Gold -- Sharefin, 23:10:52 09/22/04 Wed 'I want to buy five kilos of gold' Can you imagine saying this? You could, if you risked trading commodity futures on any of India's three online commodity exchanges! The Indian retail investor is usually the last to hear of a new investing opportunity – be it a sector or a stock or even a mutual fund scheme. Well, here is an attempt to get everybody on the same page about a new investing area, even as it opens out in India. Futures trading in commodities, that had been banned for decades, is now possible on three hi-tech new exchanges (National Commodity and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX), the Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX) and the National Multi Commodity Exchange of India (NMCE). All three have electronic trading and settlement systems and a national presence that allows for online nation-wide trading even at a retail level, though sufficient volumes will take another four to six months to play out. Says P H Ravikumar, Managing Director and CEO of NCDEX, the Mumbai-based exchange that has been in operation for about 10 months now, “Some high net worth individuals are already trading, retail trade will take a few more months”. 1016 Gold -- Sharefin, 23:06:37 09/22/04 Wed The Gold Market in China: A New Beginning China is the world's fourth largest producer of gold and accounts for 300 tonnes of annual demand. The liberalisation of the gold market in China and the establishment of the Shanghai Gold Exchange, against the backdrop of the astounding economic growth that the country has enjoyed over the past decade, makes The Gold Market in China: A New Beginning a fascinating and useful read for bankers and fund managers, as well as gold miners. 1015 Gold -- Sharefin, 06:28:14 09/21/04 Tue Producer de-hedging accelerates in 2004 Outstanding producer hedge positions were slashed by 209 tons in the six months to June, a sharp increase on the 43 tons cut in the six month period prior to that. ~~~ The significant fall left the delta adjusted hedge book at the end of June 2004 at a measured 1,997 tons, equivalent to 77% of 2003 annual mine production, the report says. ~~~ Finally, Alway highlighted the significance of book restructuring which contributed not only to an overall drop in protected volumes but, more importantly, had a marked impact on the make up of the global book itself, which was further concentrated in simple forward sales. On a company basis, AngloGold Ashanti's combined hedge book was reduced by 62 tons from their respective positions reported at end-December 2003. Barrick reduced its outstanding position by 51 tons, whilst a major book restructure completed by Newcrest resulted in a 22 tons decline in their delta adjusted position. Other noteworthy contributors to the half yearly drop in the producer book were Placer Dome (19 tons), Avgold (18 tons) and Cambior (15 tons). De-hedging is forecast to hold at elevated levels of over 200 tons in the second half. The report points out that in the light of recent events - the announcement by Thistle Mining in August that it had bought back around 15 tons of contracts; news from New Zealand that Oceana Gold closed a 29 tons position and, lastly, the news at the end of August that Sons of Gwalia (who at end-June had a 52 tons delta adjusted hedge position) had been put into voluntary administration - the base case level of 200 tons of de-hedging could well be a minimum. 1014 Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 21:46:07 09/19/04 Sun Ponzi Chart Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 1,910.09 + Dow 10,284.46 = 12,194.55 divide by 2 = 6,097.27 Ponzi Down 6.42 from last week. Thanks for the link RossL ! Go GATA ! Go GOLD ! Hi Ho SILVER ! $hifty 1013 Gold -- Sharefin, 23:27:22 09/16/04 Thu Gold ETF Confirmed by SEC Despite lengthy delay, the SEC recently confirmed that a gold ETF is on its way. Expected to be sold under the streetTracks ETF line from State Street, it appears likely to begin trading before year's end. ETF investors should soon decide whether gold belongs in their portfolio. 1012 Gold -- Sharefin, 18:36:48 09/16/04 Thu Gold Investment Firms Wound Up after Dti Probe Two companies claiming to give people the chance to invest in gold ingots have been wound up following an investigation by the Department of Trade and Industry, it emerged today. Prime Goldbank Limited and Primebank Limited claimed to offer consumers the chance to buy gold ingots worth between 50 US dollars (£28) and 500 US dollars (£280) through monthly payment plans. The companies, which advertised on the internet, also said people could earn up to 60% of their original investment through introducing at least six new customers to the scheme. Both companies were registered in Scotland, with Prime Goldbank claiming to have its headquarters in Edinburgh and branches in 17 countries worldwide. It also implied to investors that they could purchase gold directly from its Edinburgh office. But the DTI found that the firms did not own any gold in Scotland, and the companies appeared to be running a pyramid scheme, in which money from people who invested later was used to pay those who had joined the scheme early on, and was not invested in gold. 1011 Gold -- Sharefin, 19:08:14 09/15/04 Wed Exploration 'weak link' for gold New concerns have been raised about the Australian gold industry's ability to sustain its annual $8 billion-plus investment on capital works, exploration and operational expenditure despite the strong gold price. The weak link in the industry's expenditure chain is exploration, the life-blood. According to a survey of the industry's investment plans by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and the Australian Gold Council (AGC), forecast exploration expenditure for 2004-05 was just 3.3 per cent ($268 million) of gold investment activity ($8.18 billion). Deloitte tax partner Greg Fitzgerald said that if exploration were to stay so low, Australia "will be unable to sustain current gold production and investment levels". 1009  Gold -- Sharefin, 07:20:11 09/15/04 Wed Price of gold manipulated, Embry says John Embry, one of Canada's best known gold bugs, is ruffling some feathers again in the otherwise staid corridors of Bay Street. A couple of weeks ago, he started circulating a report that details his belief the gold market is manipulated. It's a remarkable paper, given that it's rare to see any veteran member of Canada's investing establishment go public with such a potentially controversial position. 1008 Gold -- Sharefin, 07:18:44 09/15/04 Wed Gold consumption in India was up by 10% Consumption of gold in India increased by ten per cent to 343 tonnes during the first half of 2004 against 312 tonnes same period last year. 1007 Gold -- Sharefin, 07:10:14 09/15/04 Wed China's gold market should transform in three aspects: official China's gold market should gradually experience transformations in three aspects: transformation from commodity trade to finance trade, from spot transactions to future transactions, from domestic market to international market, says Zhou Xiaochuan, President of People's Bank of China on Sept 6. Zhou made the remarks at the annual meeting of the London Bullion Market Association. The London gold market is the largest market as well as the one with the longest history in the world. As the administrator of the gold market of London, the London Bullion Market Association will convene annual meeting in different cities around the world. This meeting has become one of the most important international meetings for the gold market.¡¡ China's gold market's function of investment and financing has not been fully exerted, because China exercises control over gold trade. How can the market transform from commodity trade to trade of finance products? Judging from the current situation, developing individual's investment in gold is a realistic option. Gold, both common commodity and money commodity is an effective instrument for inflation proof and risk evasion. Therefore it is practical to develop individual's purchase and sales of gold. 1006 Gold -- Sharefin, 07:07:11 09/15/04 Wed Thousands strike in Peru against gold exploration LIMA, Peru, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Some 4,000 Peruvians stopped work and marched through the northern town of Cajamarca on Wednesday, demanding a ban on a gold exploration project they say is contaminating and drying up their water supplies. The strike shut down banks, markets and public transportation in Cajamarca, 535 miles (856 km) northeast of Lima. Earlier in the week farmers and residents blocked roads to protest exploration of the Cerro Quilish deposit by Latin America's biggest gold mine, Yanacocha. Yanacocha is controlled by U.S.-based Newmont Mining Corp with Peru's Buenaventura as partner. 1005 Gold -- Sharefin, 06:56:35 09/15/04 Wed Italian Central Bank Says It Plans No Sales of Gold From Reuters Monday, September 13, 2004 ROME -- The Bank of Italy said in a statement on Monday it had no plans to sell its gold reserves. "The Bank of Italy ... has not spoken of this matter, nor does any plan of this type exist," it said in a statement. Central banks have been shedding gold, once a mainstay of their reserve assets, in favour of hard currencies as gold's status as a store of value has declined. The Dutch central bank on Saturday said it would sell 100 tonnes of gold under the new five-year gold sale agreement that takes effect in September and sell 50 tonnes left from a previous agreement. 1004 Gold -- Sharefin, 06:56:01 09/15/04 Wed Italian Central Bank Says It Plans No Sales of Gold ROME (Reuters) - the Bank of Italy does not have to the study the cession of its gold reservoirs. Precise a famous one of the institute centers them. The governor "has not never spoken about this argument; neither on it plans of some kind exist ", law in the official notice. "We will say something to Washington", had said slid saturday to Reuters the governor Antonio demanded Fazio to comment the position of the central bank them Italian on the argument. To the March beginning it has been renewed a quinquennial agreement that vincola 14 central banks them Ue to limit to 500 annual tons the vendibile quota their gold reservoirs. 1003 a new gold and forex we in spanish -- oroyfinanzas, 01:11:11 09/15/04 Wed hi we have a new gold web site in Spain www.oroyfinanzas.com hope to see you around! 1002 Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 21:50:47 09/12/04 Sun Ponzi Chart Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 1,894.31 + Dow 10,313.07 = 12,207.38 divide by 2 = 6,103.69 Ponzi I dont have the Ponzi from last week. I was under the weather (Hurricane Frances) . Thanks for the link RossL Go GATA ! Go GOLD ! Hi Ho SILVER ! $hifty 1001 Fiat -- Sharefin, 21:49:24 09/12/04 Sun "Government Economic Reports: Things You've Suspected but Were Afraid to Ask! -- Federal Deficit Reality" When it comes to government economic data, it is easy to get terribly confused. In recent years, it also has become easy to be more and more suspicious of the numbers themselves. ~~~ U.S. Treasury Shows Actual 2003 Federal Deficit at $3.7 Trillion Deficit Moves Beyond Any Possible Tax Remedy Could U.S. Treasuries Face a Rating Downgrade? ~~~ The U.S. government's fiscal ills have spun wildly out of control and no longer are containable within the existing system. As detailed in this article, the actual annual shortfall in U.S. government operations for fiscal year 2003 (September 30) was $3.7 trillion. Put in perspective, that means if the U.S. Treasury had seized all wages and salaries in 2003 with a 100% income tax, there still would have been a deficit! The outlook for fiscal 2004 numbers is even worse. Considering that the popularly reported 2003 budget deficit was $374 billion, one-tenth the number cited above, this installment on government reporting concentrates on where the incredulous $3.7 trillion number comes from, how and why the Treasury is reporting it, and why the financial press and federal politicians are ignoring it. Nonetheless, some implications of the current circumstance are touched upon briefly, here, conditioned by the promise of a full and separate analysis at a future date. As brief background, the $3.7 trillion number is from government financial statements prepared using generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), and a large portion of the expanded deficit is from the annual increase in the net present value of unfunded Social Security and Medicare obligations. The impossibility of this circumstance working out happily is why lame-duck Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan suddenly has urged politicians in Washington to come clean on not being able to deliver promised Social Security and Medicare benefits already under obligation. He suggests, correctly, that there is no chance of economic or productivity growth resolving the matter. The funding shortfall projections already encompass optimistic economic assumptions. Even if the Administration and Congress heeded Greenspan's advice, the unfolding fiscal disaster faces one of only two very unpleasant general solutions: · The first solution is draconian spending cuts, particularly in Social Security and Medicare, even if accompanied by massive tax increases. This appears to be a political impossibility, at present. · In the absence of political action, the second solution is the U.S. government facing some form of insolvency within the next decade or so. Shy of Uncle Sam defaulting on debt, the most likely outcome is the Fed eventually having to monetize U.S. debt heavily, triggering a hyperinflation. U.S. obligations eventually would be paid off in a significantly debased and devalued dollar. Implications for the United States' sovereign credit rating is discussed more fully in a later section, but the unfolding fiscal crisis also opens the possibility of a credit downgrade for U.S. Treasury securities. This could happen before either of the two broad solutions discussed above comes into play. ~~~ In searching World Bank data, I couldn't find any nation with a debt-to-GDP ratio worse than the United States' GAAP obligations ratio of 334%. The closest found is for the West African state of Guinea-Bissau at 224%, but Guinea-Bissau is not rated. The twist here, of course, is the accounting method used in analysis. Based on the gimmicked, instead of GAAP, fiscal numbers, the U.S. deficit and debt ratios are a little high but relatively benign at 4.8% and 62.8%. Further, much more goes into a sovereign debt rating than the discussed ratios. Still, if any country but the U.S. had GAAP deficit and debt ratios of 34% and 334%, its debt most likely would be given junk-bond status by the rating agencies. Accordingly, a case can be made that the risks of the United States "servic[ing] debt through excessive money creation" are high enough so as to be inconsistent with a "AAA" rating. Political practicalities, though, likely will forestall any formal downgrade of the U.S. credit rating. Since a downgrade would trigger global financial-market and currency turmoil, action even could be delayed until the last minute. Nevertheless, Fitch had the United States on a negative rating watch in 1995, and there have been occasional rumblings by S&P and Moody's when Congress has been slow to authorize raising the ceiling on federal borrowing limits. Minimally, a shift to a negative rating outlook by one or more of the major rating agencies is not out of the question. Irrespective of any credit rating actions, the credit markets usually catch up with underlying reality. That suggests there will develop a long-term higher floor under U.S. interest rates than has been seen previously. 1000 Gold -- Sharefin, 00:28:24 09/08/04 Wed China Gold GFMS, the precious metals research company, says that another twelve Chinese gold mining companies are preparing to float on the Shanghai bourse, but there is still no sign of any significant investment in China's gold mining industry by foreign miners. Gold has been mined in China for thousands of years according to the GFMS: The gold market in China. But it was only when government incentives were put in place in the late Seventies that the industry began to boom. “After 1976, gold production effectively doubled every five to ten years, to reach the current plateau of 200 tons per year,” says the survey. China is currently the world's fourth-largest gold producer, behind South Africa, the US and Australia. 998 Gold -- Sharefin, 00:20:37 09/08/04 Wed Major gold producers slash hedge books as price rises Major gold producers, expecting prices to rise towards 16-year highs in the next few months, are slashing their hedge books to take advantage, leading industry officials say. Barrick Gold, the world's third-largest bullion producer, estimates prices will rise to their highest levels since 1988. Its chief financial officer, Jamie Sokalsky, said at the global gold conference in Shanghai: "It seems that, for the first time in many years, many factors are bullish for gold. Demand is strong in areas of the world like China, and the US dollar should remain weak." ~~~ Sokalsky said gold would move into the "mid-$400s to high-$400s" an ounce range by the end of this year and hold there in 2005. Newmont Mining, the world's largest gold miner, expected gold to trade between US$380 and US$450 or higher for the next 12 months, company president Pierre Lassonde said. ~~~ Toronto-based Barrick slashed its hedge book by 850,000 ounces to 13.9 million ounces, or 16 per cent of its in-the-ground reserves, during the second quarter. Newmont expected more gold firms that hedged their output to declare bankruptcy as prices rose, Lassonde said. 997 Gold -- Sharefin, 00:18:38 09/08/04 Wed Aussie gold hedgers caught in crossfire The share prices of some major Australian-based gold producers who are hedgers continue to drift lower following last week's surprising financial collapse of Sons of Gwalia (SOG) under the weight of heavy hedging. ~~~ But that economic philosophy is of no succor to SOG shareholders left carrying the baby and the Perth-based group's potential bankruptcy in an apparently buoyant gold market appears to have reawakened concerns about hedging. At the weekend Pierre Lassonde, the president of the world's biggest gold company Newmont Mining, fuelled the fire. “Gold hedge books are real liabilities that will continue to grow and likely sink more gold companies,” he was quoted as saying. And the SOG fallout and anti-hedging sentiment seems to have resulted in knee jerk negative perceptions about other Aussie gold stocks – such as Lihir Gold [ASX:LHG], Resolute Mining [ASX:RSG] and Kingsgate Consolidated [ASX:KCN]. 996 Gold -- Sharefin, 00:05:00 09/08/04 Wed China to Let Individuals Trade in Gold China's gold-crazed masses will be allowed to trade in the precious metal under reforms that will upgrade trading on the country's nascent market, state media reported Tuesday. Trading in gold will provide another choice for individual investors who keep their money stashed in bank accounts due to a lack of desirable investment options, the official Xinhua News Agency cited the central bank governor, Zhou Xiaochuan, as saying. Trading by individual investors would unlock some of the 1.2 trillion yuan (US$145 billion; euro 119 billion) now kept idle in bank savings accounts, Zhou said. "China will speed up the opening of its gold market to bring gold exchanges more in line with international practice," Zhou was cited as telling an industry conference in Shanghai. "China's gold market will eventually become one inseparable part of the international gold market." China still tightly controls trading in the precious metal, and restrictions on gold imports and exports limit international dealings. ~~~ Transactions on the Shanghai Gold Exchange totaled 235.35 tons valued at 22.96 billion yuan (US$2.7 billion; euro 2.3 billion) last year. In the first seven months of this year, trading volume jumped to 363.76 tons valued at 36.9 billion yuan (US$4.5 billion; euro 3.6 billion), Xinhua reported. 995 Gold -- Sharefin, 00:03:49 09/08/04 Wed Gold bourse outlines new targets Shanghai Gold Exchange (SGE), China's sole gold transaction market, is to speed up progress to achieve the level of international markets by upgrading systems and developing new products. Shen Xiaorong, chairman of the SGE board, said yesterday at the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) Precious Metals Conference that establishing a safe, efficient and high-capability trading system that could adapt fully to the evolution of gold transactions in China was a key point in the steady operation and sustainable development of the SGE. "Put into operation on August 16, the SGE's new trading system now supports 1,000 quotations a second and 3 million customers at the same time," said Shen. "In addition to maintaining current business, this new trading system can also support spot, forward, deferred and even futures trading methods." 994 Gold -- Sharefin, 23:24:52 09/05/04 Sun Surge in gold demand expected Annual gold demand on the Chinese mainland is expected to triple in coming years as a result of the ongoing gold market deregulation, according to the World Gold Council. In a report released yesterday in Shanghai, the council forecast a rise in gold demand on the mainland from the current 200 tonnes to 600 tonnes a year, based on the effects of a similar market deregulation on India. Much of the extra 400 tonnes a year would come from imports, reported China Daily. The report comes on the eve of the September 6 to 7 conference of the London Bullion Market Association in Shanghai, being held for the first time in China. The mainland now ranks No 4 in gold demand in the world. Council statistics show that gold demand on the mainland surged by 30.8 per cent year-on-year to 51.5 tonnes during the second quarter of this year, in which 50 tonnes were for jewellery and 1.5 tonnes for retail investment. The mainland's gold demand reached 207.6 tonnes last year, up from 203.9 tonnes in 2002 and 10 tonnes in 1982. ~~~ Major uncertainties affecting gold consumption on the mainland are that the current stock of gold in China is estimated to be an 5,000 to 8,000 tonnes, and the intentions of the central bank in its reserves policy. Now, China's central bank reserves 600 tonnes of gold, accounting for 2 per cent of its total foreign exchange reserve, compared with the European Central Bank's 15 per cent, it said. The mainland's foreign exchange reserves stand at some US$470 billion - among the highest in the world. ~~~ The mainland's gold output reached 200.6 tonnes last year, up 5.7 per cent from 2002. 993 Gold -- Sharefin, 11:18:27 09/05/04 Sun TAIWAN'S GOLD DEMAND IN Q2 UP 19 PERCENT: WGC Taiwan's demand for gold during the second quarter of this year increased 19 percent compared to a year earlier, according to the latest report released by the World Gold Council (WGC). The report shows that world consumer demand for gold in the second quarter rose by 11 percent in tonnage term and 25 percent in dollar terms when compared the same period of last year. Taiwan's gold demand for jewelry between April and June amounted to 4.5 metric tons, up 19 percent from a year earlier, it said, adding that the lack of severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreaks and strong promotions by gold dealers in May for Mother's Day stimulated local consumer demand. The WGC also said that the rapid economic growth, stable price index and the public's continuous concern over economic and political prospects have led to the increase in demand for gold. Although gold prices rose 13 percent, world gold demand for jewelry use still increased 8 percent, or 664 metric tons, in the second quarter compared with the year-earlier level. The council also said that mainland China's demand for gold rose about one-third over the same period of last year. 992  Gold -- Sharefin, 11:10:27 09/05/04 Sun Newmont sees gold at $380-$450/oz in year ahead Newmont Mining Corp, the world's largest gold miner, expects gold to trade in a range of $380 to $450 an ounce for the next 12 months, and possibly higher, because of a poor outlook for the dollar and the U.S. economy, said its president, Pierre Lassonde. The Denver-based company expected more gold firms that hedged their output to declare bankruptcy as gold prices rose, he added. "Gold hedge books are real liabilities that will continue to grow and likely sink more gold companies. Newmont has a clear policy of non-hedging and we remain committed to it," Lassonde told Reuters by e-mail. Last week, Australian mining house Sons of Gwalia Ltd (SGW.AX: Quote, Profile, Research) said it faced bankruptcy after discovering its mines might not have enough gold left to meet its gold hedge commitments and finance its foreign exchange exposures. As gold prices have surged 60 percent from around $250 an ounce in early 2001 to around $400 an ounce, many producers have tried to unwind contracts they made to sell gold at prices set much lower than the market. "With the gold price rising, I expect more companies will declare bankruptcy as the liabilities associated with their hedge books continue to rise. For the next 12 months, we see gold trading in the $380 to $450 range. "Should the U.S. economic situation deteriorate more rapidly than we have forecast, it could push the U.S. dollar down and propel the gold price up sharply, possibly above that band," he said. --------------- Let us all remember that most all of the hedges that have been removed from the miners books have not been paid off with ounces from production but rather through payment in cash, or through debt. Though many miners have cleared their hedge books most of the contracts are still open ended between the Bullion Banks & the Central Banks. This means that the exposure risk to higher prices till exists but within the Bullion Banks. This is quite evident in the gold derivatives of the major Bullion Banks whose portfolios have grown at the same time that the miners hedges were being decreased. Though it is not talked about - most people presume the exposure is covered when the miners close out their hedges - the exposure risk for gold at higher prices is still very much alive. It is just well hidden in the banks portfolios. This little smoke out with SGW will be a taste of the rat's tail for the Bullion Banks.(:-))) 991 Gold -- Sharefin, 11:00:46 09/05/04 Sun Aussie gold 'safe' AUSTRALIA'S gold industry is safe from a shortfall that sparked the collapse of historic miner Sons of Gwalia, according to analysts. ~~~ The move came after a review of gold reserves raised concerns that Sons could meet hedge book requirements. Sons of Gwalia had signed contracts to deliver gold at a fixed price in the future. Adminstrator Ferrier Hodgson, who did not return calls from The Courier-Mail, told creditors at a Perth meeting on Friday that liabilities could be between $700 million and $800 million. ~~~ "In general, I would think that most other companies aren't looking at making significant writeoffs," Mr Edney said. "Which probably means that there's no issues with respect to changes to the hedging counterparties' perception of production or resource risk." Shaw Stockbroking resource analyst John Colnan said market participants had believed for several years that Sons' gold assets were struggling to provide the output needed to match the hedge book. "The gold hedging over there was for several years beyond (its hedged) period," he said. "They were short of production and hence couldn't deliver into those contracts. ~~~ Mr Colnan said while shortfalls happened to operations "from time to time", he did not believe it would strike the broader sector. "We don't believe there's any substantial producer who is currently faced with the same issues . . . that is, a reserve base insufficient to meet commitments," he said. 990  Gold -- Sharefin, 10:58:17 09/05/04 Sun Less gold to be sold than planned European central banks may sell as little as 250 tons of gold per annum, instead of the maximum of 500 tons per annum, as per the second European Central Bank agreement, from 2004 through to 2009, London-based UBS analyst John Reade said in a note on Friday. 989 Gold -- Sharefin, 17:17:32 09/03/04 Fri Sons of Gwalia's gold hedging had big holes One of the perplexing questions raised by this week's collapse of Sons of Gwalia is how so many smart investors could have got it so wrong. Stranded on the register of the failed tantalum and gold producer are some of the cannier institutional investors, while some of their equally clever peers escaped in the nick of time. Among Sons of Gwalia's substantial shareholders are the Templeton group, Schroeder and Aviva. Canadian miner Teck Cominco owns about 10 per cent and a major tantalum customer, Cabot Corp, is also on the register. Goldman Sachs, Wellington and National Australia Bank's funds management businesses were all shareholders until very recently. Also exposed to the collapse are some of the world's biggest banks, including Citigroup, HBOS, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Dresdner, HSBC and, locally, ANZ and Commonwealth. The institutions which got caught are angry. They knew the company's tantalum and gold arms had their challenges but hadn't envisaged the implosion. ~~~ Sons of Gwalia, founded by the Lalor brothers, descendants of the Peter Lalor who led the Eureka Stockade rebellion in 1854, has produced about 5 million ounces of gold since it began producing the metal in 1984. Until this week, it had been expected to produce about 500,000 ounces a year. Its ability to generate that production was critical because throughout its history it has fully hedged its production - in effect selling forward its entire output using some extremely complex strategies. ~~~ Sons of Gwalia's chairman, Neil Hamilton, said this week that the review had identified a serious deterioration in the status of the group's gold reserves and resources which raised concerns about the company's ability to meet its hedge book commitments. The position in which Sons of Gwalia found itself doesn't appear particularly complicated. It had committed to deliver a net 1.3 million ounces of gold to hedge-book counter-parties but the review had revealed a shortfall in economic reserves of about 500,000 ounces. Sons of Gwalia had no way out - its hedge book was about $350 million underwater at June 30 on a mark-to-market basis and a rising Australian dollar gold price was exerting further pressure on the economics of the book. The group had sold a lot more gold than it could produce. Its fundamental problem wasn't the hedge book or its gold operations but the interaction between the two. ~~~ The complexity and the opacity of the hedging wasn't given sufficient emphasis, nor did the investors recognise that the problems within the gold operations might create a question mark over the economics of the resources and therefore over Sons of Gwalia's ability to meet its hedge book commitments. They will pay a steep price for their distraction. The administration will crystallise the losses in the hedge book and inevitably exacerbate them. There are suggestions that at least two of Sons of Gwalia's three gold operations are considered uneconomic, which in turn suggests the losses for the hedge book counter-parties could be very substantial and virtually guarantees that equity holders won't see any return once the tantalum business is sold and creditors absorb its proceeds. The fate of Sons of Gwalia and its investors will reinforce the lesson provided by Pasminco's collapse and other hedge-related disasters. Even sophisticated institutions will be reluctant to invest in companies with extensive hedging operations, particularly where the strategies are complex. And one suspects that even the investment banks which sit on the other side of the hedges will be more cautious in assessing the quality of the resources that underpin the production commitments and the proportion of production that can be sold forward. Sons of Gwalia's strategy left it with no margin for error. 988 Gold -- Sharefin, 04:34:11 09/03/04 Fri Newmont manager is a suspect Indonesia's National Police Wednesday named as a suspect the manager of waste disposal at PT Newmont Minahasa Raya in the law enforcement agency's investigation of the pollution of Buyat Bay in North Sulawesi, Indonesia. Police Detective Chief Comr. Gen. Suyitno Langung Sudjono said the manager was the person in charge of insuring that the mine's waste disposal system complied with national environmental regulations. Under Indonesian law, a person found guilty of deliberately contaminating the environment may face 10 years in prison, or up to 15 years if the pollution caused death or physical suffering of a human being. Suyitno said the police will question the unidentified manager on Monday. If they find that he provided his superiors with reports that they failed to act upon, they will be questioned as well. PT Newmont's lawyer Palmer Situmorang said the company is ready for questioning either as witnesses or suspects, and will prove in court that the company is not guilty of polluting the bay. Several local residents of Buyat Bay complained to National Police about chemical contamination at Buyat Bay, which is located near PT Newmont Minahasa Raya. Most people in the village of Buyat Pantai near recently defunct gold mine make a living from fishing. A few villagers were flown to Jakarta by environmental activists and a local doctor to file criminal charges against Newmont for polluting Buyat Bay. Newmont disposes of mine tailings through a subsea method. Newmont officials have consistently insisted that those tailings do not contain amounts of mercury, arsenic, or other substances harmful to human health. Nevertheless, a number of local residents suffer from various illnesses include skin ailments, lumps, and painful headaches. Newmont maintains that unsanitary living conditions, inadequate sanitation infrastructure, and mercury used by illegal small miners has actually caused these illnesses. Meanwhile, State Minister of the Environment Nabiel Makarim announced Tuesday that a review by 16 scientists from several universities and independent organizations have concluded that PT Newmont Minahasa reportedly violated environmental regulations and contaminated the Bay. 985 Gold -- Sharefin, 04:31:54 09/03/04 Fri Outspoken Goldcorp CEO plans to step down McEwen says company needs a new boss to take it to the next stage of development Rob McEwen, the outspoken head of a company that made "gold is money" its motto, plans to step down as chairman and chief executive officer and has asked the board of directors to search for a replacement. Mr. McEwen said Goldcorp Inc. needs a new boss to take it to the next stage of its development. ~~~ Mr. McEwen has been Goldcorp's CEO for 18 years. He is known for aggressive promotional tactics, including placing radio advertisements for the company's shares -- an unusual strategy for a mining company -- and being a regular speaker at industry trade shows and events. In 2000, Goldcorp launched an on-line exploration challenge that offered cash prizes to teams that identified new exploration targets at its flagship Red Lake mine in Ontario. Analysts and industry observers said his departure could reflect differences at the board level over the firm's strategic direction. Goldcorp gets nearly all its gold from Red Lake, where a new high-grade zone discovered in 1995 reinvigorated the decades-old mine and pushed its gold production costs to among the lowest in the industry. The company is cash rich -- it reported assets of $380.5-million (U.S.) at the end of the second quarter, including cash and short-term assets of $302.9-million and $46.6-million worth of gold bullion. ~~~ Goldcorp subsequently began rebuilding its inventories and as of June 30, held 3.7 tonnes in inventory and said it was withholding about 10 per cent of production until the end of the year. In a report yesterday, UBS Securities Canada Inc. analyst Tony Lesiak said Mr. McEwen's departure "signals change to the market." "Despite the company's growth aspirations, [Mr. McEwen] has not been able to accomplish larger deals," he wrote. "We view that a new CEO may bring a more aggressive stance." 984 Gold -- Sharefin, 19:17:19 09/02/04 Thu Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: The World Gold Council purports to be the representative of the gold community but until today it had had virtually nothing to say for three months -- not a word about Sprott Asset Management's report confirming the manipulation of the gold price, not a word about the collapse of Sons of Gwalia because of excessive hedging, not a word about Blanchard & Co.'s lawsuit against Barrick Gold and JP Morgan Chase for manipulating the gold market, and barely a word about Argentina's defiance of the International Monetary Fund by purchasing 42 tonnes of gold for diversifying its foreign exchange reserves. And as the world financial system creaks, groans, and trembles all around, what was today's WGC statement about? It was about another advertising campaign for gold jewelry -- anything except analysis of what really matters to gold's future, liberating the price and thereby restoring monetary and investment demand and adding to individual liberty throughout the world. Today's statement from the gold council is appended. The council calls its jewelry campaign "Speak Gold." It might better be called "Speak No Evil." CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. * * * World Gold Council unveils £10m global advertising campaign September 2, 2004 http://www.gold.org/news.php?id=3329273 The World Gold Council (WGC) has unveiled its latest £10 million international advertising campaign, "Speak Gold," designed to stimulate consumer demand for gold jewellery in key global markets. Acclaimed photographers Michael Yamashita, William Albert Allard, Jodi Cobb, and Joel Sartore, were asked to capture the emotional role played by gold jewellery in the lives of women all over the world. Rather than using fashion models, the campaign has used ordinary women to illustrate contemporary views of everyday life in urban and rural settings. The photographers captured images of women in China, Italy, USA, and India, depicting different cultures and similar emotional contexts with the unifying and universal energy of gold jewellery. The universal language and historical relevance that are unique to gold are the key creative concepts underpinning the "One Language Everyone Understands" idea. Philip Olden, the World Gold Council's managing director of international jewellery and marketing, commented: "By depicting women in everyday situations in a global setting, the campaign represents a departure from the style of advertising which has to-date characterised the luxury goods industry. "Early feedback from focus groups in the U.S. and Italy has already told us that consumers welcome the relevance of our approach." Steve Kershaw, group director at BBH, commented: "We're delighted that this idea is borne out of real consumer insights into real people and their love for gold jewellery rather than the contrived imagery usually associated with luxury fashion advertising." The print-based campaign , which was created by London agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH), will appear in leading fashion and lifestyle titles in the U.S. and Italy, including Elle, Vogue and Marie Claire, from September to December 2004. The "One Language" campaign will be rolled out into other major international markets during 2005. --- Just like MineWeb - the WGC just does not get it!!! 983  Silver -- Sharefin, 22:46:55 08/31/04 Tue VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS The report, however, makes a major omission. Until Ted Butler made public his letter of April 8, 1997 to government officials that complained about leasing, no one had described the negative impact of leasing on the price of gold and silver. Sprotts report credits numerous people for uncovering the gold manipulation, but overlooks Mr. Butler. I've extracted several key points from his 1997 letter. "As the highest monetary officials of our country, I beseech you to investigate and terminate what has been a fifteen year fraud in two of the world's most important markets…. The fraud in question is the lending of precious metals (gold and silver) by central banks, principally to mining companies, but also to users and speculators…. These metal loans, which began to appear around 1982, have proved enormously popular with all the participants involved, and the total market issuance is reported to exceed a value of $50 billion…. First, there is no possible way these loans can be collectively paid back without a complete abandonment of the terms and conditions under which the loans were originated. This is where the fraud come in – if it is obvious before hand that a class of loans can't possibly be repaid as scheduled, such loans would have to be considered fraudulent instruments. Second, the huge volumes of these fraudulent loans has unquestionably manipulated the price of gold and silver to uneconomically depressed levels for the past 15 years." The entire letter is reprinted below and I believe it's a must read. It verifies that Mr. Butler was indeed the pioneering thinker in uncovering and exposing the manipulation of precious metals prices. 979 Gold -- Sharefin, 19:13:31 08/31/04 Tue Launch of streetTRACKS gold shares at NYSE awaited Gold-backed securities known as streetTRACKS could soon start trading on the New York Stock Exchange, according to a statement posted Monday on the Securities and Exchange Commission's Web site. The previously unnamed equity trust, sponsored by the World Gold Council, is designed as an alternative to investing in physical gold, which is difficult and expensive for nonprofessional to move, store and insure. ~~~ Financial markets have been anticipating its debut, and rumors have circulated among gold traders and analysts in recent weeks that a launch was imminent. The New York securities are similar to Gold Bullion Securities Ltd. (GBSx.L: Quote, Profile, Research) , which started trading on the London Stock Exchange in December 2003. The U.S. version has registered 60,400,000 shares, each representing ownership in 1/10 ounce of gold, according to the prospectus. Share prices, which will trade under the ticker symbol GLD, will be determined by the spot price of gold at the time they are sold to the market. The actual gold will be warehoused by the custodian, HSBC Bank USA. The trust will be administered by The Bank of New York. ~~~ Exchange traded funds offer the small investor the ability to play in gold, without handling the physical asset. Investors can also buy shares in gold companies, but may be discouraged by the financial nuances of the mining industry and by influences on stock prices which may not be related to the underlying value of gold. 978 Gold -- Sharefin, 22:04:06 08/30/04 Mon Sons Of Gwalia Gold De-Hedging Process Already Started The voluntary fall into administration by Australia's second-largest gold miner, Sons of Gwalia Ltd., has prompted gold- market watchers to speculate that the miner's 81-metric-ton, or around 2.6- million-ounce, hedge position has been in the process of being unwound over the past week. The Perth-based company said Monday that it appointed voluntary administrators over the weekend after identifying a "serious deterioration" in the status of its gold reserves, which meant the company lacked the resources to meets its hedge book commitments. Gold dealers agreed that the company's bankers likely will have pushed for a squaring of holdings ahead of bankruptcy filings, which would have included an unwinding of its hedge book. Last week, market participants reported regular spurts of gold buying through several investment banks which market participants say may well have been intermediaries of Sons of Gwalia unwinding the company's hedge exposure. 976 Gold -- Sharefin, 22:01:31 08/30/04 Mon Never mind gold's price, look at volume Peering closely, I see three factors at work: First, India, the world's biggest gold importer, was unfalteringly a buyer right up to the high of $412 this past week. I gauge Indian off-take by looking at the local premiums. (Read related column.) Previously, Indian buying has been choked off at these levels. And the busy season for gold purchases in India is only just beginning. Inevitable outcome: A great deal of metal will go to live in India this fall -- unless world gold moves up sharply from the $400-plus level. Second, the Middle East also appears to have become gold-hungry. It's more difficult to follow, but those local premiums I can access have started to suggest this. So do recent reports of quantities traded. Turkey, for instance, imported a record weight of gold in July. Conclusion: the physical demand for gold is ratcheting up to support the price. Thirdly, and below the surface, the past two weeks have seen extraordinary increases in Comex (New York Commodities Exchange) open interest, which have accompanied gold price recent moves. ~~~ In other words, gold volume has been huge. It's just the price that has been boring. 975 Gold -- Sharefin, 21:59:03 08/30/04 Mon Silver slips as exposure to photography declines Analysts warned that demand was waning following signs in recent weeks that film photography is being shouldered out of the market by digital alternatives. Last week Belgian group Agfa said it was selling its consumer photography unit to management and earlier this week Ilford, which manufactures black and white film, announced it had gone into administration. Last month Eastman Kodak said its digital sales had risen by 48pc in the three months to June while traditional film sales were down by 8pc. Metals research group GFMS said yesterday that photography accounted for 23pc of silver demand, although this had fallen from 27pc since 1994. ~~~ Aside from jewellery, silver also has industrial and medical applications. Philip Klapwijk, executive chairman of GFMS, said he expected some "fairly sharp declines" of silver demand from the photographic industry in the next decade but added that he did not expect silver prices to plummet. He said: "Around two-thirds of the silver used by the photography industry comes back on to the market through recycling, so the net impact is rather smaller than the gross." 974 Gold -- Sharefin, 20:59:16 08/30/04 Mon In search of a golden fleece There are plenty of conspiracy theories out there, from the Kennedy fetishists with their homemade copies of the Zapruder film to the Area 51 geeks with their tales of alien technology kept under wraps by NASA. In the financial arena, the most popular by far is the idea that central banks, the International Monetary Fund, bullion banks and even the Federal Reserve Board are in cahoots to suppress the price of gold. But is this just a wacky theory promoted by gold bugs and Internet kooks with too much time on their hands, or is there more to it than that? Sprott Asset Management market strategist John Embry believes the latter — that despite the loony-sounding ideas of some conspiracy advocates, there is a core of truth to their claims that gold is being "managed" by central banks and other financial institutions. He laid out those arguments in a recent 66-page research report. 973 Gold -- Sharefin, 20:57:19 08/30/04 Mon Canada report lends support to gold "conspiracy" Gold price conspiracy theorists got a credibility boost on Tuesday when a respected Canadian gold fund manager released a 71-page report arguing that bullion prices have been artificially depressed by central banks, bullion banks and hedge funds. In a document titled "Not free, not fair: the long-term manipulation of the gold price," John Embry, the chief investment strategist at Sprott Asset Management, details incidents in the last decade that "collectively refute the idea that gold is a free market". Sprott is a private Toronto-based asset management and research company managing more than $1.6 billion for institutions and private investors. "We certainly do not look upon ourselves as crusaders, but the more we investigated the gold market, the more readily apparent it became that the gold price appeared, in the politest of terms, to be managed," Embry said in the report that he co-authored. He said the gold price's moves seemed at times to be counterintuitive, going down on days when there were compelling reasons for it to rise. "We avoid the word 'conspiracy' and prefer to instead believe that, at least initially, powerful groups -- central banks, bullion banks, hedge funds, etc -- were operating in their own self-interests and not necessarily in concert with one another," Embry said. 972 Gold -- Sharefin, 18:34:17 08/30/04 Mon Sons Of Gwalia In Administration On Hedging Debt Sons of Gwalia Ltd. (SGW.AU), Australia's second-biggest gold producer, has fallen into administration over a A$348 million hedge book liability. The Perth-based company said Monday that it appointed voluntary administrators over the weekend after identifying a "serious deterioration" in the status of its gold reserves. ~~~ Sons of Gwalia's gold counterparties - nine banks and financial institutions - refused to accept a standstill agreement on the hedging debt. Hedging, which is a form of risk management used by companies to reduce the chance of a loss from price movements, includes tools such as forward selling and options. Citigroup Inc. (C) is understood to be the company's biggest hedging counterparty, with an exposure of between A$100 million and A$150 million. Other counterparties include: BankWest, a unit of HBOS Plc (HBOS.LN); Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS); JP Morgan (JPM); Dresdner Bank AG (DRB.YY); Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA.AU); Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. (ANZ) and HSBC Holdings Plc (HBC). As of June 30, Sons of Gwalia's 3.1 million-ounce gold hedge book had a negative mark-to-market value of A$348 million. It also had currency hedges that were A$75 million in the red. Sons of Gwalia also owes US$170 million to U.S. pension funds, following a private note placement in 2000 arranged by JP Morgan. ~~~ Founded in the early 1980s, Sons of Gwalia became a pioneer in the use of hedging to protect its gold revenue. 971 Gold -- Sharefin, 18:26:56 08/30/04 Mon Gold Rises as Sons of Gwalia Raises Delivery Commitment Concern Gold prices in New York rose for the first time in three sessions after Sons of Gwalia Ltd., Australia's second-biggest gold miner, said it's concerned about its ability to supply gold under previous sales contracts, spurring speculation of buying by counterparties. A review found a ``serious deterioration'' in Sons of Gwalia's gold reserves, raising concerns about whether it can supply metal it has committed to sell in the future, the Perth- based company said in a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange. Sons of Gwalia had 3.1 million ounces of gold committed to sell as of June 30, compared with 3.27 million ounces of gold reserves as of September last year. If the counterparties ``can't get the gold from this company, then they have to go buy from the cash market to cover their needs,'' said David Rinehimer, an analyst at Citigroup Global Markets Inc. in New York. This is a ``supportive factor'' for gold prices. ~~~~ The company would have had to pay A$348 million ($243 million) to settle its gold hedging contracts. `Significant Downgrade in Reserves' ``There was a significant downgrade in reserves and resources which had a consequent impact on future production outlook,'' and led to a decision to consider selling the company's gold assets, Chief Executive John Leevers said in an interview. ``Many resources didn't stack up as being viable to mine.'' 970 Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 19:17:06 08/29/04 Sun Ponzi Chart Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 1,862.09 + Dow 10,195.01 = 12,057.10 divide by 2 = 6,028.55 Ponzi Up 54.47 from last week. Thanks for the link RossL ! Go GATA ! Go GOLD ! Hi Ho SILVER ! $hifty 969 Gold -- Sharefin, 21:31:54 08/25/04 Wed South African gold loses luster Hard times and job losses follow as deposits are played out ~~~ Across South Africa, hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost in the gold industry. From a peak in 1987, the industry has shed more than 340,000 jobs and employs just over 200,000 people today. Almost a third of the job losses have been in the Welkom area. The most recent losses occurred in 2004 when the region's largest gold producer, Harmony Gold Mining, cut thousands of jobs by closing several unprofitable shafts and scaling others back. Although South Africa is still the world's largest gold producer, its output has been declining for almost two decades. Mines have closed, and fewer projects are being started. In 2003, the country produced less gold than in any year since 1956. "Everyone just thought this country had resources that would last forever," said Ferdi Dippenaar, Harmony's director of marketing and investor relations. "But like any resource, it has an end." ~~~ In the past decade, the quality of the ore dug here has steadily declined. Because it is nestled so deep in the ground, more tons of rock must be taken out to get the same amount of gold. "The best ore has all been mined out, and now they're left with poor-grade bodies at a time when the rand gold price is very low," said Hilton Ashton, a commodity analyst with the South African investment bank ABSA. 968 Gold -- Sharefin, 10:33:28 08/24/04 Tue New treatment good as gold for eczema sufferers Diamonds may be a girl's best friend but doctors are hoping gold may hold the key to treating their skin problems. Researchers are trialling a unique treatment for eczema which uses gold as its active ingredient. ~~~ Sydney doctors have developed a treatment which combines a compound derived from gold with a very low dose of steroid. "In animal experiments, it's been shown that gold can affect the immune system. And we have other examples of gold being used as a treatment in rheumatoid arthritis," Dr Susi Freedman, dermatologist said. 967 Gold -- Sharefin, 09:24:56 08/24/04 Tue Not Free, Not Fair: The Long-Term Manipulation of the Gold Price - 71 page pdf file SPROTT ASSET MANAGEMENT INC. PUBLISHES GOLD MANIPULATION STUDY Toronto, August 24, 2004: Sprott Asset Management Inc. (“SAM”) announced today the publication of Not Free, Not Fair: The Long-Term Manipulation of the Gold Price. The study represents the most thorough and detailed examination of allegations that the gold market has been subjected to severe price manipulation over the past several years. Commenting on the landmark report, John Embry, Chief Investment Strategist stated: “We, at Sprott Asset Management, have felt for some time that the gold price has not remotely reflected its true underlying fundamentals. In response, we have conducted a comprehensive study of available information on the subject and have concluded that the evidence strongly supports those who believe that the gold price has been and continues to be suppressed.” The study may be read in its entirety on Sprott Asset Management's website: www.sprott.com 966 Gold -- Sharefin, 03:37:19 08/24/04 Tue The Best Way to Buy Gold As an investment advisor, I consistently encounter the same reaction when I tell investors they should own physical precious metals in a certain portion of their portfolios. “You mean buying shares in mining companies, not owning the actual metal, right?” While this reaction, due to a 20-year precious metals bear market, is not surprising (and is, in fact, quite bullish from a contrary perspective), it also highlights that actually buying physical gold, silver or platinum still seems daunting to most investors. What all investors should know is that buying mining company shares represents a leveraged speculation on the trend of precious metals prices; physical metals themselves constitute the ultimate protection against government-created inflation and the resulting decay in your dollar savings. As a full service investment firm, ours offers many ways to gain precious metals exposure. When it comes to the purchase of physical gold, silver or platinum, however, one investment stands out: the Perth Mint Certificate Program. Here's how the Perth Mint Certificate Program (PMCP) answers the concerns most investors have about buying physical precious metals: 965 Silver -- Sharefin, 03:27:13 08/24/04 Tue Silver Balderdash But so what? Nearly every single molecule of silver used in the manufacture of silver returns to the market as "scrap" when it's recycled by the film processor. (Those who don't remove every molecule of silver from their film in the stop bath, fixer and wash very quickly end up with solid black, utterly useless, negatives; those who don't recycle said recovered silver are breaking the law - at least in the U.S.) So, once again, one for the road, once more for good measure, and shout it loud enough it can be heard in the cheap seats: SILVER IN PHOTOGRAPHY IS A ZERO-SUM GAME! One less ounce of photo film silver demand is one less ounce of silver supply. 964 Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 22:57:36 08/22/04 Sun Ponzi Chart Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 1,838.02 + Dow 10,110.14 = 11,948.16 divide by 2 = 5,974.08 Ponzi Up 182.79 from last week. Thanks for the link RossL ! Go GATA ! Go GOLD ! Hi Ho SILVER ! $hifty 963 Gold -- Sharefin, 20:16:45 08/20/04 Fri Gold demand up 20 pc in H1 Mumbai , Aug. 20 DEMAND for gold in the country during the first half of 2004 was 20 per cent higher in rupee terms and 10 per cent higher in tonnage terms than that in the first half of 2003. Total consumer demand (jewellery and net retail investment) was up by 12 per cent in rupee terms and 3.6 per cent in tonnage terms, in the second quarter of 2004, according to figures published by the World Gold Council. Both jewellery and retail investment demand were buoyant in the second quarter, just as they had been in the first quarter. The global consumer (jewellery and net retail investment) demand for gold in Q2 was leaping by 25 per cent in dollar terms and 10 per cent in tonnage terms. Strong economic growth and a relative absence of price volatility, coupled with concerns over long-term economic and political outlook, provided a supportive environment for purchases. 962 Fiat -- Sharefin, 20:15:06 08/20/04 Fri Are you ready for a global currency? Worldwide money may be on the horizon as a way of simplifying the planet's 190 currencies -- the Esperanto of money. Goodbye, dollar. So long, euro and yen. Hello, dey! Dey? It's a proposed combination of the three currencies, which could eventually form the basis of a global currency. A worldwide money won't emerge any day soon. Still, it's a longtime dream of some economists, who point out several advantages to simplifying the jumble of nearly 190 currencies. For starters, the world trades about $1.2 trillion worth of currencies a day. If that market disappeared, it would save companies and individuals hundreds of billions of dollars a year in foreign-exchange and hedging costs. 961 Gold -- Sharefin, 20:00:34 08/20/04 Fri Argentina ensures gold hits record Gold prices hit a four-month high yesterday, after it emerged that Argentina bought 42 tonnes of bullion in the first half of the year in an effort to repair its shattered economy. ~~~~ A report from the World Gold Council (WGC) - the organisation that promotes the metal - revealed that Argentina bought a significant amount of gold between January and June in order to lock its wealth into stable investments rather than bonds or equities. Analysts said other countries may start buying gold again, reversing the worldwide central bank sell-off of the past decade. Almost all western countries have been selling their reserves in exchange for investments with a higher yield. 960 Gold -- Sharefin, 19:58:44 08/20/04 Fri Auspec Though some would not like your harsh words - they have a ring of truth to them. I've long though he was far to vocal & outspoken. Mahendra belongs in the same boat too.(:-))) 959 Mahendra/Sinclair -- auspec, 21:49:18 08/13/04 Fri From LeMet w "occasional permission"..............hoping I haven't worn out my welcome: "Mahendra recently predicted copper would take a run to the upside, and it did, rising a sharp 5.10 cents today to $1.3210.He is settling into his new abode in Santa Barbara. If you are a gold and silver bull, you will like what he has to say. It goes something like this: *Gold and silver are about to take off and go bonkers after September 4th. To be specific: * "The most important thing is that Gold is going to rise after 4 September 2004 and there is no power on this earth that can forestall that rise." *The train will leave the station next week. *The gold and silver move will be like a once in a lifetime 50-year rain. *It is unbelievable what is in store for gold and silver. *For those heavily long it will be like the miner who has been digging and digging for years to make a discovery and he FINALLY does." END **************************************** Comments: The above mentioned items are long overdue for our precious entities, so................WHY NOT? If not now, then.........sometime soon. Each of us who continue to stand as longtime gold and silver bulls have long since made the above predictions............we just never gave it a specific time frame like Mehendra has here. ************************ More comments: Little Jimmy is kaput as far as making timely predictions, his $480 was due TODAY. Cooked by his own defective temperament, like a small child demanding that the world revolve around him. Mr. Gold goes to Washington, or something like that. He started getting the "new" gold market about right towards the end once he eschewed the contrived paper. Any simple trail hiker could have clued him in long ago and spared the "Comets" their stacked deck losses. Isn't it such a marvel that the very same ego that makes one border on greatness also often makes one incredibly BLIND to what simpler minds perceive. I guess we now need a new GENERAL.......??? LMAO, as if gold and silver can't rise to the top w/o cheerleading windbags behind them. Sinclair is quite like the Shrub...........only "yessmen" are allowed to hang around and soak up the wisdom. Sinclair had his staff screen any incoming that had a negative connotation, constructive criticism included. His failures: 1. He bought and promoted the paper game at the expense of physical metals. 2. He's too tied into elitist entities to call a spade a spade. 3. His ego is too big for any mortal to successfully lug around for long. 4. He failed to do sufficient homework to understand the difference between the past gold "wars" and the current gold war. Ferdi Lipps could have taken him to school despite an age 'handicap'. 5. Way, way, way, way, way too bought into the "system". For the greatest part of his 'public' gold analysis time period--------- he played into the hands of the gold manipulators. 6. The guy is a SILVER zero, a now show, a hermAgrodite. 7. The guy doesn't have the cahones for honest debate, he just likes controlled monologue. 8. His criticisms of govt or markets or whatever always fell short of the deserving parties..........the cfr'ers and multiple alphabet soup groups. That's enough for now, as you can tell I'm not much of a Sinclair fan in spite of the fact that I read a lot of his work and learned much from him. He took the wrong track and flamed out, leaving many high and dry. Frankly, he can't hold a candle to our old Trail Guido, who himself fell off the cliff on multiple occasions. Requiem for a gold guru: THE PIED PIPER OF PAPER GOLD, THE MAN WHO HELPED PROLONG CRIMEX INSTEAD OF TAKING IT DOWN Go back to your home on the Tan Range, Jimmy, it needs you more than we do. {Harsh words above, but I'll take my chances in open and honest debate any time regarding them. No apologies.} 958 Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 16:08:15 08/13/04 Fri Early Ponzi due to Storm in FL. My not be able to to post for a few days! Starting to storm now. :-) $ Ponzi Chart Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 1,757.22 + Dow 9,825.35 = 11,582.57 divide by 2 = 5,791.28 Ponzi Down 4.83 from last week. Thanks for the link RossL ! Go GATA ! Go GOLD ! Hi Ho SILVER ! $hifty 957 Oil -- Sharefin, 11:04:50 08/09/04 Mon Is the world's oil running out fast? If you think oil prices are high at $40 a barrel then wait till they are four times that much. How will you pay to run your car? How will you get the children to school? How will you heat your house? How much will transported food go up in price? How will we pay for plastics, metals, rubber, cheap flights, Simpson's DVDs, 3G phones and everlasting economic growth? The basic answer is, we won't. This is the message from the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO). The group of oil executives, geologists, investment bankers, academics and others has been warning the world of high oil prices, and the ensuing fallout, for some years now. The end of cheap oil ~~~ They are united by one idea, that global oil production is about to peak, which in turn will signal the permanent end of cheap oil. And they warn that this is the foundation of the current rise in oil prices. Who hurts when prices explode? "Oil is far too cheap at the moment," says Mr Simmons. "The figure I'd use is around $182 a barrel. We need to price oil realistically to control its demand. That is because global production is peaking." ~~~~ And Dr Campbell has a dire warning: "If the real figures were to come out there would be panic on the stock markets, in the end that would suit no one." 956 Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 17:50:58 08/08/04 Sun Ponzi Chart Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 1,776.89 + Dow 9,815.33 = 11,592.22 divide by 2 = 5,796.11 Ponzi Down 217.42 from last week . Well RossL, we may have to get the excavator ready to dig that (whine seller) for the Ponzi ! Thanks for the link ! Go GATA ! Go GOLD ! Hi Ho SILVER ! $hifty 955 Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 19:58:51 08/01/04 Sun Ponzi Chart Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 1887.36 + Dow 10,139.71 = 12,027.07 divide by 2 = 6,013.53 Ponzi Up 107.88 from last week. Thanks for the link RossL ! Go GATA ! Go GOLD ! Hi Ho SILVER ! $hifty 953 Fiat -- Sharefin, 19:16:21 08/01/04 Sun U.S. Warns of Threat to Financial Icons The federal government warned Sunday of possible terrorist attacks against "iconic" financial institutions in New York City, Washington and Newark, N.J., saying a confluence of chilling intelligence in recent days pointed to a car or truck bomb. The government said the new intelligence indicated the meticulous planning of al-Qaida. Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge identified explosives as the likely mode of attack, as opposed to a chemical or biological attack or a radiological "dirty" bomb. In an unprecedented action, the government named these specific buildings in densely populated areas as potential targets: * The Citigroup Center building and the New York Stock Exchange in New York City. * The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank buildings in Washington. * Prudential financial in northern New Jersey. "The preferred means of attack would be car or truck bombs," Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said in a briefing with journalists. "That would be a primary means of attack," he said. 952 Gold -- Sharefin, 19:14:36 08/01/04 Sun Bush Secretly Permits The Queen To Steal US Gold The United States General Accounting Office (GAO) has repeatedly demanded of the White House and Treasury Dept. that they stop stonewalling and explain the disappearance since September 2001 of major traunches of gold. A large horde of U.S. government gold, 2854 metric tonnes, according to the GAO has disappeared. The GAO says that it cannot certify the audit of the U.S. Treasury without the White House and Treasury divulging the whereabouts of the super-precious metal. Knowledgeable sources contend that this gold is actually owned jointly by the U.S. and France. And Bush connived with the British Monarchy to hide this stolen gold now valued at thirty billion dollars to support derivatives which have the equivalent power of thirty quadrillion dollars to support the failing Pound Sterling. In plain language, the United States Treasury, minus the certified audit, is insolvent and fighting to prevent an impending default of U.S. Treasury Securities. Knowledgeable sources regard this alone, not the Arabs, as the core reason for the 9-11 highest levels of homegrown violence, treason and deception. Furthermore, Bush has ordered his Chief of Staff, Andrew H. Card Jr. to arrange the arrest or even liquidation of Web Reporters daring to divulge these "State Secrets." 951 Gold -- Sharefin, 09:01:20 07/27/04 Tue Newmont Pres Sees Gold At $380-$450 Over Next 12-18 Months Such is the interest in the gold price forecasts of Pierre Lassonde that even as a no-show, delegates at the Diggers and Dealers mining forum were keen for a prediction from Newmont Mining Corp.'s president. Thus, Hans Umlauff, group executive for operations and support at Newmont, responded to the first question put to him following his presentation by saying Lassonde expects gold to range between US$380 and US$450 a troy ounce over the next 12 to 18 months. 950 Fiat -- Sharefin, 20:43:19 07/26/04 Mon Monetary Policy without Money Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan testified before committees of both the U.S Senate and House of Representatives earlier this week, presenting the Fed's semiannual monetary policy report. The most interesting part of the testimony and the formal report is how little was said about the money supply. Chairman Greenspan warned about the possible danger from future inflation and enumerated the factors that seem to be behind the recent increase in prices. But never once did he point to the actual culprit—the Fed's own monetary policy. ~~~ There are several ways that Federal Reserve measures the money supply, but if we just take the method used in this report, M-2, Fed monetary policy for the last four years has not been merely “accommodative,” it has been at times explosive. From 2000 to the middle of 2004, M-2 increased by more than 30.5 percent. In 2001, M-2 rose by almost 9 percent; in 2002, by over 7.5 percent; and in 2003, by almost 7 percent. And for some months in the first half of 2004, the monthly increases in M-2 have been at annualized rates near or over 9 percent. In May alone, M-2 increased at a 13 percent annual rate. ~~~ Like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, we are told to ignore the man behind the curtain. As price inflation picks up, the Fed will continue to try to distract us from understanding that its own monetary policy is what has caused it. That is, the Fed will shift the blame for its own monetary misconduct to innocent victims in the private sector. 949 Fiat vs Gold -- Sharefin, 20:35:50 07/26/04 Mon If Mr. Greenspan Walked His Talk "Although the gold standard could hardly be portrayed as having produced a period of price tranquility, it was the case that the price level in 1929 was not much different, on net, from what it had been in 1800. But in the two decades following the abandonment of the gold standard in 1933, the consumer price index in the United States nearly doubled. And in the four decades after that, prices quintupled. Monetary policy, unleashed from the constraint of domestic gold convertibility, had allowed a persistent overissuance of money." In other words, it is quite possible to have a monetary standard over decades and even centuries, wars and political and technological upheavals notwithstanding. How can that be? In our "floating world," living with the utterly misunderstood idea of what anchoring monetary policy implies, let's take a step back and explain the simple mechanism behind such stability. Say there are 1,000 good and services available or to be delivered in the future. If there were no monetary anchor, there would be 499,500 prices, as each good and service would be priced in relation to every other. However, if society chooses one commodity as a yardstick, there are 999 prices and that's it. This simple fact explains why every society since time immemorial agreed on such yardsticks, why cigarettes play this role in prisons - even prison-lands, such as countries under communism were. All that is needed is that the commodity society agrees upon is in relatively fixed supply. This happens to be the case of gold, and also of cigarettes, since prisoners have rights to fixed allocations per month. ~~~~ To summarize: the only things that were- and could be stable - during political tempests around the world, are monetary anchors (gold for the Western world, and silver for Mexico and China, when the latter was on the silver standard, actually using the Mexican silver dollar). They could be so when monetary policy was separated from politics, domestic or international, and served to anchor prices and long term contracts. Price indices cannot offer such guidance, and often can neither monetary rules, since demand for currencies fluctuates around the world, as does velocity. (Milton Friedman retracted his "monetary rule" view, as being too rigid, in an interview with Financial Times last summer). Now if only Mr. Greenspan would be forced to state that the Fed would stick to the "two decade average" and use changes in gold prices as signal to either absorb or add to the global US dollar liquidity, a measure of stability would be brought back to the world. 948 Housing -- Sharefin, 05:48:54 07/26/04 Mon The world is just a great big property price bubble by Allister Heath THE property bubble has gone global. From Beijing to Cape Town, from Madrid to Honolulu, house prices have risen to unsustainable heights, fuelled by low interest rates. Like the equity bubble of the nineties, which started on Wall Street before contaminating other markets, the housing bubble of the noughties, which originated in London, Sydney and Chinese coastal cities, is now spreading around the world. And like the equity bubble before it, the correction, when it inevitably comes, will be painful and could threaten the worldwide economic recovery. In a report to be published this week, Morgan Stanley, the US investment bank, examines property conditions in 23 of the world's largest economies, representing 94% of world gross domestic product (GDP) by purchasing power parity and 96% of the value of the developed world's housing stock. The conclusion of its study is shocking. Confirming the findings of other international institutions, Morgan Stanley found that over two-thirds of the global economy is either already suffering from a residential property bubble or is at severe risk of doing so very soon. Full-blown housing bubbles currently exist in at least 25% of the global economy, whereas another 40% is put in the "bubble watch" category. Australia, the United Kingdom, China, South Korea, Spain, the Netherlands, and South Africa are all suffering from dramatically over-valued, bubble-conditions housing markets; the United States, Canada, France, Sweden, Italy, Hong Kong, Thailand, Russia, and Argentina are all close to the bubble-stage, though are not quite there yet. Of these latter economies, the US is probably nearest to being a full-blown bubble already; indeed, many analysts are convinced that prices in large parts of the country are ridiculously over-priced. In all those countries, ultra-low interest rates introduced by central banks desperate to stave off deflation after the dot.com crash triggered an explosion in borrowing. Flush with cheap cash, consumers went on spending sprees, splashing out on goods and services. Rock-bottom interest rates also led to collapse in debt servicing and mortgage payments: in some cases, the cost of home ownership halved in a few months. It suddenly made sense to buy houses. Families started to bid up prices, while a growing band of investors entered the market to enjoy capital gains that seemed no longer possible in the equity markets. In retrospect, the emergence of a series of bubbles in asset prices since the late 1990s, most recently in housing, should have surprised nobody. Globalisation and intense price competition - in newly tradeable services as well as goods - has reduced corporate pricing power, triggering a significant structural change in the forces shaping inflation. Thanks to the huge resources of Chinese factories and Indian call-centres, plenty of capacity remains in the global economy, allowing a rise in demand to be met by extra supply. Consumer prices therefore now take longer to react to rock-bottom interest rates and to an injection of money and credit into the economy; instead, excess liquidity first shows up in asset markets such as equities, bonds, property or commodities, where prices are far more flexible. "It's just like pushing on a water balloon - inflationary pressures migrate elsewhere in the system to the point of least resistance. In today's post-equity bubble world, that elsewhere is the property market. The equity bubble of the late 1990s was but the first example of this phenomenon," says Stephen Roach, chief economist of Morgan Stanley. After the dot.com bubble imploded, excess liquidity flowed into bond and property markets, two other major asset markets. "Seen in this context, asset bubbles are a perfectly logical consequence of a more generalised monetarist model - one that sees the money supply driving some combination of prices in the real economy and prices in asset markets," Roach argues. A similar argument is made by Tim Congdon, chief economist at London-based Lombard Street Research. Traditionally, inflation has been defined as "too much money chasing too few goods" but Congdon believes that this is too restrictive. He prefers instead to define inflation as "too little money chasing too few goods and assets". In Europe, the three most over-valued property markets are those of the UK, Spain and the Netherlands. Some economists in the City of London believe that UK homes are over-valued by 45%; the average estimate appears to be between 15% and 25%. A collapse in the UK market is by no means guaranteed but the omens are not good. Prophets of doom, including Durlacher, Smithers & Co., Capital Economics and Dye Asset Management, are forecasting a serious crash and a decline in house prices in both real and nominal terms over the next few years. The optimists - if one can call them that - expect house prices to fall by a few per centage points at most before stagnating for most of the rest of this decade to allow wages to catch up with prices. After that, supportive demographic trends, including a rise in the number of people living alone and increased immigration, together with a limited supply of new homes caused by restrictive planning laws, should lead to a return to healthy 5%-6% growth a year in house prices. A major risk remains for the long-term health of housing as an investment in Britain, however: there are growing indications that the Treasury will put up taxes on housing after next year's general election, perhaps by hiking stamp duty and tightening the link between property prices and council tax. Spanish property owners have also benefited immensely in recent years, with the euro zone's inappropriately low one-size-fits-all interest rates giving the market a massive boost. House prices have surged by more than 120% since December, one of the sharpest increases in the developed world. The most outrageous prices are to be found in Spain's coastal regions and in small islands, which have benefited most from overseas purchases. Investment in Spanish property from abroad surged from 0.3% of GDP in 1997 to 1% in 2003; foreign demand will probably prevent the Spanish market from crashing too badly when the bubble finally bursts. The great fear is that the UK, Spanish and Dutch property bubbles go the way of Australia's - the first of the over-priced housing markets to see its bubble go "pop". After surging by 15% last year, Australian house prices started to crash in the first few months of this year as interest rates rose and changes made in the tax code to discourage buy-to-let speculators began to bite. Values are down by between 10% and 15% already in the big Australian cities; economists expect further declines. House prices are currently trading at a ludicrous 58 times yearly rental yields, against a long-term average of 31 times and an equity market prices to earnings ratio of 16.5 times. Housing affordability indices are at their worst level since 1991 when mortgage rates were 13-15%, compared with 6-7% now, which suggests that prices will fall further when interest rates rise again. Home owners in Europe who may be tempted to dismiss Australia's experience will find little reassurance from the US, despite headline figures which suggests that American house prices rose 7.7% in the year to the first quarter of 2004. There is no real national housing market in the US, so localised bubbles co-exist with very weak property markets. Up to 15 metropolitan areas could suffer a price crash of 10-15% as interest rates go up, warns Dick Berner of Morgan Stanley - largely in regions which have seen values close to double in the past five years, confirming that prices can go down as well as down. During the first quarter of 2004, prices dropped in Vermont, Alaska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Nebraska, a stark deterioration from the final quarter of last year, when no states reported declining home prices. Prices dropped in 39 of the 220 Metropolitan Statistical Areas, compared with only three in the fourth quarter of last year. By contrast, prices surged by 12.2% on average across California, Oregon, Washington, Hawaii and Alaska, fuelling fears of looming crash. In New York, prices continue to move ahead. Other European countries are seeing strong price gains, even if not yet at bubble levels. French property prices rose by a record 14.2% in 2003, after a 9.2% rise in 2002 and a 6.5% uplift in 2001. Prices increased by 13.9% in the first quarter of 2004, year on year. The availability of mortgages for French buyers, and their interest in buying a property for investment, have increased dramatically in recent years. The buoyant housing market is likely to continue to support French households' throughout this year, as last week's buoyant consumer spending data confirmed. In real terms, however, French property prices remain below their 1991 peak, according to Morgan Stanley. There are also signs of overheating on the supply side which, if not corrected, could help inflate a price bubble in the next two years. House prices have also grown strongly in Italy, even though some statistical sources paint slightly different pictures of the market. The ISI Residential Index peaked in February-March, growing 22% in the year, and since then growth slowed moderately to around 16%. Some economists suggest a sharper slowdown though all agree that Rome and Milan are still seeing double digit-gains. Mortgage lending peaked in February 2003 when it hit a growth rate of 28% and is now closer to 18%. The break-neck boom in mortgages from 2002 reflected an earlier deregulation of lending. Today's growth is due to low interest rates caused by Italy's membership of the euro zone, which has allowed it to piggy-back on countries with lower government debt and more political stability. While there are plenty of problems in the world's mature economies, emerging markets are beginning to worry analysts almost as much, with China under especially close scrutiny. Prices are up by only 20% since 1998 nationally, although by much more in Shanghai and Beijing, which account for 14% of the total market. "China's domestic monetary tightening has occurred in the face of the coming normalisation of Fed policy. This is a potentially lethal combination for China that could have a major impact on the capital inflows that have driven the Chinese property cycle so sharply to the upside. It looks to me as if the China property cycle is on the verge of a major bust," warns Andy Xie, China economist at Morgan Stanley. The situation is a little better in South Korea, even though there too houses are over-valued. There, the local bubble began in mid-2001 when prices started to surge, taking the increase for the year to 10%, followed by another 16% in 2002 and 6% last year. Today, nationwide South Korean house prices are 40% higher than their trough in 1998; in Seoul, prices are up by more than 60%. With the central bank's official overnight interest rates stuck at 3.75% since July 2003 and inflation of 3.6%, real interest rates are at close to zero, which has kept the market going despite a government crack-down on speculation and a depressed economy. But plans to boost South Korea's housing supply, together with higher interest rates, could yet prick the bubble. South Africa remains a candidate for the title of the world's most over-heated property market. Prices there have been boosted by a combination of increased buying by foreign investors (particularly in the Western Cape region) and by a cumulative cut of 5.5 percentage points in the Reserve Bank's repo rate over the June to December 2003 period. In the first five months of 2004, South African house prices surged by 24% year on year, even faster than the 19.2% growth in 2003 and 15.3% in 2002. But prices in Hong Kong have grown even faster during the past year. Since their mid-2003 trough, broad residential prices are up 32%, with prices in "popular developments" (that is large residential estates with the highest turnover) jumping 43%. Yet compared to the 1997 peak, housing prices are still down by 55%, which suggests that property values in Hong Kong are still fairly valued, unlike those in South Africa. In Thailand, a combination of expansionary policies by Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, increased demand from a wealthier population and faster economic growth across the region has triggered a 30% to 40% recovery in house prices since 1991. A bubble has undoubtedly erupted in the up-market section of Thailand's housing market, with the burgeoning Thai middle classes currently being offered the choice of around 50 new condominium developments in Bangkok alone. However, the lower- and middle-income segments of the Thai housing market seem still to be well supported by sound structural reasons, with strong demand relative to supply. Unsurprisingly, there are no proper official statistics on Russian house prices. The Institute for the Economy in Transition does produce data for Moscow, however, and the picture of the housing market it paints is one of a runaway and unsustainable boom in 2003, following a strong but less buoyant 2002. Last year the average price of Moscow apartments in dollar terms was 45.4% higher than it was in December 2002, an astonishing rate of growth. After adjusting for inflation, the price of apartments surged by nearly 19% in rouble terms last year. Many crucial laws have been adopted in the past couple of years, underpinning property prices, says Diana Choyleva, an economist at Lombard Street Research. "These have unleashed the strong pent-up demand for credit, especially for mortgage and consumer loans. Such basic laws as the right to own property and land, the right to sell it, and the right to pledge it as security for a mortgage did not exist until recently," she says. While the property market is expected to cool in the second half of this year, the average price of a Moscow apartment has already surged from slightly under $950 at the end of 2001 to $1,600 by end-2003. Anybody who believes that housing is always a safe haven, regardless of time or place, ought to take a closer look at Germany, Singapore, India or Japan. German house prices have been falling for a decade and are likely to continue to do so as the population shrinks over the next few years. In Singapore, property prices are still down some 40-50% from their peak in 1996. Since rebounding moderately in 2000, prices have declined a further 15-20%. In Japan, housing and land prices are now down a devastating 43.2% compared with their 1991 peak, taking the current level back to pre-bubble levels. Fortunately, there are now signs that the market is bottoming out, with surveys revealing that 40% of land prices in Tokyo are either on the rise or flat. The Indian property market has also fared poorly in recent years, despite faster economic growth. Prices slumped by 30% between 1995 and 2000 and are now growing by only 3% to 4% a year - little consolation for those who have lost their shirts in the downturn. Around the world, high property prices have boosted the wealth of homeowners; a crash will hit consumer spending badly, especially in the UK, US and Australia. "Courtesy of property-induced wealth effects, the global economy was neatly able to sidestep the potentially devastating aftershocks of the burst equity bubble," says Morgan Stanley's Roach. The house price bubble kept the global economy afloat when shares slumped; but as interest rates continue to rise and the global property bubble finally bursts, there will be no secret weapon for the global economy to turn to this time. 947 Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 19:24:52 07/25/04 Sun Ponzi Chart Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 1,849.09 + Dow = 9,962.22 = 11,811.31 divide by 2 = 5,905.655 Ponzi Down 105.81 from last week. Down six weeks in a row. Thanks for the link RossL ! Go GATA ! Go GOLD ! Hi Ho SILVER ! $hifty 946 Gold -- Sharefin, 18:40:15 07/23/04 Fri How much does that gold ring cost? Ibu Masna, mother of four children, traveled to Jakarta from her village on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi on July 21 to report the abuses of the world's most profitable gold miner on her community to the National Police and Ministry of Health. Masna and other members of her community told officials that the company is guilty of spreading Minamata Disease. Newmont, from Denver, Colorado, U.S., have been dumping their heavy metal-laden waste into Buyat Bay since 1996. Buyat Bay, once full of fish, had provided income and food for the Buyat Bay people who live along its shores. Today, the fish are all but gone from the inner parts of the bay and there are tumors in the people and fish never seen before the dumping. Newmont stands accused of polluting the bay with arsenic, mercury, among other heavy metals. Local doctor Jane Pangemanan confirmed that about 80 percent of the Buyat Bay villagers suffer symptoms similar to the victims of Minamata. Laboratory tests have confirmed high levels of heavy metals in the blood of Buyat Bay villagers, particularly arsenic and mercury. Newmont has continuously denied these accusations stating that the company has operated in compliance with Indonesian and U.S. environmental standards. However, mercury emissions, mainly from coal-fired plants and the chemical industry in the U.S., have led to advisory guidelines on tuna consumption because of mercury contamination. Meanwhile, the Bush administration has fought against more stringent regulations on mercury. Countries like Indonesia have even lower environmental standards and are perhaps more vulnerable to pressure from business interests. Gold has and continues to be extracted, processed and used in ways that are killing marginalized peoples and the planet. Most of the gold produced today goes towards making jewelry. One single 0.33 ounce, 18 karat gold ring produces at least 18 tons of mine waste. The gold mining industry is a voracious industry satisfying a non-essential market based on vanity. Meanwhile, Buyat and Cajarmarca people want clean water and good health for themselves and their children. But gold mining that uses toxic mercury, cyanide and other heavy metals is robbing them of these fundamental human rights. 945 Gold -- Sharefin, 20:44:37 07/19/04 Mon Gold to hold above $400 this year and next Gold prices are seen holding an average above $400 an ounce for the foreseeable future as the dollar stays weak and world security worries keep big investors hedging their bets on where money is safe, a Reuters poll shows. The global survey of 24 analysts pointed to an average gold price of $404.50 a troy ounce in 2004, up 11.2 percent on 2003. Gains were then seen being pared to an average for 2005 of $402.50, up 10.6 percent on the 2003 level of $363.83. ~~~ Gold's broad uptrend started in 2001, when the metal was near 20-year lows. The advance gathered momentum as dollar weakness, global security worries and producer buy-backs of reserves in the ground that they had sold on forward markets pushed world prices to a 15-year peak in early January 2004 of $430.50. Producer buy-backs have since slowed, but the market should remain firm as the spotlight concentrates on the dollar, where weakness makes gold less expensive for holders of other currencies. "We are dollar bears, despite the fact that the second quarter of 2004 saw the dollar improve...We remain bullish on the gold price -- tempered to be sure," economist Martin Murenbeeld said. "Issues such as debt -- government and household -- factor into our longer-term thinking and are gold-positive, while terrorism and its potential impact on oil prices are on average also gold-positive," he added. 944 Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 20:02:40 07/18/04 Sun Ponzi Chart Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 1,883.15 + Dow 10,139.78 = 12,022.93 divide by 2 = 6,011.465 Ponzi Down 68.305 from last week. Thanks for the link RossL ! Go GATA ! Go GOLD ! Hi Ho SILVER ! $hifty 943 Fiat vs Gold -- Sharefin, 21:58:22 07/15/04 Thu Mega Bank Merger Won't Impact Japan's Gold Buying Gold's safe-haven appeal may become a little tarnished among Japanese investors if a proposed merger between two banking giants brings about some needed stability to the nation's financial sector. Still, many industry insiders believe Japanese investors won't be giving up their gold any time soon as bullion still offers other appealing qualities. Wednesday, UFJ Holdings Inc. (8307.TO) proposed a merger with rival Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group Inc. (8306.TO) in a deal that would create the world's largest lender. ~~~ However, Toshima isn't expecting a rush to sell gold as he sees the banking problem as just one part of a broader economic landscape that has driven Japanese investors to embrace the yellow metal. "There are still two distinct uncertainties hanging over the minds of Japanese investors, namely a possible collapse of the pension system and an unprecedented level of public debt, which now stands at around 700 trillion yen," said the council's Toshima. A dealer of precious metals futures with one of Japan's largest commodities houses said he has yet to see a shifting of funds out of gold futures. "There is no firm correlation between commodity markets and stock markets in Japan as there is in other countries. They are just not seen as alternative investment instruments to Japanese investors," he said. ~~~ The World Gold Council's Toshima expects gold will remain an important fixture in the portfolios of many Japanese investors. "Our latest research shows that the No.1 reason cited for buying gold, at 56%, is the fact that 'gold does not become a worthless piece of paper', which confirms that investors here still regard gold as a good risk management tool," he said. Toshima added signs that the Japanese economy is working free from its prolonged deflationary spiral is another reason to hold onto gold. "In our survey, 'inflation hedge' was sighted as the third most common reason for buying gold," he said. 942 Fiat -- Sharefin, 21:43:28 07/12/04 Mon Central Bank report - Borrowers must heed warning bells UNDERLYING yesterday's relatively upbeat annual report from the Central Bank was an ominous and timely warning that Irish people are up to their necks in debt. With the purr of the Celtic Tiger growing louder by the minute, there is no sign of this pattern abating. If anything, the seemingly unstoppable escalation of private credit means Ireland's borrowers are four times more in debt than their EU counterparts. Underlining the worrying aspect of this rise in credit Central Bank governor John Hurley has warned that within a few years Ireland will be one of most debt-ridden countries in the eurozone. Admittedly, a tendency to ring the alarm bell is part and parcel of the bank's mission in society. But it would be foolhardy of borrowers to turn a deaf ear to this latest warning. Given the live-now pay-later mentality of modern society, home-buyers risk being seduced into getting way over their heads in debt by the attractive deals on offer from financial institutions. In their frenzy to get on the property ladder, people are borrowing at the rate of €1 billion a month. 941 Fiat -- Sharefin, 21:09:15 07/12/04 Mon Is A Housing Bubble About To Burst? After an amazing four-year boom in residential real estate, the housing market could finally be topping out and heading for a downturn. The culprit: rising interest rates. House prices could flatten on a national level in the next year or so while taking a spill in overheated coastal markets. A downturn in housing would squeeze recent buyers who overleveraged themselves to pay top prices -- and risk slowing the entire economy by cooling consumer spending as well as housing construction, lending, and the real estate business. ~~~ The most troublesome aspect of the price runup is that many recent buyers are squeezing into houses that they can barely afford by taking advantage of the lower rates available from adjustable-rate mortgages. That leaves them fully exposed to rising rates. In fact, the rise in one-year adjustable rates since late March has already raised annual borrowing costs for new buyers by 25%. And data from the Federal Housing Finance Board show that the most expensive markets tend to have the highest share of buyers with adjustable-rate mortgages. Today's housing prices are predicated on an impossible combination: the strong growth in income and asset values of a strong economy, plus the ultra-low rates of a weak economy. Either the economy's long-term prospects will get worse or rates will rise. In either scenario, housing will weaken. Caveat emptor. 940 Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 22:42:13 07/11/04 Sun Ponzi Chart Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 1,946.33 + Dow 10,213.22 = 12,159.55 divide by 2 = 6,079.77 Ponzi Down 64.97 from last week. Thanks for the link RossL ! Go GATA ! Go GOLD ! Hi Ho Silver ! $hifty 939 Fiat -- Sharefin, 21:24:50 07/10/04 Sat Nervous Depositors Make Run on Banks Rumor fueled fear and fear fueled panic, sparking the biggest run on Russian banks since the 1998 crisis. Spooked by the closure Tuesday of mid-sized Guta and reports that top-tier Alfa was on the ropes, depositors descended on banks in droves Wednesday, intensifying a trend that has seen an estimated $5 billion, or about 10 percent of all household savings, taken out of the system in the last two months. ~~~ After three bank closures in as many months -- each bigger than the last -- intervention and reassurance by the Central Bank was not enough to calm growing concerns that a full-fledged crisis was in the making. ~~~ Ignatyev also refuted persistent media reports that the government has a so-called blacklist of banks that are targeted for closure. The reports, denied repeatedly by senior government officials, first surfaced after the Central Bank revoked the license of second-tier bank Sodbiznesbank in May. CreditTrust, a bank that reportedly has the same beneficial owners as Sodbiznes, collapsed in June. Reports of the blacklist and the actual failure of several banks has created a "crisis of mistrust," as bankers are calling it, that has led to banks closing credit lines to each other, further squeezing liquidity out of the sector. To jump-start the system, the Central Bank on Wednesday -- for the second time in a month -- slashed mandatory reserve requirements, to 3.5 percent from 7 percent. The bank cut the rate from 9 percent to 7 percent June 15. Some analysts doubted the move would be enough to calm the market. Although halving the reserve requirement injected some 125 billion rubles ($4.3 billion) into the system, it is unlikely to help banks facing a run on deposits, said Mikhail Matovnikov of Moody's Interfax Rating Agency. ~~~ Most experts polled shared Gafin's optimism regarding Alfa's ability to weather the storm, although the general hysteria may drag down smaller banks. "A lot of smaller banks will experience a lot of problems," said Andrew Keeley of Renaissance Capital. Gafin said as many as 200 of what he estimated were 1,670 banks could collapse in the coming months. "It is not bad for large banks... but for the banking system it is very harmful," he said. "People are only beginning to learn how to use banks, so with every crisis, trust in the financial system is undermined." Matovnikov agreed that smaller banks are in danger, but he said a full-fledged crisis was unlikely, even though the "depositors' run" is likely to last for several more days. The main concern now is exactly what the Central Bank, as the market regulator, wants to see happen and how it will act, said Hans Jorg Rudloff, deputy chairman of British investment banking giant Barclays Capital. Rudloff, a major player in Russia's early privatization drive, said a banking crisis would "be more worrying than the Yukos crisis." "The banking crisis is like a little bushfire that could become a huge forest fire. If people lose confidence and pull out their savings, the Russian banking system could collapse," he said, rapping the Central Bank for not managing the crisis better. "That's why Western systems have crisis management systems in place." 938 Gold -- Sharefin, 16:59:13 07/09/04 Fri UK's Brown urges IMF to revalue gold for debt relief UK Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) Gordon Brown on Friday called on the International Monetary Fund to revalue its gold reserves as a way of releasing more money for debt relief for the world's poorest countries. ~~~ Most of the IMF's gold is valued at $40 an ounce under a 1971 agreement, though some was revalued at market prices in the late 1990s to finance the Highly-Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt relief initiative. That delivered more than $2.5 billion of debt relief through off-market gold transactions. Treasury officials said the proposal was to adjust the paper value of the IMF's gold to current market prices of around $400 an ounce to generate more funds for debt relief. Britain was not suggesting that the IMF sell its gold -- something which could push the market price down and hit poor countries that depend on gold exports. 937 Fascism & the Power of Ridicule -- auspec, 16:37:39 07/09/04 Fri 01-July-04 An EWR Reprint, JULY 2004 Early Warning Report, PDF version Most Serious Warning Ever In politics, one of the few things you can be certain about is, those who take away your liberty are not doing it to benefit you. I warn often about the government using the war as a pretext to tear up the Bill of Rights. Wars are always, among other things, the power junkie's excuse to become the tyranny he professes to be fighting. A secret Department of Justice (DOJ) report recently leaked to the press gives the government's view on its legal duties in this war. It turns out, unsurprisingly, that the US government is superior to the rest of mankind, it's not required to obey any laws. When officials declare a national security emergency, the DOJ report claims, the US government is no longer bound by the Geneva Conventions, which it agreed to, or the Nuremberg decision, which it led and endorsed. Further, asserts this report, US troops who do as they are told when directed to commit a war crime are protected by the Nazi defense of "just following orders." I am not joking, this is as deadly serious as it gets. Ask a librarian for "What On Earth Were They Thinking?" THE ECONOMIST 19 June 04, p.31. Also, the article by Jess Bravin, WALL STREET JOURNAL, 7 June 04, p.1. Officials have successfully spun this DOJ report as a minor facet of the torture scandal, but it is far more. The report claims that in war, the president can do anything he pleases, he "enjoys complete discretion in the exercise of his commander-in-chief role." Never before has the US government claimed so much power.1 What keeps this from being just another political laugh is, the report was not written by politicians, it's the work of career attorneys from every branch of the armed forces - Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard - in consultation with attorneys in the Justice Department. This means the fascism revealed in the report is not a flash-in-the-pan political whim, it is systemic, entrenched in the bureaucracy. Benjamin Franklin was right, those who give up liberty to achieve safety will have neither. If the Geneva Conventions and Nuremberg decision are out the window, can the Constitution and Bill of Rights be far behind? How long until they bring out the leg irons and barbed wire? As Ronald Reagan so often warned, "government is not the solution, it's the problem." That goes for war and foreign policy as well as the economy. Please also read IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE by Sinclair Lewis. Although the novel's economics is too far left for my taste, and it uses the depression rather than a war as the "national emergency" that brings fascism to America, its insights about the way Americans have been trained to think, or not think, are as timely today as when Lewis wrote it in 1936. As you read the fascist "Fifteen Points of Victory" in Chapter 8, ask yourself how many Americans would vote for these today. A majority, I think. When a government has most of the guns, which Washington does, the only way to protect ourselves is to make officials unwilling - ashamed - to use them. This requires free speech and a free press, but these freedoms must be used early, before they can be taken away. "What good fortune for governments that the people do not think." -- Adolph Hitler Nearly everyone in history who has seen his country slide into oppression tells essentially the same story about how he ended up in chains. He saw the warning signs, but did not speak out when he could, and then it was too late. Clearly, the warning signs are here. Each of us has three choices. We can (1) sit trembling with our loved ones, waiting for the jackboots on our doorsteps, (2) get out of the country or (3) make like Paul Revere and sound the alarm. If you care about America, this could be your last chance to save it. I hope you will do all you can to persuade your fellow citizens to pull their heads out of the sand. Deluge newspapers with letters to the editor. Call radio talk shows. Post your thoughts on the Internet. Give speeches. Tell your friends. The message all Americans must receive is, anyone who lays so much as one finger on the Bill of Rights is a traitor, cut from the same cloth as Osama bin Laden. These people deserve all the scorn we can heap upon them. They must be shunned and laughed at for their so-called patriotism. Power seekers are hyper-prestige seekers, the one thing they cannot stand is ridicule. (Who can?) We have proof this can work. In the Great Depression, America was plunging into fascism, but thanks to Lewis, Mencken and others, and their heavy use of ridicule in works such as IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE, catastrophe was averted. We can do it again. If you'd like to use this article to help spread the word, you have my permission to make as many copies as you wish, by any means, and distribute them as widely as possible by any means. (It must be copied in full, word-for-word, with no changes, and contain the notice Copyright © 2004 by Richard J. Maybury.) This article is also posted on our web site, earlywarningreport.com so you can distribute it electronically. For links to pro-liberty web sites, I suggest free-market.net, it's excellent. If you do not do anything else, please, at least warn those you care about. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 "What on earth were they thinking?" Economist, 19 Jun 04. 936 Gold -- Sharefin, 19:43:09 07/08/04 Thu Pegging the dollar or peglegging gold Over the past year a renewed interest in gold as a store of value and as a hedge against financial instability has changed the character of the gold market. No longer driven by the demand for jewellery the gold price is being determined by speculators and investors who are increasingly worried about the dollar. The similarities to the early 1970's are uncanny – poorly conducted monetary policy, crisis in the Middle East, an American president who does not command confidence outside the United States and the emergence of a new economic power in Asia. Confidence in the dollar is being eroded by the United States' huge current account deficit. The US has had an adverse balance of payments for the past 22 years, which up to now it has been able to finance it by attracting investment funds from the rest of the world. This has become difficult both because the deficit is now so large and the focus of private sector investment is increasingly on Asia. When markets are allowed to operate freely, this would not be a problem. Asian currencies would rise to a level that restores equilibrium of trade and capital flows. This is not happening because Asian central banks have been intervening massively to keep their currencies pegged against the dollar. Policy makers are preventing markets from efficiently pricing the exchange rate of the dollar. Where is this going to end? The simple answer is that no one knows. The scale of the imbalance between the US and the rest of the world is huge and the longer intervention prevents necessary adjustments, the greater the dislocation will be when the inevitable correction occurs. In the face of these uncertainties, some people are again buying gold as a store of value. They do not know what is going to happen but sense great dangers ahead. Some remember that it took more than a decade to correct the policy mistakes of the 1960s. The rising price of gold reflects increasing concerns about the future of the existing economic order. 935 Gold -- Sharefin, 04:27:31 07/08/04 Thu Gold Has Biggest Gain in 13 Months as Investors Seek Haven Gold futures in New York had their biggest gain in 13 months after Russia's central bank reduced reserve requirements to avert a banking crisis, boosting the metal's appeal as a haven. Russia central bank lowered the amount of money banks must set aside to 3.5 percent from 7 percent, effective tomorrow. Gold gained on Friday after U.S. employers in June added about half as many jobs as expected by analysts, sending the dollar to its biggest decline in almost four months. 934 Politics -- Sharefin, 04:23:48 07/08/04 Thu Why We Must Support John Kerry 933 Politics -- Sharefin, 04:21:27 07/08/04 Thu Will There Be a Presidential Election? The fear is real. If we have fair elections, Bush is certain to lose. But there's a big if here. History has shown that regimes that come into power in the way the Bush junta did, seldom relinquish power in a fair electoral process. Given the current political realities, we can't even take it for granted that there will be an election. 932 Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 00:23:47 07/05/04 Mon Ponzi Chart Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 2,006.66 + Dow 10,282.83 = 12,289.49 divide by 2 = 6,144.74 Ponzi Down 53.91 from last week. Thanks for the link RossL ! Go GATA ! Go GOLD ! Hi Ho SILVER ! $hifty 931 Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 22:37:13 06/27/04 Sun Ponzi Chart Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 2,025.47 + Dow 10,371.84 = 12,397.31 divide by 2 = 6,198.65 Ponzi Down 2.92 from last week. Thanks for the link RossL ! Go GATA ! Go GOLD ! Hi Ho SILVER ! $hifty 929 Gold -- Sharefin, 20:20:19 06/20/04 Sun Elusive gold drains forex The Central Bank of Sri Lanka warns the public not to be duped by a "Gold Coin selling racket" which has been banned in many countries. A top Central Bank official who is investigating the racket said "people should beware of such a company and representatives of the company who are promoting the sale of coins on the "Retail Sales Compensation Program" which drains off a colossal sum of Sri Lanka's money. 927 Gold -- Sharefin, 20:16:16 06/20/04 Sun MKM Partners' Darda Uses Gold Prices to Forecast Global Markets ``Gold is an absolutely wonderful forecasting tool if you know how to use it,'' says Darda, 30, who advocates returning to the gold standard. ``When we see a large movement in the price of gold, and it sticks, we know there are going to be changes in an economy from a monetary perspective.'' With most of the world's gold already mined, the metal's intrinsic value doesn't change over time, giving it greater stability than benchmark currencies, Darda says. ``It can take up to a decade for a fall in the value of a currency to waft through the entire galaxy of dollar prices,'' he says. ~~~ Darda's use of gold as a forecasting tool stems from his adherence to supply-side economics, which emphasizes reducing tax rates on investments and labor to stimulate investment and economic growth. ``Most economists think gold is like any other commodity,'' Darda says. ``They clearly don't use it to forecast inflationary interest rates as classical economists do. That's a huge distinction.'' Darda forecasts inflation by using the 10-year moving average price of spot gold as a proxy for the current price level. Darda reads deviations in the rate of change of spot gold from its long-term moving average as a signal of inflation or deflation. 926 Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 19:43:41 06/20/04 Sun Ponzi Chart Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 1,986.73 + Dow 10,416.41 = 12,403.14 divide by 2 = 6,201.57 Ponzi down 3.41 from last week. Thanks for the link RossL ! Go GATA! Go GOLD! Hi Ho SILVER ! $hifty 925 Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 22:45:53 06/13/04 Sun Ponzi Chart Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 1,999.87 + Dow 10,410.10 = 12,409.97 divide by 2 = 6204.98 Ponzi Up 94.26 from last week. Thanks for the link RossL ! Go GATA ! Go GOLD ! Hi Ho SILVER ! $hifty 924 Contest From Afar -- auspec, 11:16:02 06/13/04 Sun This contest relates to gold, in actuality, because it amply demonstrates the resourcefulness {smile} of the global elite axis. Official Kontest Entries Number: 4749 :: Date/Time: 06-13-2004 :: 11:10 The Kontest is now officially closed, but you are welcome to make new entries as long as these misadventures continue. Only fair. The following monikers {not Lewinsky's} are proposed to name the newly secured oilfields of the Middle East, regardless of what happens in "Greater Iraq", or the other domino countries of the area. Oilio Terrorstan Rumsfeldelphia Chevrondia Condosleezickstan Neochristiana Bilderburgerland Turmoilissippi Un-freetoliveon Dollarsville Oilsville Cheyneysville Kinder gentler machine gun land Uraniam Bombletar United Cowboy Emirates Torturia Shockandawea Prosthesisan Kuwaittaq Ali-burton Texarabia Sunarado Middle Britain: Capital, Bankdad MuhammedOiliidan Kinnecrudeport Neoconia Nova Chaosa Nueva Bringemonibad SUVlakia Wolfowitzogovenia RicePaddiesToo Coalition of Willingburg Bustthebudgetenia Strategicoilreserveahendra Tarmackistan? New Husseinya New Binladen Greater Pahlavi Islamistan Moslematar Mullanam New Ayattoldya House Of Pain Sixpackistan Carlylestan Neoconyaq Hydrocarbonia New Gitmo Husaneasylum Condimenia Tarpitzburg Recklessendeavorton W. Mongoilia E. Guantanimo Bumbleton Georgetown Georgeslaststan Dickaslavia Messaslippi M. E. Texasnuevo Petrogovenia P-NAC Gallery Tar-Bay-Bee-Stan LieLand Fiatargeta END Since, quite obviously, first prize, being an up close and personal visit to this new country's opening ceremonies, is highly undesirable by most rational folks, it might just be prudent to call the kontest a draw. Well done, ER! Laughter always is.............the ultimate resource. Next time let's find something funny as the basis of kontest. 923 Gold -- Sharefin, 10:59:34 06/10/04 Thu French central bank to sell a fifth of gold reserves The Bank of France's governor Christian Noyer said Thursday that the French central bank intends to sell a fifth of the country's 3,000 tons of gold reserves in the coming five years to reduce the country's public deficit. Gold is the prime asset of France's exchange reserve and the central bank will conserve a large part of its gold reserve in case of exceptional circumstances, he said. The central bank will sell up to 600 tons of its gold reserve and replace it with other monetary assets, especially foreign currencies, the governor said, adding that the gold would be sold when the market is healthy and the price is fair. Reports here said the 3,000 tons of French gold reserves are currently valued at about 30 billion euros (36.9 billion US dollars). The plan to sell gold -- first announced at the end of March byFinance Minister Nicolas Sarkozy -- is included in an overall planto dispose of state assets such as real estate and industrial stakes to bring down the deficit 922 Fiat -- Sharefin, 07:00:50 06/10/04 Thu U.S. May producer price index delayed indefinitely The release of the May producer price index has been delayed indefinitely, the Labor Department said Wednesday. The PPI was originally scheduled to be released Friday, then was rescheduled to Thursday afternoon to avoid conflicting with the funeral of former President Ronald Reagan. The agency is "working to resolve unexpected difficulties in calculating the index this month," a press statement said. The report would be released no earlier than Tuesday. The agency has been having trouble with the PPI releases this year. The January, February and March PPI releases were delayed to sort out difficulties in converting to a new industrial classification system. "We are embarrassed," a government spokesman said. 921 Gold -- Sharefin, 06:57:55 06/10/04 Thu Noyer says BoF to sell part of gold reserves, up to 500-600 tonnes PARIS (AFX) - Bank of France governor Christian Noyer said the central bank plans to sell part of its gold reserves to the market, possibly up to 500-600 tonnes The Bank of France holds about 3,000 tonnes of gold reserves, valued at around 30 bln eur. The French government is hoping to raise funds from gold sales to help reduce its budget deficit Noyer said the central bank will wait until gold prices are "appropriate" before agreeing the sale, adding that a decision will be made either by the end of this year or the beginning of 2005 The bank will "certainly take into account the price and the situation of the market. If we feel that the timing is not appropriate to sell gold, then we would wait," Noyer told journalists at a presentation of the Bank of France's annual report "We have eternity (for that), more or less," he added 920  Gold -- Sharefin, 07:24:36 06/08/04 Tue Gold Likely Nearing Last Gasp Of Current Bull Run - CBA Sydney, June 8 (Dow Jones) - While gold could temporarily move higher again within the next three months, the yellow metal's bull run is likely over, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA.AU) said in a report issued late Tuesday. Amid concerns about terrorism and high oil prices, as well as a favorable near-term technical outlook, gold could yet move back to US$410 a troy ounce, the bank said in its short-term "tactical" analysis. But even if bullion does climb back above the psychologically significant US$400/oz mark, "how long it will stay there is another matter," the CBA said. "Rate rises are on the way in a number of major economies, principally the United States," it said, adding that China has already moved to tighten monetary liquidity. "Higher interest rates will raise contangos and improve the attractiveness of forward selling for the smaller high-cost mining operations," the CBA said. Rising interest rates will also diminish the relative attractiveness of investing in gold, it said. Furthermore, the bank believes the U.S. dollar, which typically moves in the opposite direction to the gold price, "appears likely to strengthen," given the potential for the U.S. economy to outperform its peers. While the CBA said supply side factors would remain "moderately supportive" for gold through 2004, it expects mine supply to rise in 2005. "We suspect that gold's run has passed," the bank said. "US$430/oz could easily be revisited, but we suspect that new cycle highs are unlikely...and US$350/oz seems possible by (the second half of next year)," it added. 919 Gold -- Sharefin, 07:20:01 06/08/04 Tue Parliament debates what to do with excess gold Parliamentarians are making a new attempt to decide how to spend the proceeds from the sale of the Swiss National Bank's excess gold reserves. Previous plans, including a proposal to spend the proceeds on humanitarian projects, were rejected by Swiss voters. If the government gets its way, the money from the sale of 1,300 tons of excess gold will be kept in a special fund and lead to annual interest payments of SFr450 million ($364 million). The latest proposals include plans to use part of the proceeds to support the country's social security and education systems. ~~~ More than 1,000 tons of gold have so far been sold, according to National Bank spokesman Roland Baumann. He estimates that only 130 tons of the excess reserves will still be in the bank's vaults at the end of the year. Garelli says moves are being made in other countries, including in neighbouring France, to follow Switzerland's example. “Many governments have discovered that the central banking system has accumulated a lot of [gold] reserves which are actually not needed any more in the modern monetary system,” he said. 918 Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 09:04:56 06/07/04 Mon Ponzi Chart Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 1,978.62 + Dow 10,242.82 = 12,221.44 divide by 2 = 6,110.72 Ponzi Up 23.13 from last week. Thanks for the link RossL Go GATA ! Go GOLD ! Hi Ho SILVER ! $hifty 917  E-currency AutoExchange PayPal,EvoCash,e-gold,e-Bullion -- AutoExchange, 10:54:06 06/06/04 Sun E-currency AutoExchange PayPal,EvoCash,e-gold,e-Bullion http://e-news.host.sk/ 916 Fiat vs Gold -- Sharefin, 09:53:36 06/06/04 Sun Iraq and the hidden euro-dollar wars American Century: the three phases If we look back over the period since the end of World War II, we can identify several distinct phases of evolution of the American role in the world. The first phase, which began in the immediate postwar period 1945-1948 and the onset of Cold War, could be called the Bretton Woods Gold Exchange system. Under the Bretton Woods system in the immediate aftermath of the World War, the order was relatively tranquil. The United States had emerged from the War clearly as the one sole superpower, with a strong industrial base and the largest gold reserves of any nation. The initial task was to rebuild Western Europe and to create a NATO Atlantic alliance against the Soviet Union. The role of the dollar was directly tied to that of gold. So long as America enjoyed the largest gold reserves, and the U.S. economy was far the most productive and efficient producer, the entire Bretton Woods currency structure from French Franc to British Pound Sterling and German Mark was stable. Dollar cre-dits were extended along with Marshall Plan assistance and credits to finance the rebuil-ding of war-torn Europe. American companies, among them oil multinationals, gained nicely from dominating the trade at the onset of the 1950's. Washington even encouraged creation of the Treaty of Rome in 1958 in order to boost European economic stability and create larger U.S. export markets in the bargain. For the most part, this initial phase of what Time magazine publisher Henry Luce called `The American Century', in terms of economic gains, was relatively `benign' for both the U.S. and Europe. The United States still had the economic flexibility to move. This was the era of American liberal fo-reign policy. The United States was the hegemonic power in the Western community of nations. As it commanded overwhelming gold and economic resources compared with Western Europe or Japan and South Korea, the United States could well afford to be open in its trade relations to European and Japanese exports. The tradeoff was European and Japanese support for the role of the United Sates during the Cold War. American leadership was based during the 1950's and early 1960's less on direct coercion and more on arriving at consensus, whether in GATT trade rounds or other issues. Organizations of elites, such as the Bilderberg meetings, were organized to share the evolving consensus between Europe and the United States. This first, more benign phase of the Ameri-can Century came to an end by the early 1970's. The Bretton Woods Gold Exchange began to break down, as Europe got on its feet economically and began to become a strong exporter by the mid-1960's. This growing economic strength in Western Europe coincided with soaring U.S. public deficits as Johnson escalated the tragic war in Vietnam. All during the 1960's, France's de Gaulle began to take its dollar export earnings and demand gold from the U.S. Federal Reserve, legal under Bretton Woods at that time. By November 1967 the drain of gold from U.S. and Bank of England vaults had become critical. The weak link in the Bretton Woods Gold Exchange arrangement was Britain, the `sick man of Europe'. The link broke as Sterling was devalued in 1967. That merely accelerated the pressure on the U.S. dollar, as French and other central banks increased their call for U.S. gold in exchange for their dollar reserves. They calculated with the soaring war deficits from Vietnam, it was only a matter of months before the United States itself would be forced to devalue against gold, so better to get their gold out at a high price. By May 1971 the drain of U.S. Federal Reserve gold had become alarming, and even the Bank of England joined the French in demanding U.S. gold for their dollars. That was the point where rather than risk a collapse of the gold reserves of the United States, the Nixon Administration opted to abandon gold entirely, going to a system of floating currencies in August 1971. The break with gold opened the door to an entirely new phase of the American Century. In this new phase, control over monetary policy was, in effect, privatized, with large international banks such as Citibank, Chase Manhattan or Barclays Bank assuming the role that central banks had in a gold system, but entirely without gold. `Market forces' now could determine the dollar. And they did with a vengeance. ~~~~ Dollar fiat money The crucial shift took place when Nixon took the dollar off a fixed gold reserve to float against other currencies. This removed the restraints on printing new dollars. The limit was only how many dollars the rest of the world would take. By their firm agreement with Saudi Arabia, as the largest OPEC oil producer, the `swing producer' Washington guaranteed that the world's largest commodity, oil, the essential for every nation's economy, the basis of all transport and much of the industrial economy, that oil could only be purchased in world markets in dollars. The deal had been fixed in June 1974 by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, establishing the U.S.-Saudi Arabian Joint Commission on Economic Cooperation. The U.S. Treasury and the New York Federal Reserve would `allow' the Saudi central bank, SAMA, to buy U.S. Treasury bonds with Saudi petrodollars. In 1975 OPEC officially agreed to sell its oil only for dollars. A secret U.S. military agreement to arm Saudi Arabia was the quid pro quo. Until November 2000, no OPEC country dared violate the dollar price rule. So long as the dollar was the strongest currency, there was little reason to as well. But November was when French and other Euroland members finally convinced Saddam Hussein to defy the United States by selling Iraq's oil-for-food not in dollars, `the enemy currency' as Iraq named it, but only in euros. The euros were on deposit in a special UN account of the leading French bank, BNP Paribas. Radio Liberty of the U.S. State Department ran a short wire on the news and the story was quickly hushed. 915 Gold -- Sharefin, 09:00:37 06/02/04 Wed WGC Reports Gold Consumer Demand Up Q1 2004 - PDF File Consumer demand for gold (jewellery and net retail investment) was up by 12% in tonnage terms, and by 30% in dollar terms, in the first quarter of 2004 ~~~ "In the face of a 55% rise in the dollar gold price, historically we would have expected consumer demand to recede due to the sensitivity of Asian and Middle Eastern markets to price volatility. Actually this quarter, the money flowing into gold from consumers was 37% up on Q1 2002 in dollar terms, and 25% higher than in Q1 2001, demonstrating a positive underlying trend." ~~~ strong year-on-year rises were recorded in India (21%), Vietnam (36%) and Turkey (38%) in tonnage terms. ~~~ •India and East Asia - Jewellery demand was up in India by 21% in tonnage terms and 33% in local rupee terms on Q1 2003. This is due to favourable (rupee) price trends, a strong economy, and rural consumers (who account for over 60% of demand) benefiting from the after effects of 2003's generally good monsoon. - In China demand rose by 6% in tonnage terms and 23% in price (renminbi) terms. ~~~~ Saudi Arabia and UAE, where both countries reported strong year-on-year rises in tonnage terms, with an increase of 11% and 22% respectively. ~~~ Jewellery demand showed a 14% recovery in Egypt ~~~ demand in Turkey leaping by over a third in tonnage terms ~~~ USA - Jewellery demand in Q1 in tonnage terms in the USA was 6% higher than a year earlier (23% in dollar terms). ~~~~ Net retail investment is up 14% year on year in tonnage terms. Demand in Japan was particularly strong (up 48%) on the back of continued concern over the economy. In Vietnam, demand more than doubled. ~~~ WGC-backed Gold Bullion Securities (GBS). When re-launched in the beginning of Q2 in response to market feedback, GBS saw a doubling of net assets under trust to US$660m**. ~~~ Overall supply of gold was 7% lower in tonnage terms than one year earlier. 914 Gold -- Sharefin, 08:42:00 06/02/04 Wed Pakistan's gold demand booming huge increase in the consumption of gold in Pakistan has been created due to a surge in economy. Dealers believe demand for the precious metal will continue to increase in Pakistan, considering high share prices, higher funds from Pakistanis working abroad, the marriage season and property value doubling. At present gold import is at its best with around 18,000 tolas of gold entering the country daily from Dubai. 913 Gold -- Sharefin, 08:40:49 06/02/04 Wed Sales results show gold demand on the up in the Gulf Higher demand for gold and gold jewellery has been occurring in the Gulf, as retail sales of the precious metal have soared by 41 per cent. During the first quarter of 2004, total gold retail sales reached Dh1.6 billion and gold consumption grew by 21 per cent, whilst gold jewellery increased by 22 per cent. The managing director of the World Gold Council, Middle East, Turkey and Pakistan, Moaz Barakat, told the Khaleej Times: "Overall improved performance of gold in Middle East has been attributed to the strong oil price which provided as a background for consumer optimism in UAE and Saudi Arabia both of which reported strong year-on year rises in tonnage terms." In addition Mr Barakat explained that gold investment as a financial asset had increased in-line with global trends, claiming the rise in performance was due to promotional activities such as the Dubai Shopping Festival. 912 Gold -- Sharefin, 08:39:49 06/02/04 Wed Japanese gold imports boosted Gold imports in Japan are booming according to latest figures released today. Figures from the Finance Ministry revealed that imports increased by 133.5 per cent in April to 6,800kg compared to the year before. According to analysts the rise is due to strong gold demand for investment, with industrial use a major factor in the increase. 911 Gold -- Sharefin, 08:33:26 06/02/04 Wed Latest gold figures show high demand Latest World Gold Council (WGC) figures show gold has been in high demand for the first three months of 2004. Consumer demand for the precious metal increased by 12 per cent and 30 per cent, in tonnage terms and dollar terms respectively. In addition the average gold price in the quarter was at $408 an ounce, compared to $352 in the same period last year, according to the Evening Standard. 910 Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 21:26:38 05/30/04 Sun Ponzi Chart Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 1,986.74 + Dow 10,188.45 = 12,175.19 divide by 2 = 6,087.59 Ponzi Up 148.18 from last week. Thanks for the link RossL ! Go GATA ! Go GOLD ! Hi Ho SILVER ! $hifty 909 Andy Xie storage place if accepted by sharefin -- HK, 20:58:38 05/29/04 Sat Asia Pacific: The Calm Before the Storm Asia Pacific: The Calm Before the Storm Andy Xie (Hong Kong) The period of the Fed raising interest rates usually precedes emerging-market crises. In the current cycle, the Fed has kept interest rates lower and longer than in any previous cycle. The capital flow into emerging markets is comparable to the highs in the previous cycles. It would take a miracle for the global economy to land without any crises, in my view. I believe the market continues to underestimate the impact of the Fed rate hikes to come. When the Fed is raising interest rates, the Fed funds rate usually peaks at or above the level of the 10Y treasury yield. The market typically continues to look for excuses that this time would be different and, therefore, isn't prepared for the shock. The Fed and the Emerging Market Crises The Fed interest-rate cycles correlate with emerging-market crises. Is it correlation or causality? I believe in the later. When the Fed cuts interest rates, ceteris paribus, it decreases the cost of capital and, hence, causes more capital to flow into emerging markets. The inflow boosts economic performance in the emerging economies, which increases optimism and triggers more capital inflow. Because the financial system in emerging economies doesn't price risks well (e.g., little long-term financing), the positive economic impact of capital inflow is exaggerated and, hence, the optimism of foreign investors that drives the capital inflow is also exaggerated. This is a bubble phenomenon. When the Fed reverses its policy, the bubble bursts. Latin America was the focus of this dynamic in 1980s. The Fed cycles caused economic upheavals in the region and eventually discredited the region so much that its relationship with the Fed cycle diminished almost to nothing. The NAFTA regenerated market enthusiasm for Mexico. But it was destroyed soon afterward by another financial crisis when the Fed increased interest rate in 1994. Because Latin America is cut off from global capital and is not at the forefront of manufacturing competitiveness, its economic development is increasingly driven by agriculture and natural resources. The focus of global capital shifted to Southeast Asia in 1990s. When the Fed kept the interest rate low in early 1990s to deal with the S&L crisis, it triggered a massive boom in Southeast Asia. When the Fed normalized the Fed funds rate in 1994, the boom was kept going by running up bad debts and overbuilding properties. The resulting current-account deficit eventually triggered a confidence crisis among foreign investors. The withdrawal of foreign capital in 1997 and 1998 led to the Asian Financial Crisis. Global capital targeted China, India and Japan in this cycle (see “Hunker Down,” May 17, 2004). Their combined forex reserves have increased to $1.43 trillion now from $540 billion in August 2002 when the S&P 500 peaked. The biggest difference this time is that the local businesses have not taken on currency risks. Instead, international portfolio investors and individual currency speculators are still holding the currency risk. Of course, there could be currency risk held by local businesses that the market couldn't see. The market was surprised before. In Latin America, the governments took the risks by borrowing dollars from American banks or selling dollar-denominated bonds to American bond funds. In Southeast Asia, local businesses and banks borrowed dollars from European and Japanese banks, because they believed that the local currencies would appreciate against the dollar. If the currency risk is indeed held by international investors, the systemic risk should be much lower in this cycle than before. But, a significant withdrawal of foreign capital from emerging markets is inevitable, in my view. That would trigger credit tightening among the economies that have benefited most from the capital inflow in the past two years. Is There Vaccination Against the Fed? Every time that the Fed rate hikes cause an emerging market crisis, policymakers in emerging economies search for ways to decouple from the Fed in their monetary policies but always fail. In my view, emerging economies could not have really independent monetary policies. The effectiveness of monetary policy is in controlling domestic demand. When the world is divided between a rich and a poor economy, the income generation of the poor economy always depends on trading with the wealthy one. Thus, during a growth period, the poor economy always depends on the monetary policy of the rich one. What emerging economies can and should do is to minimize the bubble when the Fed is stimulating the US economy. The distortion that matters most is risk pricing. Short-term bank loans dominate emerging-market financing. Often, politicians or controlling bank shareholders allocate capital for their personal interests. Thus, such a system would quickly translate capital inflow into demand (e.g., consumption in Latin America and investment in East Asia). The resulting prosperity validates the optimism of foreign investors and triggers more capital inflow. It typically turns into a big bubble characterized by rapid debt growth and a deteriorating current-account balance. When the Fed reverses its interest-rate policy, emerging markets do not have a credible instrument like the US Treasury to tie down foreign capital and must go through rapid adjustment to pay the excesses built up during the period of low US interest rates. To minimize the bubble, emerging economies must develop a credit culture that increases the risk premium for investment when the Fed keeps the interest rate low. A bond market is a necessary condition. A flexible exchange rate is helpful only when there is a robust credit culture. Otherwise, a flexible exchange rate would exacerbate the problem by giving currency speculators a chance but would not improve risk pricing. Developing a credit culture requires the rule of law. It would take generations for many emerging economies to be governed by the rule of law. The vaccination against the Fed is probably too expensive for emerging economies. Global financial markets will likely go through boom-burst cycles along with the Fed policy changes for a long time to come. The Fed Myopia Costs the US Too The Fed focuses on the US economy in setting its policy. This is shortsighted, in my view. This myopia costs the US and the global economy. Because the Fed doesn't pay sufficient attention to the global consequences of its monetary policy, its policy amplifies global economic cycles that also increase the volatility of the US economy, impairing the Fed goal to smooth the US economic cycle. The problems in the global economy today originated from the Fed policy in early 1990s to pump enough liquidity during the S&L crisis. The Fed cut interest rate by 500 bps in 24 months between 1990 and 1993 to stabilize the US financial system. It was in theory the right thing to do for the US economy. However, its byproducts still resonate in the global economy today. It caused the Southeast Asian capex bubble and the 1997–98 financial crises. The story didn't end there. The capital that came out of the emerging markets in 1997 and 1998 went into the US, triggering the NASDAQ bubble and widening the US current-account deficit. The US current-account deficit increased from $117 billion in 1997 before the Asian crises to $411 billion in 2000 — the year that NASDAQ peaked. The Fed then cut interest rate aggressively to cushion the blow from the tech burst. It prevented the current-account adjustment that should have come and also removed the incentives from other economies to improve their domestic demand. This story is still playing out. We are about to enter a new chapter with the Fed raising the interest rate again. In a global economy with multiple linkages, the Fed policy has long-term consequences that would bounce back to hit the US economy years later. The Fed is still trapped in its myopic view and determines its policy by watching the US cyclical data only. Unless the Fed changes its stance and takes a general equilibrium approach to its policy, it would continue to create instability in the world. This paradigm, I am afraid, will end up with a catastrophic global crisis 908 Gold -- Sharefin, 06:03:33 05/28/04 Fri Individuals to directly trade gold bullion in June Chinese individual investors can buy and sell gold bullion beginning in June in Beijing and Shenzhen through the China Merchants Bank (CMB), according to CMB sources Thursday. The bullion will become a new kind of tool for gold investment in China, and will be issued by the CGS company, a joint venture of Chengdu Banknote Printing Company and Bullion Road Limited. The CGS bullion, weighing 2, 5 or 10 ounces each with gold content of 99.99 percent, are made by the Great Wall Gold and Silver Refinery, said Li Hao, vice president of the CMB, on Thursday. Currently individuals still cannot directly buy and sell gold products in the Shanghai gold exchange center, said Chen Bingfu, board chairman of the CGS company. From June, individuals can buy and sell CGS bullion through CMB at the daily price publicized on newspapers and websites, said Li, noting that CMB is the first Chinese bank doing business on bullion purchase and sales. The price levels in the London Bullion Market and Shanghai gold exchange center will determine the CGS bullion price, according to Li. 907 Auto Exchange PayPal to e-gold,e-Bullion,EvoCash -- AutoExchange, 08:00:50 05/27/04 Thu Auto Exchange PayPal to e-gold,e-Bullion,EvoCash http://e-news.host.sk/ 906 Silver Events -- auspec, 21:42:17 05/26/04 Wed Thank you, Sharefin, for continuing to allow me to express myself on this fine site! Subject: Loosest Ends A few thoughts as we head into a long weekend. First, regarding China and silver. I really don't look at the current revelations as being negative towards the silver market for several reasons. One, it is now history as the silver from China helped make up the deficit IN THE PAST. We cannot extrapolate forward this same happening. Since the silver used to continue to suppress the POS had to come from China, it means, most likely, that it wasn't available to come from more traditional sources such as USG supplies. This still points to the longstanding imbalance where an historic anomoly, large above ground supplies, has been used to keep silver from soaring. The USG ran out of 5 to 10 B ounces and there is no reason to believe that anyone else who "dumps" silver onto the market won't also run out of goods, likely in the very near future. Compared to the Billions of ounces squandered by the USG, China's 300 M ounces is chicken feed, and it is likely their ability to continue to feed the silver demand is also chicken stuffing. I also don't mind having the ability to focus on the inscrutable ones {PRC}...........much better to have the knowledge than just flounder about wondering if the silver shorters are nekked or fully dressed. Is this really "dumping" in the classic sense? I did use the term about 10 days ago in some communications, but have had second thoughts since then as to its appropriatness. Classic dumping, from what I understand, is supplying a market with product in order to kill competition. I don't believe this is the case with China and silver. It is much more likely a simple quid pro quo...........China is receiving something important in return {much more important than $5 for their silver ounces} for giving up their booty. Quite likely the entrance into the WTO plays some role, as has been speculated in the past. This is an old and aging deal. "We" have long stated that the Chinese are anything but stupid and I still seriously doubt they are stupidly giving up their silver for p-nuts. No way! They made a good deal for them on the whole. "We" have also long been aware of unknown silver supplies, if that statement can be stated {smile}. Yes, the shorts APPEAR to have no backing but it has always been a distinct possibility they have been and are backed by physical somewhere, some how. The "Black" silver or "Black" gold issues have yet to make it mainstream. Still, ridiculous amounts of shorts are still in play. Silver continues to be WASTED at prices below the marginal or average cost of production. That's a losing proposition for the wasters and a boon for the far sighted investor. One tact to take with silver is to insist that only known amounts of worldwide product can come into the equation. This is understandable but somewhat risky as the current info on China and their silver demonstrates. Personally, I believe it's better to take the numbers with a grain of salt and keep the eyes and ears open for the coming endgame, as it is still approaching quickly regardless of various stashes of available silver. It is fraught with risk to put a timeline on exactly when the manipulators will run out of silver...........no one can know. Why? Simply because NO ONE knows the above ground numbers for silver or for gold. NO ONE!!! "We've" known that for quite some time now. Thinking otherwise simply sets us up for disappointment and exiting of weak hands. I give the ruling elite the entire decade to continue their folly..........and I'll still be there w strong hands in 2010. Will reassess at that time if necessary. Whatever silver they dig up is irrelevant, for their game is that of a loser's. Selling, dumping, or wasting silver at sub-economic prices is just plain stupid, and the other end of that trade can be classified as smart money. Patience wins each and every time. There are now some new variables in the silver market, courtesy of recent discovery processes. Ross Beaty and his PAAS are responsible for some of the new info, thank you. First, he stated that hedging is a big part of the silver shorts, especially with base metal mining. I believe he's correct but very little followup on this issue has transpired. Swept under the rug, partly because of the Chinese "dumping" issue, I assume. The issue should remain front and center and be attacked as well, for ANY silver sold sub $7 or so, HAS to be sold by someone who appreciates silver not. They need to be educated. THEY NEED TO BE EDUCATED!!! If they are already educated they need to be exposed. Base metal miners, hedging their silver at the beckon of the various bullion banks, are NO friend of silver advocates, and they won't want to take the heat they deserve. They have been duped and they harm those who have great appreciation for silver. Sure, chase down the China issue, but why ignore the other revelation........that of silver hedging? The crux of most ALL {sorry for all the many cap words} the silver, or gold, issues come down to the various bullion banks. These guys are absolute snakes and they detest honest money, and will corrupt each and every entity they "partner" with. Until this is universally recognized within the mining community, we will continue to suffer at their hands. Mining and Banking, Mining and Banking. We gotta find a better way than to take money from the likes of the World Bank, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, HSBC, or any of the other "known culprits". These entities are poisonous to true silver or gold advacates. Here are a few guidelines for precious metal advocacy: #1-- Expose ANY entity that sells silver at sub-economic prices. This action is either stupid or devious. #2--Expose those who conspire to suppress silver or gold.......the usual suspects. #3-- Expose any company who fails to do their due diligence as far as the above two items. Shareholders wield enormous POWER. Ask the Barrick elitist pawns. If YOU are a shareholder of ANY silver producing entity, primary or secondary, it is your duty to investigate what your company is doing with their silver. Are they friends or foes of silver? Do they need to be "Barricked"? We can accommodate. What would it be good to see from this point forward with silver? Hopefully, Ted Butler and his fellow silver advocates can help arrive at some form of conclusion as to the degree of "nakedness" of the silver shorts, taking into consideration the new info on hedging as well as Chinese "dumping". I believe it's an incredible stretch to think that all the shorts could be covered and the Crimex boys and their apologists clearly state that it is not likely they would EVER be called to cover. The Emperor is scantily attired.....so are his court jesters. It's a "re-think", no? Meanwhile, back at the fire sale.......................Ag still available. Get yourself some more ounces, shiny and pretty or dull and old. It's all good. It is at times of despair in the silver or gold market that the most money is made. Buying "right" is the best formula for success. Avail yourself. 905 Gold -- Sharefin, 04:35:48 05/26/04 Wed Moscow seeks big haul from sale of rich gold asset Russia raised the starting price for the giant Sukhoi Log gold deposit in Siberia by 15 times on Wednesday in what industry insiders saw as an attempt to remove the minnows from a sea of big fish that may yet include foreign firms. Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev told reporters the starting price was most likely to be raised to $150 million from the previous publicly announced figure of $10 million. The government has been for years debating terms of one of Russia's biggest non-oil privatisations in a process dogged by bureaucratic delays, but has pledged to make the final announcement after June. "I think we are going to announce tender terms in about a month," Trutnev said of the bidding for the mine -- Eurasia's biggest untapped gold field with estimated reserves of 1,029 tonnes and development costs put at up to $1.5 billion. 904 Gold -- Sharefin, 04:19:17 05/26/04 Wed Gold seen soaring to more than $1,000 an ounce by end of decade The price of gold could soar to more than $1,000 (U.S.) an ounce by the end of the decade, John Embry, chief investment strategist and portfolio manager at Sprott Asset Management Inc., told analysts yesterday. ~~~ The growing deficits in the United States will eventually result in the creditor nations deciding that they no longer want to hold U.S. dollars, Mr. Embry said. "When that day comes, the U.S. dollar is going to come under incredible downside pressure," he said. "The U.S. debt situation is unprecedented for a mature nation." By the end of this year, Mr. Embry expects gold to reach $500 an ounce. David Chapman, a technical analyst at Union Securities Ltd., also thinks gold is headed for $500 an ounce. "I believe it could still get there this year despite the pullback," he told the analysts. But he is even more positive on silver. "Hold on to the silver group, it is going to double a long time before gold does," he said. ~~~ The efforts by other countries around the world to keep their currencies below that of the U.S. dollar for competitive reasons will lead to a massive debasement of money, Mr. Embry told analysts. "Gold will ultimately rise sharply against all major currencies, which will be declining in a climate of competitive devaluations in beggar-thy-neighbour policies," he said. Mr. Embry thinks that central bank selling of bullion is coming to an end and that the lack of new mining projects on the drawing boards will offset any reduction in jewellery demand because of a slowdown in the world's economies. "There are very few projects out there ready to go right now." In addition, the capital cost of new mining projects is soaring and the mines currently in operation are extracting lower grades of ore than they have in the past when the richest zones were mined when bullion prices were low, Mr. Embry said. Some mines are coming to the end of their mine life, he said. 903 Gold -- Sharefin, 10:15:47 05/24/04 Mon Investors Could Face Energy Spikes World crude oil prices could spike to $60 a barrel - or more (versus $34 a barrel now) - as: (1) OPEC decides to set the price of oil with a basket of currencies as the dollar continues to decline; (2) China's oil imports increase 25% annually and it becomes the number two oil importer after the U.S.; (3) serious questions or disputes arise about successors to the current Saudi leadership; (4) Venezuela oil production is interrupted due to political issues relating to the current recall election; (5) Iraq production continues to disappoint with violence and sabotage continuing; (6) Nigeria production is periodically interrupted with strikes and other violence; (7) production from Saudi Arabia's largest oil field peaks and begins to decline, with massive expenditures needed to maintain output; (8) numerous major energy companies reduce the engineering estimates of their proven oil and gas reserves as reported in their SEC filings; and (9) terrorists target crude oil infrastructure – most likely large ocean going crude oil tankers or pipelines. Natural gas prices in the U.S. and Canada could spike to over $15 a thousand cubic feet (versus $5 now) as: (1) North American production declines; (2) demand for natural gas from newly built natural gas electrical generating units and from new residential units increases sharply, surprising many; (3) Canada attempts to restrict the sale of natural gas to the U.S. market to alleviate shortages of cheap natural gas and to provide fuel for domestic heating purposes; (4) several chemical and fertilizer companies in the U.S. that rely on natural gas as a feedstock lay off hundreds or thousands of workers and move these jobs and plants overseas – but the decline in demand only has a marginal impact on natural gas prices; (5) local opposition and legal challenges to liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports cause permitting delays; and (6) governmental investigations focus on alleged manipulation of the natural gas futures market by traders. The price of gold could exceed $600 an ounce (versus $400 now) as the value of the dollar continues to decline against most of the major world currencies, and: (1) the Federal Reserve sharply increases interest rates in an attempt to stabilize the value of the falling dollar; (2) a record number of individuals file for personal bankruptcy in 2004 in the U.S. only to be exceeded by the rate in 2005; (3) more companies reduce pension benefits to retirees and existing employees; (4) the government announces a massive bailout of the agency overseeing the pension funds of failed companies much like the bailout of the S&L's a decade earlier; (5) one or more major U.S. airlines file for bankruptcy, in part due to higher fuel costs; (6) world economic growth, except for China, slows to a crawl; (7) tuition at public universities increase at a double digit rate; and (8) health care costs continue to rise at a double digit rates. 902 Gold -- Sharefin, 00:16:27 05/20/04 Thu Gold prices seen shining in coming months Inflation or no inflation, gold prices are headed higher over the next few months, analysts say. If it's not an increase in inflation that pushes gold prices up, it will be the a drop in the U.S. dollar that pushes bullion higher, analysts believe. ~~~ However, what is going to cause gold to rise in price is a renewed drop in the U.S. dollar as investors shun the currency and bonds because of the country's budget and trade deficits, Mr. Murenbeeld said. ~~~ "There hasn't really been a decoupling of gold and inflation," Mr. Ing said. "The inflation numbers and the method of calculation are out of whack." ~~~ But there is a significant amount of downside risk to the U.S. dollar as a result of the budget and trade deficits, which will result in major financing risks, Mr. Walker said. "There has to be a serious adjustment to the U.S. economy either pre- or post-election," he said. The price of gold should increase as a result of a substantially weaker U.S. dollar, especially if China signals that it will no longer be a major buyer of U.S. Treasuries, which has helped the U.S. government finance its budget deficit. 901 Fiat -- Sharefin, 21:12:08 05/19/04 Wed Circus Game Investing's a circus you know. Messrs. Barnum & Bailey probably wouldn't have had a clue as to what I'm talking about but the metaphor is more than apt. Every big top, you see, has a ringmaster who blows his whistle to begin or end the show (Greenspan), as well as its share of ferocious carnivores (portfolio managers). Then there're the jugglers (traders), clowns (those that buy at tops and sell at bottoms), and the inevitable entourage of elephants holding each other's tails (PIMCO's surely one of those, although it's hopefully the lead pachyderm – tail holding's a pretty stinky job). But during our three-day Secular Forum held in early May, PIMCO's 100+ professionals from around the globe took this circus metaphor to the very top of the tent. “Cast your eyes ladies and gentleman up to the high wire more than 100 feet above the center ring. The death defying global economy will astound you by walking the wire between ice (deflation) and fire (inflation). It'll rebalance itself over the next 3-5 years before your very eyes, tiptoeing from a U.S.-centric global economy to one including Euroland, China, and its Asian neighbors. Truly the Greatest Show On Earth!” Well…ringmasters (and Fed Chairmen) can be great salesmen at times. The art of hyperbole is a requirement of the job. Our Secular Forum participants, with perhaps a slightly more down to earth view, would readily concede that investing's a circus and even that the global economy is successfully walking a high wire, for now. We're just not as confident of the health of our global economic walker's inner ear – call it his sense of balance – and whether he might not tip first in one direction (fire/inflation) and then another (ice/deflation) and eventually crash to the ground. Read on, dear reader – let the circus begin. 900 Gold -- Sharefin, 01:39:58 05/19/04 Wed 'Gold could hit $1 000/oz' Absa Corporate & Merchant Bank's (ACMB) chief financial markets strategist, Craig Zaayman, yesterday went against the consensus by saying that he envisages a gold price of $800/oz or even $1000/oz, given current international developments. Zaayman was speaking at ACMB's financial market analysis presentation in Johannesburg. “Demand for gold is outstripping the production of gold by about 55% a year,” Zaayman said. “Over the last ten years, this figure has averaged around 45% a year.” This view is more bullish that to other analysts who, while agreeing the weak-dollar environment will persist, and that the dollar gold price will remain firm, are less optimistic on the price level. 899 Fiat -- Sharefin, 01:29:26 05/19/04 Wed Bush taps Greenspan for 5th term as chairman of Fed WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- President Bush has renominated Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan for a fifth four-year term as the nation's top decision maker on interest rates, White House Scott McClellan said Tuesday. "The president thinks Alan Greenspan is doing a great job and that's why he thinks he should be renominated," McClellan told reporters at the White House. His current term as chairman of the Fed expires June 20. His 14-year term as a member of the Federal Reserve expires February 1, 2006. 898 Gold -- Sharefin, 05:29:03 05/18/04 Tue THE MARKET OF GOLD SOLD TO THE CITIZENS IS GROWING ST.PETERSBURG, RUSSIA, MAY 15, 2004 -- If about a year ago only certain banks could sell gold to the population, today gold bars can be bought in almost every third representation of any large commercial bank. According to bank specialists investments in gold by Russian citizens can be compared with investments in the Euro and comprise about one-third of overall savings. 897 Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 20:58:18 05/16/04 Sun Ponzi Chart Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 1,904.25 + Dow 10,012.87 = 11,917.12 divide by 2 = 5,958.56 Ponzi Down 59.09 from last week. Thanks for the link RossL ! Go GATA ! Go GOLD ! Hi Ho SILVER ! $hifty 896 Gold -- Sharefin, 20:13:26 05/16/04 Sun Senate Approves Bill to Lower Capital Gains Tax on Precious Metals WASHINGTON, May 15, 2004 (Las Vegas Review-Journal - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News via COMTEX) -- Investors selling gold, silver and other precious metals would pay fewer taxes on their profits under legislation approved this week by the Senate. A corporate tax bill lowers the capital gains tax on precious metals from 28 percent to 20 percent. The Senate approved the bill 95-3 and sent it to the House, where negotiators will try to work out differences between the Senate and House versions. The metals tax break would apply to "collectibles" such as gold, silver, platinum and palladium. Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., sought the change, arguing that investors in precious metals should be subject to the same lower rate as holders of stocks and bonds. 895 Fiat vs Gold -- Sharefin, 18:48:26 05/16/04 Sun "The Road to Ruin" - Fiat & Credit - The Anglo - American Nemesis Never in human history has mankind had the technical wherewithal and lack of political controls to create money out of thin air on such a stupendous scale, and milk the planet dry with bank / management charges and interest rates on money that quite simply does not exist, other than as digits in a computer. There has never been an open discussion of the consequences of such action in the World's "Democracies", and more fantastic still, this high stakes global political and economic game has scarcely been questioned by the media! No one seems to care, so long as the gravy train keeps on rolling. So, what happened to previous generations of "Prudent Bankers", who believed in encouraging savers who provided the vital underpin for constructive lending for productive purposes. Remember that now extinct species of human being?, ..... and, even more scary, where will all this easy credit world we live in end up?....... and, furthermore, what is the purpose of this incredible munificence by the new easy credit (hyper – elastic) bankers where huge loans are extended with the minimum of stipulations or requirements? What happens if gravity is allowed to assume its normal role, or just does so anyway?.... That the laws of finance and economics cannot be defied forever by such wondrous geniuses as "the Great Economic Helmsman", Sir, Dr, Professor, whatever, Greenspan (now virtually deified), without untold consequences? What are the eventual economic and political repercussions when, and not if, this humungous bubble or collection of orbiting bubbles (Equities, Bonds and Real Estate) suddenly meets reality coming the other way? Hmmmmm! ..... And, if this were not enough, dare one mention the words Government Debts, State Debts, Corporate Debts, Personal Debts, and, God forbid ..... Derivatives? ... There's only 200 trillion of those in US markets, a mere bagatelle....... in "Greenspan's Big Top". ~~~~ This crash will by its very scale and nature result in the largest transfer of assets, to an astronomically wealthy elite, ever seen in the history of the planet, except in outright cases of Ancient to Medieval pillage. However, never before has society been so interconnected, and yet, so easy to manipulate and to control. When the crash comes, real estate equity, stocks, savings and all other forms of monetary instruments will become the property of the banks, dependent upon everyone's state of indebtedness. Those who are highly leveraged will be totally financially destroyed. Gold will be the only monetary instrument outside the control of the Bankers. This writer is of the belief that the US and UK administrations will, in this scenario, outlaw private ownership of gold. 894 Fiat -- Sharefin, 18:39:20 05/16/04 Sun Keep An Eye On China China uses those dollars to buy a humongous amount of U.S. Treasury paper. And here is where the story gets interesting. There are two primary reasons why China buys so many U.S. bonds: 1) The U.S. has the deepest and most efficient capital markets, and 2) China has a vested interest in keeping U.S. interest rates low — it helps Mr. U.S. Consumer lap up increasing amounts of goods arriving from China. The U.S. has a vested interested in this arrangement continuing because: 1) Its consumers can buy cheap goods, allowing their wages go further; and 2) it's the second best customer in the world (Japan is the best) for U.S. paper. And without big buyers of U.S. paper, the U.S. would have extreme difficulty funding its big deficits. So, if China's torrid growth pace turns into a bust, it could be very ugly for the U.S. interest rate picture. If a key buyer of U.S. bonds — China — stops buying, because it is facing its own credit problems (that's what happens during a bust), the U.S. Treasury would be forced to jack up the rate of interest it pays on its bonds in order to entice a new source of buyers. Rising rates would hammer already over indebted consumers. China now represents a huge source of demand for all Asian countries. A bust in China would crush economic growth throughout the entire region, including Japan. And because the Asian central banks collectively hold hundreds of billions MORE in U.S. Treasuries than our own U.S. Federal Reserve bank holds, it could lead to a vicious circle of rising U.S. interest rates: Asian countries would sell U.S. Treasury bonds to help generate internal funds, which, in turn, helps them prop up demand lost from China. What we are talking about here is the potential for a massive increase in U.S. interest rates. It's an ugly and unlikely scenario. But, it is possible. And because it would be so potentially devastating for U.S. financial markets, it's extremely important for you to keep an eye on China. 893  Fiat -- Sharefin, 18:38:04 05/16/04 Sun Fannie Mae faces more income issues In the latest criticism of Fannie Mae, this week's Barron's says the mortgage finance behemoth is on shaky ground regarding how it records billions of dollars of losses and presents its financial appearance to Wall Street. ----- Barron's says $3 billion in losses that were recognized in 2002-2003 "pale against" $19 billion paid to settle underwater interest-rate swaps in those years. Indeed, a Barron's comparison of 10-K filings says the company's ---------------- I've a belief that the rampant rise in derivatives these last few years is clearly outlined in the above paragraph. That many companies have removed losses off their books through creative derivatives & that we won't see this exposed till the derivative markets come tumbling down. What this has added to the bubble is a temporary relief valve but the trouble is that these derivatives have now grown so massively that they are now the relief valve for hundreds of trillions of losses as opposed to hiding just a few bad debts. In essence what has been formed is a massive volcano of bad debt secretively hidden behind corporate walls & condoned by Greenspan. A colossal pyramid of bad debts. This shuffling of bad debts into derivatives has created yet another massive weakness in this debt bubble that is pyramiding out of control. When the derivatives markets melt down make sure you are holding some physical bullion as I expect the greatest price increases during this phase. 892 Gold -- Sharefin, 22:59:18 05/15/04 Sat The Eight Year Gold Cycle has Topped - No it has not! The latest cover story emanating from COT can be dismissed quite quickly. It is the 8.6-year cycle and not the 8-year cycle. The proper cycle in question is known to some as the 8.6-year Global Business Cycle. This cycle has been best written about by a firm that used to be known as Princeton Partners. That firm came to an uncomfortable end but for the use of over-the-counter derivatives on Treasury bills (the real story) rather than any misapplication of the 8.6-year gold cycle. In fact, for a time this firm made huge money for its partners. I understand that there is a web site that has Princeton's excellent work on the 8.6-year gold cycle outlined on it so if any Golden Comet has the correct URL please let me know. I will then post that address for our readers to browse and study. Keep firmly in mind that such a short gold cycle is important in your consideration but not as important as the long cycles. Kenny Adams is the last word on gold cycles and his studies are proprietary and will never ever leave my sworn confidence. Neither Kenny nor I would be so bold as to suggest that this bull gold market is generational based on the short cycle of a single series event. Those that base their bear cases on the 8.6-year cycle CANNOT count now as a top but rather a point from which a significant RALLY will occur. When the 8.6-year gold cycle in fact tops, quite quickly after that more important very long term series kick in and will serve to lift gold eight weeks later. Any cycle to be considered reliable must have no less than 24 provable repetitions - not simply one event. So here and now put to rest the false flag bear raid cover story concerning the 8-year gold cycle because there is no such thing. It is 8.6 years and now, today, calls for a strong rally, possibly to $529. ------ Seems like Jim's not looked at the cycles at play. Nor has he done his math.....  890 CFTC Silver Letter -- auspec, 06:19:22 05/15/04 Sat The CFTC response is @ www.cftc.gov 889  CFTC Silver Letter -- auspec, 21:19:50 05/14/04 Fri You can find the entire report at cftc.gov I will make just a few comments. Yes, this is exactly what Ross Beaty referred to in the silver hedging issue by primary as well as base metal {!} miners being the source of "covered" silver shorts. Ross should know, no? I don't doubt this to be the case that sub-economic silver hedging is going on in an extensive manner, but sooner or later the game must stop. It has to stop. Why? The primary factor in silver supply has been the uneconomical DUMPING of silver from known stockpiles, and this has transpired over the last 50 years. That main factor is likely behind us for the most part and the mining hedging being the current supply bears this out to some degree. Thanks, Ross, and thanks, CFTC. What happened to the gold hedgers such as Barrick when they sold well below the average cost of gold production............say below $300? It was utter foolishness, financial gimickry and the market has rewarded them accordingly per their reputation as well as stock price. Shareholder actions and gold advocates crushed Barrick as this issue unfolded and now the former mining giant finds themselves in the courts of Louisiana fighting for their hedge fund-like livelihood. Not a pretty sight, unless you're looking from my angle. This is what I referred to previously when Ross Beaty said the silver was backed by mining hedging.........this same scenario will now play out in silver. It's time to find out who, besides the likes of Pan American, is stupid enough to sell silver below the cost of production. Call em fools or call em culprits, but few will hold up under the scrutiny soon heading their way. There is NO excuse for a primary silver miner to dump its product at fire sale prices. Ross Beaty apparently doesn't understand that it is his hedging supply that is the main reason that silver prices are stagnant, again because the 5 Billion ounce stockpile is essentially GONE. He's a dupe and he will pay the price as this evolves. Here's the kicker. You can't sell, today, next year's silver product and still have it available for delivery next year. The physical silver can only be in one place at one time, unlike the omnipresent paper forms. Silver is being used up each and every year and now the shorts/manipulators have to resort to the stupidity/chicanery of miners to supply their needs. The base metal miners have reduced priority for their silver products, in hand or in the ground. They are simply "credits" that they are willing to pass off for the "going rate". They don't care if the avg cost of production for PRIMARY MINERS is $7 or so and they are only getting $5.50 or even $4.50. They are much more focused on Copper, Zinc, Lead, Gold or whatever combination of these and other metals they primarily mine. It would not be difficult to 'convince' them to lend the CRIMEX boys a little future supply. Doubt it? I can tell you this however; CFTC just wrote a 9 page document in detail in regards to the silver manipulation, denying it all the way. Ross Beaty has taken a beating at the hands of silver advocates and it has merely started. This is a passionate issue in a tiny fishbowl of a market and few identified silver hedgers will want to go under the microscope alongside Mr. Beaty. I don't care if it is primary silver hedgers or secondary silver hedgers..............they will be picked off one by one by the common sense and dedication of the silver advocates. SSRI has shown the proper way to treat any commodity {money} that is selling as a losing proposition..........WITHHOLD SUPPLY until the market fundamentals turn around. It is stupid to do otherwise and you simply add to the problem like Ross Beaty is so proud of doing. The search for more silver abusers is now well underway..............shareholders are not without influence. Fair warning to all...............choose your path, PAAS or SSRI. You will be Barricked by those who understand your folly better than you do should you chose wrong. The tiny silver market won't take nearly as long as gold anti-hedging activism did. We are most united and the issue is clear cut thanks to the Barricks, Ashanti's, etc of the gold mining world. The base metal miners won't want to take an outsized proportion of heat for the little amount of silver they produce. Besides that, many miners are starting to understand these issues and will naturally want to quit damaging the market for their own commodities. What I'm saying is that it matters little whether or not the silver shorts are nekked or covered by future production............this game is winding down. I always go back to the average cost of production for an ounce of silver, let's say it's $7 or so for most primary mines. I realize primary mines only make up 25 to 30 percent of overall silver production but they also are the "swing" factors. If they produce em mass they have major impacts on the markets. The longer silver prices stay below the average cost of producing an ounce the more likely is the eventual upside reaction. It can be no other way. Those who fear silver as an alternative to the fiat system have DUMPED yesterday's silver onto the market and now are in the process of DUMPING tomorrow's silver onto the market. Silver knowledge and silver advocacy will hasten the demise of this current dumping process. Everyone understands the dumping of product, it's not hard. If the shorts are indeed not naked then they're dumping silver against the best interests of company shareholders. The crooked deals between bullion banks and the miners they prey on are legendary, nothing surprises me. this cannot withstand the clarity of daylight. I have read the CFTC response to public outcry and find it lacking in multiple ways. They don't comprehend the outsized silver short in comparison to other commodities because they choose to look at the wrong variables. Laughably, they don't see paper selling at silver highs as a pattern of manipulation {sell high....buy low. Duh.}. They fail to see the various rotating commercials acting collusively. Etc, etc, etc. Nice try bureaucrats. This campaign to restore honest markets has gone way beyond "one analyst". More later. 888 Fiat -- Sharefin, 06:13:57 05/12/04 Wed Global Wild Cards Suddenly, there's another perfect storm on the horizon. Upwardly revised global growth expectations are now at risk. After a stunning resurgence in the second half of 2003 that has spilled over into the early months of 2004, a nascent recovery in the world economy is now threatened by an ominous confluence of wild cards. Three such forces loom most prominently — surging oil prices, the China slowdown, and the onset of a Fed tightening cycle. A general sense of geopolitical angst is an obvious and important overlay to the economic factors — underscored by the quagmire in Iraq, a related anti-American backlash, and the ongoing threats of global terrorism. The risk is that we focus on each of these developments in isolation. It's the interplay, however, that matters most of all. 886 Fiat -- Sharefin, 06:10:36 05/12/04 Wed TOKYO Japan spent a record 14.83 trln yen intervening in the forex market during the January-March quarter, Ministry of Finance data released today showed. 885 Fiat -- Sharefin, 06:07:32 05/12/04 Wed GLOBAL FINANCIAL MARKETS MELTING DOWN During the first week of May, panic selling disrupted bond and stock markets worldwide, while at the same time commodity prices and currencies were hit by extreme gyrations. Latest triggers contributing to the panic have been the May 7 job report by the U.S. Labor Department, claiming 288,000 additional jobs in April, increasing fears that the Federal Reserve would imminently raise interest rates; and the rise in oil prices to the highest level in 13 years. All the bubbles are bursting. A few examples: * Bond markets: While stock prices have fallen dramatically in U.S. and European markets in recent weeks, there is outright panic at the leading bond markets as well. * Asia: On May 10, Asian stock markets suffered their biggest crash since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The Japanese Nikkei index plunged by 554 poins (4.8%), while the broader TOPIX index even fell by 5.7%. The South Korean market slumped by 5.7% on May 10, the biggest decline in two years. The MSCI (Morgan Stanley Capital Investment) Asia-Pacific Index, covering all the big Asian stock markets, plunged 5.3% on the same day, its biggest fall since Sept. 11. But, all the Asian stock markets were already imploding in the days before. May 10 actually marked the sixth straight trading day of massive losses in Japanese stocks, which hasn't happened since the Iraq War. Overall losses for the Nikkei index in these six days amounted to 1200 points, or 10%. The liquidation of foreign capital is a key factor for the ongoing Asian stock market crash. Currencies throughout Asia are also falling rapidly. * Ibero-America: Since early April, all the so-called emerging markets have been hit by panic liquidations of foreign capital, causing the stock markets, bond prices and currencies of these countries to crash. The entire emerging market financial asset bubble, one of the many "carry trade" bubbles in the global financial system sponsored by the Fed and other central banks, is bursting. In the trading week ending Friday May 7, Ibero-American government bonds suffered their biggest drop in two years, sending yields sky-high. Since mid-January, the yield on Brazil's long-term bonds increased by more than 300 basis points to 10.7%. On May 7 alone, Brazil bonds had their biggest plunge in five years, that is since Brazil was forced in January 1999 to let its currency, the real, float. Ibero-American stock markets and currencies have fallen sharply on almost every single trading day since early April, often as much as 3-4% a day. The Brazilian real is at a 9-month low; the Mexican peso has reached a new all-time low. In the case of Brazil, another factor leading to extreme nervousness is the systemic threat posed by Brazil's precarious debt situation. * Turkish and Russian stock and bond markets are crashing. The Russian stock market has lost 20% of its value since mid-April. The Turkish currency plunged 6% last week. At Turkey's government bond auction on May 10, investors demanded a 26.84% yield on 3-month bills, compared to 23.38% at the last auction on April 20. Eastern European markets and currencies are under massive pressure as well. "THIS MAY BE THE BEGINNING OF THE BIG CRASH," SAID A LEADING CONTINENTAL EUROPEAN BANKER ON MONDAY morning, commenting on the ongoing financial market meltdown. One of the factors for the panic selling of stocks and bonds in recent weeks is the expectation of a rate increase by the Federal Reserve. However, said the banker, it's not at all clear whether Greenspan would ever take the risk of doing that. Maybe, it's just rhetoric. All Fed's sophisticated statements on this subject recently, such as the references to the Fed's "patience," indicate that Greenspan is no longer addressing grown-up economists and investors, but rather an "insane asylum." The banker thinks that the U.S. financial system is now so precarious, that any considerable rate increase "would bring the house of cards down." And Greenspan knows that. The source said that he would not be surprised at all if the expected rate hike never materializes, and that we would more likely see an emergency rate cut from the Fed -- from 1.0% to 0.75% or lower -- in yet another desperate move to buy time. But, by doing this, Greenspan would reveal the bankruptcy of the system. [Source: Bloomberg, wires, O Globo, Folha de Sao Paulo, La Nacion, 5/10/04. Buenos Aires, Rio, New York] LED BY BRAZIL AND MEXICO, IBERO-AMERICAN MARKETS REFLECTED THE SAME PANIC SEEN INTERNATIONALLY ON MAY 10, as markets and currencies bit the dust. The Brazilian real fell by 2.5% to 3.1365/dollar, putting that currency at its lowest level in more than a year. It was followed by the Mexican peso, which dropped 0.9% to 11.7/dollar. The Chilean and Colombian currencies each declined by 0.8%, reaching six-month, and three-month lows respectively, while Peru's sol dropped by 0.06%. The Argentine peso was the only currency to rise slightly. Hedge funds and other speculators had a field day, placing bets on how far currencies would depreciate against the dollar. The IMF, which sent a mission to Brazil last week, tried in vain to portray the situation as just "normal volatility" that could be "ignored." But nervous talk of a new Brazilian debt crisis is now being heard everywhere. Following last week's currency and market plunge, Planning Minister Guido Mantega at least had the honesty to say, "We're living through days of great tension. If there is a crisis, we're at the epicenter." Echoing what many observers are pointing out, Argentina's {La Nacion} warned that the likely increase in U.S. interest rates, added to Brazil's serious domestic problems, evidenced by loud calls for a change in economic policy, make for an "explosive combination." Brazil's "country risk" rate is now at 806 points, making it third, behind Argentina and Ecuador, as the world's worst investment risks. Brazil's widely traded C bond dropped by 1.42%, trading at 86.3% of its face value, while the Global 40 bond dropped 2.8%. National Treasury Secretary Joaquim Levy reported that, if necessary, the Treasury would repeat last week's practice of holding special auctions, to call in ahead of time treasury notes that mature in 2007, 2008 and 2009, and which are rapidly depreciating. He denied that this was a way to bail out investment funds with significant exposure to those notes, saying that he only wanted to show that there is "firmness and calm" at the Treasury. He adamantly denied any possibility that Brazil at the beginning of a new debt rollover crisis, such as the one that occurred in 2002. THE MOST DRAMATIC STOCK MARKET CRASH ON MAY 10, CAME FROM ARGENTINA'S MERVAL, which at one point dropped by 7.3%, but ended the day down by 6.3%. Brazil's Bovespa fell by 4.5%; Mexico's Bolsa dropped by 3.7% and Colombia's by 4.5%. 884 Gold -- Sharefin, 06:06:07 05/12/04 Wed It's from EWI's message board w/ Prechter responding: Category: Economic Trends Under what circumstances would you accept that the threat of deflation has passed and inflation is more likely? Responder: Bob Prechter Date: 5/11/2004 Gold going to a new high (above $430) would be a strong signal. That's the main market to watch. 883 Oil -- Sharefin, 04:08:46 05/11/04 Tue Mahathir Urges Arab Countries to Use Oil as a Weapon Against U.S. KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) -- Malaysia's outspoken former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad urged oil-producing Arab countries in comments published Sunday to use oil as a weapon to fight U.S. oppression. In an interview with the Malay-language daily, Mingguan Malaysia, Mahathir also said the countries should withdraw their huge financial reserves deposited in the United States so as to bankrupt the country. "Arab countries have oil and it can be used as a weapon. Besides that they keep a large amount of money in the United States. If we take out the money, the U.S. can go bankrupt," he was quoted as saying. 881 Periodic Ponzi Update PPU -- $hifty, 22:54:44 05/09/04 Sun Ponzi Chart Periodic Ponzi Update PPU Nasdaq 1,917.96 + Dow 10,117.34 = 12,035.30 divide by 2 = 6,017.65 Ponzi Down 55.21 from last week. Thanks for the link RossL ! Go GATA ! Go GOLD ! Hi Ho SILVER ! $hifty 879 Gold -- Sharefin, 21:14:05 05/09/04 Sun BIN LADEN Still in charge, and now offering gold for killings An audio tape purportedly from Osama bin Laden surfaced last week, carrying the offer of payments in gold to those killing American and United Nations officials. If genuine, the tape indicates the tall Saudi is still alive and running al-Qaida, even as he is being heavily hunted along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Ten thousand grams of gold, a little less than $125,000 on last week's London exchange, for the heads of people such as Paul Bremer, the U.S. Iraq administrator; U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan; or U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi is small potatoes compared to the $50 million the United States is offering for bin Laden, dead or alive. However, it may prove to be enough real-world reward for those inclined to kill top U.S. and U.N. leaders, and perhaps a greater incentive than the paradise and 72 virgins promised martyrs in the afterlife. The reward offer adds a new element to modern war: The most powerful nation on earth and the world's No. 1 stateless terrorist organization are each offering major sums to induce people to take out opposition leaders. History does not record whether Adolf Hitler put a price on the head of Franklin Roosevelt or Winston Churchill, or vice versa. 878 Gold -- Sharefin, 20:49:11 05/09/04 Sun Peru's south shines as hot new gold prospect LIMA: Peru is already universally considered one of the hottest mining prospects in the world, but the success of a new gold mine in the country's southern Andes is sparking a rush of interest in other sites there. "Maybe 10, 12 years ago when Yanacocha was just opening up, we didn't realize all the potential of the north," Augusto Baertl, a former head of major Peruvian copper and zinc mine Antamina and now a mining consultant, said at an international gold conference here. Peru is the world's sixth-best gold-producing country after leapfrogging Indonesia last year. It is already home to Latin America's biggest gold mine, Yanacocha, which is owned by the world's No. 1 bullion producer, Newmont Mining,with Peru's Buenaventura as a partner. 877 Fiat -- Sharefin, 20:47:37 05/09/04 Sun Central bankers to discuss commodity prices impact BASEL, Switzerland (Reuters) - The world's top central bankers will discuss soaring oil and commodity prices when they meet this week for their regular check-up on the world economy, monetary officials said Sunday. Gathering in this Swiss border town at the Bank for International Settlements, central bankers from wealthy nations and major developing countries said raw material prices, which pose inflationary worries, would be part of their discussion on the strengthening global recovery. ~~~ Oil prices last week reached around $40 a barrel for the first time since the last Gulf War in 1990-91, and closely watched commodity prices index CRB has hit a 23-year high. This has stoked market concerns that inflation could push up interest rates and slow the global rebound. Financial policy-makers from the Group of Seven top industrial nations last month added oil as a new risk factor, and last week the European Central Bank warned that energy costs pose an inflationary risk. ~~~ Accordingly, policy-makers are trying to engineer a smooth switch to higher interest rates without upsetting asset markets used to super-cheap rates. If sharply higher oil costs raise concerns that central banks are behind the curve in tightening credit, then bond markets might tumble precipitously to price in a higher inflation risk premium. This would boost financing costs for corporations. Worse still, it could prompt investors to pull money quickly from riskier markets, with ricochet effects worldwide. Already, some emerging currencies have been hit, among them the Russian rouble, the Brazilian real, the South African rand and the Turkish lira. 876  More Dialogue for Mr. Beaty -- auspec, 15:26:17 05/08/04 Sat More Dialogue With Ross Beaty Subject: Chris Powell & Ed Steer Respond to Mr. Beaty Again paraphrasing from LeMetropole cafe: Chris Powell expresses regret about bad feeling between R. Beaty and GATA supporters. Wants dialogue. Would love permission to distribute RB replies in regards to Ted Butler. Chris makes the point that RB is missing the "collusive behavior" of the commercials in regards to silver. Also points out the deafening silence of the various miners in regards to COMEX games. Chris points out that, with evidence of a tight physical silver market, a miner taking some off the market could make a big difference in the equation. Chris goes on to express his feelings about a "lack of leadership in the mining industry" in regards to collusive behavior as well as a true understanding of precious metals as "money". ************************** Ed Steer's response to Ross Beaty: Ed apparently made RB's e-mail message to him public & offers NO apology for doing so. Ed states how frequently Ted Butler and David morgan have been proven correct. He says 100% but I would take issue w that average. Ted misses here and there, imho, but he's mostly correct. That's another issue altogether. Apparently, TB and RB had some issues that were hotly discussed via phone in the past. Still, Ed Steer is a shareholder. Ed Steer, also, believes Ross beaty is missing the "anti-free market forces at work in the silver market". Beaty is one to throw out the derogatory term "conspiracy theorist", so it seems. While Beaty relies on the likes of GFMS or the CPM Group........other silver analysts like Butler, Sanders, Morgan or Puplava are not comfortable in the least doing so. Ed Steer points out that silver miners, for the most part, ignore the manipulation issues yet the shareholders of the various companies tend to believe them. I say this is the wedge that must be used as part of the silver advocates' arsenal. Steer points out that Beaty can see potential for gold manipulation yet misses that with silver. Of course, the two are inextricably linked. A free market clearing price for silver would carry over to gold. Steer wonders how deeply RB is willing to search for the "truth". Questions if Beaty is doing all he can for his shareholders. As a shareholder Ed Steer expresses his disdain that RB and Pan Am produce and sell silver for $5 or $6 per ounce. Great when reserves are added to co bottom line but would like to see them go after the few traders controlling the short side of Comex. Apparently, Beaty is a CEO as well as a lawyer and Steer believes he should be paying more attention to his shareholders wishes as well as the obviously manipulated markets. Beaty has a "fiduciary duty" to do whatever it takes to increase "shareholder" value. Beaty fails to consider the NYMEX/COMEX manipulations. Other giants in the industry, such as the Central fund of Canada or Sprott's Fund have good comprehension of the silver issues as put forth by Butler or David Morgan. Steer, as a shareholder, puts RB on notice in regards to this issue. END ********************************* What's it all mean? The miners have pretty much not been aboard all the changes being made recently in the gold and silver markets. There have been some fine exceptions, of course. The successful anti-hedging campaign was one of grass roots origin, definitely NOT from the top down. It has been a major success for the shareholders as the hedgers suffered tremendously in their bottom lines. It was a direct and purposeful campaign. Ross Beaty is a fine explorer and a fine manager of a mining enterprise. He's shown, on the other hand, a complete lack of appreciation for the non commodity issues regarding silver..............namely, COMEX abuses and/or monetary/investment demands. If he continues to dialogue with the likes of Ted Butler, Ed Steer and many others and somehow manages to open his mind to the various issues, this can change. Open and honest debate is a great starting point. Name calling is exactly the opposite. I see the silver advocacy issues in much the same light that the gold hedging issues used to be in. You can pretty much correlate the demise of a pre-imminent co, like Barrick Gold, with it's refusal to consider shareholder demands in regards to ending their hedge fund-like forward selling protocols. This is where we are now going with silver mining companies. Ross Beaty, has now made himself and his company a public vehicle for inspection. How he responds henceforth will dictate how much goodwill his fine company continues to receive in the market place. Pandora's box has been opened. It will also be exemplary for all other silver companies. Beaty's assertion that it is base metal miners that are forward selling their silver production demands close inspection. First of all, I'd want to know exactly how many years out this is transpiring, all the while suspecting that the silver is sold in amounts that are impracticle and undeliverable. Beaty acts like all the silver on the planet is up for sale at prices below the average cost of production, when in fact, it is certainly his silver that is DEFINITELY being sold below the average cost of production for an ounce of silver. 500 million "documented" ounces of silver around the world doesn't mean their owners want to sell them sub-economically, sorry Ross. What else is on the horizon? If, indeed, it is base metal miners that are acting to suppress the POS, then they will also need to be exposed and dealt with. Shareholders are not without influence, you know. The arrogant ones will go the likes of Barrick and that is pretty much written in stone as this silver manipulation unfolds. Ross Beaty may not 'get it' but thousands of silver owners around the world DO get it, mostly because of this vehicle {the internet] that I'm currently utilizing. RB...................you've got some splaining to do as well as some homework. If you feel called to alert Mr. Beaty about your personal silver concerns, his e-mail may possibly still be accessible.....rbeaty@panamericansilver.com I'm forwarding this info around the net to a multitude of contacts. The world is getting smaller. Accountability is a key word. 875 |
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