Metals have been used for years in various cancer treatments, the most popular being platinum, which produces some really corrosively toxic compounds. The theory is that the chemical will kill the tumor before it kills the host-not always true however.

But these compounds are used in such tiny amounts that even with platinum the cost of the chemical is mostly due to its manufacturing processes and not the platinum itself. In fact some of the most popular chemicals for chemotherapy were made originally from an extract of a type of periwinkle flower and another was made from Pacific yew tree bark ( no kidding ) still another from marijuana; their cost is still very high even as they're synthesised from common materials.

Now, with silver you are still talking about doses in the milligram range. The would use much more silver in instruments and tools. for instance the trach tube I had to wear after my cancer surgery had maybe 1/5 ounce of silver, even though at the time it felt like it weighed much more. It probably cost the hospital 2 or 3 hundred dollars but the cost was mostly in its fabrication.

Here is a link to one of the big cancer information services. I believe that the University of Pennsylvania Onco-Link is the most informative link from there, particularly dealing with information about platinum compounds. Silver is little mentioned. Warning, it always scares me to look at this stuff, particularly when I look at treatment options for my kind of cancer. This stuff is uncensored. http://www.arc.com/cancernet/cancernet.html

All IMHO of course. Standard disclaimer applies. No advice, just comments, et cetera.

Personally, I think it is time to slowly accumulate gold equities, but this time I will be much more cautious than I was in the last two years, as I don't want to get caught in another gold 'fire sale'. Oh, for the good old days when all we had to worry about was simple inflation.

The WJC stuff is going to smoulder for months, wearing down the markets. And any probable 'wag the dog' type activity will just cause gold and oil to go up as well. The cyclic factors bullish for gold are slowly but surely gathering momentum.

1 ) Falling interest rates associated with expansion of the money supply.

2 ) Rising interest rates due to increased currency risk.

1 ) ---

In the US, the perfect example of this scenario is around 1992-1993 when AG was forced to lower short term interest rates to expand the money supply. The economy was in a recession, and the monetary velocity was plummeting. This process is fairly straight forward. Your example of negative low interest rates would apply, as in that situation you find yourself steadily losing money in the US dollar due to inflation, and you must flee from the dollar to a currency of some kind that is not steadily losing value -- like gold. In 1993, gold went from about 343/oz to a little over 400/oz in about 6 months, and gold equities doubled.

2--- This scenario is a bit more complex, as it is associated with rising interest rates due to worries about currency risk. Consider the period from 1984 to 1987 when the US dollar had dropped from about 140, to about 100. Around Mar/April 1987 a number of foreign investors -- the Japanese playing a major part -- got nervous with the steadily dropping US dollar, and started to sell their US assets in a big way. The US markets became flooded with demands for 'real' assets in exchange for dollars, and demand for US treasuries went way down, causing interest rates offered to rise. Other international investors undoubtedly noticed the phenomenon immortalized in the Jane Fonda movie 'Rollover' I think it was called, and interest rates rose even more. The US dollar dropped abnout 10% in about 5 days, again a very inflationary sign, but with rising rates rather than falling ones. Several months later - October 1987 -- after gold equities had doubled, the markets crashed.

I hope this explains the two scenarios I know where inflation presents itself -- the internal one due to CB inflating of the dollar by reducing interest rates -- and the external ( foreign market ) exchange-related one where a run on the dollar causes local interest rates to rise.

I think the conceptual problem comes from the fact that there are several ways interest rates can go up and down, and it is easy to confuse one another with regard to which of several mechanisms is actually happening.

***YAWN***

Show me the contents of the other 2 smaller reports Starr

has in reserve ( discussed on CNBC ) . If Klinton doesn't step

down over the 400 pager, then the other two will flush him

down the friggin toilet. Starr must have made a deal with someone

to present the least damaging report first. Monicafolly is weany.

I sold most of my ABX that I had left and put all of that into Anglogold. The Homestake went to smaller SA stocks.

I am tired of the hype of ABX on their low cash cost mines, that never pay a dividend. Also they have such low volatility coming off lows.

As John Disney has said, the SA's will be coming out with phenomenal numbers ( for this gold price ) in the third and fourth quarters.

A good site for those that follow SA miners is

http://www.bullion.org.za/

the South African Chamber of Mines.

The quarterlies and dividend info is there on PDF, and the site works very well compared to six months ago.

My guess is what will eventually happen is that very little of the real story will get out, because it is just too scandalous -- the Monica Lewinsky stuff is mild by comparison.

Well, I guess there is some justification for this -- but I hope that the impeachment proceedings move forward regardless. Given the Chesire Cat smile on Kenneth Starr, he was apparently successful in going after WJC without violating his mandate in not digging up all the Mena ARkansas related dirt. Tough job, that.

Did you know that AE-Pritchard ( I'm pretty sure ) was run off by the pro-WJC crowd, and had to return to England? He was anti WJC before it was relatively safe to be so. Fortunately he did not meet the unfortunate end of so many others.

John Disney @ Shooting stars, hammers, hanging man, etc. etc....here's a nice site:

http://www.why.net/users/blhill/pages.aux/murrey/candlestick.html#doji

JTF - There are too many cross-currents just now for me to make any good judgements on whether gold should go up or down. I'm only relying on technical stuff - my amateur Elliott wave counts, a nice channel formed by connecting waves 2 and 4, with a parallel from wave 3 that ends up in the vicinity of today's top. The candlestick formation reinforces the fact that today is probably a sell for gold.

EB: I seem to remember you calling this action days ago, congrats.

Cage Rattler: 3 nukes in Saddam's hands ? Ummm, that's so bad I can't even be scared about it, it almost didn't even register in my mind as a possibility when I read your post. That's about the biggest news tid-bit I've seen all week.

Gold up $3.80

One thing the markets definitely do not like is uncertainty. Good for gold, even if I fear the reasons for it going up.

If your assessment is correct, there is little time left for these big Japanese banks, especially if the US dollar continues to fall. Confidence in the US dollar must be dropping faster than they expected.

And, if AG reduces US interest rates right now, he will push Japan right over the brink! Wonder what he privately told the Japanese when he hinted at dropping US interest rates.

If you are right about this, we are moving toward a world financial crisis that will probably rival any in recorded history. The financial storms are now on many fronts: SEAsia, Russia, South America, and Japan.

It is hard for me to imagine the magnitude of what could happen -- and it is just our luck that the US should be in a Consitutional crisis at the same time. Well -- at least y2k is not a problem right now.

However, there is one way a reticent Congress could get around this, and that is to steadily leak the K Star report on the Net. A steady rain of information, such as 'real audio' copies of the Monica tapes where she describes his sexual preferences, etc., would be more than what WJC and his team could handle.

In normal times I would consider this unethical, because it is nearly impossible to defend oneself against innuendo on the Net. But -- we must believe that KS has accurate information -- and the WJC crowd is about to dig up dirt from virtually everyone's FBI files.

If I thought this was the only way to bring down WJC, I would do it. I would feel guilty because it is unethical -- but I would do it anyway for the good of the country.

Larryn, All: We now know that Brazil literally imploded today with a massive outflux of US dollars. If this is going to the US as dollars, and large quantities of US treasuries are being bought, wouldn't that keep down US interest rates? Perhaps this is why the US dollar is dropping, but interest rates are not going up.

Of course, if this keeps up, currency experts will eventually become anxious about the stability of the dollar, and long term interest rates will go up, not down.

I think now we have to be very careful with our investments, as the market turmoil is increasing. The water may get so choppy very soon that we will not know which way to go with our investments -- Gollum's DOW plane is likely to get rather unresponsive to the controls, and AG and RR etal may not know whether to push or pull.

Either keep your powder dry or -- got ( physical ) gold?