Capital Account - The Precious Metal Barter Tax and IRS Mission Creep

Oct 23, 2012 by CapitalAccount

Snakes found in the ABC Bullion Showroom

Snakes have been found in a Sydney office block at 88 Pitt St, strangly they were only located on level 6.

The days of Money

There was a time long, long ago when Australian banks dealt in Money, not Currency - oh for the good 'ol days.

Photos from the museum display in the Westpac Bank branch at 341 George St, Sydney, Australia

All that Glitters is not Gold there are Australian Opals as well

At the Gold Symposium I met the delightful John & Sophia Provatidis, opal miners and retailers in Coober Pedy, South Australia. They were so nice they let me handle and photograph their 2 signature pieces at the show. They retail in Coober Pedy and from their 1880's heritage home in Adelaide. Their website is majesticopals.com.au

ABC Bullion Wins Australian Bullion Dealer of the Year 2012

ABC Bullion won the Australian Bullion Dealer of Year award last night. A huge thanks to all our clients and partners for their amazing support this year, without you this award and our success would not be possible.

Jean Kittson at Gold Symposium, Sydney 2012

I attended the Gold Symposium awards dinner at Luna Park, Sydney last night. The MC for the night was the amazing Australian comedian Jean Kittson from The Big Gig.

I would like to apologise for the poor quality of the image due to not having a tripod, using the digital zoom, but mostly due to the deleterious effects of the excellent Hunter Valley shiraz that was being served with dinner.

Capital Account - Doug Casey on how to Hedge Against Political Risk in the Greater Depression

Oct 22, 2012 by CapitalAccount

Keiser Report: Asphyxiation Nation

Excellent episode. This is why Max rarely gets politicians on his show, his tendency to berate them with the truth is overpowering.

Oct 23, 2012 by RussiaToday

In this episode, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss mugging hoodies and asphyxiating economies with cynical bank fiddles and institutionalized fraud. They also review the past 18 months in which "Barclays has been exposed for ripping off the elderly, avoiding £500million in tax, mis-selling payment protection insurance to the tune of £1.5billion, manipulating crucial interest rates and now mis-selling loans to small firms." In the second half of the show, Max Keiser talks to Kwasi Kwarteng, a Member of Parliament in the UK and author of Britannia Unchained, about the golden egg of fraud in the City of London.

Egon von Greyerz at Gold Symposium Sydney

Your blogger with Egon at the Gold Symposium Sydney

Germany to Assay and Repatriate its Gold Reserves

If Germany has unease about its Gold Reserves, why not Australia? Why do we store our nation's gold in that dubious little offshore island called Great Britain?

From The Huffington Post

BERLIN — Germany's central bank has failed to properly oversee the country's massive gold reserves, which have been stored abroad since the Cold War in case of a Soviet invasion, independent auditors say.

The central bank must renegotiate its contracts to gain the right to inspect its gold bars, which are worth tens of billions of dollars and are stored in the United States, Britain and France, the Federal Auditors' Office said in a report to lawmakers obtained by The Associated Press on Monday.

The report says the gold bars "have never been physically checked by the Bundesbank itself or other independent auditors regarding their authenticity or weight." Instead, it relies on a "written confirmations by the storage sites."

......Given the growing political unease about the issue and the pressure from auditors, the central bank decided last month to repatriate some 50 tons of gold in each of the three coming years from New York to its headquarters in Frankfurt for "thorough examinations" regarding weight and quality, the report revealed.

Read in full