Panda - FYI, AOL held up well yesterday. No problem getting on, or getting access to sites. Was able to sign on to Kitco most of the time.

Meanwhile ... life goes on. SWC's latest report indicates 1998 will be a very good year ( but for hedges would be a great year ) .

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/97/10/29/swc_y0023_1.html

My reading of various materials from a very spectral arena tells me that the deflationary forces are the winds of the day and I agree with Nick and others, a storm of monumental proportions looms ever so closely just over the horizon. The government means nothing, the media means nothing, the market and investor sentiment mean nothing.

These destructive forces will leave a shell shocked world in it's wake. I am not a gloom and doom soothsayer. No, rather I see that those positioned properly will reap the benefits of prudent thinking. Gold will not be the immediate champion, but I feel that it will be King in a world gone mad with easy paper and immediate and instant gratification when the smoke clears. It will take some time for that smoke to clear. Those that can afford the gold stocks should dive in with both hands when they feel the timing is right to shield the toils of their labors in a golden cloak. Like testing the ice as one tentatively moves onto a frozen lake. Tread prudently and survive, more too quickly and you will be engulfed in a nuclear financial winter.

The very fact that one man, Mr. Greenspan, can wreak havoc on world markets reveals a financial world run amuck, perhaps something biblical can be drawn from this. A world looking to a mere mortal, whose words speak to nothing more than greed, avarice, money and a false sense of power.

This man is his own worst protagonist, his own words bow strike in his sleep as piercing arrows of gold find their mark...his soul, a soul corrupted by worthless paper money. He has become that which in his youth he despised, the creator of bureaucratic figment standard paper.

His catharsis is sublimated by the long hours he spends in the tub. He cannot scrub that part of him which needs a cleansing. They make no detergent for the soul. Perhaps his God has given him a reprieve. A ring reveals itself around the tub as he towels off and bath water runs down a drain. He can not escape it. It shines oh too bright. There before his very eyes, is a ring, a golden ring.

Perhaps that is why he has spoken of gold so often, so many times, so recently in public appearances. He knows he cannot save a world gone mad, but hopefully some will heed his message and in this manner maybe he can garner some manner of that which any individual should hold highest.

Self respect.