Stock broker friend of mine, says all traders are buying land, gold, silver....

reply to post by mbkennel


You can say anything about anything. Timeperiods / correlation for xyz->xxx / ranges or support and resistances. But there is only the fact of the matter and then there is opinion.

I have no problems with opinions, but certainly everything that has been stated is fact and cannot be argued.

Everything else is just opinion.

So, what else do you do? Again, do you go long the worst performing since you are a contrarian or do you go long historical 7.6% growth historically in SPY?

I find it hard to argue against the last 100 years of data personally.

I personally believe that there will be a large asset bubble blown by Bernanke's quantitative easing & low rates, just as there was a large asset bubble blown by the Bank of Japan in the 2000's.

But just as the BOJ's bubble blew up outside Japan, the same is likely to happen for the Fed's.

Where it be? If you can bet on that, you'll win. Asia is the most likely suspect, but the big dog (China) effectively will not not let foreign investors profit.

Japan is an instructive case:

Those big secular trend shifts are not only limited to the catastrophic period of of 1914-1945. 20 years is a long time for a human. What has been the return on Japanese stocks since 1990? When do you see the Nikkei exceeding its all-time high average? It could easily be 20 years more, or possibly never.

Japan is a stable peaceful country with high productivity, technology and education and was the 2nd biggest economy in the world. And, postwar had unstoppable economic growth and hence equity increases. In 1990, could you imagine negative returns for 20 years with NO END IN SIGHT?

reply to post by GreenBicMan

I find it hard to argue against the last 100 years of data personally.

And so do i !

Can we talk about 1930's or should we argue that we are in new times and this will never happen again ?

Facts are the market is controled by big players and unless you are one of them then sometime sooner or later you will be taken to the clearners.

i know a few property agents that knew thay could never go wrong but it's funney that i don't hear much from them now.

7% yield on UK guilts over 60 years sounds good don't you think but whats that in ameros because the £ like the $ won's be here in 60 years time.

Your a good player, good with soxware but know when to get out.

reply to post by GreenBicMan


I think you speak for the knowledgeable investor, or at least the majority of them, when you legitimately ask for realistic options, in the face of what looks like the most conservative returns of the past 50 years, maybe even 100 years (depending upon assumptions), with the S&P500, or whatever we may choose as representative of the US economy at least.

I'm actually glad to see someone trying to look at a bit more history than the past 20 or 30 years only, even though that would coincide with much of our own human experience. We do need to gain perspective, whether we were alive back then, or not.

I hope this metaphor won't be too cumbersome...For some of us, our "job" might be to study the particular tree in front of us, amidst a forest, so-to-speak. But there could be perspective beyond simply acknowledging we're in a forest. What if the forest we acknowledge and are familiar with, turns out to be yet another "tree", relatively speaking, in the larger sense. Continuing with the metaphor, what if "our" forest consisted of trees planted only a scant 50 or 60 years ago?

If this was "our" forest, the one we knew, perhaps we would begin to make broad assumptions about trees and forests. We might say, "Here, we have found a rather large specimen. Obviously, in comparison to the rest, it is spectacular!"

However, all along, our little forest, of relatively little trees, which forms the basis of much of our "sound" speculations about trees, and forests, would be rather far off the mark. Because there are in fact trees that have grown for thousands of years. There are trees that tower hundreds of feet over our experience of "forest". And if we took a big step back, and saw these other forests, suddenly our little forest would come into proper perspective, and "shrink" considerably.

This may be in fact what we're dealing with today. Here again is another quote from someone you may recognize, although probably the average person would not:

"We are in a world of irredeemable paper money - a state of affairs unprecedented in history."

John Exter

The famous "upside down pyramid" was really his, if I'm not mistaken, and revised and updated by Trace Mayer (posted earlier in this thread). Having worked for the Fed, and having even set up the central bank of Ceylon, Exter was an insider, and saw what was going on. But even as an insider, his personal baggage did not allow him to sell-out. He had seen his father destroyed by the Depression, and quit banking to do consulting. Exter went around the country in the 1960's telling people to buy gold of course, and presented his pyramid, and those who listened, did quite well in that insane period when gold went from $35 to $850 briefly.

His quote above is really the crux of the current issue. Are we really in uncharted waters at this point? Could we be as smug as the captain of the Titanic (good one Mordant1)?

Whether the waters be uncharted or not, they are incredibly muddy. As Exter said, "irredeemable paper money", and this "money", ends up being the most diabolical moving target anyone could have dreamed up. By design, I would venture to say, but whether we think in dollars, or pounds, swiss francs or yuan, all of this paper fiat mess, is put in a neat little "basket" of currencies, that can really keep the forex guys on their toes! We get caught up in so many basis points, on a particular day. We listen attentively to the Fed's latest pronouncement. The indexes all go up, or they go down, and later the "basket" mix is conveniently changed out, to address whatever part of the fraud that wasn't working out quite right, etc. It's nauseating, and we should be above this crap.

Again, I do not dismiss what you bring up at all. You have said that you spend 12 hours a day with the reams of stats that give you your perspective, if I recall, and that's more than many could say. But, as useful as all the data is, for exactly what you aim to achieve (in the short run), could it be we're really still looking at trees?

In this case, I think we best at least consider what Exter said. This is an "unprecedented" situation we are dealing with here. It calls not so much for last year's charts, or conventional wisdom, it calls for a big step outside of the box. And while probably most "gold-bugs" are far from out-of-the-box thinkers, they are at least far enough outside of the propaganda flow to perhaps get this one right. Maybe, through no credit of their own really, although I would submit that many do in fact take these things quite seriously. Maybe as seriously as you seem to take your work.

Anyway, I would like to say that you, and others with many of the more recent posts, have raised the quality of this thread significantly, to my way of thinking. No, we don't always have to agree, but I personally like to keep things real, and I think maybe we're getting there somehow.

JR

reply to post by JR MacBeth


All the analysis and promis is fine but the market is, at the first and at the last analysis, just nothing more a gamble based on perception. Just as there are those few that can gamble successfully, it is just a clear that most gamblers lose the longer they stay in the game. If it were even simply an honest game of chance where the same rules allied to all, ther'd be a chance of winners, but nobody in the know claims that its honest, just that they know the secret how to get around the many corruptions.

The Death of Paper Money

What the smart money is reading, and why, in preemptive fashion, this money will continue to support the rising long-term trend in precious metals.

This piece from Pritchard also contains a few excerpts from another worthwhile book on the topic which I recommended a few posts back: When Money Dies.

The Death of Paper Money
25 Jul 2010

As they prepare for holiday reading in Tuscany, City bankers are buying up rare copies of an obscure book on the mechanics of Weimar inflation published in 1974. - Full Text

Well here is an interesting piece in-line with what's going on behind the scenes, with GATA's Adrian Douglas highlighting that as of this week, the LBMA is blacking out its trading data to the public. The London bullion bank's trading data on gold has been available to the public since 1997: now no more. Cover-up in the process basically as people are on to the fact they are operating a ponzi scheme (ponzi schemes always come undone) of fractional reserve selling of bullion to supress the price.

He concludes that the LBMA's move to secrecy as a sign that the opportunity to get real metal is closing fast.

On zerohedge:

The LBMA joins the gold squeeze cover-up, via GATA

"The London Bullion Market Association has just taken the highly unusual step of blocking access to statistics relating to the trading activities of its member bullion banks. This information has been available to the public since 1997 but as of this week it is available only to LBMA members. (See www.lbma.org.uk....)

I have recently written a series of exposes of the LBMA (see References 1-4 below) using the association's own data to show that the LBMA's bullion banks are operating on a "fractional reserve" basis. My analysis indicates that the bullion banks are holding only 1 real ounce for about every 45 ounces of gold that they have sold, a reserve ratio of just 2.3 percent

At the March 25 public hearing of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission on precious metals futures markets I cited the LBMA's own statistics to label the "unallocated gold" accounts of the bullion banks as a Ponzi scheme. (See Reference 3 below.) There were bullion bank representatives at the hearing but no one expressed an objection. That hearing was videotaped and posted at the CFTC's Internet site but the bullion banks have not made any public statement rebutting what I said. In fact at that hearing Jeffrey Christian, CEO of the CPM Group, acknowledged that what is widely called the "physical market" is in reality a largely "paper market" trading gold and silver as if they are financial assets and not physical metals. Christian stated that 100 ounces of paper gold are traded for every 1 ounce of physical gold.

When the LBMA first made its trading statistics available in January 1997, observers and analysts were shocked. (See Reference 5 below.) No one could reconcile the statistics with other market data, nor comprehend how the bullion banks could be trading on a net basis more than 240,000 tonnes of gold annually while the global mine output was only 2,400 tonnes. Over the years the furor over these statistics had subsided until the end of 2009, when I commenced writing about my studies, showing that the statistics can be reconciled with other market data if the bullion banks are operating a fractional-reserve bullion banking operation with a recklessly low reserve ratio. I have also shown how the price of gold is suppressed because 45 ounces of demand are being diluted to result in purchase of only 1 ounce of real metal. If instead all 45 ounces were to be sourced and purchased, the gold price would be multiples of the current price.

Typically when people are exposed in a scandal their first reaction is a cover-up. The most notorious examples of this are the Nixon administration, when it doctored the Watergate tapes, and Arthur Anderson, which shredded millions of pages of documents relating to audits of Enron Corp.

The LBMA has now commenced a cover-up with respect to the gold trading activities of its member bullion banks, withdrawing statistics from the public domain.

This appears not to be the only cover-up going on in the gold market.

For years the International Monetary Fund has made great fanfare of its mere contemplation of selling some of its gold, and actual sales by the IMF have been widely publicized. Since February the IMF has been surreptitiously selling large tonnages of gold each month, but these sales now are to be found only by digging through the IMF's financial statements, and even there the recipients of the gold are not disclosed. (See Reference 6 below.) One has to wonder why the IMF now is trying to fly under the radar with its gold sales.

Similarly it was recently discovered that the Bank for International Settlements didn't feel it necessary to announce its involvement in the largest gold swap in history, 346 tonnes. (See Reference 7 below.) The BIS swaps instead were discovered only because a market analyst dug through the footnotes of the bank's financial statements.

These developments have all the hallmarks of cover-ups.

In June the LBMA trading statistics showed that in May 2010 the average net daily trading in gold by LBMA member banks jumped a massive 50 percent from the month before to 24 million ounces each day from 16 million ounces each day. That translates to $7.5 trillion annually. If an operation is running on a razor-thin fractional reserve basis, such step changes are often fatal.

It appears that a run on the bullion banks has commenced.

There is a cover-up of back-door injections of liquidity of physical gold, and the LBMA now is trying to conceal trading information.

There has been much debate about how investors, politicians, and regulators didn't see the 2008 financial crisis coming, and lack of transparency was cited as a key reason. Clearly those who have been manipulating the gold market are trying to skulk deeper into darkness. They have a lot to hide.

Investors could have been blindsided by the events of 2008, but anyone who misses the writing on the wall about what's going on in the bullion markets is just foolish. The bullion banks have sold far more metal than they can deliver, and more and more customers are asking them to deliver. This has led to back-door bailouts and cover-ups.

Anyone who has "unallocated" bullion should be very concerned. The LBMA itself describes owners of "unallocated bullion" accounts as "unsecured creditors." That means that the account holder has no collateral or title to any bullion. "

More at www.zerohedge.com...

reply to post by cloudbreak


Thank you yet again cloudbreak. I think we can now make it official, this thread has finally "graduated" with your fantastic contribution concerning the precious metals ponzi scheme, that seems to be getting worse, not better.

It's interesting. While you and others have been in the trenches, heroically doing your parts in trying to expose this fraud, you have still found a few moments to patiently tip-toe into a mostly elementary discussion. And yet, it is only now that you fully reveal that which should normally be enough, all by itself, to convince anyone of what is really going on.

Actually, I'm usually very hesitant to provide too much info concerning the massive manipulation going on, because often the responses I get are that such a thing is simply too much, too outlandish, "impossible" within any "free" markets, etc. Well, no doubt you've heard them all.

But maybe it is now time to stop chattering about the basics, "what" is gold, is it a "currency", etc. One could say, in all seriousness, that "whatever" gold is, there is evidence to show that it is being manipulated, and that alone may be a very good starting point in fact, for those who know so little about it. Sort of counter-intuitive, because normally it's so easy to get bogged down with the most basic things, but I certainly see some merit in stepping this up a bit.

Perhaps I can add to the thrust of what you're revealing here for ATS, concerning the massive manipulation in SILVER that is simultaneously going on.

While gold generally gets most of the attention, the amazing thing is that the relatively tiny silver market is also heavily manipulated, in fact, even more so. If you were shocked to read that there was only one ounce of gold behind 45 ounces of air, then the magnitude of the silver manipulation should really shock you. No, not in terms of "dollar" valuations, gold is obviously the big player there, but in terms of the number of paper ounces flying around.

Specifically, the massive, concentrated short positions in silver, that have the effect of keeping the price down, year, after year. Perhaps some may be interested in Googling "Ted Butler", who has spoken about this issue in detail for a very long time.

The nutshell version is this: Only four banks are involved in perpetrating this fraud, which is now 5 times larger than the famous Hunt bros. "cornering" of the silver market 30 years ago. These banks consistently short in volumes that dwarf the annual production of this commodity, but because of their combined power, they continually get away with pushing the price down, just when they need to, therefore never having to cover their shorts, and certainly never with actual delivery. Which is the only way it could keep going, since there is no silver to deliver anyway!

Of course, for the person unfamiliar with all this, it's going to perhaps sound like far too much "conspiracy", but it is worth looking into.

And so, what is the bottom line then? The bottom line is that, as cloudbreak has so nicely pointed out, these schemes really can't go on forever. At some point, it all can come crashing down, in a big hurry.

The beautiful thing to realize, as an investor, is that one can "cash in" quite well with this state of affairs. Additionally, gold and silver, both manipulated, are a precarious house of cards, that together, can even more easily come tumbling down, all at once.

What this boils down to is a huge opportunity in precious metals, that would not ordinarily be present, had the authorities been doing their jobs, and put the brakes on this fraud a long time ago. It is now getting so ridiculous, that they dare not continue to publish crucial data. Thank you again cloudbreak for presenting this issue!

The writing is on the wall. Just like when we learned that M3 would no longer be released, most of us knew that meant that the number was about to get utterly absurd, the same is likely true concerning gold. Fractional gold, like fractional banking, like a fractured skull...it's not good. BUT, for the wise investor, it could be the opportunity of a lifetime.

JR

reply to post by JR MacBeth


Thanks JR, most - as you know - most who follow the PM market have some degree of knowledge of the manipulation in the metals, and yeah I agree; silver is probably even more heavily manipulated than gold. (by the likes of JPM among others).

The important thing is, it's slowly becoming more mainstream too. Just recently there was a major feature on the manipulation in a respected major German business magazine, written by its editor.

I think even the NYT has made mention of it. I know GATA has taken out full page advertising in the Wall Street Journal before outlining some seriously dubious practices of manipulation being carried out by a few key, core players. CNBC aired an interview on gold price suppression yesterday (the 27th) as well.

But, with exposure, it is becoming harder to get away with. And to be fair with the article I posted by Adrian Douglas, the LBMA may have only temporarily denied traders access to the data...or at least tried to bury it to some degree it appears in a follow-up by Douglas. But, either way, it has no bearing on the fact the manipulation is still going on.

I agree with you though I think all this info is a little too much to take in in one hit, as there is so much background and bigger picture scenarios that need to be explained as well.

A bigger picture scenario below, just out, is worth some thinking about re quantative easing and attempts to raise asset prices by devaluing paper (c&p from GATA's website):

In commentary posted tonight at 321Gold, newsletter writer Stewart Thompson joins those who expect central banks to revalue gold upward and devalue their own currencies. Thompson writes:

"There is a middle step between quantitative easing and money printing, and it is gold revaluation. No confiscation is needed in the current crisis to make revaluation 'work,' because so few people own gold. The major central banks are already committed to major long-term gold buy programs (the opposite of the 1990s), and these buy programs are the mechanism of gold revaluation under a sort of guise of currency reserves diversification.

"The central 'banksters' aren't stupid; they didn't get the market all wrong and accidentally sell their gold holdings into the end of the gold bear market, any more than the current buy programs are 'knee-jerk' reactions to a rising gold price.

"The buy program is about gold revaluation, not rushing to buy gold as an asset. As QE is more and more broadly deemed a failure in the fund community, the central banks will step up their gold buy programs, stepping UP the price they pay for the gold, with tremendous vigor.

"The buy programs of the central banks are not about adding gold to diversify their forex reserves; they are about devaluing paper money to raise asset prices, as blown marked-to-model OTC derivatives can then be marked to market."

www.321gold.com...

So, it's possible, even likely, the current pushing down of prices is a kind of last ditch effort for those in the know to acquire physical at relatively low prices before the curtain is pulled back and the show begins.





[edit on 27-7-2010 by cloudbreak]

All assumptions on the value of financial instruments of any kind are illusory and subject to manipulation by an elite with an agenda. Bottom line, there is more money in the market than there is documented value, so it's a bubble by definition and intent and construction. The whole idea of 'investment' on a mass scale for survival is flawed as a nation cannot survive for long by it. Productivity is a basic requirement for survival and the history of that fact, and what happens when greed increases and productivity stops being the priority is much longer and more documented than a mere century of financial manipulation.
Its clear that some posters have a financial/professional stake in propagating the myth of investment as sustainable and attainable for a large segment of the population. That much of the push for financial professional recommendations regarding investment in other nations is a sure sign that thus country has gone to promoting the national competition, and as such, if their mytology is in fact correct, cutting the nations throat over the long run.
What dilled the fantasy is the boomers which bought at the same time and now are trying to sell at the same time, which in simple analysis drives prices up when everyones buying at the same time, and sinks the market when everyone trys to sell at the same time, especially when those coming up are less capable to buy into the scheme.
It's that simple, no jobs, lower pay, no new money available to continue to prop up the house of cards, illegals, retired boomer elderly overload and the unemployed not being much in the mood to buy securities for the long haul.
When the common peeps realize that paper promises of payment are worthless and rush to find haven in metals or commodities of many kinds starts in earnest, expect the price to go up anad stay there.

[edit on 28-7-2010 by mordant1]

reply to post by cloudbreak


Thanks cloudbreak. In few words, you yet again brought out a host of compelling info that can not be prudently ignored.

Yes, the exposure on this issue thanks to GATA and others seems to be reaching new levels. I does seem like the writing is on the wall, things are perhaps about to change significantly. I think your concluding remark is worth it's weight in gold:

So, it's possible, even likely, the current pushing down of prices is a kind of last ditch effort for those in the know to acquire physical at relatively low prices before the curtain is pulled back and the show begins.

For those who can see, it could all make too much sense. The current drop in gold is easily dismissed as "seasonal", that time every summer when precious metals traders take a break, the price falls, etc. From my perspective, a decent drop was actually over-due. It almost seems as if it's getting harder these days to keep the old rabbit in it's hole. But, those "key, core players" as you put it, they are certainly well aware of timing issues, and it is the norm to work their program of manipulation, into the "real" supply/demand structure, along with the usual seasonal aspects.

Which is to say, it could be that the show really is about to begin! I would like to add that we may have even less time, notwithstanding the mere consideration of this larger fiat currency context, especially if that third chess-piece, the geo-political, comes into play.

And so here we stand, at the edge of perhaps the largest global conflict since the Second World War, in the midst of global economic chaos, and gold still takes a little breather.

"The buy programs of the central banks are not about adding gold to diversify their forex reserves; they are about devaluing paper money to raise asset prices, as blown marked-to-model OTC derivatives can then be marked to market."

www.321gold.com...

Certainly, if there was a plan for central banks to (finally) devalue their currencies, and raise asset prices, this might be the last real opportunity of this year for them to load up on physical. Which is to say it is also OUR last opportunity, at such bargain prices.

Here I should say, I absolutely agree with you regarding confiscation, all of us can cast aside all fear, realistically speaking, in spite of much of what's been said in this thread about it.

"There is a middle step between quantitative easing and money printing, and it is gold revaluation. No confiscation is needed in the current crisis to make revaluation 'work,' because so few people own gold..."

This is what I have been saying for years. I deal in physical, every day. I encounter this "fear" about gold (even silver!) not being "safe" to invest in, well, because the government will just take it away! I try to remind my perhaps "gilded" clientele, that they are in the tiniest fraction of the minority. I ask them to try and look at their neighbors, look past the tattoos when they visit Wal-Mart...NO ONE has any gold! They may have their 14K wedding band, or the ladies might enjoy some earrings...THAT'S IT.

As with so many things, we need to gain perspective. Yes, this issue today is more about central banks taking care of business. In 1933, there was a different agenda. TPTB were attempting to de-couple the public perception that gold had any relationship to "money". It was taken out of circulation, it was confiscated...and then decades passed!

Today, we can see that their plan basically worked. The common man on the street thinks of money in terms of green bills. Long dead are his parents or grandparents, who might have actually held a gold coin in their hands.

No one is going to the trouble of confiscating anything, not only because it's not worth it, but because the 1933 agenda was already accomplished.

Let me conclude with a small look forward, not a prognostication at all, but a reminder to those who may not realize that gold is very soon going to enter a period of strong seasonal demand, as the millions of brides of India go in search of their traditional adornments. Add to this the accelerating global tension, and the manipulation of precious metals could end quite abruptly, even "accidentally" (the term used by Ted Butler).

What we will see if such a thing should occur, may almost be reminiscent of the Weimar Republic, because literally overnight, the price of gold in terms of worthless global fiat, could go off the scale. As one "survivor" of the Weimar tragedy related, "It struck like lightning. No one had any time to prepare..."

JR

Looky looky, my insider info was confirmed:

Article entitled: As inequality soars, the nervous super rich are already planning their escapes
Article Link

At a packed session in Davos, former hedge fund director Robert Johnson revealed that worried hedge fund managers were already planning their escapes. “I know hedge fund managers all over the world who are buying airstrips and farms in places like New Zealand because they think they need a getaway,” he said.

a reply to: Mr.Hyde



That`s strange,your opinion that no stores will take gold in lieu of FRNs,my local area I ask the merchants and they all say they will take gold in trade...funny that.

a reply to: dominicus

As inequality soars, the nervous super rich are already planning their escapes

Friday 23 jan 2015




the looming hot war with the Russian, Syrian, Iranian axis is more the cause for excapism,
but to no avail... this will be increased asymmetric war foremost, with deflation, commodity restrictions, resource rationing, the Swift bank code being tattered to shreds by the East forces...BRICS Russia China et al

the income disparity is a distraction just as are beheadings...not trying to reduce the brutality of such barbaric acts but fanatical Muslims beheading other Muslims that are not faithful enough or Christians finding themselves in occupied territory and singled out for infidel execution are isolated and not paradigm changing themes...
the indoctrination by the Pope about climate change issues will have more importance on culture than is reasonable... just because of the powers involved


the uber rich fleeing to sanctuaries better have a Army of protectors all around their safe compounds... those Zombies walk slow but they surge forward, relentless like a tide, and will overtake that safe ranch or farm, sanctuary... eventually

One of my dreams is to win the lottery and buy a farm near me and where I grew up. Its some of the best farm land on the east coast, not too far from Lancaster County. I check out the real estate websites for places that go up for sale and some old farms come up for sale. Not big farms, some are only a hundred acres, some fifty, but they range in price from $500,000 to over a million or more. It seemed a few years ago these places were on the market for a year or longer. Now they've been selling in a few weeks. We're within a commute from NYC or Philly to make them weekend homes.
I wonder who's buying these places. If the economy went south these would be ideal self sustaining home sites, rural in location but not totally isolated. The money is there to buy them and the local economy isn't great. Larger houses, more upscale homes, sit longer so the interest isn't there for them. Only farmland. And these aren't properties that can be developed, they're in clean and green land preservation which is a big thing locally.