combined could easily add up to another $2.5 trillion. It could be much more, and it might even be less, but the most reasonable expectation is that the current crop of politicians will spend at least at that level. Those who want war seem to be able to get war. That is my basic assumption. Along the way, Congress is supposed to deal with its self-imposed ceiling on federal debt, now set at $16.73 trillion. In fact, the operations of government have already exceeded that level, but the federal government is adept at playing Enron-like games. Current Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew says he can hold off hitting the ceiling until mid-October, when the government would hypothetically shut down without Congress' authorization for a raise. For the record, Newt Gingrich actually forced such a shutdown to happen under the Clinton presidency, which resulted in the government being forced to actually take tangible measures to cut spending at the time. The chart below shows the amount of current outstanding government debt as reported by the Treasury. The flat line at the right of the chart is the suppression of debt financing the government is now undertaking in the attempt to avoid a shutdown. Being completely distracted by the situation in Syria, Congress is not addressing the fiscal issues, and time is running out. The last time this crisis became important was in 2011, when the stock market dropped, our government debt rating was downgraded by S&P, and Congress legislated the sequester on spending that only slowed but certainly didn't reverse the government's accumulation of debt. Of course, this debt crisis will be resolved, as it has been in the past, by raising the ceiling. The focus on war probably means that the immigration bill won't reach final approval, that efforts to derail Obamacare won't reach political mass, and we already know that gun control has pretty much seen its day and gone away. But war spending and government deficits are here to stay. The attitude of our leaders is clear: they don't care what the people think, they will be moving ahead with more spending on wars, continuing to worsen the deficit, ultimately leading to further debasement of the currency. That means higher prices, leading to inflation, and higher interest rates. On that last point, as you can see in the chart here, the rate on the benchmark 10-Year Treasury is now just two basis points below 3% and moving higher as I write: There is, of course, much more to this discussion than time and space allow for here. In the next edition of The Casey Report, I'll go into details on what's coming and the specific actions you can take to successfully invest in an environment of rising interest rates. As it is standard policy at Casey Research to offer risk-free 3-month trials with money-back guarantee for all our publications, you can sign up to read my deeper research in the next edition of The Casey Report by clicking here. David again. On the topic of Syria, a dear reader sent over a link to an interesting article from an AP reporter who says Syrian rebels told him it was they who (inadvertently) released the dreaded chemicals. And, furthermore, that the Saudis were the ones who gave the rebels the gaseous goods in the first place. I'm not sure how the rest of the media managed to overlook the story; maybe they just weren't looking? But I won't go off on another rant about the US's constant meddling in the Middle East. Instead, I'll leave that to our next contributor, Loyola University professor and Senior Fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Walter Block. A long-time friend of Doug Casey and of Casey Research (a number of our analysts studied under him), Walter is something of a legend as a champion of individual liberties, and among those ascribing to the school of Austrian Economics. Here's his contribution. Thank God for Mr. President Obama, and for Senator Rand Paul Too By Walter E. Block Thank God for Mr. President Barack Obama. (Well, so to speak. That is just an expression. I'm a devout atheist, so I can't mean that literally. But I do want to compliment him and can think of no better way than to do so.) His decision not to bomb Syria solely on his own say-so, but rather to seek congressional approval for this heinous act, is a wonderful step in the direction of liberty. It ill behooves us to have institutional arrangements whereby one man, alone, can in effect declare war on behalf of our entire nation. The US Constitution, at least as I remember it, does not at all permit this. Rather, a declaration of war must emanate from Congress. In that way, there is at least room for deliberation, for consideration, for discussion, for hearing other points of view. I know, I know, it is unlikely in the extreme that this former professor of constitutional law has suddenly decided we are a nation of rules and law, not men. Who knows for sure, other than his intimates, perhaps, why he is taking this step. Perhaps it was the splendid example given to the world by the British Parliament not to go along with this imperialist war-mongering step. Maybe Obama really doesn't want to bomb Syria, but feels pushed in this direction by the bullying emanating from the evil conservatives and neo-conservatives at FOX News and their Washington, DC beltway think tanks. He might think that the US Congress can get him off the hook. "Look, guys, I tried, I really tried to get permission to bomb Syria back into the Stone Age as I would have loved to do, you gotta believe me, but those pacifist congressmen just wouldn't give me the OK," he might say to them. It is probable that he would rather spend our hard-earned tax dollars to bring about more of his socialist and fascist economic nostrums domestically than toss them down the militaristic rathole. As I say, no one really knows his motives for sure, except, maybe, a few confidants. But actions speak louder than words and motivations. By going to Congress for approval, Obama has set a bit of a precedent. The leader of the "free world" who gets elected in 2016 will find it just that much harder to engage in a "police action" or any other designated foreign military adventurism because of both the British and American example of 2013. The US armies will thus be just that tiny bit less likely to go abroad, meet people who pose no danger to us, and kill them. So again I say, thank God for President Obama. I favored him in 2008 when he was running against John McCain, and I did so again in 2012 vis-à-vis Mitt Romney. I sensed in Obama somewhat less of an international bellicose attitude than either of those other two worthies. And, I think, in retrospect, I was correct on both judgments. Oh, yes, the GOP nominees of the last two presidential cycles might have been a bit better on the economy than Obama, although even that is by no means certain. McCain is a big government interventionist, and Romney, well, it is really difficult to know what if anything that chameleon really stands for. Also, under Obama there is a small prospect for the legalization of drugs, something unlikely with McCain or Romney. But foreign policy is, in my judgment, more important than either economic freedom or personal liberties, because it impacts the other two so heavily.  War is truly "the health of the state." And here it is pretty clear that matters would have been worse with either of these Republicans in the White House. One always takes a risk with contrary-to-fact conditionals, but I think this a reasonable one. Thank God, too, for Rand Paul. He is no Ron Paul. I have met Ron Paul, and Rand Paul is no Ron Paul. The son "leaks" all over the place, as my friend Bob Wenzel has been pummeling him for lo these many months, and quite properly so, in my opinion. In contrast, his dad is truly a man of principle. However, Rand has been nothing short of magnificent in the last few days on our present, most important libertarian challenge, bombing Syria. Especially poignant was his opposition to his own son going to Syria and fighting on the side of Al-Qaeda. He also made the very important point that Assad, given all of his evil, has been protecting Christians against their ill-treatment from the evil forces rebelling against his rule. The Syrian civil war is truly a quagmire. It is unlikely in the extreme that the government forces who were tipping the balance in their own direction would risk using poison gas and crossing Obama's "red line." At the time of this writing, it is not fully clear that this monstrous weapon has even been used, let alone that it was not a false-flag operation of the rebels, who stand to gain from US intervention. So good luck and Godspeed (so to speak) to Rand Paul, Justin Amash, and several other quasi-libertarian members of Congress in following the British lead and turning down any US bombing of Syria. Friday Funnies The Dead-Horse Theory of Bureaucracy The tribal wisdom of the Plains Indians, passed on from generation to generation, says that "When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount." However, in government more advanced strategies are often employed, such as: 1.  Buying a stronger whip. 2. Changing riders. 3. Appointing a committee to study the horse. 4. Arranging to visit other countries to see how other cultures ride dead horses. 5. Lowering the standards so that dead horses can be included. 6. Reclassifying the dead horse as living-impaired. 7. Hiring outside contractors to ride the dead horse. 8. Harnessing several dead horses together to increase speed. 9. Providing additional funding and/or training to increase the dead horse's performance. 10. Doing a productivity study to see if lighter riders would improve the dead horse's

Gold: An Attitude Adjustment For Institutional Banks Posted: 06 Sep 2013 09:23 AM PDT The last couple of weeks have witnessed changing attitudes of large institutions concerning the gold price. A growing number of institutional analysts are become bullish - some them ultra bullish - on gold's near-term outlook. What makes this unusual is the fact that only a few weeks ago they were singing a bearish tune. The swift attitude adjustment is a testament to the strong impact of rising prices on the investor psyche.

Gold marks 2 years from top with $30 jump on weak US data Posted: 06 Sep 2013 08:25 AM PDT The gold price jumped $33 from a new 10-session low in just 5 minutes on Friday, after data on US jobs came in weaker than expected. Read more….

SA gold strikers settle for 8% wage increase – source Posted: 06 Sep 2013 08:25 AM PDT The National Union of Mineworkers says workers have accepted an 8% increase in pay for entry-level employees. Read more….

Overall gold demand to increase as India comes back into play Posted: 06 Sep 2013 08:25 AM PDT A more stable exchange rate will also take the spotlight off gold imports there, says Julian Phillips. Read more….

Some South African gold miners end strike Posted: 06 Sep 2013 08:25 AM PDT The National Union of Mineworkers says some of the miners are heading back to work after 3 days of strike action in pursuit higher wages. Read more….

SA gold producers revise wage offer to striking NUM Posted: 06 Sep 2013 08:25 AM PDT According to the National Union of Mineworkers, South Africa's gold producers have made a new wage offer in a bid to end the strike. Read more….

Gold Marks 2 Years from Top with $30 Jump on Weak US Data Posted: 06 Sep 2013 08:12 AM PDT The PRICE of gold jumped $33 from a new 10-session low in just 5 minutes on Friday, touching $1393 per ounce before easing back after August's Non-Farm Payrolls data on US jobs came in weaker than expected. Net hiring rose to 169,000 jobs instead of the 180,000 analysts forecast. The US unemployment rate, however, fell to a 44-month low of 7.3%.

Sell Gold, Buy Stocks: Really Dumb Idea Posted: 06 Sep 2013 08:06 AM PDT With delusions running rampant, the investment community gave into the pressures for conformity in June to embark on another one of their ongoing errors of judgement. Selling Gold and buying equities became an emotionally driven mania, void of reason. Rather than assessing rewards and risk for their clients, the "teenage" traders running "hedge" funds again chose the wrong strategy.

Inside Scoop on the Next Fed Chairman Posted: 06 Sep 2013 08:00 AM PDT Following an extensive investigation, The Martian can reveal that it is neither Lawrence Summers nor Janet Yellen who will be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve System. Instead, President Obama is scheduled to announce that Davita Vance-Cooks will replace Ben Bernanke on Jan. 1. Like John Galt, Davita Vance-Cooks is not a household name. But this will soon change. Not only will Ms. Vance-Cooks be “the first female and the first African-American” (as The Washington Post would say) to run the central bank, but she will be the first chairman with printing experience outside the Fed itself. She is currently the public printer of the United States — as the head of the U.S. Government Printing Office (or GPO) is officially known. Before that, she had been “acting public printer.” (The fact that she was acting did not make her less of a real public printer.) Ms. Vance-Cooks’ printing experience will be very useful at the Fed. Although the central bank is expected to slow down its asset purchases with newly printed money (called “quantitative easing,” or QE), new opportunities to run the printing press will arise again in the future. Moreover, the large amount of liquidity created by QE has to be managed. Luckily, it’s much like managing the large stock of publications in the GPO’s inventory. Having worked in the public sector for more than 30 years, Vance-Cooks also has the right ideas and attitude for her new job. She knows how important the federal government’s role is in everything, especially for those who did not build themselves what they think they have built. Somebody has to make it happen. She knows that federal bureaucrats are the most evolved specimens of entrepreneurial and civilized beings. Ms. Vance-Cooks’ expected move from public printer junior to public printer senior has been confirmed by confidential sources within the GPO itself. “Sure, the public printer could cumulate the two jobs,” confided a high official there, “but it would be like a barber insisting on keeping his job after being appointed surgeon general.” Ms. Vance-Cooks’ nomination is certain to raise more than one eyebrow. In fact, it will raise at least two eyebrows, because one of her colleagues has already told The Martian that he is disappointed. “It’s a brand-name issue,” he explained. “How do you expect the GPO to be taken seriously when put in direct competition with the Fed? Everybody will realize who the real public printer is.” This new appointment will be a major personal victory for Ms. Vance-Cooks, who had to battle many enemies in the nest of vipers that D.C. is. Everybody remembers how, after her nomination for public printer, the satirical press spread sexist, offensive, and unacceptable jokes about whether she was a 2-D or 3-D printer. Not surprisingly, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had to intervene. What the current public printer lacks in terms of connections with major banks is more than compensated for by the printing experience she has gained at GPO. “If I can print big government reports, I can certainly print small dollar bills,” she is reported as saying. The upgraded public printer may have problems with one part of her mandate, though. While the GPO describes its mission as being the holy trinity of “Official, Digital, and Secure,” there is nothing digital in the Fed’s money. On the contrary, the Fed is part of an alphabet soup of federal government bureaus that are attacking Bitcoin. “If the U.S. dollar is good enough for me,” Ms. Vance-Cooks declared in an overlooked speech a few months ago, “it’s good enough for them.” Many of the Washington insiders interviewed for this story agree on one thing: Whether this nomination will keep the Fed up or bring it down remains to be seen. – Prr Lzkdrqxcwm, the Martian Original article posted on Laissez Faire Today

Sell Gold, Buy Stocks: Really Dumb Idea Posted: 06 Sep 2013 07:58 AM PDT With delusions running rampant, the investment community gave into the pressures for conformity in June to embark on another one of their ongoing errors of judgement. Selling Gold and buying equities became an emotionally driven mania ... Read More...

Historic Event As Gold Slips Into Backwardation Once Again Posted: 06 Sep 2013 07:42 AM PDT September 5, 2013: Today James Turk told King World News that we are witnessing truly historic events in the gold market as gold has once again slipped into backwardation.  Turk spoke about the unprecedented nature of what is taking place in gold, as well as what investors should expect as a result of this latest historic development.  Below is what Turk had to say in this KWN exclusive interview. Turk:  "The big news here in London, Eric, is that gold slipped into backwardation once again.  The previous backwardation ended here in London on Monday, when the US was closed for a holiday.  It looked like a concerted effort by the central planners to put gold and dollar interest rates back into their normal relationship.... Continue reading the James Turk interview below... September 5, 2013 (Source: King World News) http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/9/5_Historic_Event_As_Gold_Slips_Into_Backwardation_Once_Again.html

Historic Event As Gold Slips Into Backwardation Once Again Posted: 06 Sep 2013 07:42 AM PDT September 5, 2013: Today James Turk told King World News that we are witnessing truly historic events in the gold market as gold has once again slipped into backwardation.  Turk spoke about the unprecedented nature of what is taking place in gold, as well as what investors should expect as a result of this latest historic development.  Below is what Turk had to say in this KWN exclusive interview. Turk:  "The big news here in London, Eric, is that gold slipped into backwardation once again.  The previous backwardation ended here in London on Monday, when the US was closed for a holiday.  It looked like a concerted effort by the central planners to put gold and dollar interest rates back into their normal relationship.... Continue reading the James Turk interview below... September 5, 2013 (Source: King World News) http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2013/9/5_Historic_Event_As_Gold_Slips_Into_Backwardation_Once_Again.html

Gold Confiscation Posted: 06 Sep 2013 07:13 AM PDT It is well known that in 1933, President Roosevelt confiscated the gold of U.S. citizens and made possession of gold illegal. He gave gold owners about $20 an ounce and when he was done, he raised the gold price to $35. The common telling of ... Read More...

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