What am I doing? I'm waiting for the trade to come to me! What are you doing?
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mail arrived today
BEST POST ALL DAY!!!
Thanks, and a Happy Independence Day to you too!
If you have America's first flag, be sure to fly it tomorrow!
Goldman Sachs: The Pigs Win Again!
http://www.opednews.com/populum/diarypage.php?did=13667
WOWSERS! Once you start reading this, it is impossible to not finish!!!!
Thanks 4kids, you have a safe Independence Day too!
My goal for Independence Day is to hand out 100 copies of the most hated document in DC..... The Constitution!
curiouser and curiouser yes indeed
Manipulation of Markets now openly discussed on CNBC and Bloomberg
Two instances of extremely suprising yet honest discussions about government and Major Program trading manipulation of markets have occured on CNBC and Bloomberg in the last 3 days. The truth is out there.
On Monday, June 29th, CNBC had a trader named Larry Levin on who openly proclaimed that the Federal Government is manipulating the Stock Market.
http://plus.cnbc.com/rssvideosearch/action/player/id/1167028705/code/cnbcplayershare
Now this morning, Bloomberg had trader Joe Saluzzi of Themis Trading on who flatly called the government economic numbers misleading and manipulation of the S&P volume, "Fictitious Volume" by high frequency program traders.
Reason.tv: Overstock.com's Patrick Byrne on Internet Sales Taxes, Naked Short-Selling, Regulatory Capture—and why he turned from a Yankee Republican into a fire-breathing libertarian champion of school choice.
http://reason.com/blog/show/134360.html
Reason.tv's Nick Gillespie sat down recently with Patrick Byrne, the CEO of Overstock.com, the online retailer famous for sexy ads ("It's all about the O"), low, low prices, and hyperattentive customer service.
Born in 1962 and now living in Utah, Byrne holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Stanford and serves as the co-chair (with Rose Friedman) of the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice. He is the former manager of Blackhawk Investment, a cancer survivor, and a black belt in tae kwon do.
An outspoken critic of online sales taxes, Byrne is a self-declared libertarian who champions short-selling while adamantly opposing the more-controversial practice of "naked" short-selling.
From his journalistic perch at the blog Deep Capture, he and his colleagues regularly chart the ways in which regulators routinely stifle innovation and maintain a status quo that favors connected firms at the cost of competitors and consumers alike.
Raised in New Hampshire, Byrne describes himself as a former "Yankee Republican" who has never felt comfortable with anti-market Democrats and no longer recognizes the GOP as the party of small government and individual liberty.
In this 10-minute interview, Byrne explains why school choice is the key issue of our day, how bad regulations contributed to the current economic crisis, and why "the government should pave the roads, run the Post Office, and stay off my porch."
Filmed by Dan Hayes and edited by Meredith Bragg.
FYI domain registered to
Registrant:
Page Cournoyer Inc.
100 boulevard Gagne
Sorel-Tracy, QC J3P7S6
CA
Domain name: ECTFRIENDS.COM
Administrative Contact:
Cournoyer, Laurent achat@pagecournoyer.com
100 boulevard Gagne
Sorel-Tracy, QC J3P7S6
CA
+1.4507463914 Fax: +1.4507465853
Technical Contact:
Cournoyer, Laurent achat@pagecournoyer.com
100 boulevard Gagne
Sorel-Tracy, QC J3P7S6
CA
+1.4507463914 Fax: +1.4507465853
i would have said .. an *industry that has shown recklessness and lacks remorse*
they couldn't self govern for 20 seconds .. let alone 20 days
Well, when you're too big to fail and daddy (the FED) is more than willing to bail you out of trouble, responsibility for ones actions is no longer a requirement now is it?
News is being published all over
http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/marketwire/0512295.htm
http://ca.sys-con.com/node/1008837
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Effective-Control-Transport-Inc-1006561.html
http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/vigil-locating-systems-corporation-announces,867161.shtml
That's a keeper, thanks for posting!
AH trades (aka Form T trades):
1) within 90 seconds after the market closes = normal tradings but so close to 4 pm that it didn't get posted on time.
FOR MORE THAN 90 SECONDS
2) used by financial institutions that are non MMs to report larger trades that occurred during market hours. But they don't have access to ACT (Automated Confirmation Transcation Service) use FORM T to report. These transactions are typically used by larger investors to buy larger lots at prearranged prices without risking to drive the price upward or downward.
3) Certain transactions may clear and settle outside of the regular clearing system ("ex-clearing" transactions), where two dealers make an arrangement to settle trades between them outside the clearing system. Manually via Ex-Clearing. Ex-Clearing is a manual comparison process that is performed by the brokerage firm’s Purchase and Sales Department. Unusual short coverings can end up settle this way
Northwestern Mutual Makes First Gold Buy in 152 Years (Update2)
By Andrew Frye
June 1 (Bloomberg) -- Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co., the third-largest U.S. life insurer by 2008 sales, has bought gold for the first time the company’s 152-year history to hedge against further asset declines.
“Gold just seems to make sense; it’s a store of value,” Chief Executive Officer Edward Zore said in an interview following his comments at a conference hosted by Standard & Poor’s in Brooklyn. “In the Depression, gold did very, very well.”
Northwestern Mutual has accumulated about $400 million in gold, and Zore said the price could double or even rise fivefold if the economy continues to weaken. Gold gained 10 percent last month, the most since November. The commodity has more than tripled since 2000, rising for eight straight years. Gold futures for August delivery slipped $4.80 to $975.50 at 4:03 p.m. in New York.
“The downside risk is limited, but the upside is large,” Zore said. “We have stocks in our portfolio that lost 95 percent.” Gold “is not going down to $90.”
Policyholder-owned Northwestern Mutual, based in Milwaukee, ranks third by 2008 life insurance premiums according to data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. The data excludes annuities.
To contact the reporter on this story: Andrew Frye in New York at afrye@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: June 1, 2009 16:34 EDT
very nice letter
good! Here's hoping that the "something" isn't half-hearted
The government’s urgent push into cyberwarfare.... that .... President Obama described Friday as "one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation."
Gosh if HE said it, it must be really serious. :p
I'm in the information system security industry and it's well known that government computing networks are egregiously insecure. Those dopes refuse to follow basic well-established standards of information security. This isn't rocket science people! Obama, it's NOT rocket science! You don't need to make this issue the next moon shot! Government is completely incompetent, THAT IS WHY THE PENTAGON COMPUTERS GET HIT! And if Congress would just stop surfing p0rn their computers wouldn't be "hacked" by the Chinese as much either. Geeez
William Murphy of GATA (Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee) explains how the 'Cartel' suppresses the price of gold
http://www.thedailybell.com/index.asp?fl=
The Daily Bell
The editors of the Daily Bell are pleased to present this comprehensive and exclusive interview conducted by Scott Smith with William Murphy of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee.
Introduction: Bill Murphy grew up in Glen Ridge, New Jersey and graduated from the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University in 1968. His senior year he broke all the single season Ivy League pass receiving records and was Honorable Mention on the All-America Football team. He went on to become the starting wide receiver for the Boston Patriots in 1968. Bill went on to a career in the futures industry as a commodities broker. Early on he worked for Shearson Hayden Stone and Drexel Burnham before starting up his own introducing brokerage on 5th Avenue in New York. In 1998 he opened up LeMetropoleCafe.com, a financial market website geared to the gold market. In January 1999 Bill became chairman of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) to expose the manipulation of the gold price by The Gold Cartel.
Daily Bell: Thanks for spending some time with us.
Bill Murphy: Thanks for thinking of GATA.
Daily Bell: Some people would say you have done more to move the price of gold upward than the Federal Reserve - with all its blundering. How do you respond to that?
Bill Murphy: That certainly would not be the opinion in the mainstream gold world who have fought against GATA's efforts and discoveries from day one. The Federal Reserve is a dichotomy as to the price of gold. They have been instrumental in their efforts to suppress the price of gold in their role in The Gold Cartel. At the same time their "quantitative easing" could not be more gold friendly. For those who believe GATA has had a substantial impact on the gold price, we thank them.
Daily Bell: You seem to view the world through a free-market prism - that's fairly obvious. Would you consider yourself fully a free-market "Austrian" in terms of your economic philosophy?
Bill Murphy: Don't really get into it that much. I used to trade commodities on a rather large scale and like to think I know a fair amount about the markets and how they work. A few weeks after I opened my website, LeMetropoleCafe.com, Long Term Capital Management blew up. My colleagues and I knew they were short more than 300 tonnes of gold on a "carry trade." When they were forced to cover that short, the price should have gone ballistic. Instead, the bullion banks (Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Chase Bank), who were short too, bailed them out and stopped gold's advances cold on a daily basis around $300 per ounce. That couldn't have been clearer by the price action and the reports from the Comex floor.
Daily Bell: How convinced are you that the monetary elite manipulates the price of gold? How did you come to that conclusion?
Bill Murphy: The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee's basic assertion for the past 10+ years is that there is a Gold Cartel out there suppressing the gold price. It consists of the US Government, including the Fed and Treasury, various other central banks, and bullion banks like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase. Bullion banks such as Goldman and Morgan became The Gold Cartel's hit men, trading the gold market from the short side and bombing the market in coordinated anti-trust fashion at the beck and call of our government, making a great deal of money in the process. It seems to have all started with Robert Rubin:
Before he was CEO of Goldman Sachs and then US Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin worked as the top dog in London for Goldman Sachs. One of his duties was to oversee their gold trading operations. We know this because the CEO of Kirkland Lake Gold, Brian Hinchcliffe, whose firm is a staunch GATA supporter, worked in London back then for Goldman Sachs and reported directly to Robert Rubin.
This was many years ago (late 80's) and interest rates in the US were very high, say from 8 to 12%. Rubin had Goldman Sachs borrow gold from the central banks to fund their basic operations, doing so at about a 1 % interest rate. Then they sold the physical gold in the marketplace, using the proceeds as they so desired. This was like FREE money, as long as the price of gold did not rise to any sustained degree for any length of time.
Soon other major financial institutions realized what Goldman Sachs was doing and copied them. Rubin continued these operations as the overall Goldman Sachs CEO in New York and then took it to a new level as US Treasury Secretary. That is how the gold price suppression became the lynchpin of his widely acclaimed "Strong Dollar Policy." GATA's Reg Howe caught onto this notion by finding a paper titled, "Gibson's Paradox and The Gold Standard," co-authored by Lawrence Summers in 1988. Summers, a professor at Harvard at the time, succeeded Rubin as US Treasury Secretary. The bottom line of Summer's analysis is that "gold prices in a free market should move inversely to real interest rates." Control gold and it will help to control interest rates.
From GATA's standpoint it is a serious bummer that Summers is now the Director of the White House's National Economic Council for President Obama. Our energetic new President has the architect of America's economic demise as his key advisor.
I met with Bart Chilton, an outstanding and receptive commissioner with the CFTC, on December 19, 2008 and laid out GATA's evidence of the gold market manipulation. There were three others at our meeting from the CFTC, including their senior counsel. Bart took copious notes and I suggested he take what GATA had to say to the Obama people ... emphasizing the gold price suppression scheme would blow up before President Obama's watch was over due to dwindling available central bank gold to suppress the price. Better to let the gold price trade freely now and blame what occurred on the Bush Administration, rather than let the scheme go on and eat the problem on his administration's watch down the road.
Daily Bell: How about silver?
Bill Murphy: No question about it ... MANIPULATED! JP Morgan Chase is by far the major silver short and its position is way too concentrated for a free market. Silver needed to be manipulated along with gold in order to keep attention away from the price suppression scheme. Ted Butler, well known in the precious metals internet world, knows as much about the silver market as anyone, and has brilliantly articulated just how much silver has been manipulated ... and by whom.
Daily Bell: What motivates those who do this in your estimation?
Bill Murphy: The motives of "the cabal" are to give support to the dollar, keep US interest rates lower than they should be, and to tone down the widely watched US barometer of US financial market health, that being the gold price. After all, whenever the price of gold soars, it congers up talk of too much inflation, a sinking dollar, or a crisis of some sort ... all negative for Wall Street and the incumbent administration. That's exactly the sort of commentary you will be reading about in the weeks and months ahead as the price of gold soars.
Daily Bell: Can you expand on what motivates you?
Bill Murphy: I stumbled onto this 10 years ago. I was complaining about the obvious gold price manipulation scheme and a new subscriber, Chris Powell, who had extensive anti-trust experience working with his newspaper, said I should stop just complaining and do something about it. He said he would put up $500, if I would, to form a committee ... with the notion we could do something about it.
Ten years later, this is what I do and it has been the most fascinating and rewarding experience in my life ... especially the people I have met. Gradually our tiny group has learned how the US financial world really works. The lack of transparency and extent of the collusive market manipulation of it all is both staggering and frightening.
Daily Bell: Why hasn't this been a topic of investigation for the mainstream media?
Bill Murphy: By some fluke I was asked to be a guest on CNBC in early February of 1999. That was the last time I was seen on US television, once they heard what I had to say. GATA is taking on the richest and most powerful people in the world and the establishment doesn't like it.
One of the most enlightening things in my life was to learn we don't really have a free press in America. Our name (Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, or GATA) doesn't even show up in print, or get mentioned on the air, and we have been right for the last nine years in a row about the direction of the price of gold ... when most of the establishment has been offside ... most having been neutral to bearish.
Daily Bell: Have you ever been worried about a backlash? Have you ever been threatened in any way as a result of your activities or intimidated?
Bill Murphy: About 8 years ago, the following happened within a six week period ... nothing like it before or since:
• My car was stolen. It was found a month later on a nearby highway the day after my insurance company paid me. There was not even a dent on it, money was left in the glove compartment, and a cashmere sweater remained in the backseat.
• My web site was hacked with someone sending out some dreadful, goofy email that made me look daffy.
• Coming out of a nearby restaurant on a Saturday evening in a fashionable neighborhood (one block from where I live), somebody knocked me out with a brass knuckle punch. I thought my jaw was broken.
Were those incidents over a six-week period just a fluke? Got me. But, they were awfully suggestive that someone out there wanted GATA to back off.
Daily Bell: Do you expect that some sort of smoking gun regarding the manipulation of money metals will be found through litigation or some other legal process?
Bill Murphy: It surely could and GATA has been on that case since December 2000 when GATA consultant Reg Howe filed this complaint:
The following Complaint was filed on December 7, 2000, in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Boston, MA.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
District of Massachusetts
Civil Action No.
00-CV-12485-RCL
______________________________________
Reginald H. Howe,
Plaintiff,
v.
Bank for International Settlements,
Alan Greenspan,
William J. McDonough,
J.P. Morgan & Co. Inc.,
Chase Manhattan Corp.,
Citigroup, Inc.,
Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.,
Deutsche Bank AG and
Lawrence H. Summers,
Secretary of the Treasury,
Defendants.
______________________________________
COMPLAINT
I. Jurisdiction
1. This is a complaint for damages and injunctive relief arising out of manipulative activities in the gold market from 1994 to the present time orchestrated by government officials acting outside the scope of their legal or constitutional authority and certain large bullion banks active in the over-the-counter gold derivatives markets and on the Commodities Exchange ("COMEX") in New York. The complaint alleges horizontal price fixing in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, securities fraud in violation of Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ("Exchange Act"), common law fraud and breach of fiduciary duty by the directors of the Bank for International Settlements with regard to holders of its American issue, and violations of the Constitution by federal officials acting under color of federal law but wholly outside the scope of their legal or constitutional authority...
The judge did not dismiss anything Reg presented ... nothing ... but dismissed the case because he ruled that Reg did not have proper legal standing to go any further.
Daily Bell: There was at one time a lawsuit against Barrick Gold that ended in an out of court settlement. You were hopeful that this would cast light on larger manipulations. What do you think happened?
Bill Murphy: Barrick Gold was into the gold price suppression scheme up to their eyeballs and GATA was all over their case from the get-go. We believe Blanchard & Co's out of court settlement against Barrick and JP Morgan Chase (following the suit by GATA's Reg Howe) was a huge victory for Blanchard and the GATA camp. Note what happened in late 2003. One day Barrick Chairman Peter Munk was extolling their massive hedge program and the next day he did a 180-degree reversal (HUH?) ... AND, Barrick's CEO flew to New Orleans the next day where the case was being tried ... unable to make a scheduled presentation in London.
Reuters
UPDATE - Barrick changes policy, drops gold hedging
Friday November 21, 8:19 am ET
By Veronica Brown
LONDON, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Barrick Gold Corp stunned bullion markets on Friday by saying it was changing its hedging policy, and is no longer committed to selling the metal on forward markets as it is now cash rich....
As Canada's biggest gold producer, Barrick is the world's second-largest gold miner by market value and one of the largest bullion producers.
ABOUT-TURN FROM PREVIOUS POSITION
On Thursday, Munk had extolled the virtues of hedging by Barrick, which has one of the largest gold hedgebooks in the industry...
What do you think that was all about? Munk had dementia? Nope, Blanchard forced Barrick to stop hedging. What fun! It is SO obvious what really transpired. GO GATA! GO Blanchard!
Daily Bell: Are there other lawsuits on the horizon, or other information that can come to light soon that will provide full proof of your thesis?
Bill Murphy: GATA's Chris Powell sent out the following dispatch on April 14 of this year...
Responding to President Obama's instruction to government agencies of January 21 this year, seeking greater openness in government, GATA today reformulated and resubmitted to the US Treasury Department and Federal Reserve Board our requests of last year seeking access to records of swaps involving the US gold reserve. You may recall that the Treasury entirely rejected GATA's request last year while the Fed withheld most documents of any substance, contending, in part, that disclosure would harm certain proprietary interests, among others.
That there should be any secrecy at all involving the US gold reserve may be construed as another proof of surreptitious US government intervention in the worldwide gold, currency, and bond markets.
Despite the president's instruction for greater openness, of course, GATA does not expect a more favorable response to its new requests for information. We continue to believe that, given the market rigging long under way, the disposition of US and Western central bank gold reserves is considered a secret more sensitive than the plans for construction of nuclear weapons. But we hope that our renewed requests will call more attention to our issue and that their rejection will build acceptance of GATA's work over time.
Further, assuming that these new requests also will be denied, GATA may bring lawsuits against the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve in federal court if sufficient financial support can be obtained.
To read GATA's new request to the Treasury Department, click here.
To read GATA's new request to the Federal Reserve, click here.
Daily Bell: Can you describe in the simplest possible terms the main kinds of gold manipulations. How do they work?
Bill Murphy: The Gold Cartel surreptitiously sells physical gold into the market at key strategic times. This added supply has a negative effect on the price when done in size enough to overwhelm demand. This has been going on for more than a decade. They use the derivatives markets to flush out speculative longs on the Comex. When the specs flee, The Gold Cartel gradually covers their shorts and then start their selling all over again on the next price rise.
The Gold Cartel's efforts can also be viewed on a daily basis. They tend to strike in London (3 AM New York time) when the cabal traders report to work; after the PM Fix in London when the physical market pricing has concluded for the day; and with few traders around in the lightly traded Access Market following the Comex close, in order to influence the price lower.
Daily Bell: Have you gathered enough proof to prove this sort of explanation - if it were presented to a truly unbiased examiner?
Bill Murphy: It might be helpful to think of what GATA has put together on The Gold Cartel and compare it to a jury listening to the evidence against them in a capital murder case ... some of which is circumstantial evidence, but taken all together, you can come up with no other conclusion than to end up with a verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt ... with the death penalty as the appropriate punishment.
Ironically, there is a significant amount of evidence on the public record to support GATA's claims, going all the way back to Alan Greenspan's illuminating comment before Congress in July of 1998, "Central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise" ... and that's just what they have done.
And then you have:
• The Reserve Bank of Australia confessed to the gold price suppression scheme in its annual report for 2003. "Foreign currency reserve assets and gold," the RBA's report said, "are held primarily to support intervention in the foreign exchange market."
• The head of the monetary and economic department of the Bank for International Settlements, William S. White, in a speech to a BIS conference in Basel, Switzerland, in June 2005:
"There are five main purposes of central bank cooperation, White announced, and one of them 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."
• Nearly two years ago, the US Treasury quietly made a subtle change to its weekly reports of the US International Reserve Position, which includes the US Gold Reserve.
In stating the US Gold Reserve is 261.499 million ounces, the gold is now reported 'including gold deposits and, if appropriate, gold swapped.'
This description provides clear evidence that the US Gold Reserve is in play. Gold has been removed from US Treasury vaults and placed on deposit, presumably in the couple of bullion banks the Treasury has selected to assist with its gold price-capping efforts.
Daily Bell: You've received a lot of coverage for your views in our estimation. But obviously you're not cover material for the mainstream press. Can you give us some insight into what is obviously a bias against your point of view and arguments?
Bill Murphy: In a way we are like Harry Markopolis who went to the SEC with evidence that Bernie Madoff's investment business was nothing more than a giant Ponzi scheme ... and he showed them the evidence to prove it, like we have to the CFTC and the financial market media.
Did the SEC pay any attention? NO! Madoff was so-called respected establishment with the most proper credentials. Now, realize GATA is showing up Goldman, Morgan and the US Government. That is a no-no in the Wall Street media world. It is not respectable to challenge those giants and our press doesn't want to hear about it ... after all, who are the biggest advertisers?
What we are going through can also be compared to those who cried foul about Enron, an energy trading firm which blew up after being voted America's finest corporation five years in a row by a major US financial publication. Scandals, such as the one GATA has uncovered, are ignored by the financial press when they are about Wall Street's esteemed until it is too late and the money is gone.
If I might say, GATA is no rag tag organization with all of us coming from the so-called establishment world during our careers. The background and credentials of our GATA camp aren't too shabby. From the speakers roster at Gold Rush 21 in the Yukon:
• Reg Howe - Harvard Law, Golden Sextant Advisors
• Bob Landis - Harvard Law, Golden Sextant Advisors
• John Brimelow - Stanford Business School, Wall Street gold broker
• Catherine Austin Fitts - MBA at Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and was the Assistant Secretary of Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development in the first Bush Administration
• Hugo Salinas Price -The "Mr. Silver" of Mexico and President of the Mexican Civic Association for Silver
• Peter George - Oxford University ... The "Mr. Gold" of South Africa
• James Turk - Chase Manhattan Bank and www.goldmoney.com
• John Embry - Royal Bank of Canada and now Chief Investment Strategist at Sprott Asset Management
• Adam Fleming - Chairman of Wits Gold and former chairman of Harmony Gold
• JP Schumacher - Top-Gold Fund and former partner of legendary Swiss Banker, Ferdinand Lips, author of "The Gold Wars."
• Chris Powell - Editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester, Connecticut, GATA Secretary/Treasurer
• Bill Murphy - Cornell School of Hotel Administration, GATA Chairman
Daily Bell: Have you had run-ins with the mainstream media where individuals refused to recognize fairly evident truths?
Bill Murphy: We have nothing but run-ins with the mainstream gold world and the US financial press. Most refuse to acknowledge we exist and others, who say they are going to write up our claims, have their stories scuttled by their editors.
Daily Bell: Did you know that Wikipedia, which has articles about everything under the sun, does not have a GATA link? It was deleted with the rationale being that your organization is a fringe source. Can you comment on that?
Bill Murphy: Fringe source? What a hoot! The Russians know who GATA is...
The London Bullion Market Association
Bullion Market Forum
Baltschug Kempinsky Hotel, Moscow
June 3-4, 2004
Perspectives on Gold: Central Bank Viewpoint
By Oleg V. Mozhaiskov, Deputy Chairman
Bank of Russia
"This dualism in gold price formation distinguishes it from other commodities and makes the movements in the price sometimes so enigmatic that market analysts need to invent fantastic intrigues to explain price dynamics. Many have heard of the group of economists who came together in the society known as the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee and started a number of lawsuits against the US government, accusing it of organzsing an anti-gold conspiracy. They believe that with the assistance of a number of major financial institutions (they mention in particular the Bank for International Settlements, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, and others), some senior officials have been manipulating the market since 1994. As a result, the price dropped below US$300 an ounce at a time when it should, if it had kept pace with inflation, have reached US$740-760."
Those comments stunned the bullion dealers in attendance, who then refused to send us a copy of the speech. After months of futile efforts, the Chairman of the Moscow Norodny Bank in London sent a translated copy to GATA. A year later, Andrey Bykov, an economic consultant to Russia's President Putin, attended GATA's conference in the Yukon. Two days later the price of a comatose gold exploded and rose $300 per ounce in the ensuing nine months.
Not for nothing, GATA has held three international gold conferences:
• The "GATA African Gold Summit" in Durban, South Africa on May 10, 2001, attended by 5 sub-Saharan African nations, the South African Reserve Bank, leading SA gold producers, the South African unions, etc., - an event that was given prime time coverage on SABC television.
• On August 8th and 9th 2005, "Gold Rush 21" in Dawson City, Canada, a historic conference held in the Yukon to expose the manipulation of the gold market. One hundred delegates attended from 14 countries, including the aforementioned Andrey Bykov.
• The "GATA Goes To Washington" conference in Arlington, Virginia. 180 attendees came from 17 countries for the gathering. The conference showcased GATA's FOIA efforts to learn the truth about US gold reserves from the Fed and US Treasury.
This past year I (representing GATA) was a part of three conference calls with the Chinese Investment Corporation, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world.
Then, just a few weeks ago Adam Fleming, mentioned above and related to Ian Fleming of James Bond, threw GATA a fund raising reception in London, attended by many of the elites in the London Gold World. My colleague Chris Powell, Sprott Asset Management's John Embry, and I went over for the presentation.
If all that is fringe, GATA is fringe.
Daily Bell: With the prices of gold and silver much higher than at the start of the decade, does the manipulation continue as aggressively as a decade ago, or is it diminishing?
Bill Murphy: It was this clandestine feeding of central bank gold into the marketplace which clued GATA into the gold price suppression scheme. Three GATA consultants, Reg Howe, Frank Veneroso and James Turk, using independent, sophisticated methodologies, came to the same conclusion years ago ... that the central banks have far less gold than the 30,000 tonnes of gold they say they have. The GATA camp research shows they have less than half that amount in their vaults, the difference being the amount that has been fed surreptitiously into the physical market to suppress the price. Since demand for physical gold exceeds mine and scrap supply by well over than 1,000 tonnes per year, this central bank gold is vital to prevent the price from exploding.
The central banks are gradually running out of enough available central bank gold to keep the price suppressed. Their ammo is dwindling, so they are in a managed retreat. Meanwhile, other central banks don't want to be seen selling much anymore, especially after China announced they had increased their official gold reserves by 454 tonnes.
The GATA camp's credibility soared after that announcement, as we documented in my commentary in late 2003 that the Chinese Government began buying and even got the total tonnage just about right. No one else in the mainstream gold world did so. This is important because GATA has been accounting for the extra supply flow (via the Gold Cartel's lending) to meet demand for gold which is far greater then acknowledged by the gold industry.
Daily Bell: As the price of gold goes up will it finally unravel large derivative bets that have been placed against it?
Bill Murphy: A fair amount of the leased gold is hedged to some degree by way out of the money calls. WHEN gold goes berserk, which it will, all sorts of counterparty, derivatives problems could be set off. In today's financial environment, that won't be a huge surprise.
Just out recently from GATA consultant Reg Howe:
May 25, 2009, Gold Derivatives: The Tide Turns
On May 19, 2009, the Bank for International Settlements released its regular semi-annual report (click here to read) on the over-the-counter derivatives of major banks and dealers in the G-10 countries and Switzerland for the six months ending December 31, 2008. See A. Moses, Derivatives Market Declines for First Time on Record (Update 1, click here to read article), Bloomberg.com (May 19, 2009). The total notional value of all gold derivatives declined from $649 billion at mid-year to $395 billion at year-end, or almost 40%. Although gold prices fell from $930 to $870 (London PM) during the period, gross market values dropped only marginally from $68 to $65 billion, probably reflecting the impact of increased volatility on valuing options...
The significant declines in worldwide gold derivatives reported by the BIS for the last half of 2008 stand in stark contrast to the figures for US commercial banks reported by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (click here to read). From June 30 to December 31, 2008, the total notional amount of gold derivatives held by US commercial banks fell from $114 billion to $107 billion, or just over 6%, compared to the 40% drop for all major banks and dealers in the G-10 plus Switzerland. JP Morgan Chase's gold derivatives fell from $85.3 to $82.5 billion, scarcely 3.3%, and HSBC's from $27.5 to $19.2 billion....
Derivatives can be and are used to push markets around. Nowhere has this phenomenon been more obvious than in the gold market, where as former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan boasted to the House Banking Committee in 1998: "...central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise." Gold lending by central banks provided the fuel for gold derivatives, particularly forwards and swaps, and the ammunition used by the bullion banks to suppress gold prices, thereby making the US dollar and other major currencies appear sounder than their fundamentals warranted.
Note how JP Morgan Chase stands out.
Daily Bell: Has the Internet proved problematic for the forces interested in money manipulation?
Bill Murphy: For sure. That is how I met all of my colleagues, who happen to be the smartest and nicest group of individuals I have ever met in my life.
Daily Bell: Do you foresee a return to a free-market gold and silver standard? Would you just prefer gold?
You got me. GATA is for a free, fair, and transparent gold price. At Gold Rush 21, with gold at $436, I predicted a gold price of $3,000 to $5,000 in the years ahead. That is what it is going to take to "clear" the market and I stick with those numbers. No big deal. It is generally acknowledged that if gold had kept up with the generally accepted inflation numbers in the US, the price of gold would already be about $2,300 per ounce. It is not there right now BECAUSE of THE GOLD CARTEL.
Daily Bell: What lies ahead, deflation, inflation or both. Is there a chance for hyperinflation?
Bill Murphy: With the US printing press going the way it is, there will be massive inflation. It is written.
Daily Bell: Do you believe junior gold and silver stocks will begin to rally as this business cycle matures?
Bill Murphy: You mean the comatose ones? Yes, they are just beginning to show signs of life. When gold clears $1,000 and holds it, gold and silver investments are going to be the GO TO investments among the general public ... even a clueless Wall Street will come to life on that score. As the public pours into our tiny market cap sector, the shares of all the quality gold/silver stocks (juniors and explorations) will go ballistic ... ten baggers will be commonplace.
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Daily Bell: What are some of the most important issues pertaining to free-markets in your opinion?
Bill Murphy: The rigging of the price of gold may be one of the most significant financial events of our time. Last year GATA said so publicly and in the most visible of fashion (see below).
Daily Bell: What endeavors are you involved in that you want to point out to our audience. What's most important to you that you would like our audience to be aware of and support?
Bill Murphy: GATA is an ACTION organization ... we do more than just pontificate. We have traveled the world in an attempt to win the day ... including meetings with James Saxton, vice-chairman of the House Joint Economic Committee; Dennis Hastert, The Speaker of the House; Spencer Bachus, the vice-chairman of the sub-Committee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy; and boyhood friends of President Bush, including Tom Craddick, Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives.
To meet our objectives we need funds to carry on. The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee seeks financial and moral support from gold mining companies, investors in gold mining companies and physical gold, and people who seek to preserve gold's vital role in the world's economy. To help us, click here.
Daily Bell: What is the most important campaign that you are working on now pertaining to GATA?
Bill Murphy: To get the attention of the media to allow what we have discovered to see the light of day.
Daily Bell: What are the most important - seminal -- works of yours that you would encourage everyone to read? Where can they be found?
Bill Murphy: Besides all the evidence of gold market manipulation we have gathered (much of it can be read at The Matisse Table at my website, LeMetropoleCafe.com), our three international conferences stand out. Gold Rush 21 will go down as an historic conference. Video of part of the presentations may be viewed by clicking here.
In addition, GATA placed a full-page color ad in the Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2008 with the DOW about 12,500. GATA went out of its way (paying $264,426.26), to warn the world what was coming as a result of the price suppression scheme. It can be viewed by clicking here.
Note these two points GATA made about what was to come:
• "This manipulation has been a primary cause of the catastrophic excesses in the market that now threaten the whole world."
• "Serious manipulation by government is leading the world to disaster."
By not allowing the price of gold to trade freely and rise in price, US interest rates were kept too low for too long ... and directly led to the financial market chaos we are presently experiencing.
To this day I have not had ONE inquiry from the mainstream financial press how we could have been so right ... with nobody even asking "Who are those guys?" and why would they spend so much money with that message?
Daily Bell: On behalf of all of our readers we thank you for sharing your views with us - and for your courageous and important work. And we encourage all readers to visit your site and consider learning more about GATA and its activities.
Bill Murphy: Thanks much ... GATA's website is www.GATA.org.
William Murphy of GATA (Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee) explains how the 'Cartel' suppresses the price of gold
http://www.thedailybell.com/index.asp?fl=
The Daily Bell
The editors of the Daily Bell are pleased to present this comprehensive and exclusive interview conducted by Scott Smith with William Murphy of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee.
Introduction: Bill Murphy grew up in Glen Ridge, New Jersey and graduated from the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University in 1968. His senior year he broke all the single season Ivy League pass receiving records and was Honorable Mention on the All-America Football team. He went on to become the starting wide receiver for the Boston Patriots in 1968. Bill went on to a career in the futures industry as a commodities broker. Early on he worked for Shearson Hayden Stone and Drexel Burnham before starting up his own introducing brokerage on 5th Avenue in New York. In 1998 he opened up LeMetropoleCafe.com, a financial market website geared to the gold market. In January 1999 Bill became chairman of the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee (GATA) to expose the manipulation of the gold price by The Gold Cartel.
Daily Bell: Thanks for spending some time with us.
Bill Murphy: Thanks for thinking of GATA.
Daily Bell: Some people would say you have done more to move the price of gold upward than the Federal Reserve - with all its blundering. How do you respond to that?
Bill Murphy: That certainly would not be the opinion in the mainstream gold world who have fought against GATA's efforts and discoveries from day one. The Federal Reserve is a dichotomy as to the price of gold. They have been instrumental in their efforts to suppress the price of gold in their role in The Gold Cartel. At the same time their "quantitative easing" could not be more gold friendly. For those who believe GATA has had a substantial impact on the gold price, we thank them.
Daily Bell: You seem to view the world through a free-market prism - that's fairly obvious. Would you consider yourself fully a free-market "Austrian" in terms of your economic philosophy?
Bill Murphy: Don't really get into it that much. I used to trade commodities on a rather large scale and like to think I know a fair amount about the markets and how they work. A few weeks after I opened my website, LeMetropoleCafe.com, Long Term Capital Management blew up. My colleagues and I knew they were short more than 300 tonnes of gold on a "carry trade." When they were forced to cover that short, the price should have gone ballistic. Instead, the bullion banks (Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, Chase Bank), who were short too, bailed them out and stopped gold's advances cold on a daily basis around $300 per ounce. That couldn't have been clearer by the price action and the reports from the Comex floor.
Daily Bell: How convinced are you that the monetary elite manipulates the price of gold? How did you come to that conclusion?
Bill Murphy: The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee's basic assertion for the past 10+ years is that there is a Gold Cartel out there suppressing the gold price. It consists of the US Government, including the Fed and Treasury, various other central banks, and bullion banks like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase. Bullion banks such as Goldman and Morgan became The Gold Cartel's hit men, trading the gold market from the short side and bombing the market in coordinated anti-trust fashion at the beck and call of our government, making a great deal of money in the process. It seems to have all started with Robert Rubin:
Before he was CEO of Goldman Sachs and then US Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin worked as the top dog in London for Goldman Sachs. One of his duties was to oversee their gold trading operations. We know this because the CEO of Kirkland Lake Gold, Brian Hinchcliffe, whose firm is a staunch GATA supporter, worked in London back then for Goldman Sachs and reported directly to Robert Rubin.
This was many years ago (late 80's) and interest rates in the US were very high, say from 8 to 12%. Rubin had Goldman Sachs borrow gold from the central banks to fund their basic operations, doing so at about a 1 % interest rate. Then they sold the physical gold in the marketplace, using the proceeds as they so desired. This was like FREE money, as long as the price of gold did not rise to any sustained degree for any length of time.
Soon other major financial institutions realized what Goldman Sachs was doing and copied them. Rubin continued these operations as the overall Goldman Sachs CEO in New York and then took it to a new level as US Treasury Secretary. That is how the gold price suppression became the lynchpin of his widely acclaimed "Strong Dollar Policy." GATA's Reg Howe caught onto this notion by finding a paper titled, "Gibson's Paradox and The Gold Standard," co-authored by Lawrence Summers in 1988. Summers, a professor at Harvard at the time, succeeded Rubin as US Treasury Secretary. The bottom line of Summer's analysis is that "gold prices in a free market should move inversely to real interest rates." Control gold and it will help to control interest rates.
From GATA's standpoint it is a serious bummer that Summers is now the Director of the White House's National Economic Council for President Obama. Our energetic new President has the architect of America's economic demise as his key advisor.
I met with Bart Chilton, an outstanding and receptive commissioner with the CFTC, on December 19, 2008 and laid out GATA's evidence of the gold market manipulation. There were three others at our meeting from the CFTC, including their senior counsel. Bart took copious notes and I suggested he take what GATA had to say to the Obama people ... emphasizing the gold price suppression scheme would blow up before President Obama's watch was over due to dwindling available central bank gold to suppress the price. Better to let the gold price trade freely now and blame what occurred on the Bush Administration, rather than let the scheme go on and eat the problem on his administration's watch down the road.
Daily Bell: How about silver?
Bill Murphy: No question about it ... MANIPULATED! JP Morgan Chase is by far the major silver short and its position is way too concentrated for a free market. Silver needed to be manipulated along with gold in order to keep attention away from the price suppression scheme. Ted Butler, well known in the precious metals internet world, knows as much about the silver market as anyone, and has brilliantly articulated just how much silver has been manipulated ... and by whom.
Daily Bell: What motivates those who do this in your estimation?
Bill Murphy: The motives of "the cabal" are to give support to the dollar, keep US interest rates lower than they should be, and to tone down the widely watched US barometer of US financial market health, that being the gold price. After all, whenever the price of gold soars, it congers up talk of too much inflation, a sinking dollar, or a crisis of some sort ... all negative for Wall Street and the incumbent administration. That's exactly the sort of commentary you will be reading about in the weeks and months ahead as the price of gold soars.
Daily Bell: Can you expand on what motivates you?
Bill Murphy: I stumbled onto this 10 years ago. I was complaining about the obvious gold price manipulation scheme and a new subscriber, Chris Powell, who had extensive anti-trust experience working with his newspaper, said I should stop just complaining and do something about it. He said he would put up $500, if I would, to form a committee ... with the notion we could do something about it.
Ten years later, this is what I do and it has been the most fascinating and rewarding experience in my life ... especially the people I have met. Gradually our tiny group has learned how the US financial world really works. The lack of transparency and extent of the collusive market manipulation of it all is both staggering and frightening.
Daily Bell: Why hasn't this been a topic of investigation for the mainstream media?
Bill Murphy: By some fluke I was asked to be a guest on CNBC in early February of 1999. That was the last time I was seen on US television, once they heard what I had to say. GATA is taking on the richest and most powerful people in the world and the establishment doesn't like it.
One of the most enlightening things in my life was to learn we don't really have a free press in America. Our name (Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, or GATA) doesn't even show up in print, or get mentioned on the air, and we have been right for the last nine years in a row about the direction of the price of gold ... when most of the establishment has been offside ... most having been neutral to bearish.
Daily Bell: Have you ever been worried about a backlash? Have you ever been threatened in any way as a result of your activities or intimidated?
Bill Murphy: About 8 years ago, the following happened within a six week period ... nothing like it before or since:
• My car was stolen. It was found a month later on a nearby highway the day after my insurance company paid me. There was not even a dent on it, money was left in the glove compartment, and a cashmere sweater remained in the backseat.
• My web site was hacked with someone sending out some dreadful, goofy email that made me look daffy.
• Coming out of a nearby restaurant on a Saturday evening in a fashionable neighborhood (one block from where I live), somebody knocked me out with a brass knuckle punch. I thought my jaw was broken.
Were those incidents over a six-week period just a fluke? Got me. But, they were awfully suggestive that someone out there wanted GATA to back off.
Daily Bell: Do you expect that some sort of smoking gun regarding the manipulation of money metals will be found through litigation or some other legal process?
Bill Murphy: It surely could and GATA has been on that case since December 2000 when GATA consultant Reg Howe filed this complaint:
The following Complaint was filed on December 7, 2000, in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, Boston, MA.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
District of Massachusetts
Civil Action No.
00-CV-12485-RCL
______________________________________
Reginald H. Howe,
Plaintiff,
v.
Bank for International Settlements,
Alan Greenspan,
William J. McDonough,
J.P. Morgan & Co. Inc.,
Chase Manhattan Corp.,
Citigroup, Inc.,
Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.,
Deutsche Bank AG and
Lawrence H. Summers,
Secretary of the Treasury,
Defendants.
______________________________________
COMPLAINT
I. Jurisdiction
1. This is a complaint for damages and injunctive relief arising out of manipulative activities in the gold market from 1994 to the present time orchestrated by government officials acting outside the scope of their legal or constitutional authority and certain large bullion banks active in the over-the-counter gold derivatives markets and on the Commodities Exchange ("COMEX") in New York. The complaint alleges horizontal price fixing in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act, securities fraud in violation of Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 ("Exchange Act"), common law fraud and breach of fiduciary duty by the directors of the Bank for International Settlements with regard to holders of its American issue, and violations of the Constitution by federal officials acting under color of federal law but wholly outside the scope of their legal or constitutional authority...
The judge did not dismiss anything Reg presented ... nothing ... but dismissed the case because he ruled that Reg did not have proper legal standing to go any further.
Daily Bell: There was at one time a lawsuit against Barrick Gold that ended in an out of court settlement. You were hopeful that this would cast light on larger manipulations. What do you think happened?
Bill Murphy: Barrick Gold was into the gold price suppression scheme up to their eyeballs and GATA was all over their case from the get-go. We believe Blanchard & Co's out of court settlement against Barrick and JP Morgan Chase (following the suit by GATA's Reg Howe) was a huge victory for Blanchard and the GATA camp. Note what happened in late 2003. One day Barrick Chairman Peter Munk was extolling their massive hedge program and the next day he did a 180-degree reversal (HUH?) ... AND, Barrick's CEO flew to New Orleans the next day where the case was being tried ... unable to make a scheduled presentation in London.
Reuters
UPDATE - Barrick changes policy, drops gold hedging
Friday November 21, 8:19 am ET
By Veronica Brown
LONDON, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Barrick Gold Corp stunned bullion markets on Friday by saying it was changing its hedging policy, and is no longer committed to selling the metal on forward markets as it is now cash rich....
As Canada's biggest gold producer, Barrick is the world's second-largest gold miner by market value and one of the largest bullion producers.
ABOUT-TURN FROM PREVIOUS POSITION
On Thursday, Munk had extolled the virtues of hedging by Barrick, which has one of the largest gold hedgebooks in the industry...
What do you think that was all about? Munk had dementia? Nope, Blanchard forced Barrick to stop hedging. What fun! It is SO obvious what really transpired. GO GATA! GO Blanchard!
Daily Bell: Are there other lawsuits on the horizon, or other information that can come to light soon that will provide full proof of your thesis?
Bill Murphy: GATA's Chris Powell sent out the following dispatch on April 14 of this year...
Responding to President Obama's instruction to government agencies of January 21 this year, seeking greater openness in government, GATA today reformulated and resubmitted to the US Treasury Department and Federal Reserve Board our requests of last year seeking access to records of swaps involving the US gold reserve. You may recall that the Treasury entirely rejected GATA's request last year while the Fed withheld most documents of any substance, contending, in part, that disclosure would harm certain proprietary interests, among others.
That there should be any secrecy at all involving the US gold reserve may be construed as another proof of surreptitious US government intervention in the worldwide gold, currency, and bond markets.
Despite the president's instruction for greater openness, of course, GATA does not expect a more favorable response to its new requests for information. We continue to believe that, given the market rigging long under way, the disposition of US and Western central bank gold reserves is considered a secret more sensitive than the plans for construction of nuclear weapons. But we hope that our renewed requests will call more attention to our issue and that their rejection will build acceptance of GATA's work over time.
Further, assuming that these new requests also will be denied, GATA may bring lawsuits against the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve in federal court if sufficient financial support can be obtained.
To read GATA's new request to the Treasury Department, click here.
To read GATA's new request to the Federal Reserve, click here.
Daily Bell: Can you describe in the simplest possible terms the main kinds of gold manipulations. How do they work?
Bill Murphy: The Gold Cartel surreptitiously sells physical gold into the market at key strategic times. This added supply has a negative effect on the price when done in size enough to overwhelm demand. This has been going on for more than a decade. They use the derivatives markets to flush out speculative longs on the Comex. When the specs flee, The Gold Cartel gradually covers their shorts and then start their selling all over again on the next price rise.
The Gold Cartel's efforts can also be viewed on a daily basis. They tend to strike in London (3 AM New York time) when the cabal traders report to work; after the PM Fix in London when the physical market pricing has concluded for the day; and with few traders around in the lightly traded Access Market following the Comex close, in order to influence the price lower.
Daily Bell: Have you gathered enough proof to prove this sort of explanation - if it were presented to a truly unbiased examiner?
Bill Murphy: It might be helpful to think of what GATA has put together on The Gold Cartel and compare it to a jury listening to the evidence against them in a capital murder case ... some of which is circumstantial evidence, but taken all together, you can come up with no other conclusion than to end up with a verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt ... with the death penalty as the appropriate punishment.
Ironically, there is a significant amount of evidence on the public record to support GATA's claims, going all the way back to Alan Greenspan's illuminating comment before Congress in July of 1998, "Central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise" ... and that's just what they have done.
And then you have:
• The Reserve Bank of Australia confessed to the gold price suppression scheme in its annual report for 2003. "Foreign currency reserve assets and gold," the RBA's report said, "are held primarily to support intervention in the foreign exchange market."
• The head of the monetary and economic department of the Bank for International Settlements, William S. White, in a speech to a BIS conference in Basel, Switzerland, in June 2005:
"There are five main purposes of central bank cooperation, White announced, and one of them 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."
• Nearly two years ago, the US Treasury quietly made a subtle change to its weekly reports of the US International Reserve Position, which includes the US Gold Reserve.
In stating the US Gold Reserve is 261.499 million ounces, the gold is now reported 'including gold deposits and, if appropriate, gold swapped.'
This description provides clear evidence that the US Gold Reserve is in play. Gold has been removed from US Treasury vaults and placed on deposit, presumably in the couple of bullion banks the Treasury has selected to assist with its gold price-capping efforts.
Daily Bell: You've received a lot of coverage for your views in our estimation. But obviously you're not cover material for the mainstream press. Can you give us some insight into what is obviously a bias against your point of view and arguments?
Bill Murphy: In a way we are like Harry Markopolis who went to the SEC with evidence that Bernie Madoff's investment business was nothing more than a giant Ponzi scheme ... and he showed them the evidence to prove it, like we have to the CFTC and the financial market media.
Did the SEC pay any attention? NO! Madoff was so-called respected establishment with the most proper credentials. Now, realize GATA is showing up Goldman, Morgan and the US Government. That is a no-no in the Wall Street media world. It is not respectable to challenge those giants and our press doesn't want to hear about it ... after all, who are the biggest advertisers?
What we are going through can also be compared to those who cried foul about Enron, an energy trading firm which blew up after being voted America's finest corporation five years in a row by a major US financial publication. Scandals, such as the one GATA has uncovered, are ignored by the financial press when they are about Wall Street's esteemed until it is too late and the money is gone.
If I might say, GATA is no rag tag organization with all of us coming from the so-called establishment world during our careers. The background and credentials of our GATA camp aren't too shabby. From the speakers roster at Gold Rush 21 in the Yukon:
• Reg Howe - Harvard Law, Golden Sextant Advisors
• Bob Landis - Harvard Law, Golden Sextant Advisors
• John Brimelow - Stanford Business School, Wall Street gold broker
• Catherine Austin Fitts - MBA at Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and was the Assistant Secretary of Housing and Federal Housing Commissioner at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development in the first Bush Administration
• Hugo Salinas Price -The "Mr. Silver" of Mexico and President of the Mexican Civic Association for Silver
• Peter George - Oxford University ... The "Mr. Gold" of South Africa
• James Turk - Chase Manhattan Bank and www.goldmoney.com
• John Embry - Royal Bank of Canada and now Chief Investment Strategist at Sprott Asset Management
• Adam Fleming - Chairman of Wits Gold and former chairman of Harmony Gold
• JP Schumacher - Top-Gold Fund and former partner of legendary Swiss Banker, Ferdinand Lips, author of "The Gold Wars."
• Chris Powell - Editor of the Journal Inquirer in Manchester, Connecticut, GATA Secretary/Treasurer
• Bill Murphy - Cornell School of Hotel Administration, GATA Chairman
Daily Bell: Have you had run-ins with the mainstream media where individuals refused to recognize fairly evident truths?
Bill Murphy: We have nothing but run-ins with the mainstream gold world and the US financial press. Most refuse to acknowledge we exist and others, who say they are going to write up our claims, have their stories scuttled by their editors.
Daily Bell: Did you know that Wikipedia, which has articles about everything under the sun, does not have a GATA link? It was deleted with the rationale being that your organization is a fringe source. Can you comment on that?
Bill Murphy: Fringe source? What a hoot! The Russians know who GATA is...
The London Bullion Market Association
Bullion Market Forum
Baltschug Kempinsky Hotel, Moscow
June 3-4, 2004
Perspectives on Gold: Central Bank Viewpoint
By Oleg V. Mozhaiskov, Deputy Chairman
Bank of Russia
"This dualism in gold price formation distinguishes it from other commodities and makes the movements in the price sometimes so enigmatic that market analysts need to invent fantastic intrigues to explain price dynamics. Many have heard of the group of economists who came together in the society known as the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee and started a number of lawsuits against the US government, accusing it of organzsing an anti-gold conspiracy. They believe that with the assistance of a number of major financial institutions (they mention in particular the Bank for International Settlements, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, and others), some senior officials have been manipulating the market since 1994. As a result, the price dropped below US$300 an ounce at a time when it should, if it had kept pace with inflation, have reached US$740-760."
Those comments stunned the bullion dealers in attendance, who then refused to send us a copy of the speech. After months of futile efforts, the Chairman of the Moscow Norodny Bank in London sent a translated copy to GATA. A year later, Andrey Bykov, an economic consultant to Russia's President Putin, attended GATA's conference in the Yukon. Two days later the price of a comatose gold exploded and rose $300 per ounce in the ensuing nine months.
Not for nothing, GATA has held three international gold conferences:
• The "GATA African Gold Summit" in Durban, South Africa on May 10, 2001, attended by 5 sub-Saharan African nations, the South African Reserve Bank, leading SA gold producers, the South African unions, etc., - an event that was given prime time coverage on SABC television.
• On August 8th and 9th 2005, "Gold Rush 21" in Dawson City, Canada, a historic conference held in the Yukon to expose the manipulation of the gold market. One hundred delegates attended from 14 countries, including the aforementioned Andrey Bykov.
• The "GATA Goes To Washington" conference in Arlington, Virginia. 180 attendees came from 17 countries for the gathering. The conference showcased GATA's FOIA efforts to learn the truth about US gold reserves from the Fed and US Treasury.
This past year I (representing GATA) was a part of three conference calls with the Chinese Investment Corporation, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world.
Then, just a few weeks ago Adam Fleming, mentioned above and related to Ian Fleming of James Bond, threw GATA a fund raising reception in London, attended by many of the elites in the London Gold World. My colleague Chris Powell, Sprott Asset Management's John Embry, and I went over for the presentation.
If all that is fringe, GATA is fringe.
Daily Bell: With the prices of gold and silver much higher than at the start of the decade, does the manipulation continue as aggressively as a decade ago, or is it diminishing?
Bill Murphy: It was this clandestine feeding of central bank gold into the marketplace which clued GATA into the gold price suppression scheme. Three GATA consultants, Reg Howe, Frank Veneroso and James Turk, using independent, sophisticated methodologies, came to the same conclusion years ago ... that the central banks have far less gold than the 30,000 tonnes of gold they say they have. The GATA camp research shows they have less than half that amount in their vaults, the difference being the amount that has been fed surreptitiously into the physical market to suppress the price. Since demand for physical gold exceeds mine and scrap supply by well over than 1,000 tonnes per year, this central bank gold is vital to prevent the price from exploding.
The central banks are gradually running out of enough available central bank gold to keep the price suppressed. Their ammo is dwindling, so they are in a managed retreat. Meanwhile, other central banks don't want to be seen selling much anymore, especially after China announced they had increased their official gold reserves by 454 tonnes.
The GATA camp's credibility soared after that announcement, as we documented in my commentary in late 2003 that the Chinese Government began buying and even got the total tonnage just about right. No one else in the mainstream gold world did so. This is important because GATA has been accounting for the extra supply flow (via the Gold Cartel's lending) to meet demand for gold which is far greater then acknowledged by the gold industry.
Daily Bell: As the price of gold goes up will it finally unravel large derivative bets that have been placed against it?
Bill Murphy: A fair amount of the leased gold is hedged to some degree by way out of the money calls. WHEN gold goes berserk, which it will, all sorts of counterparty, derivatives problems could be set off. In today's financial environment, that won't be a huge surprise.
Just out recently from GATA consultant Reg Howe:
May 25, 2009, Gold Derivatives: The Tide Turns
On May 19, 2009, the Bank for International Settlements released its regular semi-annual report (click here to read) on the over-the-counter derivatives of major banks and dealers in the G-10 countries and Switzerland for the six months ending December 31, 2008. See A. Moses, Derivatives Market Declines for First Time on Record (Update 1, click here to read article), Bloomberg.com (May 19, 2009). The total notional value of all gold derivatives declined from $649 billion at mid-year to $395 billion at year-end, or almost 40%. Although gold prices fell from $930 to $870 (London PM) during the period, gross market values dropped only marginally from $68 to $65 billion, probably reflecting the impact of increased volatility on valuing options...
The significant declines in worldwide gold derivatives reported by the BIS for the last half of 2008 stand in stark contrast to the figures for US commercial banks reported by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (click here to read). From June 30 to December 31, 2008, the total notional amount of gold derivatives held by US commercial banks fell from $114 billion to $107 billion, or just over 6%, compared to the 40% drop for all major banks and dealers in the G-10 plus Switzerland. JP Morgan Chase's gold derivatives fell from $85.3 to $82.5 billion, scarcely 3.3%, and HSBC's from $27.5 to $19.2 billion....
Derivatives can be and are used to push markets around. Nowhere has this phenomenon been more obvious than in the gold market, where as former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan boasted to the House Banking Committee in 1998: "...central banks stand ready to lease gold in increasing quantities should the price rise." Gold lending by central banks provided the fuel for gold derivatives, particularly forwards and swaps, and the ammunition used by the bullion banks to suppress gold prices, thereby making the US dollar and other major currencies appear sounder than their fundamentals warranted.
Note how JP Morgan Chase stands out.
Daily Bell: Has the Internet proved problematic for the forces interested in money manipulation?
Bill Murphy: For sure. That is how I met all of my colleagues, who happen to be the smartest and nicest group of individuals I have ever met in my life.
Daily Bell: Do you foresee a return to a free-market gold and silver standard? Would you just prefer gold?
You got me. GATA is for a free, fair, and transparent gold price. At Gold Rush 21, with gold at $436, I predicted a gold price of $3,000 to $5,000 in the years ahead. That is what it is going to take to "clear" the market and I stick with those numbers. No big deal. It is generally acknowledged that if gold had kept up with the generally accepted inflation numbers in the US, the price of gold would already be about $2,300 per ounce. It is not there right now BECAUSE of THE GOLD CARTEL.
Daily Bell: What lies ahead, deflation, inflation or both. Is there a chance for hyperinflation?
Bill Murphy: With the US printing press going the way it is, there will be massive inflation. It is written.
Daily Bell: Do you believe junior gold and silver stocks will begin to rally as this business cycle matures?
Bill Murphy: You mean the comatose ones? Yes, they are just beginning to show signs of life. When gold clears $1,000 and holds it, gold and silver investments are going to be the GO TO investments among the general public ... even a clueless Wall Street will come to life on that score. As the public pours into our tiny market cap sector, the shares of all the quality gold/silver stocks (juniors and explorations) will go ballistic ... ten baggers will be commonplace.
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Daily Bell: What are some of the most important issues pertaining to free-markets in your opinion?
Bill Murphy: The rigging of the price of gold may be one of the most significant financial events of our time. Last year GATA said so publicly and in the most visible of fashion (see below).
Daily Bell: What endeavors are you involved in that you want to point out to our audience. What's most important to you that you would like our audience to be aware of and support?
Bill Murphy: GATA is an ACTION organization ... we do more than just pontificate. We have traveled the world in an attempt to win the day ... including meetings with James Saxton, vice-chairman of the House Joint Economic Committee; Dennis Hastert, The Speaker of the House; Spencer Bachus, the vice-chairman of the sub-Committee on Domestic and International Monetary Policy; and boyhood friends of President Bush, including Tom Craddick, Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives.
To meet our objectives we need funds to carry on. The Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee seeks financial and moral support from gold mining companies, investors in gold mining companies and physical gold, and people who seek to preserve gold's vital role in the world's economy. To help us, click here.
Daily Bell: What is the most important campaign that you are working on now pertaining to GATA?
Bill Murphy: To get the attention of the media to allow what we have discovered to see the light of day.
Daily Bell: What are the most important - seminal -- works of yours that you would encourage everyone to read? Where can they be found?
Bill Murphy: Besides all the evidence of gold market manipulation we have gathered (much of it can be read at The Matisse Table at my website, LeMetropoleCafe.com), our three international conferences stand out. Gold Rush 21 will go down as an historic conference. Video of part of the presentations may be viewed by clicking here.
In addition, GATA placed a full-page color ad in the Wall Street Journal on January 31, 2008 with the DOW about 12,500. GATA went out of its way (paying $264,426.26), to warn the world what was coming as a result of the price suppression scheme. It can be viewed by clicking here.
Note these two points GATA made about what was to come:
• "This manipulation has been a primary cause of the catastrophic excesses in the market that now threaten the whole world."
• "Serious manipulation by government is leading the world to disaster."
By not allowing the price of gold to trade freely and rise in price, US interest rates were kept too low for too long ... and directly led to the financial market chaos we are presently experiencing.
To this day I have not had ONE inquiry from the mainstream financial press how we could have been so right ... with nobody even asking "Who are those guys?" and why would they spend so much money with that message?
Daily Bell: On behalf of all of our readers we thank you for sharing your views with us - and for your courageous and important work. And we encourage all readers to visit your site and consider learning more about GATA and its activities.
Bill Murphy: Thanks much ... GATA's website is www.GATA.org.
their website recently changed from php based to html based. FWIW
well based on all the deletions over on that board something seems to be up.
What is this about a meeting?
meeting with who?
Oh dear Lord so handing over some of the SEC's responsibilities to a black box organization like the Fed is going to help disclosure?!?! Heck, the Fed isn't accountable to anybody, not even Congress!!
Geez people..... tell your Congressman to co-sponsor Ron Paul's Audit the Fed bill.
http://www.campaignforliberty.com/campaigns/auditthefed.php
AH trades (aka t-trades):
1) within 90 seconds after the market closes = normal tradings but so close to 4 pm that it didn't get posted on time.
FOR MORE THAN 90 SECONDS
2) used by financial institutions that are non MMs to report larger trades that occurred during market hours. But they don't have access to ACT (Automated Confirmation Transcation Service) use FORM T to report. These transactions are typically used by larger investors to buy larger lots at prearranged prices without risking to drive the price upward or downward.
3) Certain transactions may clear and settle outside of the regular clearing system ("ex-clearing" transactions), where two dealers make an arrangement to settle trades between them outside the clearing system. Manually via Ex-Clearing. Ex-Clearing is a manual comparison process that is performed by the brokerage firm’s Purchase and Sales Department. Unusual short coverings can end up settle this way
gotta love those 9,000,000 blocks being moved around
congrats! It's just strange with all the negative talk about this stock, it begs the question, who in the world would want to buy your shares? hmmmmmmm
spot on herman. spot on!
this quote from the video sheds quite a bit of light on the SEC's incentive to not regulate.
"The reason for SEC indifference (to naked short selling) is that only big wall street players even have the ability to naked short. And as it happens SEC staffers dream of jumping ship to work for big wall street players not small public companies. This creates a certain "disincentive" to SEC regulatORS, regulatING, as doing so would negatively impact their career prospects.
I believe things are really starting the fall into place.
I'm afraid that the *&$# still hasn't really hit the fan yet.
Naked short selling - redefining systemic risk
http://www.deepcapture.com/naked-short-selling-redefining-systemic-risk/
This is the newest video from Deep Capture Productions, examining the attack on Sedona Corp, and applying the insights gained from it to the broader market — including the possibility that the federal government has recently been spending billions of dollars to take the liability of accumulated failed trades off the books of broker-dealers.
nice rant!
Gregory D. Evans cussing out his shareholders......Again
and NITE!
that reference keeps coming up on various links, some say that there is no connection.
nice news today, looking forward to what is PR'd next.
some minor wording throughout the page. The first picture was not removed during the edit.
this page has been changed:
http://www.baida-finance.com/english/ywjl.asp
old shareholder here, averaged down big-time after attending last years meeting in NYC. Not selling at this level.
little short interest
http://www.shortsqueeze.com/index.php?symbol=mosh
nice post. The share count and math should be exceeding simple in this case but I can't wait to read the "official" babbling explanation that the DTC prints up. Remember, "The Depository Trust Company (DTC) is a member of the U.S. Federal Reserve System". The FED has mastered babble IMO.
yes, that seems plausible