27 November 2013

So who are the The Liars and Cartel Apologists?

Craig Hemke (TF Metals Report) had a recent post where he asked:

"Who is Jeffrey Christian and what is his business? How about his pals ErikT, Bron and Kitco? What are their motives? What about sites like Screwtape and "personalities" like Kid Dynamite? Who supports them and what drives their interest? ... Who is Kid Dynamite? Who really are Jeanne d'Arc, the crew at Screwtape and the bloggers of the Kitco boards? What are their names and what are their real jobs? What is Jeffrey Christian's background and who are CPM Group's clients? Who are his sources and from where does he get his information? What is CPM's business model and how do they profit? How about Kitco and The Perth Mint? Perhaps they can explain how pooled, unallocated accounts work. I'm not alleging fraud or malfeasance but I do think that folks need to know where there might be conflicts of interest in this fight."

I responded to Craig's questions in respect of the Perth Mint here, and a copy of the text is appended to this post for the lazy. The other people mentioned can answers for themselves if they care, but for what it is worth, below is what I know of who they are. As an overarching comment, none of them are related to each other/co-ordinate/work together or have "support" from shadowy forces as far as I know.

I suppose I should also "confess" that I am in email contact with the people below from time to time. This may be confusing to some, but I don't have a problem corresponding with people even though I may disagree with some of the things they say/believe - and I don't agree with everything Erik, Kid, Warren or Jeff say. Everyone has different experiences and thus brings different facts to the table, so I am happy to engage with people I disagree with as I may learn stuff. In fact I seek out people who disagree with me as I think that is an important way to ensure one does not fall into group think and make sure you are getting to The Truth.

Erik Townsend

I suppose Erik was mentioned because of the editorial "Debunking the Post-CFTC Precious Metals Fearmongering Campaign" on Financial Sense and for the comments on this Peak Prosperity article (in which Jeff also comments).

There is nothing secretive about Erik from what I can tell from his website, he "is a retired software entrepreneur turned hedge fund manager. Erik has actively traded energy, grains, and precious metals futures markets since 2008."

Erik interviewed me on arbitrage in June 2012 for Financial Sense. Since the Perth Mint doesn't trade futures, I see Erik as one source for information on gold futures from a traders point of view, which he provides on Financial Sense each week.

Kid Dynamite

Kid was a "a trader at a major Wall Street investment bank" for eight years and appears to have retired I guess. Traders aren't known for being shrinking violets, hence Kid's sometimes aggressive blogging style when "trying to correct erroneous hype all over the internet" which gets under the skin of most of his targets.

Kid is not a goldbug and just sees gold as a trade, and I value that non perma-bull non perma-bear agnostic approach when everyone seems to be in one camp or the other. His trading experience at a big bank is also useful to understand how trading desks work, which helps in working out what the bullion banks are/could be doing.

I'm not sure how Kid got on to precious metals BS, but my take is noob investors getting mislead by BS into positions that aren't right for them is one of his hot button issues.

Warren James (Screwtape Files)

Firstly, Screwtape is a group blog but that doesn't mean that they all agree with each other or endorse each other's blog posts. I don't know the other Screwtape bloggers much, but have met Warren in person a few times.

Once can best understand Screwtape Files by their work on Wynter Benton, which they say "was a defining moment for this blog - at first we were believers of the message" but they came to the conclusion that it was a fraud and "could be considered one of the most successful silver pumpers of 2011". The Screwtape Files bloggers were initially driven by a theory that a number of websites were part of a coordinated pump and dump scheme, which is similar to what Craig implies with his question of "who supports them"? Screwtape eventually came to the conclusion that the websites were just run by regular people.

Warren originally contacted me about the ETF bars lists as he had seen the claims the bars lists were fake and thought he could prove it via statistical analysis of a history of all the bar lists. I didn't think they were fake and I suppose I could have ignored him as I disagreed with him, but he was serious enough to come to Perth on his own dime to talk about it, so I thought I should meet him. We spent a few hours on it and I went through what signals/trails the data should show up if they were fake, what Warren called vectors for investigation.

I kept and open mind on it and thought well if he can find evidence than that will be huge news, so was happy to give him as many vectors to look at. While Warren didn't find any evidence of fakery, his bullion bars database has provided some very interest insights into the way bullion bank run vaults and I his work on it is essential reading for anyone trying to understand how bullion banks work.

Warren is a real person (see his photo in this post) and just an average guy working in IT and I'm four nines (ie 99.99%) sure he has nothing to do with The Cartel.

Jeffrey Christian

Craig has a lot of questions directed at Jeff, which I find puzzling as the answers are all available on his website, such as his background, his clients (producers, consumers, investors, governments), his business model (consultants/advisors fee-based). The funny thing is that Jeff is far more closely aligned with Craig and other goldbugs than with bullion banks. Hard to believe? Consider these examples:

Against conflicts of interest: "commodities research and advice is best delivered by independent experts who do not work for banks, brokers, mining companies, or any other entity that has interests that could conflict with the best interests of the clients"

Alerting people to the fractional reserve bullion banking system (Feb 2000): "Banks treat their metal deposits in much the same way as they do deposits denominated in money, as the reserve asset against which they lend additional money to borrowers."

Competes against bullion banks, highlights their conflicts of interest (Oct 2002): "A producer should use an advisor such as CPM Group, which is not trading against the producer. Banks and dealers have a conflict of interest between their own trading positions and the hedges they advise their clients to take" and (Jan 2000) "Hedgers should not rely on their trading counterparts for hedging strategies. These entities take the opposite side of the hedge transactions, have inherent conflicts of interest, and always keep their own best interests in mind, even if these are the short-term best interests and arguably not in the banks’ own long term best interests."

Jeff also says in this discussion forum that he has sued Goldman Sachs, "testified on four continents and written extensively about the need to regulate OTC derivatives" (see here and here), "denied re-entry into their home country as a form of harrassment, had their computers hacked into and files deleted, and their phone tapped".
 
I would bet that if I gave Craig the above quotes without mentioning it was Jeff, he would be very interested in interviewing the guy. Seems to me like there is common ground between the two. If Craig is after The Truth, then surely he can ignore/put differences aside to interview Jeff on bullion banks' conflict of interest and what regulations are needed, his suing of Goldman Sachs and harassment. I know there is zero chance of that, but at least I tried to build some bridges.
 
Appendix: Response to Craig's questions in respect of the Perth Mint

You asked what the Perth Mint’s “agenda” is and to explain our Depository accounts. First up, the Perth Mint was created by the West Australian government to (key bits from section 10 of Gold Corporation Act):

  • to recover, extract, process, smelt, sample, refine, assay and work gold and anything containing gold;
  • to mint, make, issue, buy, sell, distribute and otherwise deal in coins
  • to provide storage and safekeeping facilities to international standards for gold and other valuable objects;
  • to maximise the value added to and export income derived from gold production through the development and marketing of things containing or relating to gold;
  • to promote and develop markets for gold in Australia and elsewhere;

Those are our motives. We sell more gold and make more profit if the gold price is going up, that is our conflict of interest. We have been government owned for 114 years because gold mining employs a lot of voters, and thus our job is to do the above to keep the industry strong. We are also state government owned, not federal, so neither Australia’s federal government or central bank controls us or tells us what to do – we exist to benefit the state of Western Australia.

Unfortunately, the Perth Mint’s government ownership means we are public servants and thus cannot comment on policy matters or be critical of our own or other governments policies or actions – as public servants should not be using what are the public’s assets as a platform to advance their own political beliefs – and in the end holding gold as reserves and using it and other currency reserves to manage exchange rates and the economy is a policy decision, politics. This is why you don’t see us commenting on these matters or being involved in organisations like GATA. Indeed my personal blogging activities push this line somewhat and have on occasion caused angst internally.

You may legitimately be cynical about this, but as the only truly commercially focused West Australian government entity, with not one bureaucratic government appointment in the organisation, be assured that we are aware we would sell a hell of a lot more coins and bars if we were privately owned and could do and say the things Eric Sprott does, for example. We keenly feel that restriction on our ability to market gold (as there is a modest bonus if we exceed budget), but know it is not our role to advocate policy and thus we focus on adding value to Western Australian gold production.

As to the Depository, it is but one part of the Perth Mint and we make more money from our refining and coin/bar businesses, but it seems to attract attention. We offer three storage types:

Allocated – this is the real deal. As I said in an earlier comment, you can come in and look at your bars and if you want to be sure we aren't just doing a switch, scratch or write on them with a texta so you can tell if you get to see your exact bars back again. Few allocated services will allow you to do that.

Pool Allocated – this is the same as GoldMoney, a pile of bars backing client accounts with a published bar list.

Unallocated – this is our working inventory backing client accounts, 100% backed and not lent our, explained on our website here:

“Unlike other depositories, which are merely warehouses, The Perth Mint is a manufacturer of precious metal products and one of the world's largest refiners. Accordingly, the Mint has a substantial requirement for physical metal to support these operations.

To fund this work-in-progress inventory, the Mint traditionally borrowed metal from bullion banks, at cost. At the same time, there were investors storing metal with bullion banks and others, at cost.

The Mint realised that if it took deposits directly from investors, it could cut out the intermediary and create a win-win situation: the Mint wins by obtaining free funding for its inventory and investors win by getting free 100% backed storage.”

So our unallocated cuts out the bullion banks and denies them leasing revenue from us and storage fees from investors. Maybe you might now understand why I get confused when people think I’m part of “the cartel” especially since anyone bothering to read my blog, where I’ve covered fractional bullion banking, confiscation and manipulation for years, will see I’m far from an apologist.

36 comments:

  1. is ther any information available how much unallocated gold is leased out by the entities which stores the gold? Without further knowledge I would estimate between 50-70% in order to save storage costs and get interest.

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  2. always plenty of "sunday driver" commenters out there willing to judge you based on a single post.

    lifes to short to let them get under your skin (should even take that advice myself more often ...)

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  3. Anon - see http://goldchat.blogspot.com/2010/04/london-unallocated-fractional-fubar-or.html 90% seems the best guess for what bullion banks do.

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  4. The irony is thick here... if you changed Turd's rant about "liars and cartel apologists" to "goldbug charlatans," then you have a good idea what I'm thinking.

    As i told TF on twitter: i'm the guy who debunks the bullshit he spews as a business model.

    Only one of us is in the business of profiting from spouting misinformation, and it's not me: I make less than $100/yr on my blog, writing charity pieces to help the gold blog readers who have been lied to.

    Turd makes tens of thousands of dollars a year in revenues. Selling bullshit is a good business...

    I live in the woods. I foster rescue dogs. I brew beer. I make maple syrup. I play soccer. I don't get a check from a mysterious Cartel. I donate my time, despite the complete lack of financial payback, to helping the poor saps who think that what they read on TF's site, Harvey's site, Jesse's site, etc is fact understand reality.

    selling confirmation bias to goldbugs is a great business, though, so i can see how TF would want to distract from the issue and make ad hominem attacks against me and others.

    It doesn't matter who is writing the stuff on my blog: the name on the page doesn't change the accuracy.

    On the other hand, you have TF, who, when it's pointed out that he's wrong about something (like the recent exchange with Bron about COMEX kilo-bars), will hide behind either 1) "it's a difference of opinion" (but it's not - it's a difference of FACT) or 2) "I have a disclaimer that says i'm not an investment adviser and that this is all for entertainment"

    if only it were treated as entertainment by his audience... sad.

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  5. Congratulations for extremely good description of Perth Mint's position on these matters. You clearly have a thorough understanding of your mission and constraints imposed by the nature of your ownership.

    I find this worthy of praise because I rarely hear such clarity of thought from people in a similar position.

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  6. Stop calling me lazy because I haven't time to visit the circus, and prefer to get my updates via your informed efforts.

    I am lazy, of course, just stop saying that. "..for those too busy" has a kinder feel to it.

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  7. To you and your colleagues...

    Hopefully any (internal & external) angst is very manageable. I, an Australian with a decent proportion of his wealth entrusted at PM, give my deep thanks. Please continue to be brave and true and continue to help look after us all.

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  8. Well written Bron.

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  9. All this talk, just merely distracts us from the now! Just keep stacking people and all will be GREAT when the US goes down. If these so called "experts" have this much energy to down play and mis-inform people on blogs and posts and turned their knowledge to good, you would not even hear from them!

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  10. It sounds like all the conspiracy nuts have moved on to their usual topics with the Kennedy anniversary now behind us.

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  11. I think gold manipulation is HUGE! But that's just my opinion but if you can predict prices like this people should take notice http://forums.silverstackers.com/topic-47523-how-the-fcuk-does-he-do-that.html
    Best menotcrimex

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  12. When the US dollar implodes and the US becomes a unapologetic police state, may I come to Perth and legally live there aided by my Certificates? Really, this is a serious question.

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  13. Some people believe governments are highly motivated to influence a stable gold price in relation to their fiat currencies. That is why they hold gold reserves in order to "mobilize them" when needed. It doesn't take a genius to figure this out. So please don't equate people who believe in this with JFK conspiracy theorists. That is plain unfair and not very bright either.

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  14. bigfootmm,

    Assuming Australia hasn't also become a police state, then having some assets over here may well help in getting residency.

    Having an account where we have copies of your identity documents may also help in establishing your identity if you had to get out of dodge quickly and became a refugee.

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  15. Thanks Bron for your forthright comments. It still bothers me that the Perth mint sells all or most of it's gold via the ANZ bank that is almost 50% owned by the Wall Street Banksters (and probably a large holding by the others with an interest in money creation and the status quo). Do you think that the ANZ has your interests and the industries interest to the fore. I would guess that as long as they sell-on at a margin that benefits them, the gold price is a secondary consideration. So suppressing it doesn't bother them, does it?

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  16. We sell our gold through a range of banks and other counterparties, not just via ANZ. We do it via banks because we do not want to take the counterparty risks associated with those lower down in the distribution chain who want extended payment terms.

    We deal on a cash basis and there are few distributors who are able or willing to pay cash. Hence most of our output goes via banks. More than happy to sell to non-banks.

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  17. It's the height of hypocrisy and immaturity of the great turd to petulantly demand and challenge others to divulge or reveal their personal information.
    Because the guy has a weird bowel movement themed alter ego and decided (too late)to reveal his real identity it means everyone else suddenly has to? Kids stuff.

    And he wonders why his work doesn't get picked up by more media outlets while others get the headlines? Maybe the whole "stool" meme seems bizarre and can't be taken seriously by some respected publications or the ranting hyperbole just turns people off.

    The site used to have a large, diverse and energetic thoughtful flair to it but it's a mere shell of itself. But seriously,how many times can a person scroll through some of the paranoid/nutty repetitive musings from certain posters on there? They've managed to negatively impact the site by the looks of it. It's become far too negative and apocalyptic and at times just plain hateful or combative. The suspicious distortions at times are incredible

    In a world where some folks are stressed to the max they'll always be a salesman somewhere playing a crowds most basic emotions against them(fearmongering and enemy creation among them). The sad part is that some or most of the participants realize this and just continue to be lead and fed a steady diet of somewhat extreme beliefs in some egotistical search for "the truth" by a guy named turd.

    The savior or preacher types among us have no shortage of people who want to led.There's no shortage of gullible or naive folks out there who want to believe in someone who gives them hope or answers. The truth.

    It's become an egotistical sideshow more then anything. And at this point the site resembles a lite version of Alex Jones with overtones of N. Korea's closed society that seeks to use verbal bombast and intimidation (the guy actually threatened to expose his dissenters email addresses) with a healthy dose of "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" mixed in.

    The guest contributers are solidly unique, interesting and clearly intelligent. It's a shame that the sites owner has chosen to embrace a bunker mentality of "turd vs. the world".
    It's cast dark shadow upon a once bright forum of thought over there.

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  18. Bron,

    Thanks for answering and for delivering such good news!

    We can hope you guys have more sense there in the west than our USA or your east.

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  19. Can any of the Sainted, Bron, Kid Dynamite, Jeff Christian,etc. deny that manipulation occurred during the Gold events of Aril 10th and 12th 2013??

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  20. Kid, anyone who fosters rescue dogs can't be a bad guy =) Thanks for doing what you do.

    Bron, great post.

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  21. Jeffrey M. Christian01 December, 2013 01:56

    I will address the issue of the heavy selling on 12 April. There were more than 1,000 distinct entities making more than 10,000 individual trades in the first few minutes after the price of gold fell to a level that triggered massive sell orders executed by a technical sell point being generated and executed on computerized, algorithmic based trading programs. There was no large participant starting the sell off, but a cast of thousands of nervous long investors who had watched the price fall from $1,920 to $1,680 at the start of January, then to $1,580 in mid February after the Lunar New Year sales were a massive disappointment in the Chinese market, and then not rebound for two months. So, yes, I would dispute the baseless allegation that the sell off was triggered by an effort to suppress or manipulate the price of gold.

    Funnily, tellingly, when I explained this in a speech in May, some wag in the audience sincerely suggested that 'the cartel' had thousands of agents acting in coordination, rather than thinking for a second about how the same sort of algorithmic trading is causing massive dislocations across all commodities and all financial markets these days.

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  22. Jeffrey M. Christian01 December, 2013 02:00

    p.s. Here is another piece of real market data to contemplate.

    In October, used as an example, there were seven 10-minute periods in which there was unusually large volumes of gold futures traded on the Comex -- more than a million ounces in 10 minutes in each case.

    Of those seven events, four were buying incidents, and three were selling incidents. In each case, it was a multitude of entities trading, and not one big participant. In each of the selling event, gold marketers claimed the selling was price suppression. The statistically and ethically challenged marketeers chose not to comment on the more frequent rounds of buying activity that drove prices higher.

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  23. Jeff, there may well have thousands of little guys selling on April 12th as stops were being run and margin calls were in effect. The trigger though was a very large sell on April 10th. This massive sell was done in the off hours and that what caused the debacle on the 12th. So, if you are going to explain it, kindly start at the beginning

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  24. Jeffrey M. Christian01 December, 2013 04:08

    Sorry, but you are wrong on several counts. First, what you call off hours must be redefined for the current century. It is true that Asian trading hours used to see lower volumes than European and North American trading hours, but the world has changed. What used to be off hours now is the time when the most active traders in gold and a number of other markets are awake and busy.

    Second, the selling on the 10th did not trigger the massive rapid sale. It was a sign of heavy selling pressure from a number of quarters, but the massive ramp down was not caused by it or triggered by it. The heavy selling was triggered by other action at the time of the heavy selling, not two days earlier. Most sellers were not responding to a large sale two days earlier; they were responding to a modest downward trigger AT THAT TIME that set off their sell orders.

    If you want to start at the beginning, go back to the Lunar New Year, as I said earlier. The lack of demand then was a big sell signal to Chinese dealers and others. The fact that there was no significant bounce after prices fell to $1,580 in the middle of February, and that prices traded sideways in weak trading for two months after that, was another set of sell signals.

    Of course, if you want to start at what you or anyone else my call the beginning, let's go back to the final four months of 2011, when the shenanigans in the US government and European governments did not cause either a collapse of the global financial system or hyperinflation. There were a lot of people who had gleefully bought gold at absurdly high prices in drooling anticipation of financial and economic Armageddon, and when it did not occur they started dumping gold.

    Beginnings, it could be argued, are in the eye of the beholder, and need to be defined. However, some things are knowable. The massive sell off did not start and was not triggered by events two days, two months, or 18 months earlier. Those events conditioned the market for the selling on 12 April, but they did not cause it.

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  25. Jeff, With all due respect, the Lunar new year, Euro/American shenanigans had nothing to do with this particular date.. April 10th, 2013. A Massive, run the stops order was placed, and in your face. The CFTC took note and said that they would investigate. Nothing since, as usual. If, this manipulative incident was so normal, as you say, why would the CFTC even issue a statement?? You have not explained it, nor probably ever will, because it would ruin your own tin hat mantra that there is no Gold manipulation. So, Oil has been manipulated, Aluminun, Forex, Libor, etc. But, by some Holy Decree Code, that only you profess to know....These Precious Metals are not being manipulated?? It was in your face manipulation Jeff and I don't see how your denial of this adds anything to your credibility. Your idea of a Chinese Lunar cycle depression as the cause, is to me, as strange as the most far out Goldbug theory's.

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  26. Jeffrey Christian01 December, 2013 10:57

    Sorry to have spent my time with you. When a regulatory authority says it will investigate and then you do not hear more, it is because it has found nothing that is noteworthy. Given the growing nasty tone of you comments about the "Holy Decree Code" I can see there is no reason for me to spend more time discussing the market with you. You clearly know far too much about precious metals and commodities markets to ever learn anything more. Go your way. I clearly can tell you nothing of value to you.

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  27. Thanks for your view & explanations Jeff.....not all of us are unappreciative.
    Cheers.

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  28. Thanks for posting Jeff. IMHO There are a lot goldbugs out there who really appreciate your thoughts, whether they agree with a particular stream of goldbug thought or not. I'm one of them :-)

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  29. Jeffrey Christian02 December, 2013 10:58

    Thanks. Sorry if I get angry too quickly sometimes when people ask for an explanation, I give it, and then they send signals that they do not really care about what really happens in these markets or what I have said. I do, and probably should avoid chat rooms populated by people like that.

    I do appreciate the compliments, and am glad that some people get what I am saying and find it insightful.

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  30. Well Bron, so you sell to the banks for cash as they are more reliable and less risky. Your answer confirms to me at least that the miners will be slain and the gold price will continue to go down whilst the shorts make money on gold and borrowed mining shares, the banks can sell to the East at high margins, and sovereigns have no competition to fiat and can squash savers. Delivery is not enforced so shortage is no problem in this scenario as premiums rise and only banks profit. It is about time the miners get wise and shut down now before gold hits zero.

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  31. "so you sell to the banks for cash as they are more reliable and less risky"

    No, we sell on a cash basis as we don't want any risk, to a bank or anyone else. We have a slight settlement risk to the banks (ie risk they don't pay but as we haven't shipped the gold, then we are only exposed to the price movement over 2 days).

    That is different to credit risk (deliver gold and get paid later).

    BTW, the banks aren't selling to the East at high premiums. Most of the Chinese premium you see reported goes to the Chinese importing banks, not the bullion banks, who compete between themselves to supply gold to the Chinese importing banks.

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  32. Thanks Bron you said previously in
    http://goldchat.blogspot.com/2010/04/london-unallocated-fractional-fubar-or.html (referenced above)

    "A producer should use an advisor such as CPM Group, which is not trading against the producer. Banks and dealers have a conflict of interest between their own trading positions and the hedges they advise their clients to take.

    Or maybe Recent Lessons Learned About Hedging (January 2000):

    Hedgers should not rely on their trading counterparts for hedging strategies. These entities take the opposite side of the hedge transactions, have inherent conflicts of interest, and always keep their own best interests in mind, even if these are the short-term best interests and arguably not in the banks’ own long term best interests."

    How short term is short term? And maybe banks long term interests is in any case overwhelmingly in fiat and the fiat currency trade and not the gold price, though owning some cheap gold and a few bankrupt gold mines might be attractive in case it all goes out of control.

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  33. I don't think bankers have such a strategic view of gold.

    Central bankers may say they don't understand gold, but they do care about it and understand it.

    Bankers don't understand it and don't care about it, IMO, they are too much within the mainstream thinking they are unable to really believe in it or that it will all go out of control.

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  34. This is Erik Townsend, posting anonymously because I have no interest in having a regular account on this site.

    I think @Kid Dynamite summed up the true answer best: Some of us who really and truly do trade PM futures every day for a living are just astonished at the level of outright bullshit about PMs circulating in the blogosphere. Several of us have tried, purely as a public service because we want to steer hard-working people away from the nonsensical advice of the gold charlatans.

    Most of us fairly quickly come to the realization that goldbugism is an incurable disease, and stop trying to save those of you who not only don't want to be saved, but who bitterly and vengefully respond in anger when we try to interject a few facts into the non-stop feed of bullshit coming from TF, GATA, and the rest of the PM charlatans.

    So here's something to think about... Most of you here appear to be making very important decisions about how to invest your life's savings. But rather than heed the advice of a bona fide expert like Jeff Christian, you would instead prefer to place all your faith in some science fiction writer dude masqurading as an investment expert, who is literally hiding behind a pseudonym (Turd Furgeson) that he stole from a B-movie.

    The other guy many of you invested almost unlimited faith in was Andrew Maguire. He turned out to be a complete and total fraud (he was really a luxury car leasing agent, not a metals trader), as his ex-wife recently came forward and revealed.

    Guys, it's your life's savings, and your choice how to make decisions about investing it. You can follow the twits and the turds hiding behind Internet pseudonyms, you can listen to imbeciles like Murphy and Butler (banned for life from trading futures himself, BTW, but he never seems to mention that in his newsletter.

    The more obvious choice would be to investigate who actually knows a lot about precious metals, and seek to educate yourselves with solid, real information as opposed to the rhetoric of charlatans. Jeff Christian's Gold and Silver yearbooks are worth their weight in the metals they describe. But Jeff has been demonized by the charlatans, so must followers of the great PM religion dismiss him as a "bad guy" despite knowing nothing about him.

    GATA, Butler, Turd, and the rest of the charlatans are the bad guys. Jeff Christian is a good guy and it's a real shame so many of you guys can't seem to distinguish fact from bullshit.

    Erik Townsend
    FINRA Series 65 & Series 3

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  35. Perhaps TF et al are just frustrated to be losing market share among the key apocalypse-now demographic to Bitcoin. Even goldbugs have to be getting bored with the metal in the third year of its bear market (and counting).

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  36. I have so much to say on this subject that this post would be too long so Ill try to keep it short.Yes I believe gold prices are manipulated or managed and yes its is read the history books its old news unless you think its stopped.I personally expect paper silver and gold to collapse and yes I was in a forum where the experts were all worked up because the wordings on those contracts was changed to allow cash settling meaning that now they can collapse the price to one cent an ounce and they can force you to take the one cent and go away little shpeople’s you cant even sue us and by the way we took you money and got physical and sold it to the Chinese for 400.00 an ounce.Yes there apears to be shortages now that I would not know about if I didnt just order more from the same mint NWT again.Guess what the delevery time on small orders is now about 80 days,used to be about 2 weeks on really small orders like this and Im afaraid they may email me again telling me for the second time its going to take another month etc all.What I hate about these anti gold bugs Papaer bugs is they may only trade in paper and think its all honest but whats really bad is the people that listen to these A!@# holes and put all there money in stocks and rsps and other !@#$ then when the collapse comes they just walk away and hide.I have noted most dont give a balanced view and dont display the same knowledge of many of the gold bugs.Also no mention of Nadler or American Patriot.I cold say a lot more on this but its way too much for here.At least I have heard that people believe Nadler did believe what he was saying its just that he trusted the paper system so completely.He is not on Kitco anymore and American Patriot is probably no longer on the Marketwatch forums??

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