Gold World News Flash

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• Ukraine “More Dangerous Than Cuban Missile Crisis”
• From funds to gold, how will Ukraine affect my investments?
• Economist John Williams: Financial Collapse if Russia Sells U.S. Dollar Holdings
• Ready for a Late-Night Laugh? CPM Group’s Jeff Christian Comments On Allegations of London Gold Fix Manipulation
• Dead Bankers and the Wrath of Khan
• Daily Nugget – Gold is Not Dissuaded by Crimea
• Five Investing Strategy Buckets
• News reports on market rigging are more important to gold than Ukraine, Turk says
• Flight To Safety, Undeniable – Yellow Dog, Wagging
• Mike Kosares: Fed's wisdom only recognizes the ridiculously obvious
• Peter Schiff interviews GATA Chairman Bill Murphy
• Say's Law And The Permanent Recession
• GaveKal Answers "How Low Can The Renminbi Go"
• The Gold Price Dropped 0.91 Percent to Close at $1,337.80
• The Gold Price Dropped 0.91 Percent to Close at $1,337.80
• In The News Today
• Marc Faber: Gold Is One Of The Few Cheap Assets
• Bankers Tell It Like It Is – Top 10 Quotes That Reveal Their Crimes
• Gold Model Calculates Gold Price Of $2400 To $2900 In 2017
• Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Ebb and Flow - Gresham's Law
• Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Ebb and Flow - Gresham's Law
• Detailed Strategies to Combat the Tax Man
• Gold’s Second Daily Cycle Is Directly Ahead
• A Historic Event Has Taken Place In The Gold Market
• The Sickness of the 1% | Jesse Ventura Off The Grid
• ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IS INEVITABLE
• Ukraine: An Expensive U.S. Promise
• The London Price Fix Is Rigged - Here's Why Ross Norman Is Full Of It
• The London Price Fix Is Rigged - Here's Why Ross Norman Is Full Of It
• Real Money
• Gold cartel draws line at $1,350, Kaye tells KWN
• Graphite Investors Should Look for Large Flakes, Small Resources
• This Is What Is Happening In Ukraine & The War On Gold
• Big Australian coal handling equipment contract for Sandvik
• …and Pit Vipers ordered for Los Pelambres copper
• Junior mining stocks rising from the ashes – Ballanger
• Crimea, the Fed, China and Gold
• Gold and silver prices slightly muted
• ‘Ethical gold’ aims to curb illegal mining in South America
• India’s trade minister wants gold import curbs eased
• Shilling discovery could rewrite Canadian history
• Gold coin hoard found in California may have been from theft at SF Mint in 1900
• Make Way for the Mobile Payment Revolution
• Koos Jansen: India's silver imports up 189% even as smuggled gold is abundant
• Russia threatens default to U.S. banks, dumping of U.S. bonds
• Gold Price Drops 3/4 of "Ukraine Crisis" Jump as Russia Moves to Ease Tensions
• WW3 -- Russia And The U.S. Face Off Over The Ukraine
• WW3 UPDATE: US Halts Russia Military Agreements; Russia THREATEN DOLLAR & WARNING SHOTS FIRED
• Gold Buyers Outnumber & Outweigh Sellers in Feb.
• Gold Buyers Outnumber & Outweigh Sellers in Feb.

Ukraine “More Dangerous Than Cuban Missile Crisis” Posted: 04 Mar 2014 11:00 PM PST from King World News: Eric King: "We now have the Western mainstream media propaganda machine trying to convince people that everything is fine in Ukraine. They have stocks soaring today and there is pressure on gold as part of the show. Propaganda aside, what is really happening with the situation in Ukraine and Crimea, Dr. Roberts?" Dr. Roberts: "It could be that Washington comes to its senses. On the other hand, it's embarrassed. Washington has lost control and it looks as though the southern and eastern provinces are demanding to go back to 'Mother Russia.' This isn't something the Russians have fomented — It's the people there. So there is a great danger here because to the threats that U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry made to Russia, the Russian foreign minister replied, 'These are unacceptable.'” Paul Craig Roberts continues @ KingWorldNews.com

From funds to gold, how will Ukraine affect my investments? Posted: 04 Mar 2014 10:19 PM PST The effects of the crisis in Ukraine extend beyond the region to influence markets everywhere. Even British investors' Isas may not be immune This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Economist John Williams: Financial Collapse if Russia Sells U.S. Dollar Holdings Posted: 04 Mar 2014 10:01 PM PST Economist John Williams: Financial Collapse if Russia Sells U.S. Dollar Holdings John Williams of Shadowstats.com says, "Don't look for the U.S. dollar as the safe haven." Williams contends, "Historically, the dollar has been the safe haven in a political or financial crisis, but that hasn't... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.GoldSilverNewsBlog.com or http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Ready for a Late-Night Laugh? CPM Group’s Jeff Christian Comments On Allegations of London Gold Fix Manipulation Posted: 04 Mar 2014 10:00 PM PST from KitcoNews:

Dead Bankers and the Wrath of Khan Posted: 04 Mar 2014 08:22 PM PST by PTS, SGT Report: One of the classic movies that sticks in my head growing up in the 80's is Star Trek II – The Wrath of Khan. I was not by any means a huge science-fiction or even Star Trek fan, but the clever plot, the believable acting (notwithstanding the admittedly occasional "over-acting" on the part of William Shatner), the ahead-of-their-time special effects, the dry humor, the quotable lines, and the soundtrack all came together in such a way as to form a masterpiece of early 1980's entertainment. Just a few weeks ago, I was introducing The Wrath of Khan to my kids. While we were watching one of the scenes, I was struck at just what a perfect metaphor one particular clip was to describe the imminent economic and global dangers that are facing our country's citizens and the world in general. While science fiction might not be your thing, this scene does illustrate the danger of failing to put the pieces together in time to react to them. A look at recent headlines gives us all sorts of unsettling stories which clue us in that something is terribly wrong, some of which are new developments, while others have been on our radar for quite a while now: the never-ceasing gun-grab by the liberals, our own NSA constantly spying on its own citizens, Obama’s drone strikes, market manipulation, and lately, the threat of war stemming from the powder keg that is the Ukraine. Certainly bad news is not a recent phenomena; it’s been here for a while, but this spate of 20-some dead bankers over the past few weeks seems such an over-the-top Red Flag indicating that we are facing a potentially disastrous event. So what light can The Wrath of Khan shed on the dead banker stories of the last 3 months? In case you are not familiar with the storyline of this 1982 classic, Captain (now Admiral) Kirk's old nemesis Khan had escaped from exile on a desert planet. Khan and his followers were able to take over the USS Reliant, a fellow ship in the same fleet as Kirk's USS Enterprise. Furnished with a friendly-appearing vessel, Khan then plots his revenge on Kirk (namely, to destroy him and his ship via sneak attack). Kirk is called to the bridge of the Enterprise when the Reliant suddenly appears out of nowhere. Still not realizing that the Reliant is in enemy hands, Kirk watches Khan's ship drift closer and closer while trying to sift through all the bizarre and conflicting information about this encounter. As he considers the Reliant's surprise appearance, its reduction in speed, and its failure to communicate, Kirk remarks (at about the 2:00 mark in the clip) how "peculiar" this situation looks. But he hesitates, only going to Yellow Alert. Khan's Reliant draws even nearer, raises its shields, and powers up its weapons, but only then does Kirk go to Red Alert, by which time it's too late and he is already under attack. The rest of the movie continues as a chess match between Kirk's badly damaged Enterprise and Khan's faster and more powerful Reliant. I can't help but feel like Kirk, sitting in that chair, trying to make sense of and piece together all the "peculiar" events that are taking place. Each and every day I see story after story that signals a collapse of our personal finances and our way of life as free Americans drawing ever closer, until we morph into a world where the medical industry, the news media, the banks, and politicians have nearly complete control over the choices that we make in our everyday lives. Again, the evidence for this financial destruction mounts by the day. But what has particularly struck me as an extremely unsettling omen is the slew of deaths seen in the banking community. "Peculiar," as Kirk would say sitting in his Captain's Chair. We have 8 JPMorgan bankers between the ages of 22-39 mysteriously die in the last 3 months, that is in addition to the bankster deaths from firms other than JPMorgan. Whether they are actually suicides or assassinations (although I’ve never tried it, I imagine that it’s kinda hard to shoot yourself in the chest and head seven or eight times with a nail gun), without being an alarmist I can't help but feel that it is a grim signal that time is awfully short. I can’t make sense of so many people in the prime of their life making more money than they will ever need, dying (or suicided), unless something very sinister is going on behind the scenes. The odd thing is, that 95% of people have absolutely no idea about the looming threat to life as they know it. They are not on any alert whatsoever. For me, the events of the past few months are a signal that it's time to bypass Yellow and go directly to Red Alert in terms of financial and survival preps. And even if I am off on the timing, how is it going to hurt me that I've ratcheted up my level of preparedness? I must have watched this scene from the Wrath of Khan dozens of times in the past 30 years. And each time I see it, I keep waiting for Kirk to figure it out and take precautions before he is attacked. Of course, it would not be the timeless movie that it is had he done that. But maybe, we can take this as a lesson that it's better to raise shields too early than too late, because, in case you haven't noticed, the occurrences coming together right now are, shall we say, "peculiar."

Daily Nugget – Gold is Not Dissuaded by Crimea Posted: 04 Mar 2014 08:20 PM PST by Jan Skoyles, TheRealAsset.co.uk The gold price has benefited in recent days from the uncertainty surrounding the situation in Crimea, sending the yellow metal to four-month highs. However, this morning Putin has held a fireside style press-conference during which has said that there is no need for bloodshed in the large Russian port city and he will not be sending troops to the city…just yet. The action in Ukraine has led to many new forecasts being released, with some calling for $1,400/oz gold. One of these calls come from Mark Keenan, of SocGen. Whilst he remains bearish in the long-term (calling for $1,050/oz) he is confident that events in the short-term could send it above the key $1,350/oz resistance level. Read More @ TheRealAsset.co.uk

Five Investing Strategy Buckets Posted: 04 Mar 2014 08:16 PM PST By: Mark Wallace at http://capitalistexploits.at/   Our friend and colleague Mark Schumacher recently sent a note to his investors that we felt was well worth sharing. Mark of course runs ThinkGrowth.com. He's a sharp analyst and investor and the advice below is timeless in our opinions.  Investors, It is standard practice to diversify portfolios among asset classes with low correlations, which we do, but I have found the benefits of this methodology to be limited. While client portfolios are diversified in this manner with exposure to a variety of asset classes such as equities, currencies, foreign real estate, commodities and gold, we have further diversified by strategy. I am finding the strategy buckets to be more valuable than asset classes when making investment allocation decisions. Our core competency has been, and will continue to be, centered on gaining early exposure to long-term macro trends. Although this investment strategy exposes us to a good deal of volatility in monthly returns, over a multi-year period it offers an excellent trade-off between risk and reward. For this reason, trend investing will remain our primary strategy, however, its share of the total pie is shrinking as we add other strategies to the mix. Over the past two years we have broadened our skill set by studying alternative investment strategies in an effort to enhance diversification and long-term returns. While we have researched and tested these methodologies for some time, we are only now starting to incorporate them into our portfolios. Much of our future correspondence will be to explain our chosen strategies and discuss specific investment choices, but for today, I simply wish to introduce you to the concept of diversifying a portfolio by strategy rather than simply by owning different asset class. We have categorized these investment strategies into five buckets with some strategy buckets having multiple tactics available to us. These five buckets include our traditional strategies and new ones designed to complement our core strategy of investing in the early stages of powerful trends. Below we outline each strategy and provide a pie chart for a portfolio near the midpoint of our target allocation ranges. Note that the newer strategies represent a minority of our investments and are largely designed to generate income which includes writing covered calls. Diversification by Strategy Five Strategy Buckets 1. Powerful Macro Trends: a. Target Asset Allocation: 40% - 60% (for most portfolios). b. Qualifications: The trend must be 1) powerful – have at least a decade of strong growth remaining subsequent to our initial investment, and 2) macro – big enough to offer multiple publicly traded securities to choose from. All else being equal, if a trend or security under review is different from (mutually exclusive of) other portfolio holdings then it gets extra consideration due to its greater diversification benefits. c. Time Horizon: 5 – 10 years. Trends are not trading ideas. The above qualifications mean we are looking to own these assets for five years or longer. d. Volatility/Risk: Volatility will always be high in fast moving trends. We reduce risk of loss by selecting trends with long lives and by staking out our positions in the early years. e. Example: Solar's rising share of the energy market driven by rapidly falling costs relative to fossil fuels. f. Comments: Investing with the wind at your back stacks the odds in your favor to such an extent that we want roughly half our portfolios invested in powerful trends. By investing in the early years (the first third), we capture the bulk of the trend and reduce the role that timing plays in generating our returns. We dedicate more hours researching potential trends and identifying securities positioned to benefit from these trends than we spend on any other strategy bucket.   2. Washouts and Turnarounds: a. Target Asset Allocation: 5% - 20% (for most portfolios). b. Qualifications: First, the asset – usually a stock, sector or commodity – must have fallen 75% or more from its high point. We want road kill. Second, there has to be a valid reason to expect a recovery over the ensuing three years. We are looking for washed-out assets given up for dead, but that have unnoticed or under-appreciated change agents such as a new CEO, product or market niche. For companies, the balance sheet must be strong enough to give management enough time to execute a recovery plan without having to raise money in a highly dilutive manner. c. Time Horizon: 3 year minimum for turnarounds. For cyclical washouts three years or an increase to at least 80% of the previous high. d. Volatility/Risk: Volatile and risky but probably not as much as you would think because the huge price decline happened prior to our investment and the asset was already completely washed out of the weaker hands. Remaining shareholders are likely diehards. We can mitigate volatility and lower our effective cost basis by writing covered calls after quick increases in prices that may be followed by partial slide backs as it takes time for investors to change their perspective on the asset. Turnarounds are ideal candidates for this because their highly volatile past means their options are expensive. e. Example: Blackberry has fallen 92% from its high point and has a new CEO focused on the enterprise market. Its call options also offer nice premiums; see item 4.e. f. Comments: Studies demonstrate the impressive returns available over a three year holding period after an industries, sectors or countries has fallen by 70% or more. However, most company (especially technology) turnarounds never turn, so it is best to own numerous turnaround candidates because many will not recover so your profit will come from just a few holdings. Roughly speaking, the 80/20 rule probably applies where 80% of your profit comes from 20% of your investments. 3. Time Decay: a. Target Asset Allocation: 5% - 15% (for most portfolios). b. Qualifications: The asset must be structurally flawed and have a history of consistent deterioration. Two assets or tactics are available to us under this strategy: i. Writing Put Options: Certain options have a high probability of expiring worthless. By writing (selling) OTM put options due to expire in less than 90 days we can consistently earn premiums (income). The key is to only do this on assets that we would like to own especially at a price below the current market value. ii. Volatility Products: Certain ETFs try to mirror the vix index (a measure of implied volatility or fear in the stock market) but suffer massive decay from rolling over their futures contracts at unfavorable prices. 85% of the time they sell contracts which are about to expire at a low price then buy new contracts at a significantly higher price. This structural flaw is built-in to the term structure of vix futures and there are conservative way for us to benefit from this. c. Time Horizon: Short-term (a few months) for writing puts because they expire quickly. Mid-term for volatility products which should be held longer to allow the compounding effect of roll-decay to build. d. Volatility/Risk: Low volatile for writing puts. Medium-high volatility for vix products. Both strategies work best in a mildly falling, flat, choppy or rising stock market but are vulnerable to sudden market shocks. They don't work during a steep stock market sell-off so they need to be modest in size and closely monitored. e. Example: ZIV only corrects when fear is rising but otherwise generally appreciates in all other market conditions because it benefits from roll decay by doing the opposite of the volatility products mentioned above, in section 3.b.ii. f. Comments: These are two methods for us to benefit from products that consistently decay over time. They nicely complements our other investments which generally require us to identify undervalued assets. 4. Income: a. Target Asset Allocation: 10% - 25% (for most portfolios). b. Qualifications: The asset must be safe. No point in taking on price risk with such limited upside especially for bonds where interest income is modest at best. Dividend paying stocks must be very cheap to minimize risk of loss from market declines. For these reasons we are currently under-invested in this strategy. Three tactics are available to us under the income bucket. i. Buying Bonds: Investment grade corporate bonds, Treasuries and sovereign bonds provide modest interest income with low risk of loss provided they are held to maturity. A rise in interest rates rise would cause bond prices to decline and could easily negate interest earned. Directly owning bonds is superior to owning bond funds because funds charge fees but more importantly they never hold their bonds to maturity. ii. Buying Dividend-Paying Stocks: The Fed's low rates have already pushed fixed-income investors into dividend paying stocks, thereby elevating stock prices and reducing dividend yields. Reaching for yield in the stock market is a classic mistake but there will always be opportunities in some inexpensive dividend paying stocks with strong cash flow as well as some REITs and MLPs. For the time being, the pickings are slim. iii. Writing Covered Calls: Low rates and elevated stock valuations is the perfect environment for generating income by writing (selling) short-term covered calls at strike prices 10–15 percent above the current mark value. By giving someone the right over a short period of time (30–90 days) to buy an asset we hold at a price 10–15 percent higher we collect a premium (income) which we keep regardless of whether or not they exercise their option. Most of the time the call option will expire worthless, then we can repeat the process if we wish. This is such a conservative income generating strategy that it is permitted in IRA accounts. c. Time Horizon: Short-term for writing covered calls because they expire in 30–60 days. Mid-term for buying bonds and dividend-paying stocks. d. Volatility/Risk: Low volatile and low risk for writing covered calls and owning short-term bonds. Medium risk for owning loner-term bonds. High volatility and risk for owning dividend-paying stocks which are always vulnerable to a sell-off in equity markets. e. Example: Sell Blackberry April, $11 Calls for $0.63 with BBRY's stock now trading at $9.82. If BBRY's stock is not above $11 on 4/19/14 (12% appreciation in 52 days) the option expires worthless and we earn $0.63 on our $9.82 stock or 6.4% in 52 days from writing that call option. If BBRY's stock is worth more than $11 on 4/19/14 we still earn $0.63 or 6.4% on the option but we also get the 12% stock appreciation from $9.82 to $11 for a total gain of 18.4%. Any appreciation beyond $11.63 (18.4%) goes to the option holder, not us. That's what we give up for the sure thing of booking 6.4% in income every two months. f. Comments: In our current environment of low interest rates and high stock prices in developed markets, tactic 4.b.iii. above – writing covered calls – is the safest way to generate income (premium) for our portfolios – it also happens to be the tactic that can generate the most income. Writing covered calls does not require the use of any capital (buying power) because the potential liability (owing shares if the calls get exercised) is fully 'covered' since the underlying asset is held in the account. Furthermore, a sharp stock market drop would accelerate the realization of income (premium) derived from writing covered calls. What we give up in return for these benefits is potential appreciation in the underlying asset above a preset price (the strike price) that I generally set 10 – 15 percent higher than the current market value. The majority of the time, this is a very good trade off. 5. Crisis Protection: a. Target Asset Allocation: 5% - 15% (for most portfolios). b. Qualifications: The asset must respond well to economic, financial and currency threats. If it generates profits when fear is rising then we want to own it to partially offset anticipated declines in our core holdings triggered by falling markets. Every portfolio should have some assets that make money during a crisis. There are three assets or tactics we use for protection. i. Holding Cash: Obviously cash is king during a market correction however two issues limit its usefulness. First, it does not appreciate so you need to hold more of it for the same level of protection available with other products. Second, it loses value during a currency crisis mitigating its utility… but it does the job most of the time so we carry some. We consider short-term treasuries as cash equivalents. ii. Inverse Stock Funds: These offer the best protection during economic and stock market weakness because they rise in proportion to how much equities decline. They work with minimal tracking error so we use them but at low levels because corrections cannot be timed well. iii. Gold ETFs: Gold performs inconsistently during crisis. In the beginning of the 2008 financial crisis gold prices sold off along with equities but then rebounded sooner. Gold offers good protection during a currency crisis and high inflation. Further, gold historically does best during periods of low real interest rates, i.e., when interest rates are below or close to the inflation rate. We are in such a period today so we are holding some gold ETFs. c. Time Horizon: Long-term because some level of protection (insurance) should always be maintained. The mix between the above three assets will change according to market conditions. d. Volatility/Risk: Medium volatility but low risk because these assets are stabilizers for the overall portfolio. Like any property insurance, you don't ever want to get paid since that means something bad has happened… and something bad always happens in finance. e. Example: SH is an inverse stock fund that proportionally returns -1x the return of the S&P 500 stock index, with minimal tracking error. f. Comments: Insurance is vital, but for a given time-horizon, you don't need as much if you are diversified by asset class and strategy. To summarize: By pursuing multiple investment strategies we further mitigate risk of loss while giving us more ways to win. -------- Mark's ideas about following strong macro trends, targeting washouts (blood in the streets), income and diversification, and crisis protection are all core values we share with him as investors. Taking note of the suggestions made above can help you achieve superior returns over the long run and trade or invest with a lot more confidence. - Mark "The only investors who shouldn't diversify are those who are right 100% of the time." - Sir John Templeton

News reports on market rigging are more important to gold than Ukraine, Turk says Posted: 04 Mar 2014 07:43 PM PST 10:41p ET Tuesday, March 4, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Mainstream financial news media reports acknowledging suspicion of gold market manipulation are more important to the gold market than the turmoil in Ukraine, GoldMoney found and GATA consultant James Turk tells King World News today: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2014/3/4_A_H... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. ADVERTISEMENT Jim Sinclair plans seminars in Los Angeles and San Diego Gold advocate Jim Sinclair's next market analysis seminars will be held in Los Angeles from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 8, and in San Diego from 2 to 6 p.m. the following day, Sunday, March 9. Details, including registration information, are posted at Sinclair's Internet site, JSMinset.com, here: http://www.jsmineset.com/qa-session-tickets/ Join GATA here: Mines and Money Hong Kong Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre Monday-Friday, March 24-28, 2014 Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ Canadian Investor Conference 2014 Vancouver Convention Centre West 1055 Canada Place, Vancouver, British Columbia Sunday and Monday, June 1 and 2, 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * 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 Safe and Private Allocated Bullion Storage In Singapore Given the increasing risks in financial markets, it is more important than ever to own physical bullion coins and bars and to store them in the safest vaults in the world in the safest jurisdictions in the world. Gold advocates Jim Sinclair and Marc Faber have recommended Singapore. Now, with GoldCore, you can own coins and bars in fully insured, segregated, and allocated accounts in Singapore with the ability to take delivery. Learn more by downloading GoldCore's Essential Guide To Storing Gold In Singapore: http://info.goldcore.com/essential-guide-to-storing-gold-in-singapore And for more information call Daniel or Sharon at +44 203 0869200 in the United Kingdom or at +1 302 635 1160 in the United States. Or email them at info@goldcore.com.

Flight To Safety, Undeniable – Yellow Dog, Wagging Posted: 04 Mar 2014 07:40 PM PST from Jesse's Café Américain: “When a nation threatens another nation the people of the latter forget their factionalism, their local antagonisms, their political differences, their suspicions of each other, their religious hostilities, and band together as one unit. Leaders know that, and that is why so many of them whip up wars during periods of national crisis, or when the people become discontented and angry.” Taylor Caldwell “Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac…War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it.” George Orwell Gold popped very hard today on what is undeniably a flight to safety out of fiat currencies and into something that is durable in a crisis with less counterparty risk. It was a clear result of the tension in the Crimea. Read More @ Jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.ca

Mike Kosares: Fed's wisdom only recognizes the ridiculously obvious Posted: 04 Mar 2014 07:38 PM PST 10:35p Tuesday, March 4, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Mike Kosares of Centennial Precious Metals in Denver today marvels at what passes for wisdom at the Federal Reserve, the recognition of what is "ridiculously obvious." Kosares' commentary is headlined "Bernanke's Takeaway: 'The U.S. Is Not Invulnerable to Financial Crises'" and it's posted at Centennial's Internet site, USAGold.com, here: http://www.usagold.com/cpmforum/2014/03/04/bernankes-takeaway-the-u-s-is... CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. ADVERTISEMENT Safe and Private Allocated Bullion Storage In Singapore Given the increasing risks in financial markets, it is more important than ever to own physical bullion coins and bars and to store them in the safest vaults in the world in the safest jurisdictions in the world. Gold advocates Jim Sinclair and Marc Faber have recommended Singapore. Now, with GoldCore, you can own coins and bars in fully insured, segregated, and allocated accounts in Singapore with the ability to take delivery. Learn more by downloading GoldCore's Essential Guide To Storing Gold In Singapore: http://info.goldcore.com/essential-guide-to-storing-gold-in-singapore And for more information call Daniel or Sharon at +44 203 0869200 in the United Kingdom or at +1 302 635 1160 in the United States. Or email them at info@goldcore.com. Join GATA here: Mines and Money Hong Kong Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre Monday-Friday, March 24-28, 2014 Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ Canadian Investor Conference 2014 Vancouver Convention Centre West 1055 Canada Place, Vancouver, British Columbia Sunday and Monday, June 1 and 2, 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * 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 Jim Sinclair plans seminars in Los Angeles and San Diego Gold advocate Jim Sinclair's next market analysis seminars will be held in Los Angeles from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 8, and in San Diego from 2 to 6 p.m. the following day, Sunday, March 9. Details, including registration information, are posted at Sinclair's Internet site, JSMinset.com, here: http://www.jsmineset.com/qa-session-tickets/

Peter Schiff interviews GATA Chairman Bill Murphy Posted: 04 Mar 2014 07:31 PM PST 10:30p ET Tuesday, March 4, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Market analyst and commentator Peter Schiff takes first note of GATA today on his radio show, interviewing GATA Chairman Bill Murphy. They discuss GATA's work exposing gold market manipulation and the interest of central banks and Wall Street in suppressing the gold price. The interview is 20 minutes long and can be heard at the Schiff Radio Internet site here: http://tinyurl.com/ltdtk39 CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. 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 Join GATA here: Mines and Money Hong Kong Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China Monday-Friday, March 24-28, 2014 http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ Canadian Investor Conference 2014 Vancouver Convention Centre West 1055 Canada Place, Vancouver, British Columbia Sunday and Monday, June 1 and 2, 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * 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 How to profit with silver -- and which stocks to buy now Future Money Trends is offering a special 16-page silver report with 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...

Say's Law And The Permanent Recession Posted: 04 Mar 2014 06:44 PM PST Submitted by Robert Blumen via the Ludwig von Mises Institute, Mainstream media discussion of the macro economic picture goes something like this: “When there is a recession, the Fed should stimulate. We know from history the recovery comes about 12-18 months after stimulus. We stimulated, we printed a lot of money, we waited 18 months. So the economy ipso facto has recovered. Or it’s just about to recover, any time now.” But to quote the comedian Richard Pryor, “Who ya gonna believe? Me or your lying eyes?” A Martian economist arriving on earth would have to admit the following: the US economy has experienced zero real growth since 2000. This is what I call the permanent recession. Permanent, because, unlike past downturns — there will be no recovery. To make the case for this view, I will rely on the ideas of several classical and Austrian economists: J.B. Say, James Mill, Mises, Rothbard, W.H. Hutt and Robert Higgs. I will begin with the J.B. Say, who is known for the eponymous Say’s Law. To explain I will quote from Say’s Treatise on Political Economy: [A] product is no sooner created than it, from that instant, affords a market for other products to the full extent of its own value. ... Thus the mere circumstance of creation of one product immediately opens a vent for other products. Say’s Law can be explained in the following terms: 1. The way that a buyer demands a good is by supplying a different good.   2. The supply of one type of good constitutes the demand for other, different goods.   3. The source of demand is production, not money. Money is only a temporary parking place for past production. In the modern economy with division of labor, most of us demand goods when we supply our labor. I work as a software engineer. I supply my labor writing computer software. And from that supply I am able to demand other goods, such as coffee. Say’s ideas were used to settle a debate between the British economists David Ricardo and Thomas Malthus who believed recessions were caused by a general glut. The concept of a glut for a single good is easy enough to understand: there is more supply on the market than demand at the offered price. A glut can be alleviated by a fall in the price of that good. The producers of the good may take a loss if the market price is below their costs, but the market can always clear at some price. The idea of a general glut is that all markets for all goods are in surplus. And for some reason, prices are unable to fix the problem. Ricardo opposed Malthus, arguing that the concept of general glut violates sound economics and clear thinking. He argued this point using Say’s Law: because demand is constituted by supply, aggregate demand, meaning the demand for all goods on the market, consists exactly of all things supplied. Aggregate demand is not only equal to, but identical to, aggregate supply. The two can never be out of balance. And if a general glut is a logical impossibility, then it cannot be the cause of a recession. The idea of aggregate supply and demand in getting out of balance has appeared many times in the history of economic thought. The same idea is either called overproduction or underconsumption, depending on whether the problem is too many goods or not enough purchasing power. Keynesian economics is a form of underconsumption theory. The overproduction/underconsumption theory has been debunked by sound economists, but like a zombie, it refuses to die. It is acknowledged by both sides that, if Say’s Law is true, then Keynes’s entire system is wrong. Keynes knew this, so he took upon himself the task of refuting Say’s Law as the very first thing in his General Theory. Keynes’s argument was that Say’s Law is only valid under the conditions of full employment, but that it does not hold when there are unemployed resources; in that case we are in the Keynesian Zone where the laws of economics are turned upside down. But, as Stephen Kates explains in his book Say’s Law and the Keynesian Revolution (subtitled How Economics Lost its Way), Keynes failed in his attempt to overturn Say’s Law. Kates shows beyond any dispute that Say and his fellow classical economists were well aware that there could be unemployed resources, and that Say’s Law was still valid in that case. To summarize, there is no such thing as a general glut or a demand deficiency, we can have idle resources, and Say’s Law is still valid. So how did classical economists explain recessions? Producer error. Producers had produced the wrong mix of goods. James Mill in his essay “Commerce Defended” explains the meaning of producer error: What indeed is meant by a commodity’s exceeding the market? Is it not that there is a portion of it for which there is nothing that can be had in exchange. But of those other things then the proportion is too small. A part of the means of production which had been applied to the preparation of this superabundant commodity should have been applied to the preparation of those other commodities till the balance between them had been established. Kates and Gerard Jackson have argued that the classical economist had a theory of producer error much like the one later developed by Mises. Mises developed existing ideas and integrated Austrian capital theory and time preference theory to provide an explanation of why many producer errors occur at the same time. We know this as the Austrian theory of the business cycle. Mises called the production errors malinvestment. These errors happen systemically because of fractional reserve banks loan money into existence that is not backed by savings. That misleads producers into thinking that there are more real savings available than society wishes to save. Producers then make both the wrong mix of capital goods of different orders, and the wrong proportion of capital goods in relation to consumption goods. When there is malinvestment there must be a recession, for the following reason: there were never enough real resources to complete all of the capital projects that were started during the boom. The firms that started these projects either over-estimated the demand for their output, or, under-estimated their costs. Somewhere along the way, firms will discover that they cannot obtain all of the factors they need at a price below their costs. They cannot make profits. Many of them fail. I will give an example of how malinvestment leads to a recession. I worked in San Francisco during the tech bubble. There were many tech startups. Each one assumed that they would be able to grow by hiring more employees at the prevailing wage rates. But the prevailing wages did not reflect the true scarcity of skilled technical people because all of these businesses planned to hire more workers over the same time frame. But the number of skilled engineers could not possibly grow that fast. If you think of a software engineer as a form of human capital, a software engineer has a long period of production and requires many inputs (mostly coffee, but some other things as well). And there just weren’t enough engineers to build all of these web sites. One firm could have hired more engineers by paying double the prevailing wage, but it wasn’t in the economics of their business to do so. And in any case, most of the compensation was in imputed value of the stock options, which could be any number that you want if you assumed that the bubble will keep blowing up forever. What this shows is that, while you can fund a new venture with money printing, you cannot print skilled workers or office space. At some point, real factors become the bottleneck, so their price has to rise. And when that happens, some producers get squeezed out because they cannot raise prices. If they over-estimated demand for their output from the start, they would have needed lower, not higher, costs to make profits. And that is the start of the recession. Mises’s theory explains why the boom starts and why it comes to an end. Production errors cannot continue indefinitely because they result in losses. But why do we have a lasting recession? Why doesn’t everyone find a new job tomorrow? To explain, I will turn to the great English Austrian, W.H. Hutt. Hutt used Say’s Law to explain the recession. Hutt observed that when one person becomes unemployed, he stops producing — and supplying. And from Say’s Law he loses his power to demand. Also from Say’s Law, his demand constituted the means for others to supply, and for those others to demand, so the prosperity of others is diminished. The malinvestments are the first ledge in the waterfall. Then, other businesses will see the impact, even those that were not originally part of the malinvestment. Keynes said something like this in his model of the circular flow of spending. Keynes was right that there is an interdependence of all economic activity. But Keynes was wrong about consumption being the driving force of this: it is producing, not consuming. According to Say, the interdependence is constituted by the relationship of all production, not of expenditure. Expenditure of money is only the culmination of the process that began with production: That each individual is interested in the general prosperity of all, and that the success of one branch of industry promotes that of all the others. In fact, whatever profession or line of business a man may devote himself to, he is the better paid and the more readily finds employment, in proportion as he sees others thriving equally around him. I will here give another example. When I worked in San Francisco during the tech bubble, I got coffee every day at a café near my office. When the tech bubble burst, this café failed as well. Was that because they made bad coffee? Or because software engineers got tired of drinking coffee? I can assure you that did not happen. It was because customers at the café were part of the bubble. The difference between pets.com and the café is that, had there not been a bubble, the same café would have existed at the same spot, serving coffee to different people working at different jobs producing different things that were demanded by a balanced market, because people who go to work still want their coffee. Hutt also had an economic explanation of how the economy recovers from a recession. He emphasized that any useful good or service can be integrated into the price system, somewhere, and at some price. Once someone is again producing, he can supply, and then he can demand, and by demanding, he creates a market for the supply of other producers. And so on. But that requires two things: time and flexibility. It takes time for entrepreneurs to sort through the broken shards of the boom to figure out what is really in demand, and what the supplies of factors are. But the recovery will occur because eventually entrepreneurs see all of those unemployed resources as a bargain. Productive assets and labor won’t stay on sale forever. When prices of some factors get low enough, then the people who held on to some cash will see attractive yields. Either people will move around, or just take the best job that they can in order to get by until things improve. The empty offices will get leased out. The key is that profit margins must open up. Hutt argued that can happen even in a depression if prices are flexible because there is always some way to combine inputs into outputs at a profit, if prices will cooperate. When confidence is low, entrepreneurs will make more conservative estimates of the market for their outputs, and they may require wider profit margins. You can think of it as a risk premium. And that means that the prices for some types of labor and capital must fall considerably not only from their bubble values, but in relation to other prices. During the tech bubble, many small companies were formed. Every one of them required a director of engineering, a CEO, a CFO, and several other key management positions. People got hired into these jobs who lacked the experience to get such a job in an established company, or people at established companies were hired away and less experienced people were promoted. This process could be described as job title inflation: high level job titles were debased. When the recession hit, a lot of these positions simply went away, and the people who held them had to seek new jobs. Some of these people rose to the level of their new responsibilities and advanced their career, but others had to take a step back and accept a lower paying job with a less important-sounding title. And if they were unwilling to do so, then that prolonged the duration of their unemployment. When there is no recovery, or it is long in coming, what got in the way? Hutt had an answer to this: the price system is blocked from working. Hutt emphasized wage rigidities caused by labor unions. Unions are cartels that attempt to create a monopolistic price by legally raising wages above labor’s marginal value product. When the price of something increases we move along the demand curve to a lower quantity demanded. Less quantity means less labor is hired into those jobs, and the displaced workers must find some other work, which is by definition lower paid or otherwise less preferable. Hutt explained why labor unions decrease aggregate demand rather than increase it. When workers shift from a higher-valued occupation to a lower-valued one, they produce less, and therefore supply less, and by Say’s Law, demand less. And as Hutt showed, by demanding less, they diminish the market for the supply of others. Anything that prevents wages or asset prices or capital market prices from falling moves markets away from clearing. In the modern world, one of the main barriers to recovery is Keynesian stimulus. Stimulus tries to create more demand without creating more supply. We know from Say’s Law that this is doomed to fail because supply and only supply constitutes the demand for other goods. What stimulus is really trying to do is to inflate the fake price system of the boom so that more expenditures can occur at the fake prices producing more of the wrong things for which there was never a real demand in the first place. And that cannot work because it was the breakdown of production under the fake prices that caused the boom to end. For a real recovery to occur, production must be reorganized along the lines of consumer demand. Now I am going to turn to the Great Depression and show the relevance of Hutt’s thinking to that time. Prior to the 1930s, recoveries from a panic, as they were called, took about 12-18 months. The great depression of 1920 (the one that you’ve probably never heard of) lasted about that long. Why? As historian Thomas Woods wrote, “Harding cut the government’s budget nearly in half between 1920 and 1922. The rest of Harding’s approach was equally laissez-faire. Tax rates were slashed for all income groups. The national debt was reduced by one-third.” The Great Depression also began with a stock market crash followed by a downturn. As the price system began to work, a normal recovery had begun by the early 30s. Then the New Deal kicked in, which created a depression within a depression that lasted until the mid-1940s. Ten years later, what could have kept the US economy underwater for 15 years? The price system was blocked, especially in labor markets. Herbert Hoover held to a variation of underconsumption theory called the purchasing power theory of wages[1] According to this theory, high wages in themselves created more purchasing power. And by “high” he meant, above market values. Low wages, thought Hoover, were the cause of the depression because labor did not have enough purchasing power to buy back its own output. Hoover exhorted business leaders not to lower wages, and many of them believed him and followed his advice, or did so because they were clear enough that regulation would follow had they not complied. As explained by standard price theory, Hoover’s policies produced unemployment on a massive scale. Hoover also believed in a strange class warfare doctrine. He thought that by preventing wages from falling, that all of the burden of the adjustment of production could be shifted from labor as a class to capital as a class. In America’s Great Depression, Rothbard quotes Hoover as follows: For the first time in the history of depression, dividends, profits, and the cost of living have been reduced before wages have suffered. ... They have maintained until the cost of living had decreased and the profits had practically vanished. They are now the highest real wages in the world. Following Hoover was FDR, who made things even worse. One of the New Deal agencies, the National Recovery Administration, employed agents to scour the country looking for stores that were lowering their prices. From Jim Powell’s FDR’s Folly: How Roosevelt and his New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression: There were some 1,400 NRA compliance enforcers at fifty-four state and branch offices. They were empowered to recommend fines up to $500 and imprisonment for up to six months for each violation. On December 11, 1933, for instance, the NRA launched its biggest crackdown summoning about 150 dry cleaners to Washington for alleged discounting. In addition to problems with prices, there was a deeper problem with the New Deal. For that, I will turn to the contemporary economic historian Robert Higgs. Higgs has noted that the Great Depression was characterized by a collapse in capital spending. Austrians know that capital accumulation is what increases real wages. And capital consumption means lower real wages. We also know that a large volume of gross capital investment is required to offset capital simply wearing out from use every year. Net capital investment begins only when gross investment more than offsets capital consumption. And there is nothing to ensure that any volume of gross investment at all must occur during any given year. If investors stop investing, then the capital stock shrinks, and real wages, even under conditions of full employment will fall. The reason for the collapse in investment was, says Higgs, “a pervasive uncertainty among investors about the security of their property rights in their capital and its prospective returns.” Higgs calls this regime uncertainty. This rational fear was based on the ideology of the New Dealers. The New Deal brain trust was full of anti-market ideologues who wanted to restructure the US economy from a free enterprise system to a socialistic-fascistic centrally planned system. Higgs gives several pieces of evidence in support of the regime uncertainty hypothesis. One, qualitative, was the writings of business leaders in which they explained their reasons for

GaveKal Answers "How Low Can The Renminbi Go" Posted: 04 Mar 2014 04:28 PM PST From Chen Long of Evergreen GaveKal Renminbi Limbo: How Low Can It Go? As we argued last week, the recent depreciation of the Chinese currency was engineered by the central bank—not as a competitive devaluation, but rather to rout speculators making one-way bets on renminbi appreciation. The People's Bank of China (PBC) acted after January saw roughly US$73bn in net capital inflows, the biggest deluge of inward flows in 12 months. The question now, after a 1.4%fall in the renminbi in 10 trading days (a bigger fall, admittedly, than we anticipated), is just how far will the PBC go to prove its point? In our view, not much farther, because Beijing recognizes the risk of sparking a broader loss of confidence. First, a quick reminder of how Chinese currency management works. Since 2005, the PBC has been managing the renminbi (RMB) gradually upward against the US dollar, at an annual rate of about 5% a year through the end of 2011 (except for a hiatus during the global financial crisis), and a slower pace of around 2-3% since 2012. The RMB is allowed to trade 1% below or above a "central parity rate" which the PBC sets daily. From September 2012 until a week ago, the spot RMB rate continuously traded above the parity rate— usually, quite close to the 1% limit. This limit-up trading reflected the view that the RMB was a one-way appreciation bet. Two weeks ago, the PBC made an unusually large downward adjustment in its parity rate, and this triggered an even steeper selloff in the spot market. The cumulative weakening in PBC's central parity has been 183 pips (from 6.1053 to 6.126), while the spot market adjustment has been 850 pips (from 6.0645 to 6.1495, a decline of 1.4%). In 10 trading days the RMB has erased all its gains since last May, and the spot rate has started to trade below parity for the first time in almost 18 months (see chart on page two). How much farther will the RMB fall? At the outer limit, perhaps as low as 6.24, but probably much less. The reasoning is as follows. Right now the spot market is trading 0.4% weaker than the central parity. So without any further move by PBC to weaken the parity, the limit is 6.18. A move below that would require PBC to adjust the parity further downward. The biggest-ever downward adjustment in the parity was 685 pips, in May 2012. If the PBC matches that move (by adjusting the current parity down another 500 pips), the RMB could fall to 6.24. But we doubt the parity will move anywhere near that far. First, the PBC has already achieved its goal of punishing speculators, as shown by the spot rate trading below parity. Second, more aggressive depreciation risks a backlash from China's trading partners who will complain about beggar-thy-neighbor tactics. Third, the depreciation drive carries costs. Beijing's already massive foreign exchange reserves are building up as state banks have been ordered to purchase dollars. This creates unwanted liquidity in the domestic financial market, at a time when PBC wants to keep liquidity from growing too fast. The final reason is the risk that a controlled depreciation could morph into uncontrolled capital outflows. Most emerging markets have experienced significant outflows since Ben Bernanke's tapering hint last May, and China has not proven itself immune: it had outflows in the first three quarters of 2012 (between QE2 and 3) and then again briefly last summer. China's economic fundamentals are weaker now than in 2012. While it is true that Chinese authorities have enough ammunition to prevent a Turkeystyle meltdown (capital controls and US$3.7 trillion in reserves), sustained outflows can make management of domestic liquidity much more difficult (see [China] Who's Afraid Of Capital Outflows). At the end of the day, the currency moves are about giving the PBC more room to maneuver in the domestic market, and that aim has been largely achieved.

The Gold Price Dropped 0.91 Percent to Close at $1,337.80 Posted: 04 Mar 2014 03:53 PM PST Gold Price Close Today : 1337.80 Change : -12.30 or -0.91% Silver Price Close Today : 21.188 Change : -0.260 or -1.21% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 63.140 Change : 0.192 or 0.30% Silver Gold Ratio Today : 0.01584 Change : -0.000048 or -0.30% Platinum Price Close Today : 1463.50 Change : 3.40 or 0.23% Palladium Price Close Today : 763.70 Change : 13.90 or 1.85% S&P 500 : 1,873.91 Change : 28.18 or 1.53% Dow In GOLD$ : $253.35 Change : $ 5.80 or 2.34% Dow in GOLD oz : 12.256 Change : 0.280 or 2.34% Dow in SILVER oz : 773.83 Change : 20.00 or 2.65% Dow Industrial : 16,395.88 Change : 227.85 or 1.41% US Dollar Index : 80.170 Change : 0.070 or 0.09% As I feared yesterday, the GOLD PRICE did not retain its war-inspired gain. It held on to part of it, but dropped $12.30 (0.91%) to $1,337.80. Silver lost 26 cents (1.2%) to 2118.8c. Intraday gold retraced all its gains yesterday but in the end closed off the day's lows. Believe it or not, the GOLD PRICE has quite a ways to fall just to intersect its rising trend line, now at $1,303.66. It could fall to the neckline where it broke out, now about $1,280, and make only a routine correction in a rally. The SILVER PRICE kissed its 200 DMA (2102c) but climbed above that to close at 2118.8c. If it minds to keep rising, a likely place for silver to stop first would be 2075c, the upper boundary of the range it broke through on 14 February. Silver has more humiliating work to do below, as does gold. Platinum rose $3.40 today to $1,463.50 while palladium jumped $13.90 to $763.90. Why? Because almost all the platinum and palladium in the world comes from just two places, Russia and southern Africa. About 75% of the platinum comes from southern Africa and 25% from Russia, while 25% of the palladium comes from Africa and 75% from Russia. The world didn't end last night so the stock touts crawled out and went to work with re-doubled efficiency. Dow made back all yesterday's losses and then some. Closed up 227.85 (1.41%) to 16,395.88. S&P500 outdid the Dow, rising 28.18 (1.53%) to another new all-time high at 1,873.91. The non-confirmation continues. Nasdaq Composite, Nasdaq 100, Russell 2000, and Wilshire 5000 all made new highs but the Dow did not. Stocks' big jump knocked the Dow in metals back. After touching its 200 Day Moving Average headed down yesterday, the Dow in Gold today touched its 20 DMA headed up. Probably about to see a correction of that long fall from December. DiG closed up 2.35% at 12.25 oz (G$253.23 gold dollars). Dow in silver crossed above its 20 DMA (764.93). Rose 2.47% to 772.59 oz. (S$998.95 silver dollars). Here, too, expect an upward correction. The US Dollar Index barely improved its gains by rising 7 basis points (0.08%). Nothing inspiring here and it remains in a downtrend since 1 February, which has only traded in the same range prevailing since September. The euro reclaimed yesterday's losses during the day, but ingloriously lost all that, closing up 0.01% (Can y'all see that? Maybe I've got a hair in my eye.) to $1.3736. Long as trouble brews in Ukraine, euro will have a hard row to hoe. Somebody shot the yen with a silver bullet today. It dropped -- gapped down -- 0.81% to 97.79 cents/Y100. Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought. - Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger The-MoneyChanger.com © 2014, 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 or 18 ounces of silver. or 18 ounces of silver. US $ and 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.

The Gold Price Dropped 0.91 Percent to Close at $1,337.80 Posted: 04 Mar 2014 03:53 PM PST Gold Price Close Today : 1337.80 Change : -12.30 or -0.91% Silver Price Close Today : 21.188 Change : -0.260 or -1.21% Gold Silver Ratio Today : 63.140 Change : 0.192 or 0.30% Silver Gold Ratio Today : 0.01584 Change : -0.000048 or -0.30% Platinum Price Close Today : 1463.50 Change : 3.40 or 0.23% Palladium Price Close Today : 763.70 Change : 13.90 or 1.85% S&P 500 : 1,873.91 Change : 28.18 or 1.53% Dow In GOLD$ : $253.35 Change : $ 5.80 or 2.34% Dow in GOLD oz : 12.256 Change : 0.280 or 2.34% Dow in SILVER oz : 773.83 Change : 20.00 or 2.65% Dow Industrial : 16,395.88 Change : 227.85 or 1.41% US Dollar Index : 80.170 Change : 0.070 or 0.09% As I feared yesterday, the GOLD PRICE did not retain its war-inspired gain. It held on to part of it, but dropped $12.30 (0.91%) to $1,337.80. Silver lost 26 cents (1.2%) to 2118.8c. Intraday gold retraced all its gains yesterday but in the end closed off the day's lows. Believe it or not, the GOLD PRICE has quite a ways to fall just to intersect its rising trend line, now at $1,303.66. It could fall to the neckline where it broke out, now about $1,280, and make only a routine correction in a rally. The SILVER PRICE kissed its 200 DMA (2102c) but climbed above that to close at 2118.8c. If it minds to keep rising, a likely place for silver to stop first would be 2075c, the upper boundary of the range it broke through on 14 February. Silver has more humiliating work to do below, as does gold. Platinum rose $3.40 today to $1,463.50 while palladium jumped $13.90 to $763.90. Why? Because almost all the platinum and palladium in the world comes from just two places, Russia and southern Africa. About 75% of the platinum comes from southern Africa and 25% from Russia, while 25% of the palladium comes from Africa and 75% from Russia. The world didn't end last night so the stock touts crawled out and went to work with re-doubled efficiency. Dow made back all yesterday's losses and then some. Closed up 227.85 (1.41%) to 16,395.88. S&P500 outdid the Dow, rising 28.18 (1.53%) to another new all-time high at 1,873.91. The non-confirmation continues. Nasdaq Composite, Nasdaq 100, Russell 2000, and Wilshire 5000 all made new highs but the Dow did not. Stocks' big jump knocked the Dow in metals back. After touching its 200 Day Moving Average headed down yesterday, the Dow in Gold today touched its 20 DMA headed up. Probably about to see a correction of that long fall from December. DiG closed up 2.35% at 12.25 oz (G$253.23 gold dollars). Dow in silver crossed above its 20 DMA (764.93). Rose 2.47% to 772.59 oz. (S$998.95 silver dollars). Here, too, expect an upward correction. The US Dollar Index barely improved its gains by rising 7 basis points (0.08%). Nothing inspiring here and it remains in a downtrend since 1 February, which has only traded in the same range prevailing since September. The euro reclaimed yesterday's losses during the day, but ingloriously lost all that, closing up 0.01% (Can y'all see that? Maybe I've got a hair in my eye.) to $1.3736. Long as trouble brews in Ukraine, euro will have a hard row to hoe. Somebody shot the yen with a silver bullet today. It dropped -- gapped down -- 0.81% to 97.79 cents/Y100. Argentum et aurum comparenda sunt -- -- Gold and silver must be bought. - Franklin Sanders, The Moneychanger The-MoneyChanger.com © 2014, 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 or 18 ounces of silver. or 18 ounces of silver. US $ and 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.

In The News Today Posted: 04 Mar 2014 03:51 PM PST Jim Sinclair’s Commentary Today’s battle in the virtual dollar pit. (5 day chart)   Jim Sinclair’s Commentary What did she say? Lagarde: ECB must fight inflation with more stimulus March 3, 2014, 10:06 a.m. EST A prolonged period of low inflation in the euro zone may derail the currency area's fragile economic recovery and must... Read more » The post In The News Today appeared first on Jim Sinclair's Mineset.

Marc Faber: Gold Is One Of The Few Cheap Assets Posted: 04 Mar 2014 02:58 PM PST => first 6:15 minutes + as of 17:10 minute If there was a recession in China, would people still buy gold? I think, if the Chinese economy imploded, it is likely that the currency would begin the weaken (the Yuan). Or that the government would implement a devaluation of the Yuan. If that were the case, I think that Chinese individual investors would rather shift of their money in gold (which they can buy in China nowadays) then keep the funds in the local currency. I think that trouble in Asia and geopolitical unrest in Asia, along with [economic] problems in the rest of the world, may actually lead to higher gold demand rather than lower gold demand. On the ongoing Asian conflicts and the impact on natural resources: My view is this. We wouldn’t have a conflict in Asia if there was no intervention by the US. The US has the security pact with Japan and military and naval bases all over Asia. The Chinese economy is highly vulnerable in the interruptions in the supply of metals and oil, because 47% of global metals consumption is nowadays coming from China (up from 4% in 1990 and 10% in the year 2000). It has become a huge factor; for their industry, they need iron ore from Australia, copper from Australia, oil from the Middle East, etc. The Chinese are very concerned about interruptions of supplies. Over time, the Chinese would want to control the East and South China Sea. I do not think that they have any aggression plans. The US would not be particularly happy if the Chinese or the Russians would have military bases in the Carribean, Mexico, Canada, … The Chinese cannot accept to be encircled by military bases by the US in Central Asia, in North East Asia and in South Asia. So I believe the tensions will increase over time. On the fundamentals of gold in the light of the 2 year downtrend: Basically we had a huge run up in prices between 1999 (255 USD) to early September 2011 (1920 USD). We have been in a correction period. Now I think the correction period was partly justified because there was too much enthusiasm and speculation, leading to the peak of 2011. But I think that there have been some market manipulation, it could be. My sense is that the correction has probably come to an end, because if anything the fundamentals are much better today than they were at that time. But the price is down. Every investor understand the principle buy low and sell high. When prices are low, nobody wants to buy. We also had very negative sentiment recently. I am not so sure about asset markets as we could one day after this colossal asset inflation of the last 20 to 30 years, also have asset deflation. But when I compare gold shares and the price of gold to the S&P 500, the S&P is up substantially since 2011 and gold is down. So if you compare the performance of gold shares to the S&P, I think it’s been a disaster for gold shares. When I look around (asset prices, real estate, bonds, equities, collectibles, etc) I think the price of gold is one of the few assets that are relatively inexpensive. On current bull and bear markets: In a free market economy, you will always have price fluctuation. The Federal Reserve today, artificially manipulates asset prices up. It’s a huge mistake, but that is what they do. To answer your question specifically, we had a bear market that ended March 6th, 2009 (S&P at 666). We are at 1800 now, almost three times higher. Over the last 2 years, most equity markets around the world, most markets have been down (they are not following to the upside), but in the US an increasing number of shares are breaking down, we have had very heavy insider selling recently, high valuations and extremely high corporate profits from historical standards. My view is that in a month time, the bull market will be 5 years old. That’s the second longest bull market in the last 100 years. I would not buy shares. Can the market go up another 20%? It’s like the Nasdaq in late 1999, where the Nasdaq went up another 30% between January and March. People were crying afterwards with their losses. So markets go up and down. I think that the upside potential now is very limited and there is considerable downside risk, probably much more downside risk than most investors consider.

Bankers Tell It Like It Is – Top 10 Quotes That Reveal Their Crimes Posted: 04 Mar 2014 02:38 PM PST This is a guest post by Liberty Gold and Silver. The alternate financial media has been abuzz of late with bizarre stories of the alleged suicides of prominent members of world banking and finance. Over recent weeks, between eight and twelve (some say as many as twenty) successful traders and managers involved with FOREX trading and other derivative currency speculation, have conveniently "decided" to throw themselves from the roof tops of a variety of JP Morgan Chase banks in London, Hong Kong, and New York. Another top banking official, William Broeksmit, former executive at Deutsche Bank, was found hanged in his London home. And others with strong connections to investment banking and the Federal Reserve itself have likewise met unusual deaths. Michael Dueker, former vice president of the St. Louis branch of the Federal Reserve, was found at the bottom of a fifty foot embankment below where he had just parked his car in Tacoma, Washington. The cause of death is still undetermined. The strangest of these deaths was Richard Talley, a former investment banker with Drexel Burnham Lambert who was alleged to have shot himself with a nail gun at least ten times in his Centennial, Colorado, home. The keen observer will note that a great number of these deaths have occurred in tandem with the extensive multinational regulatory agency investigations of egregious fraud, price fixing, and "front run" trading in the FOREX markets and in the LIBOR index. These markets are gigantic and it is hard for the novice to comprehend the magnitude of money that is involved in daily transactions for both of these. The weekly volume on the FOREX market alone is excess of $20 trillion. As of two weeks ago, no less than ten global banking giants including JP Morgan Chase, Royal Bank of Scotland, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Lloyds Banking Group, and others, have found themselves the object of a litany of criminal probes that undoubtedly have created tension and fear, bordering on "flight or fight" panic within these banking conglomerates. Only the extremely naïve could find it hard to believe that the banking world, in order to cover up and protect itself from prosecution of the greatest financial crimes and frauds in history, would not resort to measures of extreme prejudice to eliminate potential material witnesses. The key point to understand here, however, is that this is not at all a new phenomenon. The history of banking in the modern era (since the establishment of the Bank of England in the late 17th century), has been nothing but an ugly cavalcade of theft of sovereign national treasuries too vast to calculate. From the beginning, these large private central banks (the Bank of England, the Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan, etc.), were intentionally designed to operate freely above the rule of law in their respective nations. They have been the financiers of most of the conflicts and wars in the last two centuries and are continuing to do so unabated to the present. Countless millions have died in these bankers' wars in service to the unbridled greed of these financiers. Through the massive inflation of each nation's currency they dominate, the bankers have robbed the citizens of the purchasing power of their money and with it, their life savings. Since the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913, for example, the purchasing power of the US dollar has been eroded to nearly 1/100th of its original value. This has not been accidental. This was planned from the beginning. Private fractional reserve central banking is the greatest criminal conspiracy that continues to this day to hide in plain sight. But please, don't just think this is only our opinion. Fascinatingly, the bankers themselves have throughout the decades, clearly revealed their purpose and intent. At this juncture, we would like to offer some quotes for you by the highest ranking members of the banking elite, past and present. "The bank hath benefit of interest on all moneys which it creates out of nothing." William Paterson, founder of the Bank of England in 1694 "Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws." Mayer Amschel Rothschild (1744-1812), founder of the House of Rothschild. "If my sons did not want wars, there would be none." Gutle Schnaper, wife of Mayer Amschel Rothschild and mother of his five sons "The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or be so dependent upon its favours that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests."  The Rothschild brothers of London writing to associates in New York, 1863  "Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of a pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this world would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you wish to remain slaves of the Bankers and pay for the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits." Sir Josiah Stamp, President of the Bank of England in the 1920s, the second richest man in Britain "When you or I write a check, there must be sufficient funds in our account to cover the check; but when the Federal Reserve writes a check, there is no bank deposit on which that check is drawn. When the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money." From the Boston Federal Reserve Bank pamphlet, "Putting it Simply." "Neither paper currency nor deposits have value as commodities. Intrinsically, a 'dollar' bill is just a piece of paper. Deposits are merely book entries." "Modern Money Mechanics Workbook" – Federal Reserve of Chicago, 1975  "I am afraid the ordinary citizen will not like to be told that the banks can and do create money. And they who control the credit of the nation direct the policy of Governments and hold in the hollow of their hand the destiny of the people." Reginald McKenna, as Chairman of the Midland Bank, addressing stockholders in 1924 "I am just a banker doing God's work." Lloyd Blankfein, CEO, Goldman Sachs, 2009 "Banks do not have an obligation to promote the public good." Alexander Dielius, CEO, Germany, Austrian, Eastern Europe Goldman Sachs, 2010 So there it is in their own words. The arrogance, elitism, and condescension of bankers towards the common citizen are starkly revealed. These brilliant criminals have created the Ponzi scheme of all Ponzi schemes and so far, protected it from any form of criminal prosecution. However, that might be about to change. Awareness of their criminality is growing throughout the world at a rapid pace but never doubt that this group will fight tenaciously and be willing to go to any extremes to protect their centuries' old scam. We predict there will undoubtedly be more strange banker deaths ahead of us in the ensuing weeks, months, and years. The next time you walk into your local bank, please ask yourself this question, "Do I really want to entrust my hard earned wages and savings to a centuries' old criminal scheme?" If you don't, please consider gold and silver for protection of your wealth." To learn more about the rewards of precious metals investing, including how to fund your existing IRA with gold or silver, call Liberty Gold and Silver seven days a week at 888.751.3330.

Gold Model Calculates Gold Price Of $2400 To $2900 In 2017 Posted: 04 Mar 2014 02:24 PM PST In this article, contributor Gary Christenson presents the results of his intense efforts to work out a model for the gold price. This “gold model” is not meant to predict short term gold prices, nor is it intended to act as a target price for investors. The aim of the gold model is to derive a “fair value” for gold in a longer term context, based on a fundamental basis. Such a fair value should act as an objective measure to calculate the deviation with gold’s spot price. As an example, the gold price crash of 2013 was said by mainstream media and financial pundits to bring the gold price back to “acceptable” levels as gold had been in a bubble. While it was true that the gold price was getting ahead of itself in 2011, it was nowhere near a bubble. The “gold model” from Gary Christenson confirms that the gold price was rising too fast, but it’s fair value was nowhere near the levels of its 2013 bottom. In that respect, it is interesting to note what several famous bankers have said about the gold price. Consider the following quotes. Paul Volcker once said “Gold is my enemy.” Ben Bernanke recently said “Nodoby really understands gold prices and I don’t pretend to understand them either.” Janet Yellen her recent quote was “I don’t think anybody has a very good model of what makes gold prices go up or down.” So here you have it, a gold model that has been 98% accurate in the past four decades, worked out by an individual who looked at the fundamentals and the big picture, in an unbiased way. Admittedly, we believe bias is the main issue for bankers. Gold persistently rallied from 2001 to August 2011.  Since then it has fallen rather hard – down nearly 40%.  This begs the question: “Did the gold bull market end at the top in August 2011 as many mainstream analysts believe?” OR “Was the decline during the past 2.5 years merely a correction in the ongoing bull market?” The answer, in my opinion, can be found in my gold pricing model that has accurately replicated AVERAGE gold prices after the noise of politics, news, high frequency trading, and day to day "management" have been purged. I presented the specifics of my model at the Liberty Mastermind Symposium in Las Vegas on February 22, 2014.  A detailed presentation would be much too long for this article so the following is a quick summary. OBJECT: Create a simple model of gold prices based on a few macro-economic variables, NOT including the price of gold. Each variable must be intuitively sensible in its affect upon the price of gold. The results must be graphically similar to actual prices for gold since 1971 and be statistically significant. VARIABLES: The most obvious macro-economic variable is the currency supply or some proxy for it.  Since 1971 the U.S. currency supply has been increased much more rapidly than the underlying economy has grown.  Hence the value (purchasing power) of each currency unit (dollars) decreased and prices, on average, have risen considerably. Other variables that might be applicable are the CPI, Japanese Yen, real interest rates, dollar index, 30 year T-bond yields, DOW Index, copper prices, national debt, commodity prices, and many more. A logical and causal relationship can be established between each of these variables and the value of gold based on either the declining value of the currency, or the changing demand for commodities and hard assets versus the demand for financial assets. PROCESS: My model was created, tested, and refined to include only three variables – simplicity makes the model more credible. My model attempted to replicate the smoothed annual prices for gold.  Smoothing filtered out most of the market noise and clarified what I refer to as an equilibrium or "fair" value for gold. My model made NO attempt to predict actual weekly and monthly gold market prices. Smoothing was accomplished by using monthly closing prices for gold since 1971, creating a centered 13 month moving average of those prices, averaging January to December monthly prices to create an annual price, and then making a 3 year moving average of those annual prices. Smoothing examples:  Actual market prices in 1980 went as high as $850 but the smoothed gold price for 1980 was about $460.  Actual market prices in December 2013 went to an approximate low of $1,183 but the smoothed gold price for 1980 was about $1,520. MODEL RESULTS: The calculated Equilibrium Gold Price (EGP) had a correlation of 0.98 with the smoothed gold price from 1971 – 2013.  Examine the graph of EGP and Smoothed Gold. The model was both simple and robust.  It worked effectively, on average, during gold bull and bear markets, stock bull and bear markets, blow-off tops and crashes, volatile oil prices, Y2K and 9-11, QE, Operation Twist, ZIRP, various hot and cold wars, occasional peace, gold leasing, gold manipulations, and high frequency trading distortions in many markets. In August of 2011 gold was priced about 30% ABOVE the EGP. In December of 2013 gold was priced about 26% BELOW the EGP. GRAPH NOTES: Smoothed gold prices are shown in a "gold" color. Calculated equilibrium gold prices (EGP) are shown in green. The long-term trend from 1971 – 1980 was up, from 1980 – 2001 the trend was down, and from 2001 to 2012 the trend was up.  (Actual gold market high price was August 2011.) Nixon closed the "gold window" in 1971, removed any semblance of gold backing for the dollar, and thereby enabled the creation of significantly more dollars into circulation. The various measures of "money" supply, official national debt, Dow Index, price of gold, many commodities, and most other prices increased exponentially between 1971 and 2013. FUTURE PRICES FOR GOLD per the EGP Model Assume: Macro-economic variables continue to increase and decrease as they have for the past 42 years. The U.S. economy continues along its typical, but weakened, path with government expenses growing more rapidly than revenues, as they have for decades.  National debt rises inevitably. Congress continues its multi-decade habit of borrowing and spending, talking about change, and changing little.  The Fed supports the stock and bond markets and continues "liquidity injections" as it deems appropriate to benefit the 1%. Monetary, political, and fiscal policies will NOT be materially different from what they have been during the past 42 years. The U.S. will NOT be subjected to global nuclear war, Weimar hyperinflation, or an economic collapse, while we will continue to be subjected to the same Keynesian economic nonsense that has created many of our current "challenges." Given the above assumptions, a reasonable projection for the EGP (a "fair" price for gold) in 2017 is $2,400 – $2,900.  Remembering that market prices can spike significantly above or crash below the EGP for many months, we could see a spike high above $3,500 or $4,000 in 2017.  Extraordinary events such as a global war or dollar melt-down could push prices higher and sooner. I plan to publish the details of this model, including variables, graphs, analysis, and the calculation formula in a paperback book. Until then you may find value in these articles: Bill Holter                 Jim Sinclair in Austin, Texas Eric Sprott                Do Western Central Banks Have Any Gold Left? Gold Silver Worlds  Jim Rickards:  Target Gold Price Casey Research     23 Reasons to Be Bullish on Gold The DI                      Gold Investors:  Take the Red Pill Jim Sinclair              www.jsmineset.com   GE Christenson  |  The Deviant Investor

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Ebb and Flow - Gresham's Law Posted: 04 Mar 2014 01:48 PM PST

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Ebb and Flow - Gresham's Law Posted: 04 Mar 2014 01:48 PM PST

Detailed Strategies to Combat the Tax Man Posted: 04 Mar 2014 01:43 PM PST Frankly, the president’s tax proposal should be a major concern for everyone who has carefully planned for their retirement. Any tax benefits you've counted on in your retirement plans could soon suddenly disappear just because you fit into some made-up definition of "wealthy." Luckily, there is something you can do to secure some retirement income that can't be touched by the feds. And it's perfectly legal, too. In fact, the Supreme Court has declared this income off-limits to the IRS again and again. I'll tell you all about these investments that pay big, regular checks the IRS can't touch in just a second. And I'll introduce you to three of my favorite ways to use this strategy. Your checks will come monthly — not annually or even quarterly — meaning you can look forward to 36 tax-free checks a year. And they won't be small checks, either. The three picks I've researched recently yielded an average of 6.75%. That's the equivalent of a 10.8% taxed dividend, assuming you're in the 35% tax bracket. You'll also have a chance to score capital gains, too. Over the past decade — through stock market disasters, credit crises, wars, terrorist attacks, rioting around the globe — this strategy has returned 75%. That means an average annual return of 7.5%. (Just keep in mind you may have to pay capital gains taxes when you sell.) You won't need any special brokerage account, and it has nothing to do with options or anything beyond just telling your broker to simply buy them right from the New York Stock Exchange. But first, let me explain how big a deal this tax-free income really is. Over the long term, the municipal bond market is one of the most lucrative and safest around. You're no doubt aware that the average S&P 500 stock barely pays a dividend at all — on average, you can expect a lousy 2.1% quarterly payout. Then Uncle Sam adds insult to injury by taking his cut of 35% or more from investors. Factor that in and you're left with an after-tax yield of a measly 1.4%. And that hasn't even factored in the 3.8% tax that Obamacare has added to your bill. Ouch! So to balance things out, I'm suggesting you venture into the municipal bond market. Municipal bonds are simply bonds issued by local governments to fund construction projects. The government pays the bondholder back from collected taxes or even the proceeds from whatever the money helped build. They've been a part of American history since 1812, when New York City sold bonds to help build a canal. It was a novel idea, and it paid off. The people who got in on the ground floor of this new market enjoyed great profits. That success led to a municipal bond boom, with New York's Erie Canal bonds being some of the most celebrated. One of the defining features of a municipal bond is that you don't have to pay federal taxes on the income. In fact, the IRS has a space for it on its 1099-INT (Interest Income) form, box 8: tax-exempt interest. (Hence why I sometimes call them "Box 8 dividends.") Of course, being tax-free hasn't stopped the feds from trying to get at it. The first time it happened was in 1895. But the Supreme Court shut that notion down, declaring the income generated by these bonds is, indeed, off-limits for arbitrary taxation by Uncle Sam. The feds most recently took a swing at this income in 1988. But once again, the Supreme Court stopped them in their tracks. Congress and the White House haven't tried since, and even if they float the idea of taxing this income to fix the budget problems or punish the "wealthy," the Supreme Court will likely swat them down. So your dividend income is safe. But the real question is whether your income stream is safe. If you listen to the news, you know that some city budgets are in comparatively worse shape than Washington's. In fact, that's a reason some doom-and-gloom pundits say to avoid municipal bonds. They prognosticate a tsunami of defaults. However, the reality is quite different… The start of the overhyped risks of munis really took hold with the 60 Minutes interview of banking analyst Meredith Whitney in December 2010. Whitney predicted that the muni market was going to be in full Armageddon mode, with defaults running into the hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars. It made for great press, and some of the underlying reasons were correct. Yes, some municipalities have gone bankrupt — a small handful of outliers that made some particularly bad financial decisions. Places like Detroit, Mich.; Harrisburg, Pa.; and Jefferson County, Ala. But despite the fear those places caused, they really are just anomalies. Over the long term, the municipal bond market is one of the most lucrative and safest around. It is so safe that the $3.7 trillion worth of the muni bonds that make up the market has seen a trifling amount of bankruptcies. In fact, a leading think tank that follows and advises state and local governments reports that out of the universe of general obligation muni bonds, only one in every 2,710 issues has filed bankruptcy since 2008. Moreover, if you look at the long-term averages including during times of deep recessions over the past many, many years — the default rates for munis are not only very low, they're much, much better than for most other bond markets… and light-years better than for corporate bonds. And if you look well beyond just the past several challenging years — according to reviews by the leading rating agencies — the average for defaults for muni bonds is very low. In fact for the entire muni market, the fail rate is less than 0.20% of all issues. But the real paydirt of understanding muni bond defaults involves recovery. Just because a muni issue defaults and goes into bankruptcy doesn't mean that investors lose out. In fact, for most muni issues that have defaulted, the recovery rate for decades is running at 100%. That's right — 100% of principal was returned to investors, despite defaulting. You know what corporate bond investors have been getting over the decades when their bonds default? The long-term average is running at only 40%, or 40 cents on the dollar. But even more proof of the safety of the muni bond market isn't just how well it's done, but how well it's supposed to do in the years to come. To avoid default, the municipalities issuing the bonds need a steady inflow of cash to pay to the bond holders. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, we're in good shape here, because tax revenues are up big around the nation. Thirty-three states saw increases in their tax rates post-recession. Overall, states saw average revenue gains of 17% in sales taxes, 13% in income taxes, 17% in business taxes, 22% in excise taxes (fuel, booze and tobacco) and other general tax revenue gains of 24%. Consider the case of California. Not so long ago, the state's budget deficit problems were front-page news. Now the state is enjoying a budget surplus — and many other states, cities and municipalities are following suit. That's not all. At the annual Davos, Switzerland, global economic forum, 72% of the 477 economists and market leaders surveyed were upbeat on the U.S. economy and its finances. That's up from 53% in last year's survey. So with tax revenues growing around the nation, and experts convinced the trend will continue, muni bond issuers from coast to coast are better able to keep paying their muni bond interest and principal. And not only are the bonds safer, but they pay more than the U.S. Treasury, and in many cases are rated higher than the U.S. Treasury. There has been a slight hiccup, though, as the Federal Reserve has spooked the income markets with talk over interest rates and ending their bond-buying. But investors are slowly realizing that any fears about rising interest rates are overblown in the current market environment, and the Fed slowing its "quantitative easing" program hasn't been the disaster most have been expecting. That's pushed the muni market as tracked by Standard & Poor's up over 5% from recent lows. And that's just a small setback in the overall trend for munis, which even after all of the hardships of late are still up 32% over the past five years. Regards, Neil George for The Daily Reckoning P.S. As good as this market is, I have a muni strategy that could do better — much better — than the rest of the market. It's a collection of three municipal bond funds that will pay you three big checks every month — for a total of 36 a year — that Uncle Sam can't touch! And in today’s email edition of The Daily Reckoning, I gave readers a unique access code to learn how to discover these three funds for themselves. Don’t miss another great opportunity like this. Sign up for The Daily Reckoning email edition, for FREE, right here. Your next issue just a few hours away.

Gold’s Second Daily Cycle Is Directly Ahead Posted: 04 Mar 2014 01:35 PM PST The rally in Gold was strong, but the expected test of $1,380-$1,400 never materialized.  Gold simply did not have enough buying behind it to reach that level.  Since the Cycle did manage to add $100 from the low, the failure to test $1,380 is not necessarily a negative development.  With a current Day 14 high, the current 2nd DC will likely form as Right Translated, the 2nd straight Daily Cycle to do so.  And from the perspective of a new IC, two Right Translated Daily Cycles and the addition of $175 from the low is a very good start to what we hope will be a big Investor Cycle. Last week's report was titled "Bear Tracks" because I wanted to highlight that Gold was not out of the woods yet.  To date, the move higher has been encouraging, but we must keep in mind that the rally has still not broken the bear market down-trend.  The early rally in any Investor Cycle can be mistaken for underlying strength in an asset, but in a down-trend (bear market), these rallies fizzle to become counter-trend bounces. When a Cycle rallies out of an ICL, it is propelled initially by a significant amount of Short covering.  This buying-to-cover can create an illusion of strength.  When the covering is exhausted, the asset can retrace back toward the mean.  But that retracement eventually runs out of steam, leaving the asset to be influenced by the true underlying supply and demand.  And the dominant trend will usually regain control. Gold is attempting to break a 2.5 year down-trend, and the longer term Cycles are at crossroads.  Trading at these sorts of junctures is difficult, because there are several possibilities in play.  And capturing a big upside move means going against the established trend, which is always a risky move.  It requires exposing a trade to the possibility of being caught in a continuation of the dominant trend. And this is where Gold finds itself at present.  The energy accumulated at the last ICL 8 weeks ago has been exhausted, and the underlying strength Gold showed is already a distant memory for traders.  Short positions have been long-since covered, and traders are positioning themselves for the next leg of the Cycle.  It's at the current point – midway between the 2nd and 3rd Daily Cycles (Weeks 8 through 12) – that Gold will determine where it's ultimately headed.  If Gold is going much higher – as I continue to believe – then the coming 2nd DCL should be shallow and the 3rd DC should form as Right Translated. We have not seen a Right Translated 3rd Daily Cycle in over 2.5 years – each Investor Cycle since the 2011 peak has been Left Translated.  In the current bear market, every IC has topped before week 10, meaning that it has spent less time rising than declining.   And since there are normally 4 Daily Cycles in each Investor Cycle, the 3rd Daily Cycle is pivotal.  If the 3rd Daily Cycle is Right Translated, the Investor Cycle must also be Right Translated.  In every bull market, it's the presence of RT Cycles that create and maintain an uptrend.  So if Gold's trend has changed, the upcoming 3rd Daily Cycle will be critical – it must be Right Translated. Gold's 2nd DCL is directly ahead.  Gold struggled mightily on Friday while the dollar fell sharply. I believe this was an important tell.  If Gold had further upside in it, the dollar's drop would have propelled it higher by $20 or more. Instead, dollar's drop served to mask heavy selling in Gold. There is little doubt that the 2nd Daily Cycle has topped, so we need to be patient with the decline.  The timing for a top is acceptable, and the oscillators have clearly turned and are headed lower.  The upward Cycle trend-line has been broken and Gold closed below the 10dma.  At this point, we should assume that we have 2-7 sessions lower, with an target of between $1,290-$1,300.

A Historic Event Has Taken Place In The Gold Market Posted: 04 Mar 2014 01:16 PM PST With continuing tensions in Ukraine, today James Turk spoke with King World News what is happening around the world, including a historic event in the gold market. Turk also compared the manipulation taking place in the gold market to what happened when the manipulators of the British pound were taken down by Soros. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

The Sickness of the 1% | Jesse Ventura Off The Grid Posted: 04 Mar 2014 12:30 PM PST The Illuminati Bankers (mobsters, no different) are covering their tracts on the derivatives collapse, which they will pull at a time of their choosing, but these murders are making it look sooner rather than later. JP Morgan Chase is the TOP Criminal Illuminati bank, owned by the top Illuminati,... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.GoldSilverNewsBlog.com or http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]

ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IS INEVITABLE Posted: 04 Mar 2014 12:13 PM PST ECONOMIC COLLAPSE IS INEVITABLE...But Not Imminent | Daniel Ameduri The Federal Reserve Bank is a legal mafia bank cartel. They money launder drug cartel money for big profits. Money launder pedophilia porn money! They racketeer and use extortion to black mail politicians with the NSA, the... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.GoldSilverNewsBlog.com or http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Ukraine: An Expensive U.S. Promise Posted: 04 Mar 2014 11:48 AM PST In the year 410, barbarians started to overrun Great Britain — then a far-flung province of the Roman Empire. British leaders sent a request for aid to the emperor Honorius. "We do not know exactly what the letter to Honorius contained," writes Martin Skold from the Center for International Maritime Security, "but Honorius' response, now referred to by historians as the Reply of Honorius, essentially told the Britons — theoretically Roman citizens who could count on the protection of the Empire — that they would have to make do on their own; Rome had troubles of its own and could not send help this time." Months later, Rome itself was sacked… and after another couple of generations, the Western empire was history. Hold that thought… Secretary of State John Kerry is in the Ukrainian capital Kiev today, offering $1 billion in loan guarantees to the new anti-Russian government. Kerry is relieving himself on a bonfire; Ukraine's government says it needs $35 billion to tide itself over for the next two years. President Obama, meanwhile, is threatening sanctions against Russia for taking de facto control of the Crimean peninsula — which was Russian territory until the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev decided to hand it to Ukraine one day in 1954. (By some accounts, Khrushchev was hammered at the time.) Russia's response? Maybe we can figure out a way to avoid using the dollar for international transactions. Or as Kremlin economic aide Sergei Glazyev put it, "We would find a way not just to reduce our dependency on the United States to zero but to emerge from those sanctions with great benefits for ourselves. "An attempt to announce sanctions would end in a crash for the financial system of the United States, which would cause the end of the domination of the United States in the global financial system." OK, that's clearly overblown. But Russia already bypasses the dollar with its No. 2 trading partner China. And Russia has leverage with some of the countries within its No. 1 trading partner, the European Union. Consider this: Over the weekend, Obama thought one of the ways he might "punish" Russia was by kicking Russia out of the G-8 club of industrial democracies. "Nein," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Now, why would she say that? Maybe it has something to do with this chart and the big orange wedge on the right? The media generally ignore the energy angle in the Ukraine story, but we do not. All told, Germany gets 36% of its gas from Russia. And it's going to need even more if Merkel is serious about shutting down all of her country's nuclear power plants. "U.S. Increasingly Isolated on Russia Sanctions," said a dispatch last night at the website of Foreign Policy magazine. Yep. How different the world looked only last week to the blinkered Beltway crowd. A week ago yesterday, Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose was on The Colbert Report all but running a victory lap for the Ukrainian regime change effectively engineered from Washington while the Olympics were still underway in Russia… Rose: We want to, basically, distract Russia. Oh, look, you have the highest medal count, oh, you did really well… Colbert: Here's a shiny object, we'll just take an entire country away from you! Rose: Basically. Easy-peasy, right? "There are a lot of bad comparisons made between America's worldwide defense posture and the Roman Empire," writes the aforementioned Mr. Skold, bringing us back full circle. "The two do, however, have one obvious thing in common: In both cases, a powerful state made promises to defend far-flung territories. As with Rome, the U.S. is finding out how expensive such promises can be to keep… "The U.S. is in danger of issuing its own Reply of Honorius — those whom we have promised protection may have to rely on their own resources." Of which Ukraine has precious few… Regards, Dave Gonigam for The Daily Reckoning Ed. Note: To stay informed on the world’s most important news and investment stories, sign up for the FREE Daily Reckoning email edition, right here.

The London Price Fix Is Rigged - Here's Why Ross Norman Is Full Of It Posted: 04 Mar 2014 11:13 AM PST                                         In a mainstream media disclosure that took the gold investment world by surprise, Bloomberg published a report - Article Link - last week which contained data from an academic study that showed that the daily London gold price fixing has been manipulated for at least 10 years. While this is not new information to many precious metals investors, it is the first time that an establishment news outlet has exposed the truth about the widespread and blatant Government-sponsored manipulation of the precious metals market.  It should be noted that the Financial Times also published this report but then retracted and deleted the article. The London daily gold fix is an event that has been setting the price of gold twice a day since 1919. With the advent of computerized market trading and the gold/silver futures market (1974), it would appear that the London fix is no longer necessary as a mechanism of "price discovery." As we will see, the London fix still exists because it is used by the bullion banks as an overt market manipulation mechanism. The price "fixing" is conducted by 5 individuals who work for their respective bullion banks. These individuals jointly decide what the "spot" price of gold should be twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon (London time). They committee is allowed to communicate with market participants and their respective banks are permitted to continue trading gold and gold derivatives while these individuals decide what the price of gold should be.  Theoretically this price as "fixed" is determined to be the price which will clear the market of all buy and sell orders up to that point.  Theoretically, it provides a "benchmark" price for the spot price of gold.  Incredibly, the time of fix occurs during the period of time when the Shangai Gold Exchange, the largest physical gold market in the world, is closed for the day. But how can a closed system like this possibly operate objectively? The gold fix system is inherently ingrained with the conflict of interest and moral hazard the accompanies any system governed by collective "judgment." The Bloomberg News article details a study done by NYU professors which showed that between 2004 and 2013 large price moves during the afternoon "fix" were moves lower at least 66% of the time. In 2010, the large moves were negative 92% of the time. From their work, the authors concluded that the market in all probability was manipulated by the banks whose representatives establish the price fix every day: "There's no obvious explanation as to why the patterns began in 2004, why they were more prevalent in the afternoon fixing, and why price moves tended to be downwards" - Rosa Abrantes-Metz, one of the authors of the study. As it turns out, Ross Norman, CEO of the well-known London-based Sharps Pixley bullion retailer issued a rebuttal to the Bloomberg article and in defense of the London fix (LINK).  Ironically, in his attempted defense of the gold fix process, Norman inadvertently exposes the system's inherent flaws, thereby showing the reader how the London fix committee can easily manipulate the market. In fact nearly every point of assertion about, and defense of, the London fix process is embedded with half-truths or outright lies. In response to the fact that there are unusually large moves during the "fix" period, Norman explains: "the fix is a price discovery process and as such large buying and selling orders collide here - large moves are therefore to be expected. In fact, the mere fact that it does move confirms some differences in opinion over fair value between the clients dealing in the fix - actually it supports the notion of the integrity of the process." This explanation is is patently disingenuous. Gold trades in either physical form or derivatives form (futures, forward) nearly continuously during the trading week. The "price discovery" process occurs inherently with every buy/sell transaction. To say that it is only at the time around the p.m. London fix that large orders to buy and sell constitute "price discovery" is entirely misleading. In a continuously functioning market, orders of all sizes are executed and "price discovery" occurs with each trade execution. A committee of five individuals is not needed and collective "judgment" about what the price should be is not required. In his second point of defense of the London fix, Norman makes these comments: "the fix is used by official institutions (like Central Banks) and many major miners who all require an "objective" and published price because they need to [be] more accountable than say (sic) a proprietary trader. The spot price for example is neither of objective (sic) nor published. Selling by miners in size every day and invariably outweighs (sic) any official buying which is typically large but infrequent. Hedging or financing for the miners have will often (sic) link their financial arrangements to the gold fix." Just as a note, it's interesting that Norman decided to put quotes around the word "objective." Clearly the London fix is anything but "objective," since by it's very nature it defies the objectivity and price discovery mechanism of a continuously functioning market. I'm not sure why a "fixed" price needs to be "published" at all.  At any given time during the 23 hour trading period of each business day gold trades in either physical or derivative form (futures, forwards). Anyone can go online and "discover" the current trading price of gold. To be perfectly clear about this, any price which is determined in the market by a buyer and seller is inherently more objective and visible than is a price which is "fixed" by a committee of five individuals saddled with inherent conflict of interest. Mining companies and Central Banks are free to use the standard market mechanisms to execute their trades. To say that a committee operating out of view of the market can determine an official "spot" price is either unintentionally disingenuous or an outright lie. If anything, the London fix process prevents the true price discovery process of an open and free market. Norman also claims the London fix conference call is not private and is open to clients. Do you have access to this call? Our firm does not. I don't know of anyone who has access to this call. While the price fix committee of five may have information about the large buy and sell orders that are about to "collide" - to use Norman's term - the market as a whole does not. An efficient market functions most efficiently in its price discovery process when as much information as possible about buyers, sellers and size is immediately disseminated to the entire market. The London price fix system not only prohibits the dissemination of information that might help the market achieve its price discovery goals, it leaves the discretion as to the "best" market clearing price at that point in time up to the committee of five who may or may not be on the phone with their best preferred LBMA member clients or their own banks. Again, to reemphasize this point because it can not be emphasized enough, the price fix committee members have de facto conflict of interest by the very fact that the banks they work for have large capital positions in gold and silver. Furthermore, while detailed LBMA position data is not made available to the public, we know that these banks run large net short positions on the NY Comex. To say the least, the banks have a motivated interest to see a lower price fix every day. Finally, Norman tries to defend against the findings of the study that the price of gold at time of the p.m. fix is fixed lower a majority of the time - with the statistical evidence overwhelmingly in support of this conclusion - by explaining that if London gold dealers (i.e. the bullion banks) "had consistently shorted gold as maintained" they would have suffered massive losses. This assertion is absurd because it assumes that the big bullion banks are always long gold. Yet, we know from over a decade of Comex data that the big bullion banks have run massive short positions in Comex gold futures. We don't know whether the big banks are net long or net short on the LBMA because the LBMA does not publish enough information the big bank forward contract and bullion positions. In fact, from the size of the historical net short position of the big banks on the Comex, and the accompanying trading turnover of these positions, any bank with access to information about the level of the price fix before the general market sees it has the ability to net rapid and riskless trading gains on a daily basis. Finally, Norman tries to deflect the issue entirely by opining on the "vested interest" of Bloomberg in publishing this article and ends by scolding the organization ("shame on you...for lack of journalistic discretion and judgment...and failure to ask the right questions"). As Norman tolls this bell of scorn and disdain for Bloomberg News, ironically he's ringing it at himself, as Norman's disingenuous defense of the LBMA gold price fix surreptitiously exposes the reasons why the gold fix process is highly flawed. Indeed, it is a system of price determination which is susceptible to the moral hazard and market misconduct which accompany any market system in which price level is determined by a small committee individuals, all of whom have a high level of inherent conflict of interest. One last point, Norman is correct that Bloomberg fails to ask the right questions. Here's a small sampling of the right questions: 1) Given that the gold market trades nearly continuously during the business week, either by auction or computer, why is the London fix needed at all?  3) Why does the fix occur after the Shanghai Gold Exchange, the worlds largest physical bullion market, has closed for the day?  3) Why are the members of the price fix committee allowed to be representatives of the big bullion banks? 4) if #2 is unavoidable, shouldn't the members be from organizations which do not run capital positions in gold and silver or stand to benefit from inside knowledge about the price fix? 5) Why doesn't the LBMA publish more specific and detailed data about the forward contract and bullion positions of its member banks?

The London Price Fix Is Rigged - Here's Why Ross Norman Is Full Of It Posted: 04 Mar 2014 11:13 AM PST                                         In a mainstream media disclosure that took the gold investment world by surprise, Bloomberg published a report - Article Link - last week which contained data from an academic study that showed that the daily London gold price fixing has been manipulated for at least 10 years. While this is not new information to many precious metals investors, it is the first time that an establishment news outlet has exposed the truth about the widespread and blatant Government-sponsored manipulation of the precious metals market.  It should be noted that the Financial Times also published this report but then retracted and deleted the article. The London daily gold fix is an event that has been setting the price of gold twice a day since 1919. With the advent of computerized market trading and the gold/silver futures market (1974), it would appear that the London fix is no longer necessary as a mechanism of "price discovery." As we will see, the London fix still exists because it is used by the bullion banks as an overt market manipulation mechanism. The price "fixing" is conducted by 5 individuals who work for their respective bullion banks. These individuals jointly decide what the "spot" price of gold should be twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon (London time). They committee is allowed to communicate with market participants and their respective banks are permitted to continue trading gold and gold derivatives while these individuals decide what the price of gold should be.  Theoretically this price as "fixed" is determined to be the price which will clear the market of all buy and sell orders up to that point.  Theoretically, it provides a "benchmark" price for the spot price of gold.  Incredibly, the time of fix occurs during the period of time when the Shangai Gold Exchange, the largest physical gold market in the world, is closed for the day. But how can a closed system like this possibly operate objectively? The gold fix system is inherently ingrained with the conflict of interest and moral hazard the accompanies any system governed by collective "judgment." The Bloomberg News article details a study done by NYU professors which showed that between 2004 and 2013 large price moves during the afternoon "fix" were moves lower at least 66% of the time. In 2010, the large moves were negative 92% of the time. From their work, the authors concluded that the market in all probability was manipulated by the banks whose representatives establish the price fix every day: "There's no obvious explanation as to why the patterns began in 2004, why they were more prevalent in the afternoon fixing, and why price moves tended to be downwards" - Rosa Abrantes-Metz, one of the authors of the study. As it turns out, Ross Norman, CEO of the well-known London-based Sharps Pixley bullion retailer issued a rebuttal to the Bloomberg article and in defense of the London fix (LINK).  Ironically, in his attempted defense of the gold fix process, Norman inadvertently exposes the system's inherent flaws, thereby showing the reader how the London fix committee can easily manipulate the market. In fact nearly every point of assertion about, and defense of, the London fix process is embedded with half-truths or outright lies. In response to the fact that there are unusually large moves during the "fix" period, Norman explains: "the fix is a price discovery process and as such large buying and selling orders collide here - large moves are therefore to be expected. In fact, the mere fact that it does move confirms some differences in opinion over fair value between the clients dealing in the fix - actually it supports the notion of the integrity of the process." This explanation is is patently disingenuous. Gold trades in either physical form or derivatives form (futures, forward) nearly continuously during the trading week. The "price discovery" process occurs inherently with every buy/sell transaction. To say that it is only at the time around the p.m. London fix that large orders to buy and sell constitute "price discovery" is entirely misleading. In a continuously functioning market, orders of all sizes are executed and "price discovery" occurs with each trade execution. A committee of five individuals is not needed and collective "judgment" about what the price should be is not required. In his second point of defense of the London fix, Norman makes these comments: "the fix is used by official institutions (like Central Banks) and many major miners who all require an "objective" and published price because they need to [be] more accountable than say (sic) a proprietary trader. The spot price for example is neither of objective (sic) nor published. Selling by miners in size every day and invariably outweighs (sic) any official buying which is typically large but infrequent. Hedging or financing for the miners have will often (sic) link their financial arrangements to the gold fix." Just as a note, it's interesting that Norman decided to put quotes around the word "objective." Clearly the London fix is anything but "objective," since by it's very nature it defies the objectivity and price discovery mechanism of a continuously functioning market. I'm not sure why a "fixed" price needs to be "published" at all.  At any given time during the 23 hour trading period of each business day gold trades in either physical or derivative form (futures, forwards). Anyone can go online and "discover" the current trading price of gold. To be perfectly clear about this, any price which is determined in the market by a buyer and seller is inherently more objective and visible than is a price which is "fixed" by a committee of five individuals saddled with inherent conflict of interest. Mining companies and Central Banks are free to use the standard market mechanisms to execute their trades. To say that a committee operating out of view of the market can determine an official "spot" price is either unintentionally disingenuous or an outright lie. If anything, the London fix process prevents the true price discovery process of an open and free market. Norman also claims the London fix conference call is not private and is open to clients. Do you have access to this call? Our firm does not. I don't know of anyone who has access to this call. While the price fix committee of five may have information about the large buy and sell orders that are about to "collide" - to use Norman's term - the market as a whole does not. An efficient market functions most efficiently in its price discovery process when as much information as possible about buyers, sellers and size is immediately disseminated to the entire market. The London price fix system not only prohibits the dissemination of information that might help the market achieve its price discovery goals, it leaves the discretion as to the "best" market clearing price at that point in time up to the committee of five who may or may not be on the phone with their best preferred LBMA member clients or their own banks. Again, to reemphasize this point because it can not be emphasized enough, the price fix committee members have de facto conflict of interest by the very fact that the banks they work for have large capital positions in gold and silver. Furthermore, while detailed LBMA position data is not made available to the public, we know that these banks run large net short positions on the NY Comex. To say the least, the banks have a motivated interest to see a lower price fix every day. Finally, Norman tries to defend against the findings of the study that the price of gold at time of the p.m. fix is fixed lower a majority of the time - with the statistical evidence overwhelmingly in support of this conclusion - by explaining that if London gold dealers (i.e. the bullion banks) "had consistently shorted gold as maintained" they would have suffered massive losses. This assertion is absurd because it assumes that the big bullion banks are always long gold. Yet, we know from over a decade of Comex data that the big bullion banks have run massive short positions in Comex gold futures. We don't know whether the big banks are net long or net short on the LBMA because the LBMA does not publish enough information the big bank forward contract and bullion positions. In fact, from the size of the historical net short position of the big banks on the Comex, and the accompanying trading turnover of these positions, any bank with access to information about the level of the price fix before the general market sees it has the ability to net rapid and riskless trading gains on a daily basis. Finally, Norman tries to deflect the issue entirely by opining on the "vested interest" of Bloomberg in publishing this article and ends by scolding the organization ("shame on you...for lack of journalistic discretion and judgment...and failure to ask the right questions"). As Norman tolls this bell of scorn and disdain for Bloomberg News, ironically he's ringing it at himself, as Norman's disingenuous defense of the LBMA gold price fix surreptitiously exposes the reasons why the gold fix process is highly flawed. Indeed, it is a system of price determination which is susceptible to the moral hazard and market misconduct which accompany any market system in which price level is determined by a small committee individuals, all of whom have a high level of inherent conflict of interest. One last point, Norman is correct that Bloomberg fails to ask the right questions. Here's a small sampling of the right questions: 1) Given that the gold market trades nearly continuously during the business week, either by auction or computer, why is the London fix needed at all?  3) Why does the fix occur after the Shanghai Gold Exchange, the worlds largest physical bullion market, has closed for the day?  3) Why are the members of the price fix committee allowed to be representatives of the big bullion banks? 4) if #2 is unavoidable, shouldn't the members be from organizations which do not run capital positions in gold and silver or stand to benefit from inside knowledge about the price fix? 5) Why doesn't the LBMA publish more specific and detailed data about the forward contract and bullion positions of its member banks?

Real Money Posted: 04 Mar 2014 10:31 AM PST The Gold Speculator

Gold cartel draws line at $1,350, Kaye tells KWN Posted: 04 Mar 2014 10:16 AM PST 1:15p ET Tuesday, March 4, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Hong Kong-based fund manager William Kaye today tells King World News that the international gold cartel is holding the line at $1,350 but that geopolitical events remain troublesome for gold price control: http://kingworldnews.com/kingworldnews/KWN_DailyWeb/Entries/2014/3/4_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 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: Mines and Money Hong Kong Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre Monday-Friday, March 24-28, 2014 Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ Canadian Investor Conference 2014 Vancouver Convention Centre West 1055 Canada Place, Vancouver, British Columbia Sunday and Monday, June 1 and 2, 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * 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

Graphite Investors Should Look for Large Flakes, Small Resources Posted: 04 Mar 2014 09:27 AM PST Companies that boast 80,000 ton-per-year production or high purity levels don't always impress Kiril Mugerman, mining analyst with Industrial Alliance Securities. Why? Because finding buyers for all those tons is a huge challenge, and thrifty end-users like to purify lower-grade graphite in-house. In this interview with The Mining Report, Mugerman explains why he looks for smaller projects that can hit revenue targets, and indicates which of the 176 graphite projects out there are worth your attention. The Mining Report: In May 2012, you described graphite as "the black gold of the 21st century." Do you still believe that?

This Is What Is Happening In Ukraine & The War On Gold Posted: 04 Mar 2014 08:57 AM PST Today an outspoken hedge fund manager out of Hong Kong spoke with King World News about the conflict in Ukraine/Crimea and the war on gold. William Kaye, who 25 years ago worked for Goldman Sachs in mergers and acquisitions, also discussed the implications of what is happening for investors. Below is what Kaye had to say in this timely interview. This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now

Big Australian coal handling equipment contract for Sandvik Posted: 04 Mar 2014 08:25 AM PST Sandvik Mining has recently received a multi-million dollar order for coal stacking and reclaiming units for a major Australian facility. Read more….

…and Pit Vipers ordered for Los Pelambres copper Posted: 04 Mar 2014 08:25 AM PST Atlas Copco Drilling Solutions has received an order for four large blasthole drills from Minera Los Pelambres for its major copper/moly/gold mining operation in the Coquimbo region of Chile. Read more….

Junior mining stocks rising from the ashes – Ballanger Posted: 04 Mar 2014 08:24 AM PST Michael Ballanger, director of wealth management and a certified investment manager with Richardson GMP, say juniors are turning a corner. A Gold Report interview. Read more….

Crimea, the Fed, China and Gold Posted: 04 Mar 2014 08:24 AM PST An easing of the tensions in the Ukraine could see gold's recent gains negated, but it is longer term factors like the state of the U.S. economy and Chinese demand which will set the gold price pattern for the year ahead. Read more….

Gold and silver prices slightly muted Posted: 04 Mar 2014 08:24 AM PST The silver price was not inclined to too much exuberance over events in the Ukraine and Crimea yesterday and performed alongside gold in a slightly muted manner, says Julian Phillips. Read more….

‘Ethical gold’ aims to curb illegal mining in South America Posted: 04 Mar 2014 08:24 AM PST Advocates of the “ethical gold” initiative say it is aimed at reducing the harmful impact of illegal mining in mineral-rich developing countries. Read more….

India’s trade minister wants gold import curbs eased Posted: 04 Mar 2014 08:24 AM PST Last year, the government raised import duty on gold to a record 10% and tied gold consumption to exports of gold jewellery to bolster external finances. Read more….

Shilling discovery could rewrite Canadian history Posted: 04 Mar 2014 07:59 AM PST By Clement Sabourin Agence France-Presse via Yahoo News Tuesday, March 4, 2014 VICTORIA, British Columbia, Canada -- An amateur treasure hunter with a hand-held metal detector has turned Canadian history on its head after finding a 16th-century shilling buried in clay on the shores of Vancouver Island. The 435-year-old coin discovered in westernmost Canada has rekindled a theory that a British explorer made a secret voyage here two centuries before it was discovered by Spanish sailors. ... ... For the full story: http://news.yahoo.com/shilling-discovery-could-rewrite-canadian-history-... ADVERTISEMENT Jim Sinclair plans seminars in Los Angeles and San Diego Gold advocate Jim Sinclair's next market analysis seminars will be held in Los Angeles from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 8, and in San Diego from 2 to 6 p.m. the following day, Sunday, March 9. Details, including registration information, are posted at Sinclair's Internet site, JSMinset.com, here: http://www.jsmineset.com/qa-session-tickets/ Join GATA here: Mines and Money Hong Kong Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre Monday-Friday, March 24-28, 2014 Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ Canadian Investor Conference 2014 Vancouver Convention Centre West 1055 Canada Place, Vancouver, British Columbia Sunday and Monday, June 1 and 2, 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * 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 Safe and Private Allocated Bullion Storage In Singapore Given the increasing risks in financial markets, it is more important than ever to own physical bullion coins and bars and to store them in the safest vaults in the world in the safest jurisdictions in the world. Gold advocates Jim Sinclair and Marc Faber have recommended Singapore. Now, with GoldCore, you can own coins and bars in fully insured, segregated, and allocated accounts in Singapore with the ability to take delivery. Learn more by downloading GoldCore's Essential Guide To Storing Gold In Singapore: http://info.goldcore.com/essential-guide-to-storing-gold-in-singapore And for more information call Daniel or Sharon at +44 203 0869200 in the United Kingdom or at +1 302 635 1160 in the United States. Or email them at info@goldcore.com.

Gold coin hoard found in California may have been from theft at SF Mint in 1900 Posted: 04 Mar 2014 07:55 AM PST By Tom Stienstra San Francisco Chronicle Monday, March 3, 2014 A story that describes a gold heist from the San Francisco Mint at the turn of the century could explain the source of the gold coins worth $10 million that were found last month in California's Mother Lode country. ... ... For the full story: http://blog.sfgate.com/stienstra/2014/03/03/sf-heist-in-1900-may-explain... ADVERTISEMENT Safe and Private Allocated Bullion Storage In Singapore Given the increasing risks in financial markets, it is more important than ever to own physical bullion coins and bars and to store them in the safest vaults in the world in the safest jurisdictions in the world. Gold advocates Jim Sinclair and Marc Faber have recommended Singapore. Now, with GoldCore, you can own coins and bars in fully insured, segregated, and allocated accounts in Singapore with the ability to take delivery. Learn more by downloading GoldCore's Essential Guide To Storing Gold In Singapore: http://info.goldcore.com/essential-guide-to-storing-gold-in-singapore And for more information call Daniel or Sharon at +44 203 0869200 in the United Kingdom or at +1 302 635 1160 in the United States. Or email them at info@goldcore.com. Join GATA here: Mines and Money Hong Kong Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre Monday-Friday, March 24-28, 2014 Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ Canadian Investor Conference 2014 Vancouver Convention Centre West 1055 Canada Place, Vancouver, British Columbia Sunday and Monday, June 1 and 2, 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * 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 Jim Sinclair plans seminars in Los Angeles and San Diego Gold advocate Jim Sinclair's next market analysis seminars will be held in Los Angeles from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 8, and in San Diego from 2 to 6 p.m. the following day, Sunday, March 9. Details, including registration information, are posted at Sinclair's Internet site, JSMinset.com, here: http://www.jsmineset.com/qa-session-tickets/

Make Way for the Mobile Payment Revolution Posted: 04 Mar 2014 07:54 AM PST Keys. Phone. Wallet. Wait – scratch that… Keys. Phone. Ditch the wallet… Your mental check list is about to get 33% shorter. And that’s partly because the S&P’s largest company is developing its next big business right under the market’ nose. But let’s back up for just a second. What do you think is Apple’s fastest-growing product by total dollar sales? Here’s a hint: It’s not the iPhone or the iPad. “The answer is e-commerce,” explains Rude researcher Noah Sugarman. “Sales of Apple apps, iTunes, and iBooks jumped 19% to $4.4 billion during the first quarter.” Apple management has taken notice too, commenting that its customers are lauding the use of Touch ID to buy content like movies and music. But in the works is something a lot bigger than downloading your favorite Justin Bieber album… “Apple already has the tech and the products in place it needs to build a massive mobile payments business,” Noah continues. “The company is expanding on not just content purchases, but on in-store purchases as well. Apple is simultaneously creating a mobile retail marketing infrastructure across the U.S. called iBeacon. That’s alongside key partnerships with CC companies, Google, Square, Stripe, and others.” In fact, Apple is just one of the many companies that recognizes mobile represents the next frontier in payment transactions. Globally, 1 in 5 of such transactions are now made from a mobile device. But we’re only in the beginning stages of this revolution. Visa and MasterCard both plan to allow phones with near-field communication chips (NFC) to access card info over the internet. “Meanwhile, Samsung has announced its new Galaxy S5 will allow consumers to authenticate PayPal transactions with a fingerprint rather than a password,” Noah continues. “PayPal itself is also partnering with merchants to equip them with wireless sensors so that repeat customers can pay while leaving their phones in their pocket.” This coming technology evolution will change not just what you spend your money on, but how you spend it. Safety and security concerns have hindered such a shift in the past, but as it stands, the current tech standards make mobile payments wildly safer than credit card payments. So get ready to leave your wallet at home. Your pockets won’t miss lugging around your bulky cash and credit cards anyway… Regards, Greg Guenthner for The Daily Reckoning P.S. As the mobile payment revolution ramps up, there are sure to be some great investment opportunities along the way. I’ll be following this story very closely as it progresses, and giving my Rude Awakening email readers as many chances as possible to snag some profits in the coming boom. If you’re not a Rude Awakening reader, not to worry. You can sign up for FREE, right here.

Koos Jansen: India's silver imports up 189% even as smuggled gold is abundant Posted: 04 Mar 2014 07:41 AM PST 10:40a ET Tuesday, March 4, 2014 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: Gold researcher and GATA consultant Koos Jansen reports today that India's silver imports were up 189 percent in 2013 as the government began obstructing gold imports. But he quotes an Indian source as saying that Indians are getting all the gold they need through smuggling and that smugglers and organized crime, collecting a smuggling premium, wouldn't have it any other way. Jansen also reports that his Internet site, In Gold We Trust, now frequently comes under "denial of service attacks," which seem to afflict disproportionately those Internet sites that make trouble for gold market rigging. Jansen's commentary is headlined "India Imported 6,125 Tonnes Of Silver in 2013" and it's posted at his Internet site, In Gold We Trust, here: http://www.ingoldwetrust.ch/india-imported-6125-tonnes-of-silver-in-2013 CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. 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 Join GATA here: Mines and Money Hong Kong Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China Monday-Friday, March 24-28, 2014 http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ Canadian Investor Conference 2014 Vancouver Convention Centre West 1055 Canada Place, Vancouver, British Columbia Sunday and Monday, June 1 and 2, 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * 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 How to profit with silver -- and which stocks to buy now Future Money Trends is offering a special 16-page silver report with 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...

Russia threatens default to U.S. banks, dumping of U.S. bonds Posted: 04 Mar 2014 07:31 AM PST US Sanctions May Lead Russia to Default on US Debts, Official Says From the Russian Legal Information Agency, Moscow Tuesday, March 4, 2014 http://rapsinews.com/news/20140304/270858142.html MOSCOW -- As the United States considers imposing sanctions against Russia, concerns loom that Russia may be forced to declare its inability to pay off loans issued by US banks, presidential aide Sergei Glazyev told RIA Novosti. "Economic sanctions are a double-edged sword, and if the US will freeze our assets, that means our companies' dollar assets will be frozen too. That means Russian banks and organizations won't be able to pay off loans to our American partners," Glazyev said. ... Dispatch continues below ... ADVERTISEMENT How to profit with silver -- and which stocks to buy now Future Money Trends is offering a special 16-page silver report with 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... According to US Treasury data from the end of 2013, Russian investments in US government bonds total around $139 billion out of a total of $5.8 trillion of US debt held in foreign hands. Officials in the United States and Europe have told Russia that its actions in Ukraine could lead to economic sanctions and asset freezes. The Russian ruble hit a record low Monday as stock markets in Moscow fell more than 11 percent after trading began. Such a crash was widely predicted by experts when Russia's upper house of Parliament approved the use of military force in Ukraine on Saturday, which was criticized by the US and a number of European countries. Notably, US Secretary of State John Kerry told NBC's "Meet the Press" show Sunday that the United States and some of its allies were "prepared to go to the hilt to isolate Russia." Speaking before the UN Security Council, Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said that Russia is authorized to place up to 25,000 military personnel in the autonomous republic of Crimea upon bilateral agreement with Ukraine. According to Churkin, the personnel are used for security measures to resist extremists whose actions may put civilians under threat. On Monday Russian investigators initiated a terrorism case against the leader of ultra-nationalist, far-right Ukrainian movement "Right Sector," Dmitry Yarosh. He is accused of having made a public call to anti-Russian forces to engage in terrorist acts and extremism on Russian territory. * * * Putin Adviser Urges Dumping US Bonds in Reaction to Sanctions From RIA Novosti, Moscow Tuesday, March 4, 2014 http://en.ria.ru/business/20140304/188081405/Putin-Adviser-Urges-Dumping... MOSCOW -- An adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that authorities would issue general advice to dump US government bonds in the event of Russian companies and individuals being targeted by sanctions over events in Ukraine. Sergei Glazyev said the United States would be the first to suffer in the event of any sanctions regime. "The Americans are threatening Russia with sanctions and pulling the EU into a trade and economic war with Russia," Glazyev said. "Most of the sanctions against Russia will bring harm to the United States itself, because as far as trade relations with the United States go, we don't depend on them in any way." Glazyev noted that Russia is a creditor to the United States. "We hold a decent amount of treasury bonds -- more than $200 billion -- and if the United States dares to freeze accounts of Russian businesses and citizens, we can no longer view America as a reliable partner," he said. "We will encourage everybody to dump US Treasury bonds, get rid of dollars as an unreliable currency, and leave the US market." According to US Treasury data from the end of 2013, Russian investments in US government bonds total around $139 billion out of a total of $5.8 trillion of US debt held in foreign hands. US Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday warned that Russian military interventions in Ukraine, which have been justified by the Kremlin as protection for residents in heavily ethnic Russian-populated regions, could result in "serious repercussions" for Moscow. "Unless immediate and concrete steps are taken by Russia to deescalate tensions, the effect on US-Russian relations and on Russia's international standing will be profound," Kerry said. Kerry mentioned economic sanctions, visa bans, and asset freezes as possible measures. Former deputy energy minister and lively government critic Vladimir Milov slammed Glazyev's remarks, saying they would put further downward pressure on the ruble, which was pushed down Monday to a record low of 36.5 against the dollar amid fears about the possible outbreak of war. "That idiot Glazyev will keep talking until the dollar is worth 60" rubles, Milov wrote on his Twitter account. A high-ranking Kremlin source was quick to distance his office from Glazyev's remarks, however, insisting to RIA Novosti that they represented only his personal position. Glazyev was just expressing his views as an academic, and not as a presidential adviser, the Kremlin insider said. * * * Join GATA here: Mines and Money Hong Kong Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre Monday-Friday, March 24-28, 2014 Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China http://www.minesandmoney.com/hongkong/ Canadian Investor Conference 2014 Vancouver Convention Centre West 1055 Canada Place, Vancouver, British Columbia Sunday and Monday, June 1 and 2, 2014 http://cambridgehouse.com/event/25/canadian-investor-conference-2014-inc... * * * 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

Gold Price Drops 3/4 of "Ukraine Crisis" Jump as Russia Moves to Ease Tensions Posted: 04 Mar 2014 05:50 AM PST The GOLD PRICE fell hard Tuesday morning in London, losing three-quarters of Monday's 2.5% jump to 4-month highs above $1350 per ounce, as the Kremlin sought to ease tensions over Ukraine and world stock markets rallied.   First, at 6am London time, Moscow announced the end of military exercises suddenly called last week, and which were already scheduled to end late Monday.   Prices for large gold investment bars lost $10 per ounce inside 10 minutes.   President Putin then told his first press conference since the weekend crisis that sending Russian troops into the Ukraine would only be a "last resort".   The spot gold price fell again to $1332, a level first hit during this 2014 rebound last Monday.   "Financial market tension is melting away," says FX analyst Kit Juckes at Societe Generale, "[but] no, of course it's not 'all over'."   Ukraine's interim government in Kiev says 16,000 extra Russian troops have already crossed the border from Russia, adding to the 25,000 staff which Moscow is authorized to station in Sevastopol.   "The economic fallout," says Juckes, "notably in Russia, will be significant. But financial markets are short-sighted animals, and everything is calmer."   "Is it just me," asks Standard Bank FX strategist Steven Barrow, "or do major markets not respond to shock events with the same ferocity that they did in the past?"   Monday's 2% fall in European equity investment prices "hardly seems substantial in light of weekend events in the Ukraine," he adds. "Nor does the 2% rise in gold prices."   Tuesday morning saw most other financial markets reverse Monday's jumps, with gas and wheat prices falling with major-government bonds as stock markets bounced hard.   Gold trading volumes in US futures more than doubled yesterday from Friday, and gold options saw heavy demand for $1400 calls.    The giant SPDR Gold Trust (GLD) however added no metal to the investment gold backing its shares.   Closing before Putin's comments on Russian troops and Ukraine, bullion traded in Shanghai this morning finished the day some $2.80 per ounce below the London gold price.   Typically trading at a premium, gold already shipped to China – the world's No.1 consumer nation – went to a discount last Monday for the first time since November.

WW3 -- Russia And The U.S. Face Off Over The Ukraine Posted: 04 Mar 2014 04:33 AM PST The world markets are in flux today over the Ukrainian crisis. The US stock market was down and gold pushed up. Prices of goods are rising and rents are at the highest point yet making disposable income shrink. Connecticut is starting the gun confiscation and many people are not complying. The... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.GoldSilverNewsBlog.com or http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]

WW3 UPDATE: US Halts Russia Military Agreements; Russia THREATEN DOLLAR & WARNING SHOTS FIRED Posted: 04 Mar 2014 04:11 AM PST Russia will abandon the US dollar as a reserve currency if the United States initiates sanctions against the Russian Federation, Presidential advisor Sergey Glazyev told Ria Novosti news agency."We will be forced to go to another currency and create our own payment and settlement system. We... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit http://www.GoldSilverNewsBlog.com or http://www.newsbooze.com or http://www.figanews.com for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Gold Buyers Outnumber & Outweigh Sellers in Feb. Posted: 04 Mar 2014 01:05 AM PST Gold Investor Index jumps at fastest pace since April 2013's price-crash...   GOLD INVESTOR sentiment towards bullion jumped last month at its fastest pace since April 2013, according to our latest Gold Investor Index, writes Adrian Ash at physical metals market BullionVault.   The number of people adding to their holdings in February using our online exchange rose to twice that of net sellers. That drove our proprietary Gold Investor Index – which measures the balance of buyers over sellers as a proportion of all gold owners at the start of the month – up to 53.5, its highest reading since November.   Peaking at 71.7 in September 2011, the Gold Investor Index fell this January to an 18-month low of 51.9. A reading of 50.0 would signal a perfect balance of net buyers and net sellers. So February's 3.1% rise in the index began from a low base. It was beaten by April 2013's rise of 10.0%, when a crash in the gold price unleashed the strongest interest in physical bullion from self-directed investors since the global debt crisis of late 2011.   Gold investment sentiment amongst private Western households (nearly 9-in-10 of the 51,500 people who've now used BullionVault) remains wary of the 2014 rebound so far. Partly because many took the opportunity to build their positions at discount prices in 2013. Partly because last year's 30% drop proved a hard-won lesson.   But while private-investor sentiment is muted, the volume of new gold demand rose sharply last month. As data from BullionVault posted for public scrutiny online each day show, the sum total of user gold holdings rose to 32.5 tonnes in February, up by one-third of a tonne (332kg) to reverse the previous two months' net liquidation, and the largest 1-month growth since August (421kg).   That's because larger allocations are returning to gold after the 2013 crash. Today's geopolitical threats only add to the case for holding financial insurance. This weekend saw the busiest Sunday on BullionVault's live markets since the Syrian crisis last summer. Attachments:  gold-investor-index-feb-2014.xls gold-investor-index-feb-2014-2.png

Gold Buyers Outnumber & Outweigh Sellers in Feb. Posted: 04 Mar 2014 01:05 AM PST Gold Investor Index jumps at fastest pace since April 2013's price-crash...   GOLD INVESTOR sentiment towards bullion jumped last month at its fastest pace since April 2013, according to our latest Gold Investor Index, writes Adrian Ash at physical metals market BullionVault.   The number of people adding to their holdings in February using our online exchange rose to twice that of net sellers. That drove our proprietary Gold Investor Index – which measures the balance of buyers over sellers as a proportion of all gold owners at the start of the month – up to 53.5, its highest reading since November.   Peaking at 71.7 in September 2011, the Gold Investor Index fell this January to an 18-month low of 51.9. A reading of 50.0 would signal a perfect balance of net buyers and net sellers. So February's 3.1% rise in the index began from a low base. It was beaten by April 2013's rise of 10.0%, when a crash in the gold price unleashed the strongest interest in physical bullion from self-directed investors since the global debt crisis of late 2011.   Gold investment sentiment amongst private Western households (nearly 9-in-10 of the 51,500 people who've now used BullionVault) remains wary of the 2014 rebound so far. Partly because many took the opportunity to build their positions at discount prices in 2013. Partly because last year's 30% drop proved a hard-won lesson.   But while private-investor sentiment is muted, the volume of new gold demand rose sharply last month. As data from BullionVault posted for public scrutiny online each day show, the sum total of user gold holdings rose to 32.5 tonnes in February, up by one-third of a tonne (332kg) to reverse the previous two months' net liquidation, and the largest 1-month growth since August (421kg).   That's because larger allocations are returning to gold after the 2013 crash. Today's geopolitical threats only add to the case for holding financial insurance. This weekend saw the busiest Sunday on BullionVault's live markets since the Syrian crisis last summer. Attachments:  gold-investor-index-feb-2014.xls gold-investor-index-feb-2014-2.png

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