I have spent the better part of the past two weeks ignoring "silly season". NOTHING that occurred in the financial markets the the last two weeks of 2011 was representative of anything outside of blatant manipulation of not only the Precious Metals markets, but of all commodities in general, global currencies, AND most definitely the equity markets.
Blatant manipulation is all that remains of our once "free market" financial system. The Free Market went buh-bye on August 15, 1971 when President Richard Nixon closed the Gold window at the US Treasury, and halted the redemption of US Dollars for Gold.
"There are no markets anymore, just interventions."
-Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
Upon reflection, the greatest accomplishment of the 2011 "global" market manipulation was the spinning up of a cocoon of denial to shroud the truth about the United States sovereign insolvency. America has been in denial regarding it's insolvency since that fateful day in August 1971 when President Nixon defaulted on America's debt by closing the US Treasury's Gold window, and thus backed the US Dollar with nothing more than the "full faith and credit" of the us government.
There were no winners in 2011...except the St. Louis Cardinals. 2011 was a year for losers. Homes lost to foreclosure, jobs lost to a "jobless recovery", and wealth lost to crooks like Jon Corzine at MF Global. But the biggest loser of all in 2011 was TRUST...and folks, once you lose "trust", it is damn near impossible to regain that trust. And with the loss of trust, TRUTH took a beating.
TRUTH, with regards to the global financial system, is simple.
GOLD AND SILVER ARE THE TRUTH
"The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable."
~Attributed to James A. Garfield
"Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first, it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self-evident."
~Arthur Schopenhauer
___________________________
Conspiracy VS Reality
"Ranting" Andy Hoffman, Miles Franklin Precious Metals Investments
For those of you trying to convince difficult-to-budge people who are turned off by flowery language and aggressive accusations, I submit the following, brief summary of Precious Metals fundamentals and the nefarious forces aiming to undermine the natural forces of economic Mother Nature by suppressing their prices.
For the past 6,000 years, gold has been universally utilized as money, while all fiat currency systems have since failed. Few people realize the U.S. itself has already lost two currencies to hyperinflation: the Continental during the Revolutionary War and the Confederate dollar during the Civil War. Moreover, Abraham Lincoln’s “Greenback” dollar was on its way to hyperinflation when the Civil War ended – in other words, with another year or two of war, it, too, likely would have been destroyed.
If the Federal Reserve, ECB, BOE, BOJ, and PBOC were constrained by gold standards, as was the case with all successful currency regimes throughout history, none would have been able to print trillions of un-backed dollars, Euros, Pounds, Yen, or Yuan, respectively, thus avoiding the catastrophic global debt contagion seen today. When Nixon abandoned the U.S. gold standard in August 1971, it represented the first time in history that not a single nation had a gold-backed currency. In my view, this global “fiat standard” is the direct cause of the current financial crisis, which I expect will continue for many years to come.
Since 2002, I have advocated the purchase of gold and silver as protection against the inflationary monetary policies of the world’s Central Banks. Understandably, my message is not always well-received, as it suggests further devaluation of the dollar. However, based on the lessons of history and the conclusions of my research, gold and silver are the best hedges against inflationary monetary policies. Consequently, it is no coincidence the current gold bull market commenced in 2000, simultaneous with the end of the dollar’s multi-decade bull market, in terms of both PAPER currencies, as depicted by the “U.S. dollar index…
…and REAL money, i.e. PHYSICAL gold…
Despite propaganda to the contrary, created by bankers and politicians seeking to control your lives, and assets, via immoral, mathematical impossible confidence-based currency systems, an immutable fact of human existence is that gold is money. This is the dark secret of Central Bankers, who utilize all available means to hinder the public from realizing this time-tested truth. J.P. Morgan himself, testifying to Congress in 1912, stated “Gold is money, everything else is credit,” while Alan Greenspan, the most notorious monetary inflationist in history, at one point vociferously advocated these same principles, particularly in his 1966 treatise “Gold and Economic Freedom.” Here are some of the more famous quotes from this piece:
In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value.
Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.
Central bankers and politicians thrive in a system where they control the power to print money, as opposed to a gold standard, in which the money supply, by definition, is constrained by the amount of government-owned gold. As evidenced by the inexorable rise of consumer prices since the gold standard was abandoned in 1971, and consequently the gargantuan global increase in all categories of debt, clearly the current fiat standard is miserably failing.
This is why “The Powers That Be” (said central bankers and politicians) surreptitiously manipulate financial markets, particularly Precious Metals as they are widely viewed as “inflation barometers.” Due to such actions, including the suppression of gold prices and support of the stock, bond, and U.S. dollar currency markets, they have been successful in quelling mass opinion, enabling the monetarist charade to continue despite its obvious deleterious effects on the global financial system.
It is truly amazing, in my view, that the population-at-large still believes the gold market to be immune from government intervention, when all other markets are regularly intervened in, both overtly and covertly. To wit:
In March 1988, directly following the October 1987 stock market crash, the “President’s Working Group on Financial Markets” (i.e. the PPT) was created to support the stock market in times of crisis, or, in its own words, to “enhance the…orderliness… of… markets and maintain investor confidence…” As you can see below, it is a real U.S. government entity, consisting of the Secretary of the Treasury and Chairmen of the Federal Reserve, SEC, and CFTC. Yet, most believe it does not exist.
Working Group on Financial Markets – Wikipedia
Moreover, it has been admitted to exist publicly by no less than George Stephanoupolos, speaking of his time working as White House Communications Director with Bill Clinton, and Hank Paulson, while acting as George W. Bush’s Treasury Secretary.
George Stephanoupolos – TheCenterLane.com
Monday view: Paulson re-activates secretive support team to prevent markets meltdown
In the bond market, not only does the Federal Reserve manipulate markets by determining official interest rates (enjoyed only by primary dealers), but executes “open market operations” to precisely peg interest rates every business day. In fact, “Quantitative Easing” by definition refers to direct Federal Reserve intervention to support the U.S. government and mortgage bond markets.
Moreover, in the currency markets, the dollar’s exchange rate is openly manipulated in concert with numerous nations worldwide, via the “Exchange Stabilization Fund”, a U.S.-government committee established in 1934 with the intent of intervening in both the foreign exchange and gold markets.
Exchange Stabilization Fund
Additionally, the shadowy Bank of International Settlements, or BIS, known commonly as the “central bank’s Central Bank,” is mandated to intervene in global currency and gold markets, per this quote from William White of the BIS in 2005:
Among the five objectives of central bank cooperation is the provision of international credits and joint efforts to influence asset prices (especially gold and foreign exchange) in circumstances where this might be thought useful.
…a mandate validated by the following newswire published on December 7th, 2011, just minutes after gold surged above $1,750/oz following an ECB rate cut to 1.00% from 1.25%, which was subsequently retracted by the (German) newswire service but never denied, despite the fact that the “official market footprint” was quite visible in gold’s trading activity on the New York COMEX futures market.
MNI NEWS via BLOOMBERG – MARKET SOURCES REPORT BIS, BOE & FEDERAL RESERVE WERE SELLING GOLD AFTER IT POPPED TO SESSION HIGH AT GMT 1335
Regarding gold itself, in the 1960s an overt manipulation organization existed, attempting to peg the price at $35/ounce in much the same manner which the Fed pegs interest rates. The “London Gold Pool”, also led by the U.S. government, failed in 1968 when demand overwhelmed their manipulative selling, a game that recommenced at the onset of the current gold bull market in 2000. Only this time around, the suppression is executed covertly to prevent erosion of confidence in the now global fiat standard.
London Gold Pool
For people like myself who research this topic in detail, there are countless admissions of gold market suppression over the years. I could supply numerous such statements, but these two alone are all one needs to understand how black and white the issue really is:
We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake. Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it. It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the U.K.
-Sir Eddie George, Governor, Bank of England (1999)
Central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise.
-Alan Greenspan; Chairman, Federal Reserve (1998)
Regarding Real Estate, the government has done everything in its power to promote an “Ownership Society” in which everybody owns a large mortgage and by association, limited equity. Deregulation of the mortgage industry, quasi- and then full ownership of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (the largest mortgage holders in the country), and government decree such as the 2003 American Dream Downpayment Act have lured millions to bankruptcy via ill-advised purchases or management of Real Estate investments.
Finally, the U.S. “Strong Dollar Policy” has been promoted by every President and Treasury Secretary for the past 15 years, proved by inaction to be more of a propaganda tool than an actual policy. During this period, the U.S. dollar index has fallen 35% in value while the CRB Commodity Index has risen 35%, depicting just how weak the dollar’s fundamentals are in the face of concerted government efforts (including the surreptitious sale of gold) to boost the perception of its value.
Of course, the “U.S. dollar index” is just a gauge of the dollar’s value against its main competitor, the equally un-backed, debt-infested Euro. Compared to the value of real money, however, the dollar has fallen much further. Gold has risen from $250/oz in 2000 to $1,900/ounce during the past decade, and silver from $4/oz to $50/ounce.
In countless missives over the past four years, I have written about Precious Metals market manipulation. However, the gist of my work is documented in the five supporting documents below, which I view as “primers” on the topic:
5/29/11 Cartel Secrets Revealed, Pt. I
6/01/11 Cartel Secrets Revealed, Pt. II
6/08/11 2010 COMEX Gold Manipulation Pictorial
6/06/11 2011 COMEX Gold Manipulation Pictorial #1
11/28/11 2011 COMEX Gold Manipulation Pictorial #2
Blatant manipulation is all that remains of our once "free market" financial system. The Free Market went buh-bye on August 15, 1971 when President Richard Nixon closed the Gold window at the US Treasury, and halted the redemption of US Dollars for Gold.
"There are no markets anymore, just interventions."
-Chris Powell, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.
Upon reflection, the greatest accomplishment of the 2011 "global" market manipulation was the spinning up of a cocoon of denial to shroud the truth about the United States sovereign insolvency. America has been in denial regarding it's insolvency since that fateful day in August 1971 when President Nixon defaulted on America's debt by closing the US Treasury's Gold window, and thus backed the US Dollar with nothing more than the "full faith and credit" of the us government.
There were no winners in 2011...except the St. Louis Cardinals. 2011 was a year for losers. Homes lost to foreclosure, jobs lost to a "jobless recovery", and wealth lost to crooks like Jon Corzine at MF Global. But the biggest loser of all in 2011 was TRUST...and folks, once you lose "trust", it is damn near impossible to regain that trust. And with the loss of trust, TRUTH took a beating.
TRUTH, with regards to the global financial system, is simple.
GOLD AND SILVER ARE THE TRUTH
"The truth will set you free, but first it will make you miserable."
~Attributed to James A. Garfield
"Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first, it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self-evident."
~Arthur Schopenhauer
___________________________
Conspiracy VS Reality
"Ranting" Andy Hoffman, Miles Franklin Precious Metals Investments
For those of you trying to convince difficult-to-budge people who are turned off by flowery language and aggressive accusations, I submit the following, brief summary of Precious Metals fundamentals and the nefarious forces aiming to undermine the natural forces of economic Mother Nature by suppressing their prices.
For the past 6,000 years, gold has been universally utilized as money, while all fiat currency systems have since failed. Few people realize the U.S. itself has already lost two currencies to hyperinflation: the Continental during the Revolutionary War and the Confederate dollar during the Civil War. Moreover, Abraham Lincoln’s “Greenback” dollar was on its way to hyperinflation when the Civil War ended – in other words, with another year or two of war, it, too, likely would have been destroyed.
If the Federal Reserve, ECB, BOE, BOJ, and PBOC were constrained by gold standards, as was the case with all successful currency regimes throughout history, none would have been able to print trillions of un-backed dollars, Euros, Pounds, Yen, or Yuan, respectively, thus avoiding the catastrophic global debt contagion seen today. When Nixon abandoned the U.S. gold standard in August 1971, it represented the first time in history that not a single nation had a gold-backed currency. In my view, this global “fiat standard” is the direct cause of the current financial crisis, which I expect will continue for many years to come.
Since 2002, I have advocated the purchase of gold and silver as protection against the inflationary monetary policies of the world’s Central Banks. Understandably, my message is not always well-received, as it suggests further devaluation of the dollar. However, based on the lessons of history and the conclusions of my research, gold and silver are the best hedges against inflationary monetary policies. Consequently, it is no coincidence the current gold bull market commenced in 2000, simultaneous with the end of the dollar’s multi-decade bull market, in terms of both PAPER currencies, as depicted by the “U.S. dollar index…
…and REAL money, i.e. PHYSICAL gold…
Despite propaganda to the contrary, created by bankers and politicians seeking to control your lives, and assets, via immoral, mathematical impossible confidence-based currency systems, an immutable fact of human existence is that gold is money. This is the dark secret of Central Bankers, who utilize all available means to hinder the public from realizing this time-tested truth. J.P. Morgan himself, testifying to Congress in 1912, stated “Gold is money, everything else is credit,” while Alan Greenspan, the most notorious monetary inflationist in history, at one point vociferously advocated these same principles, particularly in his 1966 treatise “Gold and Economic Freedom.” Here are some of the more famous quotes from this piece:
In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value.
Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists’ antagonism toward the gold standard.
Central bankers and politicians thrive in a system where they control the power to print money, as opposed to a gold standard, in which the money supply, by definition, is constrained by the amount of government-owned gold. As evidenced by the inexorable rise of consumer prices since the gold standard was abandoned in 1971, and consequently the gargantuan global increase in all categories of debt, clearly the current fiat standard is miserably failing.
This is why “The Powers That Be” (said central bankers and politicians) surreptitiously manipulate financial markets, particularly Precious Metals as they are widely viewed as “inflation barometers.” Due to such actions, including the suppression of gold prices and support of the stock, bond, and U.S. dollar currency markets, they have been successful in quelling mass opinion, enabling the monetarist charade to continue despite its obvious deleterious effects on the global financial system.
It is truly amazing, in my view, that the population-at-large still believes the gold market to be immune from government intervention, when all other markets are regularly intervened in, both overtly and covertly. To wit:
In March 1988, directly following the October 1987 stock market crash, the “President’s Working Group on Financial Markets” (i.e. the PPT) was created to support the stock market in times of crisis, or, in its own words, to “enhance the…orderliness… of… markets and maintain investor confidence…” As you can see below, it is a real U.S. government entity, consisting of the Secretary of the Treasury and Chairmen of the Federal Reserve, SEC, and CFTC. Yet, most believe it does not exist.
Working Group on Financial Markets – Wikipedia
Moreover, it has been admitted to exist publicly by no less than George Stephanoupolos, speaking of his time working as White House Communications Director with Bill Clinton, and Hank Paulson, while acting as George W. Bush’s Treasury Secretary.
George Stephanoupolos – TheCenterLane.com
Monday view: Paulson re-activates secretive support team to prevent markets meltdown
In the bond market, not only does the Federal Reserve manipulate markets by determining official interest rates (enjoyed only by primary dealers), but executes “open market operations” to precisely peg interest rates every business day. In fact, “Quantitative Easing” by definition refers to direct Federal Reserve intervention to support the U.S. government and mortgage bond markets.
Moreover, in the currency markets, the dollar’s exchange rate is openly manipulated in concert with numerous nations worldwide, via the “Exchange Stabilization Fund”, a U.S.-government committee established in 1934 with the intent of intervening in both the foreign exchange and gold markets.
Exchange Stabilization Fund
Additionally, the shadowy Bank of International Settlements, or BIS, known commonly as the “central bank’s Central Bank,” is mandated to intervene in global currency and gold markets, per this quote from William White of the BIS in 2005:
Among the five objectives of central bank cooperation is the provision of international credits and joint efforts to influence asset prices (especially gold and foreign exchange) in circumstances where this might be thought useful.
…a mandate validated by the following newswire published on December 7th, 2011, just minutes after gold surged above $1,750/oz following an ECB rate cut to 1.00% from 1.25%, which was subsequently retracted by the (German) newswire service but never denied, despite the fact that the “official market footprint” was quite visible in gold’s trading activity on the New York COMEX futures market.
MNI NEWS via BLOOMBERG – MARKET SOURCES REPORT BIS, BOE & FEDERAL RESERVE WERE SELLING GOLD AFTER IT POPPED TO SESSION HIGH AT GMT 1335
Regarding gold itself, in the 1960s an overt manipulation organization existed, attempting to peg the price at $35/ounce in much the same manner which the Fed pegs interest rates. The “London Gold Pool”, also led by the U.S. government, failed in 1968 when demand overwhelmed their manipulative selling, a game that recommenced at the onset of the current gold bull market in 2000. Only this time around, the suppression is executed covertly to prevent erosion of confidence in the now global fiat standard.
London Gold Pool
For people like myself who research this topic in detail, there are countless admissions of gold market suppression over the years. I could supply numerous such statements, but these two alone are all one needs to understand how black and white the issue really is:
We looked into the abyss if the gold price rose further. A further rise would have taken down one or several trading houses, which might have taken down all the rest in their wake. Therefore at any price, at any cost, the central banks had to quell the gold price, manage it. It was very difficult to get the gold price under control but we have now succeeded. The US Fed was very active in getting the gold price down. So was the U.K.
-Sir Eddie George, Governor, Bank of England (1999)
Central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise.
-Alan Greenspan; Chairman, Federal Reserve (1998)
Regarding Real Estate, the government has done everything in its power to promote an “Ownership Society” in which everybody owns a large mortgage and by association, limited equity. Deregulation of the mortgage industry, quasi- and then full ownership of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae (the largest mortgage holders in the country), and government decree such as the 2003 American Dream Downpayment Act have lured millions to bankruptcy via ill-advised purchases or management of Real Estate investments.
Finally, the U.S. “Strong Dollar Policy” has been promoted by every President and Treasury Secretary for the past 15 years, proved by inaction to be more of a propaganda tool than an actual policy. During this period, the U.S. dollar index has fallen 35% in value while the CRB Commodity Index has risen 35%, depicting just how weak the dollar’s fundamentals are in the face of concerted government efforts (including the surreptitious sale of gold) to boost the perception of its value.
Of course, the “U.S. dollar index” is just a gauge of the dollar’s value against its main competitor, the equally un-backed, debt-infested Euro. Compared to the value of real money, however, the dollar has fallen much further. Gold has risen from $250/oz in 2000 to $1,900/ounce during the past decade, and silver from $4/oz to $50/ounce.
In countless missives over the past four years, I have written about Precious Metals market manipulation. However, the gist of my work is documented in the five supporting documents below, which I view as “primers” on the topic:
5/29/11 Cartel Secrets Revealed, Pt. I
6/01/11 Cartel Secrets Revealed, Pt. II
6/08/11 2010 COMEX Gold Manipulation Pictorial
6/06/11 2011 COMEX Gold Manipulation Pictorial #1
11/28/11 2011 COMEX Gold Manipulation Pictorial #2
