I liked your posting about the importance of

weapons and the ability to produce them. Particularly

nukes.

Add this ingredient to my budding South African

conspriracy theory. RSA had nuclear capability.

RSA had an advanced arms industry ( to the degree that

they could make a good attack chopper ) . RSA produced

over 1/3 of world's gold and well over half the PGM.

They HAD to neutralized via sanctions using the

straw man of apartheid. Once the RSA nukes were

destroyed, the US ( and surrogates ) lost interest in

RSA overnight.

For Karlito -

Im curious- What motivates a man to spend time in

a chat group about gold when he thinks gold has no

future and all the people in the group are fools

It's strange to me. Why do we fascinate you ?

You seem to be on a tight schedule - speeches -

catching planes kind of very important things. Why

do you waste your time here Dont you have better

things to do Are you dedicating your free time to

saving us from ourselves Curiouser and curiouser

I am suffering along with you and wondering why. I saw platinum jerked away from gold early this year by the rise in palladium. This made sense, as platinum and palladium have many similar industrial uses. Just when I started betting on the relationship holding, platinum collapsed ( along with gold ) but palladium held.

I have thought a lot about this. First, I don't think that gold and platinum are hinged at the hips, although it looks like they are. I think they are both suffering from a common problem, weakness of the currencies of the buying countries with respect to the US$. For gold, India and SE Asia are major buyers of gold, and their currencies have been creamed lately. For platinum, Japan is the major buyer, and you know what is happening there.

Why has palladium held up. I have a couple of theories. First, platinum has a large consumer market in Japan, jewelry. Impact of currency weakness on consumer buying would be immediate, and magnified by psychological factors. Palladium use is almost all industrial. Here you would expect to find long term contracts, and hedging practiced to eliminate risk of currency exchange rates. The impact of currency weakness would be less severe and less immediate. My other theory is that palladium, being such a thinly traded metal, is subject to manipulation. At the end of the last three quarters, the price of palladium converged on a level and stayed there. Then there was a large jump at the beginning of the next quarter, as market forces took effect. I don't know this for a fact, but I was watching the recent price movement ( or lack thereof ) of palladium quite closely lately, and up until the end of last week, when it finally started dropping a bit, it seemed to be very tightly controlled, while the other metals were jumping all over the place. Very, very suspicious.

You say you are long platinum at $450. Not a pleasant ride down. I don't feel comfortable making recommendations to anyone, but I will share my thoughts.

1. Supply/demand: They say demand has been outrunning supply lately. Perhaps this is or was true. Will it continue, in the face of business and financial crises in so many areas of the world? I'm not at all confident that it will. Thus the threat of further shortages, a la delays in Russian shipments, may be empty threats. The market seems to be telling us not to worry about shortages.

2. Currency: If you saw my earlier posting, you will be aware that the currencies for gold buying nations are further weakening, at a very rapid rate. For platinum, I don't have access to market breakdown by country, but I would watch Japan. The Yen has dropped 15% since platinum was at $450. This could easily explain a $60 drop in the price of platinum. If the Yen starts to recover vs. the dollar, platinum has a chance of recovering, but the psychological affects of Japan's financial crisis could still be a dampener.

3. PL/PA spread: The price difference between platinum and palladium has only fallen below $200 twice in the last 18 years. Both times when it did this, it bottomed out around $140. If PA drops to the levels of earlier this year, say $130, this would put platinum at $270 ( perhaps around the price of gold at that time ) . If PA stays around $200, this would put platinum at $340, still a drop from today's prices.

Ultimately, I think it is quite possible that platinum may drop back down to the price of gold, where it was at the beginning of the year. This means it still has quite a ways to fall. I'm inclined to exit my platinum positions ( at a loss ) , and I may do so next week.

Whatever you decide to do, best of luck to you!

http://www.hotcopper.com.au/hottips1/_vti_bin/shtml.dll/disc1_srch.htm

and enter ECM in search engine

G'Day Joe from Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

Thanks for your info. I posted info on the Munni Munni Complex, East Coast Minerals and Legend Mining over a week or so ago. Good to get additional confirmation. To all North American investors, these stocks are STILL cheap, and will go UP. The Aussie market is a bit slow to catch onto a good thing.

Aye Haggis

A useful publication in the understanding of Gold and Derivatives is...

The Derivatives Revolution by Jessica Cross, Rosendale Press,

ISBN 1 872803 18 0.

Answers to all your questions on forwards, funds, futures, gold loans, hedging, options, spot deferreds and warrants. Given the current chaos that derivates have placed on the market, and the possibility of a future gold standard - is Regulation on the way?!

Jessica Cross works as a Research Economist / Gold Analyst with Rio Tinto ( Rothchilds ) .

Aye, Haggis

college tuition ( what a far cry it was from when I was in college ) ...so what's my point? My point is that the cost of my children's tuition set me back big time...If the U.S. is going to help bail out economically troubled nations, i.e, Korea, isn't this going to affect our bottom line?

Thought #2: Aren't many U.S. corporations going to suffer in this global economy because: ( 1 ) cheaper foreign imports from Asis will be flooding U.S. markets and ( 2 ) more expensive U.S. goods will be less desirable in foreign markets?

Thought #3: Is this new global warming treaty, if ratified by Congress, going to hurt the U.S. more than any other country? Our cutbacks will be in auto emissions...in other countries it may take theform of cutting down a few less trees or burning a little less coal.

Finally, it's still hard for me to get a handle on where gold is going...whether's it's bottomed, or not. All I know is that the rules have changed and I believe that it will make it more difficult for gold to come back unless something happens to shake confidence in the U.S. Dollar.

Also, although I have not done it yet myself, I would be a buyer of slightly

to moderately out-of-the-money puts. My view is that there is little upside potential for the market going forward. I still like oil going forward...I mean way forward...possibly as a hedge against inflation

to insure retirement assets. However, if this global warming agreement is accepted by Congress, then I believe that will lessen but not totally diminish oil's impact as a safe haven in the future.

Thanks for reading my ramblings. I would welcome your comments.

I have collected some company reports and posted them at

http://wire.net.au/~jsmith/ look for East Coast

questions invited to

jsmith@wire.net.au

Based on the fact that the world gold currency is still in a crash mode relative to the US$, I have to believe it will be even cheaper in the future.

http://pacific.commerce.ubc.ca/xr/plot.html

cells

| Previous | Next | Respond | +Earnings |

To: +Elwood ( 1025 )

From: +Urlman

Friday, Oct 10 1997 7:11PM EST

Reply # of 1389

The July Wired article entitled The Long Boom: A History of the Future, 1980 -

2020 is what

sparked the market interest in Ballard. Wall Steet embraced this wired peice ....

The October issue is what set this puppy ABLAZE

By the late 1990s, research labs such as British Columbia-based Ballard Power

Systems are steadily developing the technology with little public fanfare. Within 10

years, there are transitional hydrogen car models that extract fuel from ordinary

gasoline, using the existing network of pumps. By 2010, hydrogen is being processed

in refinery-like plants and loaded onto cars that can go thousands of miles - and many

months - before refueling. The technology is vastly cheaper and safer than in the 1960s

and well on its way to widespread use.

These technological developments drive nothing less than a wholesale transformation of

the automobile industry through the first quarter of the new century. Initially prodded

by government decrees such as California's zero-emission mandate - which called for

10 percent of new cars sold to have zero emissions by 2003 - the industrial behemoths

begin to pick up speed when an actual market for hybrid cars opens up. People buy

them not because they are the environmentally correct option but because they're

sporty, fast, and fun. And the atrto companies build them because executives see green

- as in money, not trees.

This 10- to 15-year industrial retooling sends reverberations throughout the global

economy. The petrochemical giants begin switching from maintaining vast networks

that bring oil from remote Middle Eastern deserts to iimilarly vast networks that supply

the new elements of electrical power. Fossil fuels will continue to be a primary source

of power into the middle of the 21st century - but they will be clean fossil fuels. By

2020, almost all new cars are hybrid vehicles, mostly using hydrogen power. That

development alone defuses much of the pressure on the global environment. The world

may be able to support quite a few additional automobile drivers - including nearly 2

billion Chinese.

SOURCE: http://wwww.wired.com/wired/5.07/longboom.html

As I recall, the World Gold Council has similar graphs.

There is one silver lining - in all this inflation/deflation going on right now -- if the US prints electronic dollars instead of paper dollars and exports them to SE Asia. Perhaps they will vanish in a puff of deflationary smoke over there, instead of eventually returning to haunt us as inflation. I don't have a clue whether our AG can make dollars disappear as mysteriously as he creates them. I wonder -- can he make the Statue of Liberty or the Eiffel tower disappear, too? I suspect the skills of a successful Chairman of a leading Central bank must be diverse. Did everyone know that the Chairman/director of the new European Central bank is expected to have skills similar to that of our AG?

I've posted on this subject before, but didn't have all the data. I find this chart very revealing. I seems more clear than ever that the gold price in US$ will not begin an extended rally until the financial situations of the major gold markets stabilize, and the curreny trend reverses.

http://edcwww.cr.usgs.gov/webglis USGS Global Land Information System

http://minerals.er.usgs.gov/ USGS Mineral Resources Program

http://www.bullion.org.za/mining5.htm World Mining Directory

I think you have the answer -- it will have to come from those little gold ( green? ) men! If you see one, please try and get him to tell us all about the sceret to the levity of gravity. It would be nice to meet a funny alien one day, wouldn't it. Just as long as he doesn't look and sound like Jim Carey in The Mask.

Here is a further quote from the Privateer article ( published in Early November ) . The IMF bail outs of Latin American nations in the 1970s and 1980s, right up to the Mexican bailout of late 1994, obviously benefitted the U.S., because it was U.S. banks that were most exposed to the region. This time, it is the U.S. Treasury itself that is most exposed. Asian nations were the MAJOR buyers of new Treasury debt throughout the 1990s.

Here's the quote:

The history of IMF bail-outs stretches all the way back to the era of real asset inflation of the 1970s. It entered a new era of urgency in 1985 when the U.S. became a net debtor nation for the first time since WW I, and it has usually been carried out to support third world nations. The fact that it is now happening in Asia - home of the Tiger Economies of the last decade - is highly significant. This rescue package for Indonesia will freeze its holdings of U.S. Treasury debt paper in place.

In the case of Asia in particular, this is important. The rescues of the Latin American nations in the 1970s and 1980s were done for the purpose of protecting the U.S. banking system, which had huge loan exposure to these nations. The rescue of Asian economies directly protects the U.S. Treasury itself, because the Asian economies have been the main buyers of debt paper during the 1990s.

Here's something else for you -- those who can carry a tune are probably more natturaly inclined to being able to predict the future or understand cycles! Ever notice how the next note on Beethoven's moonlight sonata is so predictable -- at least when you are playing it or listening to it?

My point is that the US will no longer remain a world power if we destroy our currency, or bury ourselves in debt. We would do much better if the dollar was not the defacto world's currency, but that is not in the cards. Some other country will pick up the world power role if we falter - after a world crisis of some kind - and that country will have learned how not to debase their currency the way we have. China, perhaps? Just how much gold do they have?

I have one question: Are all the oil producers of the world really able to get together in one room, and demand gold for oil?

I realize that a crisis occured in the 70's when the OPEC producers found themselves being reimbursed in depreciating dollars, because the price of oil was offically priced in dollars.

I have a different approach. Lets say that the oil producers are worried that the same thing might happen again ( repeat of the 70's ) , and they do not want to see their valuable resource ( oil ) being priced at a ( relatively fixed ) price in depreciating dollars. All they have to do is demand that the price of oil is fully floating, just as the price of gold is now fully floating in dollars. I wonder, could the price of oil be manipulated like the price of gold is right now? Probably not, because I don't think anyone has 10 years production of crude above ground to loan or sell. This floating approach to oil would work unless the dollar crashed and burned, when the oil producers would demand something else anyway - another currency, or gold.

I think some of the commotion about the oil-gold-dollar bit is that the price of oil was solidly begged for a long time, and the 70's OPEC oil crisis put an end to that. Does anyone know if oil is fully floating in dollars now or not?

Now this approach does not solve the problem of how the industrial world will handle rising oil prices, as that is tantamount to inflation, given our oil-based economies. But that is our problem to solve, not the Oil producers. As investors, we need to have some idea regarding how that problem might be addressed if oil prices rise.

All: Did you notice that Korean oil imports are expected to drop in January? We may have dropping oil prices for some time!

I'm at work, so I cannot give you web sites to browse right now. But -- I can give you names to look up on a good web browser if you want info right away.

Try Discrete Wavelet Transform or Wavelet Transform.

I was referring to Ingrid Daubuchies of Bell Labs, who made some improvements to the Wavelet Transform analyis. I cannot describe to you the mathemathics of what she did - yet anyway, but it suffices to say that she must have added some parameters that you can change that allows the wavelet model to better fit the data.

What really makes this stuff exciting, by the way, is that after you analyze the data and generate the kinds of wavelets ( one for each Fibonacci number for example ) , I'm pretty sure you can reverse the transform, and extract the non-random time series data. In other words, make a real time computer model. EB - I suspect you are already doing this intuitively in some way -- this must be similar to what the Elliot wave people are doing.

pdeep: In response to your comments, I aggree with you that the wavelet analysis will be skewed ( sp? ) if the time series chosen is not stationary ie, representative of the whole. But -- I think this is true for virtually any time series analysis. I think this type of analysis- which appears to be fancy digital filtering on a brief glance -- should work real time. One can then adjust the computer model when the rules change, as the precise nature of the market in say 1991 or 1994 might not be the same as in 1997. Of course, like any model of the market, it will not work well when the rules are changing! Boy -- do we know that about gold! I have not used Hurst exponent analysis before, just ordinary autocorrelation. Is this like an expansion of autocorrelation function with an exponential series?

http://homepages.enterprise.net/mlang/foghorn.html

Now do you remember

away....

ÉßßL

If first and second are behind me, I can devote my full attention to contributing to the behind the scenes activities of a small number of reserchers studing zero-point energy, the Casimir effect, the Bohm - Ahromov effect, cold fusion -- the last now legit at MIT. I haven't chosen the area to focus on, as no-one has come up with a unifying theory.

My investing interests have a double benefit, as it is very clear ( as you and I have cooresponded ) , that investor behavior follows complex extraterrestrial cycles. If the mystery of these cycles can be unraveled, I strongly suspect that a currently unknown physical principle may be identified. I already think the phenomenon does not obey the typical inverse square law of classic physical forces. I only wish that I had more hours in the day -- or I would do more now on solving this mystery -- which I think will be our ticket to extraterrestrial travel.

What you and Poorboys can do to help me, is direct me to any solid analytical work on Astrology - specifically on how it relates to the markets or the environment we live in, as I can quantify these. As you both probalbly know, Crook believes that our entire natural environment responds to extraterrestrial events - such as pulsars with long-period cycles. Many of them have multi-year periods -- not just milliseconds. The cosmic energy flux from these pulsars could very well affect us, as we already know that it affects the earth -- really messes up that carbon dating. Do you know how I can get access to Bradleys oringinal work, or similar analytical work? This kind of stuff is frustratingly sparse.

So -- if I vacillate, it is because I am frustrated!

I'll tell you some of what I know:

First -- NASA has been reverse engineering UFO's for years. I have one of their textbooks on the subject ( written by an engineer post-humously ) . No - it does not explain how to make a UFO -- but it is clear that the author has seen at least one. You probably know that numerous astronauts have seen UFO's, and one addressed the United Nations reagarding this matter. So -- we know there is another source of energy out there --presumably untapped by humans.

Second -- Janes Defense weekly has a report of new technology craft, both in UK and ( I think ) in the US. Janes is usually reliable.

Third -- Both Takahashi and Wankel ( Japanese companies ) have working electric motor prototypes that appear to have over unity operation. I could make one from the plans. Production of such a controversial motor will wait for the next oil crisis -- they are well ahead of the US on this matter ( commercially, at least, where it counts ) . The mechanism appears to be the following:there is a way to modulate the magnetic vector potential without doing any significant amount of ( magnetic ) work, effectively resetting the magnetic poles of the motor to that the work of magnetic repulsion can be recycled. On the surface this looks like a perpetual motion machine, which is obviously impossible. The answer lies in the zero point energy - that mysterious sea of virtual background energy that Dirac referred to years ago. If one can periodically tweak that background energy sea in the right way, it appears that it can be tapped. I have not actually seen one of these motors in operation, so I cannot personally vouch for their overunity operation. But -- the theory is plausible -- even if it would give most classically trained Physicists nightmares.

Fourth: No one has satisfactorily explained gravity -- not even Einstein, and he would be the first to admit this, if he were alive. There is a very intersting experiment recently reported regarding whether single electrons or protons experience a gravitational force ( I can't recall where -- either Stanford or Cern, I think. The bottom line is that one interpretation of the data is that free electrons or protons do not experience a gravitational attraction to the earth. If that is so, gravity may be due to complex dipole-like shielding effects between neutral atoms. In other words, the attraction of gravity may be due to an unbalanced electromagnetic force. If so, it can be nullified, and the behavior of those numerous UFO sightings can be explained. ( yes - I know about the Condon report -- but you only need one true sighting! ) Can you imagine the significance of locally nullifying gravity? Our ticket to the stars! Always wondered how they built the Pyramid of Giza -- haven't you?

Even the hepcatstudioRcoollurkdudehasdecidetojointhefunandmakeammendsanditrulyenjoyhiskeeninsightwithasprinklingofhumoryougocat!

away...to the day

Éßthankfulforkitco

JTF - your posts are GREAT!! your recent essay on the fibonacci 18:26 was a print. I rely on Fibo heavily in my trading and it works VERY WELL!! The laws of nature ( cycles, mathematics, etc ) should NEVER be ignored. keep on it, thanks. Your 'stuff' is a must read ALWAYS.

I have on occassion driven past the Fort Worth Western Currency Facility ( was lost in those back roads ) . My word - it is an ultra-modern, spooky looking place on an obscure oil-topped road with poorly marked signs. Triple barbed-wire fences, video cameras on *every* lamp-post in the parking lot, and huge weird airconditioning snout-things on the roof - guess they don't want anyone sampling their air emissions? Reminds me of a SCIF facility.

A quarter of a mile away is a really impressive housing addition - sticks out like a sore thumb given the ragged-out, back-country Tobacco Road location - wonder who lives in THAT lap of luxury ( wink, wink, nudge, nudge ) ?

Nonetheless, this place is quite close to the Alliance International Airport that was just built - hmmm - would sure make it easy to fly out planeloads of new currency to Russia ( grin ) if they had to get them to Yeltsin somehow.

What is *really* wierd though is another facility about a mile away that defies my engineer's understanding. It's an array of four huge square cross-section metal towers, with four equally impressive metal trusses holding them up - imagine four, ten story right triangles. There is a support building and a sign that indicates it's an EPRI facility ( these guys are an energy transmission company ) . If you didn't know any better, you'd think someone just had a lark to prototype metal trusses out in the middle of nowhere. The collection as a whole looks like a giant radar array - but as I said - I'm an engineer and I just can't see anything else there. Well, one of the triangles looks like it might barely be a feed. Shultz, do you know what this thing is?

The new US currency story has been circulating for years, but all we got was only the slighty different new $100 and $50 bills. Given that the US $5.4 trillion dollar debt can't ever be paid back, that gold is being driven down, I am guessing that:

1 ) The US is and has been quitely buying as much gold as it can, telling the other CBs it's worthless. Here, have paper. Good as gold ( big grin ) . That their pet press would be telling us the opposite is just par for any disinformation course. Do you really think our current Federal government would tell the American people anything ***close*** to the truth ( like We'll only be in Bosnia for ONE year ) . Curious how we haven't seen nor heard of any US gold sales, eh? You'd think a decent disinformation effort would put out at least a token me-too press release of US gold sales.

2 ) The US will repudiate it's debt and issue the real, new currency ( plastic notes like the Australian dollar? ) that Schultz alludes to being stockpiled. This one will be backed by the gold we've been taking off the hands of the rubes in Argentina, Australia, etc. at fire sale prices.

3 ) We've got so many forces in the Middle East, that if Saudi Arabia tried to raise prices, dump the dollar or tell us to get out, we'd just take the place over, having morally rotted out the House of Saud with Western vittles. How hard would it be?

That was so simple, I feel a little stupid having asked for advice.

Will leave to go lurk for awhile and read some books. For aurator,

I am aussie businessman who lives in Dallas, TX I know how important gold is to Aussie economy, but I am beginner at gold investing.. I am familiar with the privateer's post and think that Bill Buckler has some

very good insight into what is happening. His comments are also

very level headed.

Now, where did I put that reading list ?.

1-800-742-3316 might help. Definitely good-to-know.

And I see noooooooo soft landing ( sand ) in sight......for now.....ugh...

away...to climb the slide

Éßottomless

away....aye.....far away

Éßalwayscorrectpoliticallyandsocially

True meaning

Patronizing C_ _ _ Sucker

I even like the Yank thing. I hope ya' don't mind Micks ;- ) . It's all in good fun.

God, I loath politicians ( lawyer turned politician ) .....no offense Tort...too many baaaaaaaaad apples.

Aye....away

Éß

what ever happened to bb fisher? I miss his charts and commentary bb. Is he ANOTHER now? although i still give Donald a nod for that one ;- ) eh, big Don?

Can you suggest a beginners book re technical analyis ?

The US and the instrument of the worldwide rip-off the US$ benefits simply by the game continuing. There are so many bad political deals in this whole sordid affair that it appears that applying rules, the norm and other logical/decent spheres of thought becomes not only discouraging but futile. Each piece of this whore's puzzle is changed with each move as the players must invent/change rules?, that long ago existed but no longer apply to a deceitfully foul short term profit in both money and political gain.

The short term political gain is now destroying the mechanics of the rip-off artists and is creating the reverse and complete opposite effect intended from the beginning. The money is now telling the politician that the game is up.

Instead of fixing the problem that is the WB, BIS, IMF, FED, etc. ad nauseum, mixed in with the criminal greed and short term self gratifying lust of the politician they are perpetuating the very death of the paper and system they created.

Who will suffer. Hopefully these bastards that will meet in Washington shortly under the guise of a meeting to help the very people they are robbing.

You don't let fox guard the hen house.

G'Day from Kalgoorlie in Western Australia. Your posting dated Saturday......

If Gold is dead, why the volume of transactions through the LMBA. Who controls this market?! Rothchilds. If Gold is dead, when can we expect the Bank of England, Swiss, Yanks ( sorry Lads, it that politically incorrect ) etc to off load ALL their holdings ?! Who has a fundamental control / influence on these Central Banks?! Rothchilds. If currancies around the world and their backing were SO robust, gold would indeed simply be a commodity. However if you took time to review currencies and their standing relative to gold ( werner @ pacific.commerce.ubc.ca ) you would find that in times of trouble gold comes into its own.

US Bonds, do you honestly expect ongoing growth of the US markets ( S&P, Dow Jones ) , at the expense of Asia in particular the Japanese?! Do you expect that flooding Asia with US dollars will solve the problem?! It may produce cheap goods, but the

G'Day from Kalgoorlie in Western Australia.

Your posting dated Saturday......

If Gold is dead, why the volume of transactions through the LMBA. Who controls this market?! Rothchilds.

If Gold is dead, when can we expect the Bank of England, Swiss, Yanks ( sorry Lads, it that politically incorrect ) etc to off load ALL their holdings ?! Who has a fundamental control / influence on these Central Banks?! Rothchilds.

If currancies around the world and their backing were SO robust, gold would indeed simply be a commodity. However if you took time to review currencies and their standing relative to gold ( werner @ pacific.commerce.ubc.ca ) you would find that in times of trouble gold comes into its own.

US Bonds, do you honestly expect ongoing growth of the US markets ( S&P, Dow Jones ) , at the expense of Asia in particular the Japanese?! Do you expect that flooding Asia with US dollars will solv

You temper the mindless optimism ( or pessemism as the case might be ) of us amateurs with your experiance.

But I would take one small issue with your pithy observations about us small fish who school and nibble at the long stocks and physicals. Some of us are doing so for specific reasons, unrelated to our ignorance.

In my case I invest in such things only with a portion of my money, specifically that fraction which is otherwise useless to me in supporting my lifestyle and family. I buy metals only with that subfraction which is most vulnerable to involuntary loss via our most unreasonable and arbitrary civil court system.

My nest egg is just that, a way of converting money to material which is easily vanished or destroyed should I be that unlucky one in four persons of my particular profession who gets sued by some goofball whith delusions of entitlement to our wealth. Then loses same wealth via a jury composed of welfare mothers, retired bus drivers and civil rights advocates.

One doesn't have to envision crackpot scenerios of global money meltdown or invasion to develop such a mindset. One has only to count on his fingers the number of persons with my type job in my town and then the number who've lost everything in the court, with so called excessive awards, over the normal range of liability insurance. At last count this was three in approxiamtely two dozen.

So rather than paying the money to buy more insurance to make myself a bigger litigation target ( we're talking in the $15,000 to $25,000 range for higher policy limits! ) I prefer to buy and lose money in pm's.

( For the non-American=English speakers in the title of this post is a cryptic pun on the word resent, poking fun at my own ethnic roots. It is from a 20 year old US T.V. show about rural Americans. )

should read The Japanese have said they will NOT rescue foreign banks

Place Oso Negro flophouse - Tampico Mexico

The Old Man Speaks -

Why is gold worth 20 bucks an ounce?

well 1000 men say go searching for gold

after 6 months say one of ‘ems lucky

one out of a thousand

his find represents not only his labour but that of 999 others to boot

uh thats 6000 months or 500 years scrambling over mountains going hungry and thirsty

an ounce of gold mister is worth what it is because of the human labour that went into the finding and the getting of it

There’s no other explanation. Gold itself aint good for nothing cept jewellery or gold teeth

Spoken by Walter Huston in the film Treasure of Sierra Madre - Directed by John Huston

with H Bogart and Tim Holt.

From the Book of the same name by the mysterious B. Traven

All serious gold bugs should see this film and read this book at all

costs. And pray that none of winds up like Fred C Dobbs.

Most Cdn economists & analsysts are not well informed of the current events around the world ( or at least pretend not to be so in public ) and underestimate the flow of capital ( nervous investors ) worlwide.

The fundamentals ( trade balance ) are beginning to look shaky.

The US $ has to be devalued.

Eddie George, governor of the Bank of England, like Fort Knox, one of the great citadels of gold, recently told a European parliamentary committee: Whereas gold used to be seen as a good asset, it is now seen as the bottom of the pile.

Now what was that old saw about buying low and selling high?

SATURDAY DECEMBER 13 1997

Gold has always been more than a precious metal - men have even lost their

lives for it. But no longer. Gold has fallen from grace and is now a mere metal

and a bad investment. Kenneth Gooding explains why most of the glister has

disappeared.

Gold, frankincense and myrrh. The three wise men deemed these gifts suitable

for the King of Kings two millenniums ago. It says something about gold's

staying power that today it is still a suitable gift for a sovereign, though a more

thoughtful wise man may swap the precious metal for US Treasury bonds.

Mankind's fascination with gold goes back much further than 2,000 years. For

primitive man, the attraction was aesthetic. Gold glinted at him from streams

and river beds. He found it so malleable that, even cold, it could be hammered

into crude ornaments and artefacts. Beauty and scarcity gave gold mystical

appeal, and it became the stuff of temples, icons, idols, and offerings to the

gods.

Ancient Egypt and Rome drew much power from gold, mined by slaves in

conditions of unbelievable misery. There is absolutely no consideration nor

relaxation for sick or maimed, for aged man or weak woman, wrote the

historian Diodorus in the 2nd century BC.

Similar conditions existed in Siberian gold mines up to the 1960s and miners

still descend the deep shafts of South Africa knowing that, even if they obey

the safety rules, there is no guarantee they will come out alive.

For the rich, and for the poor who sought it, gold was a tangible, long-term

store of wealth, acceptable anywhere, a safe haven at times of disaster.

But gold is not what it once was. The image has been tarnished - apart from a

couple of blips, its price has been drifting downwards for more than a decade.

This week the price was the lowest for 18 years.

The 1987 stock market crash, the Gulf war and a meltdown of Asia's financial

markets did not cause the expected rush for gold.

So, has gold had its day, at least as an investment? Has the glister gone? Is it

only the sentimental and the gold obsessed, the bugs, who still seek it out and,

as Virgil put it, have the cursed craving for gold?

Ted Arnold has no craving. He is a gold bear and metals specialist at the

Merrill Lynch financial services group: The reality is that gold is now a

commodity just like any other. Many gold miners still think gold is something

special or magical and not subject to the usual laws of supply and demand like

copper or zinc or nickel. But it is.

But will everyone everywhere eventually stop viewing gold as an investment?

Is the end of the affair an inevitable outcome of modernisation, when money

transfers are automatic and unseen, and there is talk that cash itself will

disappear? When it became clear that people needed a medium of exchange,

gold was the medium of choice. Croesus, King of Lydia, is credited with

ordering the first gold coins to be struck in 550 BC.

Gold's great appeal was its indestructability. It does not tarnish like silver and

is generally not corroded by acid. Gold coins have been recovered from

sunken treasure ships looking as bright as new. And the metal still has its

modern moments. There was a rush to gold savings accounts in Japan after

television newcasts of the 1995 Kobe earthquake showed an old woman

tearing at the rubble of her house and triumphantly pulling out an unscathed,

glittering gold bar.

There are estimates, not uncontested, that until 1850 only 10,000 tonnes of

gold had ever been mined. The 1848-49 Californian gold rush changed all

that, followed by the discovery of huge gold fields in South Africa in the

1890s. There was another belated rush in 1980 after the price jumped to

$850 - almost three times its present price.

Miners have been using new techniques and modern technology to locate and

remove the gold. Last year, a record 2,350 tonnes were dug from the world's

mines, or 75.56m ounces.

A turning point occurred when gold became a standard measure of wealth,

personal and national. Formal gold standards were introduced by trading

nations after the Californian rush ensured there was enough metal available.

Britain's began in 1816 and the rest of Europe followed in the 1870s. The US

did not finally divorce itself from a silver-gold standard until 1900, about the

same time as India.

The gold standard was meant to discipline an economy. The price was fixed

and the currency was redeemable in gold. The UK gave up this system in

1919 but it persisted in the US until 1933.

Between the 1930s and 1972 there was an international gold exchange

standard which involved central banks supplementing their gold reserves with

certain key currencies that, in theory, could be redeemed for gold.

All this led to central banks building substantial stocks of gold and caused one

Yale professor, Robert Triffin, famously to remark: Nobody could ever have

conceived of a more absurd waste of human resources than to dig gold in

distant corners of the earth for the sole purpose of transporting it and

reburying it immediately afterwards in other deep holes, especially excavated

to receive it and heavily guarded to protect it.

Today, most gold goes to make jewellery rather than into central bank vaults.

According to the Gold Fields Mineral Services consultancy, 2,807 tonnes of

gold was used by jewellery makers last year.

Unreconstructed gold bulls emphasise that this was far more than the 2,350

tonnes that came out of mines during the year. Demand for gold this year has

been at record levels - Indians, for example, bought more in the first nine

months than in the whole of 1996 - yet the dollar price of gold has slumped by

20 per cent. The price has fallen because of increasing fears that central banks

will steadily sell off gold - they still have 37,000 tonnes tucked away in vaults,

equivalent to more than 12 years' supply.

The new breed of central banker is not dazzled by gold and sees little point in

having an asset that just takes up storage space. Some have been getting a

modest return by lending gold to bullion banks, earning 1 or 2 per cent and

adding to market liquidity.

That did not satisfy performance-oriented bankers, economic rationalists who

were not charmed by the romance of gold. For them, as for the 14th century

Scottish poet Andrew of Wyntoun, Oure gold wes changyd into lede. So the

central bankers started selling.

The Netherlands said in January that it had sold 300 tonnes, the fourth

disposal since 1989; since then it has cut gold reserves by 20 per cent. In July,

Australia shook the market by announcing that it had reduced its gold reserves

by two-thirds - even a leading gold producer seemed to have lost the faith.

And, two weeks ago, Argentina revealed it had sold its entire gold reserves in

the first half of this year, all 124 tonnes, and invested the proceeds, $1.46bn,

in US Treasury bonds.

Echoing the views of other central banks that complain gold is an unproductive

asset, Argentina's bank pointed out the bonds would yield an average of 5 per

cent and were expected to bring in $81m a year.

The biggest shock of all - and one that triggered the biggest one-day fall in the

gold price for four years - came in October when a panel of Swiss experts

suggested their country should sell more than half its reserves. Switzerland,

which has a law forbidding such sales, had fervently supported the idea that

prudent countries should have a reasonable stock of gold and had refused to

sell an ounce.

There have been big pro-fits made from gold's fall from grace. Some big US

commercial banks have made a killing in the last year or so by selling gold

short - selling gold they do not own in the expectation they can buy it at a

lower price before they have to deliver.

The gold market is now very much in the hands of these banks and New York

investment funds, according to Timothy Green, who has been tracking the

gold business for 30 years. He suggests that the trade has changed more in

that time than in the preceding 4,000 years.

In his book World of Gold*, Green argues that the ending of a fixed price for

gold by international governments in 1968 and the transformation in

communications have combined to change the gold market. For many new

players in the market, volatility, not stability, was the chief attraction; to them it

did not matter whether the price went up or down, as long as it moved. The

communications network brought everyone together, round the world, round

the clock and made the gold price a moveable feast.

Nevertheless, there are still many millions of people who retain a deep faith in

gold. There are large parts of Asia where only a social revolution could

change the gold habit. In India, a farmer buys gold when the monsoons bring

good harvests and he sells it when the rains don't come.

Gold rings and necklaces are lavished on newborn Indian children and an

Indian bride is weighed down with gold jewellery. For an Indian woman,

prevented by Hindu law from having any proprietary rights over her father's or

husband's property, personal gold ornaments and jewellery offer financial

security.

Gold has retained symbolic value in the straight-forward transactions of rural

India, but it has been diminished by the modern trading techniques in

exchanges in the US and Europe. The money flowing into physical gold -

more than $27bn this year - is overwhelmed by amounts ploughed into

securities that are derived from gold.

In London in October, for example, gold worth $13.6bn a day was traded.

Using exotic cocktails of options, futures and warrants, the banks and funds

are relieved of the acute embarrassment of having to take delivery of a single

ounce, according to Timothy Green.

But how long will gold's reserve of appeal last in developing countries?

Gold, says Rob Weinberg, analyst at Deutsche Morgan Grenfell, fills many

different roles simultaneously. It can be an adornment and an industrial metal;

a means of displaying wealth and an anonymous form of saving; an insurance

policy and a gambling chip; it is an international reserve asset yet officially it is

not money.

In the western world more people are buying gold to wear, as jewellery or

watches, because it makes them feel good and they can pretend to themselves

that these objects will hold their value. They conveniently ignore the fact that

the cost of design, production, profit and taxes usually far outstrips the value

of the gold content.

But when it comes to bullion as an investment, and as a measure of national

wealth, gold is a goner. The reverse alchemy is almost complete. Eddie

George, governor of the Bank of England, like Fort Knox, one of the great

citadels of gold, recently told a European parliamentary committee: Whereas

gold used to be seen as a good asset, it is now seen as the bottom of the pile.

Asian crisis shows that bigger loans will have to be handed out, says

Camdessus. By Robert Chote in London

Asia's financial crisis has prompted the head of the International Monetary

Fund to request a $160bn increase in the organisation's capital base, far more

than its members agreed less than three months ago.

Michel Camdessus, the IMF's managing director, has warned his board that

the fund's finances have deteriorated significantly since its annual meeting in

September - especially because of its $21bn loan to South Korea. He argues

that the Asian crisis has also demonstrated that the fund needs to make larger

loans than it used to.

Mr Camdessus is therefore urging the board to increase the fund's $200bn

capital base by between 70 and 80 per cent, rather than the 45 per cent

agreed in Hong Kong. This increase in so-called quotas ( or subscriptions )

would enlarge the pool of resources the IMF has available to lend.

The board is due to discuss Mr Camdessus's proposal on Wednesday. A

draft resolution could then be put to the IMF's member countries by the end

of the year, when it would require 85 per cent approval - weighted by each

nation's voting power.

The managing director proposes that the share of the quota increase taken by

each member country should be the same under his proposal as under the

earlier 45 per cent agreement. This avoids changing the relative voting power

each country enjoys in the organisation.

Mr Camdessus is taking a big political risk with the proposal. The US,

Canada and the UK are said to be opposed to the idea, which would be more

than enough to block it. The other members of the Group of Seven leading

industrial countries are said to be less hostile, while middle-income and

developing countries are expected to be supportive.

The agreement in Hong Kong was the culmination of more than three years of

sometimes acrimonious discussion. The US held out against an agreement for

several months and would not go higher than 45 per cent. The Clinton

administration may argue that it will be difficult enough to get Congress to

agree to 45 per cent, let alone to go any higher.

Mr Camdessus has long argued for a bigger quota increase, first proposing

100 per cent and later 55 to 65 per cent. His case was weakened by

unexpected improvements in the IMF's liquidity position, which the Asian

crisis has subsequently thrown into reverse.

The managing director hinted last week that he might ask IMF members for

more resources. Referring to the Hong Kong deal, he said: That was not

enough, as I said in advance. So nothing is easier than to proceed to a new

increase in the quotas, because it will not cost you a dime and it is the most

efficient way to solve the great problems of the world.

U.S. M-2 money supply rose $14.4 bln in Dec 1 week

NEW YORK, Dec 11 ( Reuters ) - U.S. M-2 money supply rose $14.4 billion in the December 1 week to $4,015.6 billion, the

Federal Reserve said.

The broader M-3 measure rose $22.2 billion to $5,320.5 billion. M-1 rose $12.0 billion to $1,073.4 billion, the Fed said.

The Fed said the four-week moving average of M-2 was $3,999.0 billion versus $3,992.7 billion in the previous week.

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/971211/u_s_m_2_money_supply_1.html

G'day Haulpack,

The Pegasus article appeared in the WA press today. Any Pegasus shareholders out there, you really should DUMP your stock, PEGASUS ARE GOING BUST, there is NO upside. The WA mining scene is bearing up under the strain, by virtue of the drop in the Aussie dollar. Forward sales are saving the day, so hopefully the gold price will turn within the year.... if not before.

The way we look at things in Kalgoorlie are.... if we are stuffed, then everyone else is too.

Aye, Haggis

By the way, could I that ladies name and phone number

For Oris - what can I say - Ill be watching the races today but Id

rather be out there busting cans with you.

For DJ saw your charts - you are lucky to have looked in these

charts in $ terms. In dmarks or swiss they look MUCH worse. The

lows have been taken out in Swiss but there is some hope at 480

dmarks ( last low ) - In stirling - we are ON IT. I am counting on

480 dm to HOLD. I am counting on 352$ to hold on plats - If not,

we may as well all go out and shoot beer cans with oris and the

hell with it

Would appreciate your help. Where did you find information

on German gold holdings in the 1920s. Im very interested in

gold holdings by invidual countries from period 1915 to 1945.

Can you give me any sources of info

You seem you have been bitten by the double space

bug too.

For Roebear/golden boy

My dander is down. So refreshing to see bright minds

actually question conventional wisdom. Accounting is

different point is interesting.

4 billion of abx 4.5 billion total assets is listed

as Fixed Assets - Any idea what that represents

Looking at anglo american's assets - fixed are only

maybe 5/6 percent of total ( not 85 ) with the bulk made

up by share price of their holdings. As of end sept

net was 332 R/share ( must have fallen some since then ) -

and their price now is 192 .

For ABX to trade at 16/9 or 1.8* assets is a little

spooky really. And just what is the basis for the

4 billion in fixed thats a lot - are they including

the value of the gold properties they own

A hole in the ground in Nevada is not worth so much

with gold at say 220/oz. At 100/oz it will cost you

to fill it in and make it environmental acceptable.

I am enchanted by that 4 billion. What is it? what is

it? I never looked at this before.

To I forget who it was

I believe Isandlwana is a little closer to name of Brit wipe out.

However, Brits did better at place called something like Rouark's

Drift, where Michael Caine and 7 ( ) others won VC.

It did not WORK

Ah is cursed by de Double Space Gold BUG Debil, Massah

an what is ah goin to do, Boss

A E Poe speaks - try using WORD my friend

OK Massah Po ah ‘all ll’try anythung.

Still in Notepad - will try enter at end of line

Thanks for tip - hope it works.

For Donald - You referred to Dual currency system in

RSA. Im sure you realize that the financial rand/

commmercial rand setup was discontinued a long time

ago. ( 1994 ) The cheap finrand was installed to

encourage foreign $ inflow to RSA and inhibit outflow.

It was successful at least to the extent that it sucked

me out of expensive Europe into the Cape ( if you call

that successful ) .

DJ-

I disagree that platinum and gold will re-approach. I think a test of the low for the year of $352 is a certainty. Platinum is in critical supply throughout the world. Johnson Mathey, in the semi-annual report released last month, estimate a 360K ounce production deficit for 1997. They also call for $450 - $460 platinum in the next six months. JM is always very conservative in their estimates and tend to underestimate price movements by 50% or more. Platinum has not gone below $330 since catalytic converters were first introduced. Demand, which increases at an annual rate of 4% - 5% per year, leaped to over 7% in 1997. This increased demand does not include the 100K + ounces of platinum sold by the US Mint this year in the form of Platinum Eagles as it borrowed the metal from the Department of defense. The Mint has until 2003 to pay back any and all platinum borrowed. Estimates of 1998 demand call for another 7% increase.

All this, at a time when the market is experiencing a critical shortage of the metal. You think silver is going up because several hundred million ounces of deliverable refined silver is a shortage? It widely believed that Russia has, or will have, zero reserves by mid 1998. Barron's ran an article early this year by a western mining expert who toured Russia's Norilsk mine - source of virtually all of its platinum and palladium production. He reported that the mine was running at 25% efficiency with broken machinery by miners that are owed a billion rubles in back pay. There will be supply disruptions in 98, platinum will soar.

DA -

You are correct in you insistence the any commodity will not drop to zero, and is incapable of going any lower regardless. Up has no theoretical limit. That is why stops are employed. The problem with a stop loss order is if the market has a large gap up on the open, this can blow right through buy stops before the order is executed. This danger exists equally in either long or short positions.

Your assertion that future contracts do pay interest - I assume you are referring to the contango. This is usually no more than a 4 - 6 cent payoff, half of which is eaten by the turnaround costs. The biggest problem with future shorts is the delivery date. This arbitrary date forces holders of contracts act when it may not be in their best interest to do so. Witness the short squeeze on palladium this summer, There would have be no squeeze if the contract were not expiring. Since I deal in the physical leverage market, there are no dates by which the metal must be sold or bought. Since a zero move in silver would still have 21.5% return in a year, any comparisons to the futures market fall away. A client can hold a short forever, provided he stays with it on the rallies. Secondly, I deal in the cash market. The spot market is what drives the futures, not the other way around. The most recent example of cash market control is the $30 backwardation in both PL and PA this summer, and near backwardation in silver now.

The market moves two ways, you gotta' play 'em both. I think the reason so many here repeat the endless mantra that gold has bottomed and will rise soon is they do not understand short selling. They can only make money if the market goes up. Their logic gets diluted by desire and decisions can be clouded. When you play both sides of a market, a wonderful liberation takes place. You no longer have any emotional attachment to direction, all you want is movement. I know this type of emotion driven buying does not apply to you or your firm. You are a computer traded system player, but I see this blind reverence for gold in the words of many here. This is the only explanation for the reactions I see to downturns that were predicted months in advance. These are the people who buy at any price all the way down. The sad thing is, by the time it drops that low, their money is gone and they have to sell at low prices to pay the rent.

So, this then leads us to you second concern about tops and bottoms. Nobody can pick 'em. Some can get close much of the time, but nobody knows when or how a market will turn. We can only gather enough information and view it all with a keen eye and then make the best informed guess we can. This is the function of the broker, that is why they are paid for trades. It is a full time job to stay current on these markets. Even brokers need brokers. I'm a metals broker, but I still need a stock broker to keep me up to date on my investments there, I don't have the time. While my record of picking tops or bottoms is about the same as any other informed broker, I do excel in getting all those juicy profits in the middle. All I do is try to trade the range, wherever the range may be. Trading $4.00 - 4.50 silver is really no different than trading $5.00 - $5.50 silver, and the 50 cent gain is an identical return. You may have to spend a bit more to trade the higher prices, but the only important thing is the range. I will repeat this in capital letters ( which I disapprove of as much as narrow double spaced posts )

TRADE THE RANGE, WHATEVER THE RANGE MAY BE!

? -

I forgot who asked about my call for $6.20 silver recently. True I did acknowledge the distinct possibility that silver could rise far and fast, but I didn't believe the whole shortage thingy and was short more silver than I was long. The double whammy was the platinum dropping so low. When you are long one metal and short another, it is a very rare occurrence that they will both move against you at the same time, at least in any severe way. You can usually depend on losses in one leg of the trade will be partly or mostly made up for by gains in the other leg. I got stung some on long platinum/short silver this week. This is the reason for the crow munching.

Comments are encouraged. I've been pondering

the recent uptick for a couple of days now.

away

Éßowningtexas

away...to the game

Éßeatingtheglide

'IT' is a bore?.............hmmmmmmmmmmm......if a guy has friends...........who needs enemies............ a bore!?

away

Éßgettinhischainpulled

go gold