By Patrick A. Heller
Commentary on Precious Metals Prepared for CoinWeek.com
On July 31, Numismaster.com published my article where I passed along information that the investigation into the LIBOR interest rate manipulation scandal in Great Britain would soon expand. Further, I anticipated that this scandal would lead to other investigations that would possibly cover the activities of JPMorgan Chase and its alleged suppression of silver prices.
Now, three weeks later, the LIBOR investigation has expanded from one to 16 banks in the US, UK, and the rest of Europe. JPMorgan Chase is one of the banks on the list.
The price of silver ended at $27.90 in US markets on July 31. As I write this about noon on Tuesday, the price of silver was up about 5% since then, well over $29.00. Over the same time period, the price of gold is up about 2%, only the third time its price has exceeded $1,630 on the London PM fix in the past 11 weeks.
For the month of August through the 20th, the price of silver has reached $28.00 exactly 38 times, only to be knocked down each time, until yesterday. Today it jumped further to break through $29.00. Although precious metals prices don’t move in a straight line, we may now be experiencing the exposure of the huge physical shortages in the silver market. When these become headline news, prices will take off.
The strength of gold and silver thus far this week has largely been prompted by higher expectations that the European Central Bank will begin aggressively purchasing European bonds as part of their bailout program. Such a program would be explicit inflation of the money supply. Or, stated another way, the ECB will choose to deliberately devalue the Euro, dragging other currencies down with it.
ECB officials are trying to deny that any such decisions have yet been made for a bond-buying program. But the truth is that the basic decision to do so has already been made. Now it’s only a matter of working out the details before making the decision public.
The actions of the ECB are not occurring in a vacuum. Investors large and small are reacting. For instance, in recent filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, it is documented that billionaire George Soros has sold off almost all of his investments in financial firms such as banks and brokerages, and that he has used about $130 million of the proceeds to purchase gold. Billionaire hedge fund operator John Paulson, who earned about $20 billion with his investments in the 2008 financial crisis, has substantially increased the amount of gold investments by his hedge fund to 44% of the value of all assets in the fund.
If the price of silver can surpass $30.00 and hold there at least 3 days, it will likely continue a quick rise, dragging gold along with it. Even if it doesn’t happen in the next few weeks, I expect it to happen sooner rather than later.
Patrick A. Heller was honored with the American Numismatic Association 2012 Harry J. Forman Numismatic Dealer of the Year Award. He owns Liberty Coin Service in Lansing, Michigan and writes Liberty’s Outlook, a monthly newsletter on rare coins and precious metals subjects. Past newsletter issues can be viewed at http://www.libertycoinservice.com. Other commentaries are available at Numismaster (under “News & Articles) . His award-winning radio show “Things You ‘Know’ That Just Aren’t So, And Important News You Need To Know” can be heard at 8:45 AM Wednesday and Friday mornings on 1320-AM WILS in Lansing (which streams live and becomes part of the audio and text archives posted at http://www.1320wils.com.
There are a plethora of reasons why silver prices should shoot up and fly high as far into the future as anyone can see! A bidding war over silver is overdue to ignite between industrial users and investors. Funeral operators may come under unannounced inspections due to value of dental materials! Armed security will become conspicuous inside metals dealers premises! Some of the canniest investors have caught wind of the fact of silver being predicted to be the first element to disappear from the periodic table and are hiding it away long term. They have no immediate nor intermediate nor long term need to sell silver, because they have other assets and income. They will sit on it till it matures into the apex asset of the millennia! The Silver Users Association? They can ride a razor blade into a pool of acid, with sparks flying, as far as longs and hard money folks are concerned. They face consumer boycott of their enterprises in event of collusion with the Feds to nationalize silver for their cartels consumption, plus torrential lawsuits. They have always been the vulture hatchlings in the stinking nest being fed silver by Pilgrims Society financiers like Douglas Dillon and Robert Roosa who’ve pillaged the metal for generations. Polymetallic miners selling silver at low hedged prices to industrial users, under pressure from shareholders, will close those hedges out and no more freebie silver to the silver shrews! Now, as to the LIBOR flap—the most critical point to be made regarding it all is, for more than a century, top strata London financial entities have had as top execs and board members, men who were/are members of The Pilgrims of Great Britain which, with its USA correspondent organization, The Pilgrims of the United States, have constituted the international fiat money operators of the globe. This fact will NOT get any mention in the financial press/media, no matter how much coverage the scandal gets. Due to the tandem efforts of Dutch researcher Joel Van Der Reijden and myself, the group finally came out with a website in mid-2011 at http://www.pilgrimsociety.org at which site for example you’ll find the name of Caspar Weinberger, who as Defense Secretary bled the former 165 million ounce strategic silver stockpile for the Silver Users Association. Marcus Agius of Barclays is 65 and was due to retire nonetheless! If we could get a 2012 Pilgrims list he’d be in it; his father in law was Edmund L. deRothschild, Pilgrims of Great Britain; this is the group Buffett sold silver to for price suppression! Just now as silver is threatening to blast into supernova, someone is about to belch out warnings that silver is in danger of falling below the price of manure. Don’t take over any short instrument from anyone! Therefore—a poem—“Running down silver; something has a smell! Long years of deficits, they know full well—are they under the spell of the shortside cartel? Thinking about misdirection gives you the dry heaves! That silver will go below manure price is what moron believes! WATCH WHAT A DEVIOUS WEB THE POISON SPIDER WEAVES!”
“Even if it doesn’t happen in the next few weeks, I expect it to happen sooner rather than later.”
Yah, and where’s the news in that? This is what you ALWAYS predict, Patrick. Since no commodity EVER runs in a straight line, all you have to do is keep predicting silver will rise every week without fail, and CONGRATUATIONS, after 16 months, you’re finally right. So then what happens when the September Federal Reserve meeting happens and there is still no QE3? Down she goes!! It’s called “Fedspectations”. Everyoone goes into each quarterly Fed meeting predicting QE3, then it doesn’t happen, and metals sell off again.
And why is this? Because there IS an alternative to inflation to get us out of this mess – and it’s called “confiscatory levels of taxation for those of means”. You don’t have to inflate away the savers’ assets. All you have to do is tax it away. And if they do that, silver will approach $7, not $40.
This is not a case of Patrick being correct twice per day like the watch that stopped. But he can take up for himself. QE3 may go either way, but to assert that’s the only thing governing price action in silver either disregards the many other factors impinging on silver, or the protestations of an inveterate perma bear. If you feel silver could swoon to $7 I urge you to get short; don’t stint, place entire net worth into it. When you’re camped in the woods we won’t hear your rattling any more.
Well, Charles, once again you’re completely wrong. What is holding silver (and gold incidentally) UP is an irrational amount of speculation based on an expectation of massive inflation about to ensue. This irrational belief is being spread by the various elements of the Roger Ailes media conglomerate – Limbaugh, Fox News, Hannity, Larsson, etc. The neocon audience is primed for the economic Armageddon message as it leverages the inherent “Obama is Satan” predelictions of neocons, as well as their also inherent belief in paleo-economic theory that is reflexively anti-Keynesian because Keynesianism is attached to FDR’s legacy.
It has nothing to do with Brits, the Pilgrim Society or ANYONE ELSE holding DOWN metals, but irrational speculation by neocons propping them UP!
As neocon political fortunes rise, metals will also. If and WHEN they crash and burn, so will metals prices.
Your views are a veritable saturnalia of delusions—theories that aren’t playing out. I’ve been buying silver since it was $4.23 the ounce, converting mining shares to physical, and consider going short too chancy, even if for brief periods. The Silver Users Association would have disbanded as a needless cooperative were your notions spot on. I and other silver longs I know, and those I don’t know but read, are in no sense “neocons.” States and cities are going broke, that’s why several legislatures are working on remonetizing metals at the state level, once accomplished, this will add to the demand and strain the supply so much that the purchasing power will rise like a redwood forest. Same thing is transpiring with other nations, Iran due to sanctions is shifting to gold money, most Mexicans want silver as currency again. Mexico being one of the top two producers, that with these and other factors will bust the wheels off the wagon of those so devoid of perception as to stay short. The Treasury Department has no silver to dump!
I work for the Pennsylvania Legislature, Charles. One member (a neocon, through and through) introduced an exact copy (except for the state tax rate) of the Utah alternative legal tender law. H ecan’t even find more than a tiny cadre of ultra-neocon right wingers as cosponsors. This is ALL partisan politics, Charles. Absolutely ALL of the metals story is.
And Charles, ANYBODY who thinks this is all about British-based secret societies has no business telling ANYONE about delusions. Capeesh?
Oh, and Charles? I HAVE BEEN masively shorting gold and silver for the past year or so plus after acquiring them massively since the early 1990’s. Not bad, eh?
There’s a mentality that won’t believe in powerful people affiliating with each other, for the object of using government power to ruin their competitors. Mr. Bellman is one such so; there’s no need to drag him towards any proofs. Others however have open minds and do not automatically believe in the “inherent goodness” of people, especially those who seek to eliminate an entire class (the middle class). “Behind every great fortune there is a great crime”—Honore de Balzac (1799-1850). The Silver Users Association accessed several billion ounces of miner produced, taxpayer funded silver at rates below replacement cost, with assistance from the financial community and bought off members of Congress. For years, to stay in business, miners had to high-grade their best ore and give away the shareholders future; many went broke due to silver leasing, most notably Sunshine Mining Company. Influence peddling (“financial conspiracy”)is why Wall Street spearheaded the 17th Amendment for the direct election of Senators, rather than having them chosen by state legislatures—to remove local control from the national Senate—to render easier payoff by Wall Street. The most powerful of these operators are Pilgrims Society members, the Federal Reserve is acknowledged to be patterned after the BOE, this Pilgrims organization connects the financial, diplomatic, military and legal systems of the two nations, as England never ceases to yearn for recovery of “the colonies.” Bellman, you are a hopeless case! Timothy Mellon resides in Pennsylvania, see if he’ll explain it to you. Reason has no impact on you. Pennsylvania is one of the several most heavily banker influenced (read—influence peddling) states, so I don’t wonder the bill still has weak support there. As far as silver prices rising sustained, or drastically falling, time and events will settle that debate so; there is no more need to ping-pong this issue with you. Smart money—Soros, Paulson, Kyle Bass in Dallas, the University of Texas System—has moved into gold, and is upping its exposure; meantime, the smartest money is going for silver.
Charles,
I go by a different theory when it comes to economics: “Dead people are irrelevant.” And most live ones don’t matter much either. I view the near-constant belief in conspiracies as a form of mental illness. It is at least a personality disorder or a form of psycho-pathology. My opinion.
If anyone here would like to see it exhibited, visit Charles’ website by linking his name above.