InvestorMind

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke had an interesting morning over on Capitol Hill, facing the ire of Ron Paul and receiving Democratic praise from Barney Frank. Bernanke was testifying before the Committee on Financial Services, where he said the economic recovery continues but remains frail, but was put on the spot by Ron Paul who pulled out a silver eagle and accused him of debasing the currency and destroying America’s wealth. Ron Paul was in full campaign mode. So was Barney Frank. Bernanke was caught in the middle. In what was supposed to be a Q&A session, the Fed chief essentially sat down and listened to one side bash him and the other love him. Barney Frank took the floor after some softballs by Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus, praising Bernanke’s tenure as Fed Chairman and pointing to continuing job growth. It was Ron Paul, though, who took the day. In what is usually the most heated and interesting exchange of Bernanke’s excursions to Congress, the Fed Chairman was f...

It seems the initial drop was merely the appetizer as Gold and Silver are now down considerably... Chart: Bloomberg Original source

With gold at one point trading over $75 lower and silver down over $3, today John Embry told King World News this is nothing more than a temporary smash and he expects both metals to come roaring right back. Embry, Chief Investment Strategist at Sprott Asset Management, also said oil may quickly spike to a number that will literally cripple the global economy. But first, here is what Embry had this to say about silver: “This relates to the massive blowout in open interest in both gold and silver over the last few weeks. The market is always vulnerable short-term in that situation. Central planners can’t announce they are going to have constant and massive QE or everything would go to the moon. So the idea is floated around that QE3 is off the table.” John Embry continues: “The market is so volatile and you’ve had Jim Sinclair on, who I worship when it comes to this stuff, and he was discussing this volatility. He said, ‘Be ready for volatility that’s going to make you feel l...

The situation in Europe has now reached the point that the major players have shown their hands. And they are: Germany will not put up more money unless Greece essentially passes up its fiscal sovereignty. The G20 will not give more money to Europe via the IMF unless Germany and other EU nations create a “firewall” by putting more capital into the ESM mega-fund.  The ECB has announced Greek bonds are not eligible collateral for its LTRO operations, so if banks need immediate liquidity, they need to go to national central banks ( read Germany). This is quite a turn of events. Prior to this, the ECB and Germany were seen to be working hand in hand (aside from the usual political spats) to save Europe. But between the ECB’s decision to swap out its Greek debt for new debt that won’t take a hit in the event of Greek default as well as its recent rejection of Greek debt as collateral for LTRO loans, it appears that the ECB is increasingly going to make Europe’s problems...

Morgan Poliquin, CEO of Almaden Minerals, gives a presentation on the Prospector Model in the Casey Pavilion at the Cambridge House Investment Conference in Vancouver, BC. The CEO of Almaden Minerals explains why resource exploration "is where it's at… the big game," and why mining has become so profitable in recent years.

Peter Schiff talking about Warren Buffett on RT.

Schiff Report Video Blog Feb. 27th 2012.

NEW YORK/LONDON: Gold prices rose 1 per cent toward $1,800 an ounce on Tuesday on an expected injection of cheap money from the European Central Bank, while silver rallied 4 percent after it breached key technical resistance. Silver hit a five-month high and its rally quickened pace after it broke above recent highs near $35.70, a major channel-top resistance that had held several times since September. Bullion rose to a three-month high, tracking the euro and U.S. equities as investors focused on inflation worries fueled by an upcoming ECB move to offer cheap money to companies which have been starved of investment funds. "Both gold and silver are lifted by an expectation of continued liquidity coming into the market," said Frank McGhee, head precious metals trader at Integrated Brokerage Services LLC. "Massive fund buying and predominantly technical factors boosted silver, which was undervalued compared to everything else and we are covering a lot of the ground...

Today legendary trader and investor Jim Sinclair told King World News that movements in gold will become so violent that gold will become untradable to individuals. Sinclair also said that gold will be the last great bubble as it goes into a geometric uptrend. Here is what Sinclair had to say about what we can expect to see going forward: “Liquidity, it’s as simple as that. All of this is the event that’s taken place many times in history. Many times in history there has been an inflation caused by volatility in currencies called currency induced cost push inflation.” Jim Sinclair continues: “The younger generation has no concept of this. They look at inflation as ebullient business and they look at deflation as being a breadline. They don’t recognize that during a period of extremely difficult business conditions, (you see) some of the highest rates of inflation. It’s a question of whether our indicators will ever show inflation again. But the truth is if you go back to ...

If somebody starts bombing Iran, everything in the world is probably going to go down for a while except maybe gold. Maybe the US dollar would go up initially, but probably everything would be hit in the shock except maybe gold. So I own gold. I am not selling my gold. I bought some gold on Monday a little bit. Not very much, but if gold goes down a lot, I would buy. I hope I am smart enough to buy a lot more gold. Gold is going to go much higher over the course of this decade. Do not sell your gold, not yet. - in Economic Times Original source

2012 is proving to be the 'Year of the Central Bank'. It is an exciting celebration of all the wonderful maneuvers central banks can employ to keep the system from falling apart. Western central banks have gone into complete overdrive since last November, convening, colluding and printing their way out of the mess that is the Eurozone. The scale and frequency of their maneuvering seems to increase with every passing week, and speaks to the desperate fragility that continues to define much of the financial system today. The first major maneuver took place on November 30, 2011, when the world's G6 central banks (the Federal Reserve, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank [ECB], the Swiss National Bank, and the Bank of Canada) announced "coordinated actions to enhance their capacity to provide liquidity support to the global financial system".1 Long story short, in an effort to avert a total collapse in the European banking system, the US...

We have been saying it for weeks, and today even the WSJ jumped on the bandwagon: the sole reason why crude prices are surging (RIP European profit margins: with EUR Brent at a record, we can only assume the ECB will pull a 2011 and hike rates in 3-4 months even as it pumps trillions in PIIGS, banks bailout liquidity)  is because global liquidity has risen by $2 trillion in a few short months, on the most epic shadow liquidity tsunami launched in history in lieu of QE3 (discussed extensively here in our words, but here are JPM 's). Luckily, the market is finally waking up to this, and just as world central banks were preparing to offset deflation, they will instead have to deal with spiking inflation, because the market may have a short memory, it can remember what happened just about this time in 2011. And the problem is that when it comes to the inflation trade, the market, unlike in most other instances, can be fast - blazing fast, at anticipating what the central pl...

Capital Economics expects the housing crisis to end this year, according to a report released Tuesday. One of the reasons: loosening credit The analytics firm notes the average credit score required to attain a mortgage loan is 700. While this is higher than scores required prior to the crisis, it is constant with requirements one year ago. Additionally, a Fed Senior Loan Officer Survey found credit requirements in the fourth quarter were consistent with the past three quarters. Read the full article here

The European Union plans to freeze the assets of the Syrian Central Bank starting next Monday, declared French Foreign Minister Alan Juppe, as quoted by Reuters. The new sanction will hit Syria the day after the referendum on the new constitution set for February 26. "Starting from Monday, we will take new strong measures, notably a freezing of the assets of the Syrian Central Bank," Juppe announced. The statement comes as the minister is in Tunisia attending the “Friends of Syria” meeting. Another participant in the event, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on Friday called on all nations to freeze Syrian assets and boycott oil from the country. It was also reported that on Monday EU leaders are to discuss a new set of sanctions banning Syrian exports and imports of diamonds, gold and other precious metals. Syria has been the target of a range of sanctions since unrest broke out in the country in mid-March. All in all, the EU has agreed more than 10 rounds of...

Central bank purchases, particularly from the official sector in emerging economies, have been the largest single driver of higher gold prices during the past five years. This development is particularly notable as central banks had been net sellers of bullion since the 1980s. We believe central banks from emerging economies have been buying gold to diversify their foreign exchange reserves, while developed Western countries with large legacy bullion holdings now see gold as a strategic reserve asset and have accordingly halted their gold sales programs. We think gold holds particular appeal for countries with large U.S. dollar holdings, such as China and OPEC member nations, given gold's historically negative correlation to the greenback. We do not believe central bank buying can maintain its current pace over the long haul, which supports our lower long-term gold price forecast of $1,200 per ounce. Still, we see a number of potential scenarios regarding official sector gold deman...

A look at how gold, a scarce element left behind by the explosions of supernovas, was collected by the forming Earth and how its geologic processes concentrated it in various places throughout the globe.

Earlier today, we learned the first stunner of the Greek "bailout package", which courtesy of some convoluted transmission mechanisms would result in some, potentially quite many, Greek workers actually paying to retain their jobs: i.e., negative salaries. Now, having looked at the Eurogroup's statement on the Greek bailout, we find another very creative use of "negative" numbers. And by creative we mean absolutely shocking and scandalous. First, as a reminder, even before the current bailout mechanism was in place, Greece barely saw 20% of any actual funding, with the bulk of the money going to European and Greek banks (of which the former ultimately also ended up funding the ECB and thus European banks). Furthermore, we already know that as part of the latest set of conditions of the second Greek bailout, an ' Escrow Account " would be established: this is simply a means for Greek creditors to have a senior claims over any "bailout" ...

If there is one war that Greece could not afford to join, that is with the global computer hacking collective known as Anonymous. Yet as of minutes ago, that is precisley what happened, after Anonymous, as part of what it now calls Operation Greece, took down the Greek Ministry of Justice ( http://www.ministryofjustice.gr /). While the pretext for the hacking appears to have been an arrest of the wrong people, is seems to have angered Anonymous to the point where they have left an extended message of demands on the Greek website, warning that unless the IMF withdraws from the country and the government resigns, all debts of Greek citizens will be wiped clean. Translated from the Greek:      Citizens of Greece       We are Anonymous.       We watch every day your government abolishes the constitution and institutions of the country.       We see them leading you closer and cl...

A video that compares gold in the 1980s vs today.

A plan has been laid out to help Greece and the worldwide ponzi continue to print money and pile on debt, but by no means is the deal complete. Those who’s actions a deal is dependent on are: Private investors holding Greek debt: The Institute of International Finance (IIF) is supposedly representative of private investors and the IIF will have a full committee review the details and make a decision. However, the IIF does not bind all private investors to an agreement. Gaining 95% of private investors to accept write down of 53.5% on the face value of Greek government bonds is what’s being deemed acceptable for the agreement to pass. Here’s more on the role of the private investors at CNN Money . European Union members: Per CNBC - Analysts at Nomura Securities questioned whether Finland and Denmark in particular would sign on. “The fact that the agreement was reached is a positive development in that it prevents an immediate disorderly default,” Nomura said. “However, th...

Dr Marc Faber was born in Zurich, Switzerland. He went to school in Geneva and Zurich and finished high school with the Matura. He studied Economics at the University of Zurich and, at the age of 24, obtained a PhD in Economics magna cum laude. Between 1970 and 1978, Dr Faber worked for White Weld & Company Limited in New York, Zurich and Hong Kong. Since 1973, he has lived in Hong Kong. From 1978 to February 1990, he was the Managing Director of Drexel Burnham Lambert (HK) Ltd. In June 1990, he set up his own business, MARC FABER LIMITED which acts as an investment advisor and fund manager. Paradox, Global Collapse, Derivitives Market Crash Dr Faber publishes a widely read monthly investment newsletter "The Gloom Boom & Doom Report" report which highlights unusual investment opportunities, and is the author of several books including " TOMORROW'S GOLD -- Asia's Age of Discovery" which was first published in 2002 and highlights future investme...

A simple explanation of wealth cycles, how they operate in our modern economy, and how understanding them can benefit you.

The regime of drastic cuts has tipped the economy into a violent downward spiral. They thought that private industry would muddle through as the state went through the austerity mincer. What the EU-IMF "Troika" did not fully understand is how many firms were really part of the state in disguise. "The Greek government outsources everything," said one official with close knowledge of the events. Faced with the guillotine, the state first slashed procurement contracts and then stopped paying its bills altogether. The government is now €7bn (£5.8bn) in arrears to private companies, including €3bn in unpaid VAT refunds for exporters. It is why business has borne the brunt of the fiscal squeeze, suffering 450,000 job losses, and why Greece's unemployment has soared to 21pc. At the same time the banking system seized up. More than €60bn of deposits were withdrawn. By November, no Greek bank could issue a letter of credit accepted anywhere in the world, with calam...

(Reuters) - Italian police said on Friday they had seized about $6 trillion of fake U.S. Treasury bonds in Switzerland, and issued arrest warrants for eight people accused of international fraud and other financial crimes. The operation, co-ordinated by prosecutors from the southern Italian city of Potenza, was carried out by Italian and Swiss authorities after a year-long investigation, an Italian police source said. The fake securities, more than a third of U.S. national debt, were seized in January from a Swiss trust company where they were held in three large trunks. The eight alleged fraudsters are accused of counterfeiting bonds, credit card forgery, and usury in the Italian regions of Lombardy, Piedmont, Lazio and Basilicata, police said. The Swiss Federal Prosecutor's office said Zurich state prosecutors had worked on the investigation at the request of the Italian prosecutor. The Swiss handed over their findings in July of last year. In 2009, Italian financial po...

While there is precious little in terms of detail coming out of the latest and literally greatest "fake" bond story in history, the BBC has been kind enough to release the pictures of the boxes that the supposedly fake bonds were contained in. While we reserve judgment on the authenticity of the bonds, what we wonder is whether the boxes were also fake. Because while we can understand why someone would counterfeit the Treasury paper itself, what we don't get is why someone would go the extra effort to also create a "fake" compartment in which to store it. In this case a compartment that is property of the " CHICAGO FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM . " Perhaps Fed uberdove and Chicago Fed President Charles Evans will be kind enough to explain why Versailles Treaty Chicago Fed crates are floating around in Europe (and filled with $6 trillion in supposedly fake bearer bonds)? What is also interesting is that a simple google search for Mother Box Treat...

A written document giving firm dates and detailed actions for a planned Greek default has been in the possession of two top Wall Street bank currency trading bosses since the second week in January. The Slog has separate but corroborative sources affirming the existence of the document, and a conviction among senior bank staff that – at least at the time – the plan represented “a timetable, not a contingency”. The plan gives a firm date of March 23rd for default to be announced after the close of business. Senior bankers on Wall Street have been given detailed documentation setting out a timetable to Greek default, including firm dates and technical ‘orders’ about last use of the euro as a currency there. The revelation arrived at Slogger’s Roost last Monday, since when I have been trying to obtain corroboration. This arrived in the early hours of today (Thursday). One of the banks is Barclays Capital (Barcap) run by controversial figure Bob Diamond. The other must remain anonymous f...

I just saw this and I thought it was funny. But tragic if it's true because you know that US Dollars are now like funny money.

From: Number Sleuth

Inverse Lin-omena, the inverse of the Jeremy Lin phenomena where the unknown and previously discounted suddenly rise to prominence; here, the powerful and previously secure suddenly fall. Today, central bankers, the mandarins of capitalism, are in disarray. Their attempts to contain capitalism’s current crisis increasingly resemble the tactics of a defeated army in retreat. Like Napoleon and Hitler’s respective “Moscow moments”, the 21st century economic crisis has brought to an end the bankers’ spectacular 300 year run at the table of power and wealth. The indebting of others as a means of accumulating wealth ends when the indebted can no longer pay what they owe. The arcane and esoteric scribblings of second generation University of Chicago trained economists cannot cover up this basic fact, i.e. that the indebted are broke; and soon, their creditors will be as well. The bankers’ franchise of credit and debt built on a leveraged foundation of paper money fractionally backed by ...

Interviewed by Louis James, Casey Research US-Iranian saber-rattling or impending shoot-out? In his usual, candid manner, contrarian investor Doug Casey talks about why he believes it's serious this time… why the US is the greatest threat to peace today… why Iran might move towards a gold standard… and what smart investors should do. L: Doug-sama, I've heard you say you think the US is setting Iran up to be the next fall guy in the wag-the-dog show – do you think it could really come to open warfare? Doug: Yes, I do. It could just be saber rattling during an election year, but Western powers have been provoking Iran for years now – two decades, really. I just saw another report proclaiming that Iran is likely to attack the US, which is about as absurd as the allegations Bush made about Iraq bombing the US, when he fomented that invasion. It's starting to look rather serious at this point, so I do think the odds favor actual fighting in the not-too-distant future. L:...

Foster Gamble on Iran.

The following is a missive that we received from Jim Sinclair today, who is the host of a web site called Jim Sinclair's MineSet in our humble opinion its well worth the time spent on reading what he has to say. The above link will take to his site and his updates via email are free, so you have nothing to lose by signing up for them. Dear Friends, The Gold Aficionado's greatest fear is totally without basis. The price of gold will not fall significantly from its points of true standard valuation and the introduction of a new currency system. Gold is heading back towards a monetary system and not away from it. The producing gold company of the future is the new utility as it dividends a majority of its profits to its shareholders. The fact that gold is money and not a commodity is the safety latch that opens on its own when all other forms of money close. Gresham's Law is human nature seeking a standard when all other forms of exchange have mutated to casino chips ...

It turns out that the humble penny is a pricey coin. Specifically, each new penny coined by the government costs 2.4 cents. My point here is not to remind you that pennies are anachronisms that ought to be dispensed with entirely—though that is true. This is actually a story about the federal budget, and why it’s so tough to manage. Yesterday, President Obama unveiled his budget for 2013—a plan for everything that the government will spend money on and where it intends to get that money. I won’t bore you with the details, since this document won’t survive first contact with Congress and doesn’t offer a final picture of what government activity will look like next year, although it does reveal a lot about what the president thinks is important. One good idea in the budget is to change the way we make those expensive pennies and nickels (which cost 11.2 cents each), using cheaper metals to do the job. Pennies are now made mostly of zinc, and nickels have more copper than nickel. If...

TORONTO (Commodity Online): Sprott Asset Management will launch of three new precious metals-related funds on February 28, 2012. Sprott Silver Equities Class is the first fund of its kind in Canada, while Sprott Silver Bullion Class is the first silver bullion fund to be offered within a mutual fund corporation structure. Sprott Gold Bullion Class is also being launched to provide investors with greater investment choice within Sprott Corporate Class Inc. ("Corporate Class"), a mutual fund corporation designed to provide greater tax-efficiency for investors. With the addition of these three funds, Corporate Class now offers eleven different share classes for investors to switch between without triggering an immediate taxable event. "We are pleased to build on our leadership position in the precious metals category", said James Fox, President of Sprott. "With the launch of these new funds, we continue to demonstrate our commitment to developing innovative ne...

Today legendary trader and investor Jim Sinclair told King World News that central banks are trying to keep the price of gold from rising violently. Sinclair also believes we are entering a period where currencies will lose their ability to function as money and instead will act more like casino chips, while gold ascends. Here is what Sinclair had to say about the ongoing financial crisis: “What needs to be understood by our listeners, Eric, is when a haircut takes place, what you give with one hand, you take with another. Now the problem becomes the problem of a bank’s asset having been reduced and the bank’s ability to function reduced and the bank’s abilities to positively pass tests of liquidity have been reduced. And the psychology of the stability of a system has been reduced.” Jim Sinclair continues: “When that takes place there has to be something on the other side called liquidity, which is injected into the banks to overcome the haircut reduction. Not only that, but...

Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President John Williams said the U.S. central bank should keep trying to boost growth because it’s missing its goals for employment and price stability, while stopping short of calling for more asset purchases for now. “I’m sticking with my story that economic growth won’t be that strong,” Williams told reporters yesterday after delivering a speech in Claremont, California . “Going forward, it’s about weighing the costs and benefits of doing more,” he said, adding that he’s looking “at the broad picture for what the outlook on the economy is” instead of a specific threshold that would signal that more easing was unnecessary. Williams, a voting member on the policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee this year, said that inflation is likely to be about 1.5 percent this year and next, below the central bank’s goal of 2 percent. He also said the current 8.3 percent unemployment rate is “very far from maximum employment,” and that joblessness ...

“Gold gets dug out of the ground, then we melt it down, dig another hole, bury it again and pay people to stand around guarding it. It has no utility. Anyone watching from Mars would be scratching their head.”-Warren Buffett In a recent Fortune article, Warren Buffett provided a glimpse into his upcoming annual shareholder letter. Buffett used this opportunity to once again remind everyone how much he dislikes gold. He cites gold’s limited industrial demand and places the precious metal in a category of assets that “will remain lifeless forever.” However, there are two precious metals that are considered to be monetary safe-havens. Sometimes referred to as gold’s little brother, silver has also acted as a hedge against uncertainty and fiat currencies. Furthermore, its industrial use is far from being lifeless. Buffett paints another analogy of the world’s gold stock as a useless cube that would fit within a baseball infield. At $1,750 per ounce, this pile of gold would be worth $9....

PUBLISHER of The Grandich Letter Peter Grandich predicts the Gold Price will hit $2350 per ounce. In this interview with The Gold Report he shares his reasons... The Gold Report: Going back to your time as a fund manager in the '80s on Wall Street, how does what was happening then compare with what is happening now? Peter Grandich: It's dramatically different. The biggest change is that the game is stacked against the average investor more so than at any other time. For example, the mortgage debacle a few years ago was equivalent to all the big car companies manufacturing cars that they knew were going to crash and buying life insurance on the people that they sold the cars to knowing that they would die so they could collect on both ends. That's what the financial institutions did. Those people are still in charge of the game. I take exception when I hear people talking as if the game is fair and the average person has a reasonable chance. TGR: One revelation in your...

Shanghai/Beijing: China disclosed on Friday that it had secretly raised its gold reserves by three-quarters since 2003, increasing its holdings to 1,054 tonnes and confirming years of speculation it had been buying. Hu Xiaolian, head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), told Xinhua  news agency in an interview that the country’s reserves had risen by 454 tonnes from 600 tonnes since 2003, when China last adjusted its state gold reserves figure. Hidden riches: China has increased its pile of gold by 454 tonnes from 600 tonnes in 2003, when it last adjusted reserve figures. Haruyoshi Yamaguchi / Bloomberg The confirmation of its surreptitious stockpiling is likely to fuel market talk about Beijing’s ability to buy secretly and its ambitions for spending its nearly $2 trillion (around Rs100 trillion) pile of savings. And not just in gold: copper and other metals markets are booming thanks to China’s barely visible hand. Speculation has gathered speed over the l...

SNNLive Video Interview from the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference 2012.

Interview with Currency Wars author Jim Rickards at RT's Capital Account with Lauren Lyster.

The Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) has made it official: After its latest two day meeting, it announced its goal to devalue the dollar by 33% over the next 20 years. The debauch of the dollar will be even greater if the Fed exceeds its goal of a 2 percent per year increase in the price level. An increase in the price level of 2% in any one year is barely noticeable. Under a gold standard, such an increase was uncommon, but not unknown. The difference is that when the dollar was as good as gold, the years of modest inflation would be followed, in time, by declining prices. As a consequence, over longer periods of time, the price level was unchanged. A dollar 20 years hence was still worth a dollar. But, an increase of 2% a year over a period of 20 years will lead to a 50% increase in the price level. It will take 150 (2032) dollars to purchase the same basket of goods 100 (2012) dollars can buy today. What will be called the “dollar” in 2032 will be worth one-th...