Anti-Gold Scare Tactics Seem To Be Largely Ineffective

I have seen the most recent surveys in Asia that show the appeal of gold as a store of wealth, but I had not known of similar results elsewhere.   I also think that physical silver is enjoying some strong interest that is barely mentioned.

The propaganda of the Western banks and their friends at Shill & Troll seems to be almost as heavy handed and fairly obvious as their trading tactics of dumping large numbers of contracts to see at market in quiet periods. 

They are free have their way in their phony, rigged markets, but perhaps the old saying from Abraham Lincoln really holds true:  You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

Press’ anti-gold scare tactics largely ineffective
by Michael J. Kosares

Gallup poll ranks gold second best long term investment after real estate

Under normal circumstances, I might let a rutty headline about gold in the Financial Times pass without much notice. I say “rutty” because the Financial Times has long been stuck in a rut as one of the principle apologists for Keynesian economics — big banks, big deficits, big governments and powerful central banks. It doesn’t think much of gold enthusiasts and gold enthusiasts do not think much of it. (Although I still read it every morning.)

When I took-in the headline — Bumpy ride in store for gold with price forecast to fall 15% — with my morning coffee, my first reaction was to disregard it, as I do most of the day-to-day, routinely negative Financial Times’ reports on gold. Scanning the article (with the hope some nugget of important information might be gleaned), something tugged at the back of my mind with respect to the entities referenced — Gold Fields Mineral Services (GFMS), Goldman Sachs and Credit Suisse. All three obviously were predicting 2014 would be a bad year for gold. What was nagging was their near-term record in the art of gold forecasting...

Read the entire article here.

Retiring SEC Attorney Proposes a Market That Puts the Public Interest First

I am not sure what the particular solutions might be, but I think an historically large number of people might agree that the government no longer has their best interests at heart.

The public interest has been sold to the special interests and their ideologues. 

I cannot think of any other reason why the government supports that obscene tax loophole of carried interest that so heavily subsidizes the financialization of the real economy.

I cannot think of any other reason why the government continually refuses, on principle and as a matter of policy,  to prosecute the individuals responsible for monumental financial crimes and abuses of the public trust, handing out wrist slap fines to the wealthy perpetrators and campaign contributors who are engaged in a serial white collar crime spree.

And I cannot think of any other reason why so many state governments would deny medical coverage to the most vulnerable of their own people by refusing the offer of Medicaid expansion on principle. What principle?  That people who are not as fortunate as others should suffer and die, even when adequate medical treatment is available and has been shown to work even better in other countries?

It is an historic feat of propaganda, that the American people think themselves to be the finest people on earth, the paragon of civilization, bringing freedom to the oppressed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria,  Libya, and the Ukraine from their presence in over seven hundred foreign military bases. while their own infrastructure and living standards crumble at home, and their own people become increasingly alienated from a self-serving power structure that governs by and for itself. 

Asking Capitalism to Cure Capitalist Woes:
The US Exchange, a Market for the Rest of Us
By James A. Kidney

High-speed trading, synthetic credit derivatives and other risky Wall Street products are described as refinements of our capitalist system — or lamented as the inevitable product of emerging technology. But the system benefits traders more than real capitalists – those who seek investors on the basis of the merit of their products and services to customers.

The response to the many problems posed by these new technologies, products and delivery systems is predictable: New statutes and rules, inevitably chewed into mush by politicians and lobbyists, and long delays in implementation by regulators. By the time these new rules are in place, Wall Street has found ways to circumvent them, requiring a new cycle of debate, lobbying and minimally effective rule-making in response to the next resulting crisis.

One possible solution seems to have been overlooked: Bringing capitalism to the capital markets. It is not that the trading markets have lacked opportunistic capitalists. Entire new trading platforms have been created to supplement or replace the traditional New York Stock Exchange, the NASDAQ and the old American Stock Exchange. Certainly, many new trading products have been invented. But few of these developments address any real need except trading itself.

 Let me post an example, simple and naïve as it may be, of how capitalism genuinely could improve the market beyond meeting the needs of traders themselves. The notion can at least be the start of something. But first, some background...

Read the entire article here.

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Counting Blessings and Tender Mercies

The markets were quiet today for a stock option expiration ahead of a three day weekend.

Next Thursday there will be an option expiration on the Comex for precious metals on Thursday the 24th. I would expect it to be relatively quiet since May is not a major contract month.

There were more deliveries on the April contract declared, but little activity has been reflected in the Comex warehouses.

Every person must have a purpose that takes them outside of themselves.  And so I thank God for the opportunity to maintain this quiet corner of the internet for us, that He provides the time and the energy it takes to put it together, and the pull that brings people here to read and join in.

Every person must feel the warmth of human compansionship, and so I thank God for the readers' emails and the many friends with whom I share news, and comforts, and the occasional smile every day. 

Every person must come to understand themselves in context, and so I thank God for the good teachers and the business travel, the knowledge and the seasoning that can permit one to look at the troubles of our own time in the light of history, and know that these too shall pass.  There is nothing which we are called to face that has not been encountered by people just like us, with the same weaknesses and failings.   It is not only books but experience that teaches this to us, the commonality of all that is human.

As a very wise friend of mine recently said, 'the nature of my rebellion, is to rebuff the quiet overtures from heaven.'  There can be a certain sick sweetness in wallowing and worrying over not only what is real but is also imagined, and to try and bear the troubles of the world by ourselves.  But it is a sickness, unto death.

"Let us feel what we really are-  sinners attempting great things. Let us simply obey God’s will, whatever may come. He can turn all things to our eternal good. Easter day is preceded by the forty days of Lent, to show us that they only who sow in tears shall reap in joy.

Contemplate then yourself, not as yourself, but as you are in the Eternal God. Fall down in astonishment at the glories which are around you and in you, poured to and fro in such a wonderful way that you are dissolved into the Kingdom of God.

The more we do, the more shall we trust in Christ; and that surely is no morose doctrine, that leads us to soothe our selfish restlessness, and forget our fears, in the vision of the Incarnate Son of God.

May the Lord support us all the day long, till the shades lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then in His mercy may He give us safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at last.”

So let us pray for a serene vision of things as they really are, and that strength, which used to be called the virtue of fortitude, to never give in to the allure of falsehoods and the emptiness of despair.  The tomb is empty, and death is overthrown.

We are an Easter people, and hallelujah is our song.

Have a pleasant weekend.  See you Sunday evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Quiet Trade On Options Expiration - Shamelessness

Today's stock market action was relatively quiet for an option expiration ahead of a three day weekend.

The economic news this morning was better than expected.

From the oligarchy is audacious department, the BP crisis manager was fined by the SEC for front running the Gulf Oil spill, selling all his family stock holding before the extent of the disaster was revealed.

The US markets will be closed tomorrow for Good Friday.

Have a pleasant weekend. See you Sunday evening.

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - Hubris Incorporated

“I am telling you if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed.  I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven. It’s not even close.”

Michael Bloomberg, Billionaire Financier and Master of the Universe, I Have Earned My Place In Heaven

Ah, the rich miscalculating their fit through the eye of a needle.  Its an old, old story.  Memento mori.

I am sure he is not intending this seriously, and we ought not to take it as such.  As we should with most of the gauche things that he and his fellow financial sharpers and masters of the universe say.

Speaking of dull financial people miscalculating their place in the cosmos, this looks like it is going to be a dull week for the precious metals, except for the major bear raid yesterday.

Nothing much happened in the Comex warehouses yesterday. The number of ounces claimed in the April delivery continued on, reaching a total of 461,400 ounces for the month.  It will be interesting to see if anyone decides to actually do anything with them that will show up in the warehouse reports, or just continue to pass their warrants around like hot potatoes.

The Comex is becoming increasingly irrelevant to the world markets, and a bit of an anachronism in the current influence it still has over price.

Hubris.  It means that they never see it coming. That is what makes the reckoning so often spectacular.

Have a pleasant evening.

SP 500 and NDX Futures Daily Charts - Quiet Holiday Week, Before the Storms

VIX is back down to more complacent levels.

This is a holiday shortened week, with Friday trading closed for the Easter holiday.

Let's see if the traders can carry this rally into a three day weekend with the Ukraine bubbling along. I suspect that some squaring up may be in the cards.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Gold Daily and Silver Weekly Charts - From Sea to Shining Sea

"Plunderers of the world, when nothing remains on the lands to which they have laid waste by wanton thievery, they search out across the seas. The wealth of another region excites their greed; and if it is weak, their lust for power.

Nothing from the rising to the setting of the sun is enough for them. Among all others only they are compelled to attack the poor as well as the rich. Robbery, rape, and slaughter they falsely call empire; and where they create a desolate wasteland, they call it peace."

Tacitus, Agricola

Today was an absolute classic.

From one market to the other, from one lie to the next, they seem to have no fear, and certainly no shame.

Have a pleasant evening.