29 September 2010

05 September 2010

China desperate for gold & The Mind Conspirators

1) Reported by imarketnews.com:

Sales by overseas central banks could see a sharp fall in gold prices, the Financial News reported Wednesday, citing Zou Pingzuo, a central bank researcher.

"Investors should be careful about investing in gold. Gold prices could fall sharply because of intensive gold sales by the U.S. and other overseas central banks," Zou said.

To me this a sign of desperation by the Chinese. There has been no indication by the US to sell and all recent talk is about central banks buying. They are trying the old scare tactic of central bank selling to try and push the gold price down. They want to buy as much gold as they can but don’t like the current high price.

I think they are hoping this "bubble" will deflate and they can continue with their sneaky "get out of dollars and buy gold". What happens when the Chinese realise the price isn't going to drop? Will they be forced to go all out and start buying whatever physical they can?

2) Worthwhile read for libertarians - The Mind Conspirators by Nelson Hultberg. A quote:

Philosophical fallacies and socialist falsifications of economics and history have gained sway in the school system to poison our citizens' minds against the American concept of freedom. Such fallacies have created a grossly distorted image for the man in the street about the way the world works. Freedom is now seen as inimical to human dignity. Creative entrepreneurship is portrayed as exploitation of the poor instead of their only hope. Gold is termed a "barbarous relic" instead of history's proven store of value. ...

We are being conditioned to accept sloth as normalcy, servility as dignity, weakness of will as compassion, and government conveyed privilege as justice. The world of sanity and rationality gives way to regimental nightmares of Orwellian "newspeak" and "political correctness" in order for legions of middle-class sluggards to feel good about themselves while they live out their spiritually squalid lives queuing up to the entitlement troughs of the mega-state.

My response to the article agrees very much with the comments of MetaCynic:

Accepting Hultberg's argument that ideas are the engine of not only entire civilizations but of every individual, begs the question why do some ideas gain traction and not others. Why did the ultimately unworkable collectivist ideologies of the big picture intellectuals, Rousseau, Hegel, Comte and Marx, find acceptance in the midst of the wondrous prosperity produced by the Enlightenment's Industrial Revolution? Why does the siren call of unaccountable collectivism to this day continue to outsell individual liberty with all its attendant responsibilities?

Despite its clashes with reality, do collectivist intellectuals really have to work very hard to find widespread acceptance for their ideas? Maybe there has always been a ready market for their disabling poison. In politicians and bureaucrats they have, of course, an enthusiastic audience eager to legitimize their own drive for wealth and power. In the envious masses they have deluded voters proudly participating in the process to redistribute the wealth of others into their own pockets. And in the captains of industry they have "capitalists" in need of protected markets and guaranteed profits. The great majority of humans are conformists and clock watchers interested only in comfort and entertainment.

03 September 2010

Australia’s only hard money conference

From http://www.symposium.net.au/the-gold-symposium.htm

The Gold Symposium, Tuesday 9th and Wednesday 10th November 2010

Symposium announces the launch of The Gold Symposium being hosted at the Amora Jamison Hotel in Sydney, Australia on Tuesday 9th and Wednesday 10th November 2010.

Featuring highly respected speakers from Canada, Australia and the USA, this event will approach topics such as the current state of the global markets; why gold is important as an investment; and, gold versus paper as currency.

Amongst many renowned speakers, hear from the internationally respected gold analyst and author, Mr James Dines. Even now many do not believe Mr. Dines’ longstanding prediction of “The Coming Great Deflation” internationally, but what’s next? Boom or Bust, inflation or deflation, or even a hyperinflation?


Other speakers are:
Mr Dan Denning, Editor, The Daily Reckoning
Mr Louis Boulanger, CFA, Founder and Director, LB Now Ltd
Dr David Evans, mathematician and founder of GoldNerds
Mr Robert Lambourne, Chairman, Penox SA
Mr Rudy Fritsch, President, Allsteel
Mr Richard Karn, Managing Editor, The Emerging Trends Report
Mr Gavin Thomas, Managing Director and CEO, Kingsgate Consolidated
Mr Barry Dawes, Managing Director, Martin Place Securities
Prof Steve Keen, Associate Professor of Economics and Finance at the Uni of Western Sydney
And ME!

My presentation is: Paper gold – will it “crack-up”?
• You only protect your wealth by knowing when (or when not) to sell your gold
• To do this you need a real understanding of the risks inherent in the operation and interaction of the physical and paper gold markets, not the hyped-up commentary designed to increase the commentator’s Google ranking rather than your wealth
• Otherwise you may find yourself holding worthless cash after what you thought was a bubble in gold was really a collapse of paper assets