Why gold is still the best buy for Agora investors

By Arabian Money: Spotting the consensus buy at an event like the Agora Financial Investment Symposium in Vancouver last week is a good indicator of the way markets will move. Two years ago they got the stock market crash spot on.

This year the consensus pick among this line-up of contrarian speakers was gold by a mile. The 1,000 attendees heartily agreed....read on

The Enigmatic Silver Miners

By Jeff Nielson: Silver is roughly 17 times as plentiful as gold, as an element in the Earth's crust. Thus, it is no surprise that over the course of nearly 5,000 years, the gold/silver ratio has averaged approximately 15:1. What is surprising is how this ratio has been so thoroughly perverted by the manipulations of the anti-gold cabal - to sit at one of its most lop-sided extremes in history: currently greater than 60:1.

Under any circumstances, this ratio is obviously unsustainable. However, with the "industrial" usages of silver literally causing the vast majority of the world's silver stockpiles to be "consumed", there is less silver in the world today (relative to gold) than at any time in more than 4,000 years. Thus, at a time when the gold/silver ratio should be at its lowest level in history, it hovers at the opposite extreme - arguably the greatest disconnection between price and fundamentals in the history of markets....read on

Bullion, coin dealers call for investigation of U.S. coin blanks supply

From Mineweb: A congressional subcommittee has been asked to investigate the growing backlog in and foreign procurement of U.S. bullion and collectors' precious metals coin blanks manufactured by the U.S. Mint. Witnesses before and members of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy have urged Congress to direct the U.S. Mint to buy U.S. manufactured blanks for gold and silver bullion coins and discontinue the practice of using Australian-made blanks.

Ranking Subcommittee Member Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, said he opposes the Mint's current efforts to gain greater power in determining the composition of circulating coinage."We could not maintain the gold standard nor the silver standard. We could not maintain the copper standard, and now we cannot even maintain the zinc standard," Paul noted. "Paper money inevitably breeds inflation and destroys the value of currency."

Michael B. Clark, president of the Diamond State Depository, a subsidiary of the Dillon Gage group, one of 12 authorized purchasers of American Eagle Silver Bullion Coins, told the subcommittee, "The Mint's inability to keep pace with demand has had a negative and unnecessary impact on the investment and hobby community."

He added that the Mint's reliance on just three suppliers for planchets or blanks "is flawed. Moreover, there is some irony in the fact that while Congress requires the Mint to procure the gold for its Eagle bullion coins from newly mined U.S. deposits, the Mint then ships that gold to Australia to be made into blanks. Then, the fabricated blanks are later shipped back to the United States for the production of coins."....read on

The Death of Paper Money

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: As they prepare for holiday reading in Tuscany, City bankers are buying up rare copies of an obscure book on the mechanics of Weimar inflation published in 1974.....read on