Silver - A Historical Perspective

I thought seeing that we are on a historical theme today I would introduce to this blog's readers Charles Savoie. Charles writes regular detailed essays discussing the history of silver in the early to mid 20th Century. An excellent resource to understand how the current silver market arrived at such dislocated levels.

Gold, Silver& The Monetary Problem

Treasury Official Lies About Gold

Jim Rickards interviewed

Jim Rickards is interviewed on King World News. Jim and Eric King discuss the historical parallels between the decline and fall of the Roman Empire and the current state of the USA. They also marvel at the fact the Eastern Roman Empire survived for another 1,000yrs after the Western empire fell due to a simplified govt. and a 10% flat tax rate.

Part I

Part II

Gold price falling as bullion banks wind back short positions

From Arabian Money.net: Something major is a foot in the paper gold markets of the COMEX. The major bullion banks have been winding back their short futures positions in the past couple of weeks.

This followed a statement by the CTFC chairman about enforcing strict limits on the short positions of the major players to avoid market manipulation. That falls under the new powers of the financial sector reform bill in the US.....read on

A Store of Rubbish

By Peter Souleles, Sydney: Rest assured that the price and position of gold are underpinned and guaranteed by spendthrift governments and accommodating central bankers who do not understand that they cannot generate more and more public debt in the process of taking the place of unemployed workers and maxed out consumers and plugging the gaping holes left by insolvent banks and corporations. Moreover they will compound the problem by allowing the concentration of wealth and income into fewer and fewer hands. They will however continue this stupid process until they are forced to print a fresh load of worthless paper with which to pay back everyone in useless currency....read on

The Keiser Report

This week Max Keiser and co-host Tracy Herbert look at the latest scandals of fetishes for black swans; American youth unconcerned by the coming collapse of their Social Security they bought and paid for; Tony Blair's 2007 photo op with Colonel Gaddafi. In the second half of the show, Max interviews Ned Naylor-Leyland of Cheviot Asset Management about the silver market. Note the excellent question supplied by ABC's Senior Metals Analyst, and author of this blog, at the 14:08 minute mark........watch here

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

Platinum could outshine gold

From the UK Telegraph: Platinum demand should improve in the fourth quarter, according to Nick Moore, a metal analyst at RBS, and he sees strong upside for prices in the next few years. "We continue to expect significant upside to the platinum price with a 2013 average of $2,000 per ounce,"....read on