SGS Notes: We're sending out our newsletter mid-week this issue because there is so much going on right now we want you to be aware of. The JP Morgan news is HUGE… so we are featuring various articles this week about that and the implications for all of us.

There are also things happening in the Eurozone and in Greece that will affect us all dramatically. Hold on to your seats, the ride is about to get bumpy. We're looking for the end of the metals manipulation when physical silver prices detach from the ETC prices… should be soon. We saw silver spot dip below $27 this week, and, looking at the Gold/Silver ratio… it's up quite high - again. Remember: that ratio SHOULD be in the 16/1 range. Still a long way to go.

Dismal Metals Sentiment - Just What Bernanke Ordered
Jeff Lewis

Since the dramatic drops the silver market saw in May and September of last year, prices in the precious metals market have been suffering from an excess of negative sentiment. This adverse perception is weighing on metal prices and keeping investor demand at bay.

Furthermore, although investors have continued to buy physical silver, the overall quantity being purchased has declined significantly, resulting in reduced support for the metal's price.
Nevertheless, the supply of silver is naturally limited by the quantity existing in the Earth's crust, despite ever growing industrial applications for the metal and rising price inflation. This key combination of factors still provides a strong fundamental basis for continuing to hold silver over the long term.

Could Weak Silver Sentiment be Conveniently Manufactured by Central Bankers?
Interestingly, this depressed silver market sentiment picture seems to be the perfect political tool needed during a U.S. election year to lend much needed psychological support to an ever weakening U.S. Dollar in terms of its ability to purchase goods and services.

Keeping silver and other precious metal prices low by depressing market sentiment, and perhaps even engaging in covert market intervention, seems suspiciously convenient after such an excessive amount of liquidity has already been pumped into the U.S. monetary system by the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank's highly controversial quantitative easing measures promoted by Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke.

In addition, given the high amount of liquidity the European Central Bank needed to inject to deal with the debt troubled Eurozone countries like Greece, Spain, Italy, Ireland and Portugal, the increasingly obvious end result will be higher consumer price inflation, despite ongoing denials by central bank and government officials.

More QE Measures Likely as U.S. Economy Languishes in Election Year
Bearish for the Dollar, but very bullish for hard precious metal currencies like silver, is the view among many market participants that further rounds of quantitative easing or QE measures by the Fed are still practically a given during this election year to help lend support to a stubbornly struggling U.S. economy.

Nevertheless, allowing metals to trade higher based on their strong fundamentals would severely dampen the U.S. central bankers' ability to overtly increase the money supply in a substantial way.
EU Moves Toward Ratifying ESM to Provide More Permanent Bailout Mechanism
Another related development is that the European Stability Mechanism or ESM is expected to be ratified by July of this year, provided that enough of the 17 Eurozone member states approve of the bailout system to represent ninety percent of its capital commitments.

This new EU rescue program is expected to permanently replace the existing temporary European Financial Stability Facility within the Eurozone, thereby making meta-government bailouts an ongoing feature of the Eurozone's economy.

As in the United States, a reasonable person can only expect more liquidity increasing measures will soon also follow in the EU, thereby making an even stronger case for continuing to hold and accumulate precious metals like silver.

Does Jamie Dimon's Problem Actually Reside in SILVER DERIVATIVES?

Facts are facts. Since May 7th the price of silver has been mercifully driven down below $30 and on May 10th Jamie Dimon announced a $2B derivative loss. The price of silver is continuing to be driven down which in my mind means only one thing...JPM is losing the physical silver game and having to drive the price lower to get their hands on physical at a price that would reduce their overall losses. Never mind that the paper silver short will increase...this is now a physical game.
A clue lies in the COMEX data that shows that silver is in backwardization!

Bix Weir,
www.RoadtoRoota.com

Other Articles      

Soros Quadruples Gold Holdings
Wealth Wire

Gold, Money, and the Parable of the Three Little Pigs
Lew Rockwell

The 2 Billion Dollar Loss By JP Morgan Is Just A Preview Of The Coming Collapse Of The Derivatives Market

Full Blown Bank Run In Greece

How The U.S. Dollar Will Be Replaced

This is Why World Markets are Incredibly Unstable
Stephen Leeb

Will See Three Digit Silver In The Next Couple of Years
Stephen Leeb

JP Morgan's Losses A Canary in A Coal Mine?
Bill Moyers

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Bix Weir
JP Morgan Derivatives Book
Blowing Up

Lindsey Williams Part 1
Derivatives Market Collapsing & JP Morgan

Lindsey Williams Part 2
Derivatives Market Collapsing & JP Morgan

What Good is it if you Can't Spend It?
Jason Hommel

This article is more valuable than a Harvard Education!

Buying silver and gold today will likely be better than buying Microsoft or Apple stock way back when they first came out, and this article addresses the fundamental reasons why.

People often ask, "What good is silver or gold if I can't spend it?"

But that's exactly why we all should buy it! Low monetary demand means silver and gold are still cheap and undervalued liquid assets that investors should crave.

And crave it, they do. But 99% of silver investors are duped into buying the wrong kind of "silver", the kind that is not silver at all.

"Investors" have "bought" up to 200 billion "dollars" worth of "silver" in "accounts", which would be 15-20 years of annual mine supply. Clearly, that silver was never bought by the "brokers" who "sold" that much "silver" in "accounts" to "investors".

Source: http://silverstockreport.com/2012/morgan-silver-manipulation.html

Every word in quotes above needs clarification and/or translation. Each word is quoted to highlight the fact that while I'm trying to tell the story in the silver market, it's difficult to do, because there so much fraud all over the place that if I stopped to define each word as I went, it would be so distracting that I could hardly write a single sentence. Here's how those lines should read, if the discussion were a bit more truthful:

"Misinformed greedy gamblers" have "gambled on the paper currency value" of up to 200 billion "units of paper currency" worth of "paper promises of silver" in "computers", which if it were actually what it was supposed to be, would be 15-20 years of annual mine supply. Clearly, that silver was never bought by the "broker / casino operator / thieves" who "took money for" that much "paper promises of silver" in "computers" for "the gamblers".

Getting back to the point of why people should want real physical silver (outside of brokerage accounts) especially when you can't spend it.

The point is that without monetary demand, gold and silver are cheaper than they otherwise would be.

Also, as long as 15-20 years' worth of mine supply worth of investor demand is siphoned away from the real silver market into "computer" accounts, then silver prices will not go up as fast as they should.

Lower demand means a lower value. Investors know that they want to buy things that have a low value, knowing that the value will likely go up. But investors are still not understanding what silver is, since they continue to be satisfied with "paper silver", or perhaps "computer silver".

So, here's the fundamental reasons why gold and silver will continue to gain in value. Gold and silver are true money, even if they can't be used to buy groceries yet.

What makes gold and silver good at being money?

Many people are beginning to re-learn why gold and silver are the best money, and have been money for thousands of years. They seem to be able to recognize some of the self-evident and obvious truths that those metals have certain unique features making them essential and especially good at being money.

But these need to be listed, because sometimes people have funny ideas about money, because we live in a society that must convince us that paper is the best money.

There is a lot more here than I can remember all at once. I need a list I can refer back to and update, and you just can't find the truth about this stuff anywhere else. So you might want to keep this for future reference, too. None of this is "news", but it will be news to some, because they just don't teach this stuff anywhere.

I have a Harvard Textbook, "Principles of Economics", 4th ed., that defines the three functions of money, the medium of exchange, the unit of account, and the store of value.

http://www.amazon.com/Principles-Economics-Gregory-Mankiw/dp/8131503127/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1335397369&sr=8-4

It has a 5 star rating! So, it must be one of the best. But how can it be, when it is filled with so many lies?!

The book encourages the reader to "examine" the three functions of money on page 643, (and that's also the only page that mentions the gold standard!), but the book just defines the terms -- but they don't even explain what makes an item good at being one of the three functions of money; the medium of exchange, the unit of account, or the store of value. Furthermore, the textbook is full of lies, misinformation, and false innuendo about money.

It's propaganda of the State. Propaganda works best if you have to pay to learn it. Nobody would believe it if they strapped you to a chair, tied you down, and shouted at you, "believe our lies about the usefulness of paper money and the stupidity of gold, or else!" No, it only works when they make the kids have to pay to learn their propaganda, and then reward those who have the best memories for the lies, with high paying wall street jobs whereby they fleece the rest of the public.

The "Harvard" textbook actually suggests in two ways that only criminals have a large need for cash, because bank deposits leave a "paper trail", and because cash does not earn interest.

But paper is not the only form of "cash". There is also gold. Is all the gold owned by criminals, too? Nonsense. And why does gold have to earn 1% interest, when gold and silver have been going up in value by 15-30% per year for the last ten years? Interest on gold is nonsense.

Precious metals are a great store of value:

To be a store of value:

• It should be long lasting, durable, it must not be perishable or subject to decay. Gold does not decay, not even in seawater. Silver may tarnish and react with sulfur, but the tarnish is very thin and acts as a protective patina that prevents further decay. This is why food items, expensive spices, or even fine silks or oriental rugs, are not generally suitable as money.
• It should have a stable value. Gold and silver values do fluctuate, but their value has never gone to zero value, like paper money often does.
• It should be difficult to counterfeit, and the genuine must be easily recognizable. Paper money is rather easily counterfeited, and good counterfeits are very hard to detect.

Precious metals are a great unit of account:

To be a unit of account:

• It should be divisible into small units without destroying its value; precious metals can be coined from bars, or melted down into bars again, with a low percentage cost. Actually, gold gets more valuable when made into smaller tenth ounce coins, which carry a higher premium, or price percentage over spot. Furthermore, gold, when distributed to the people, creates monetary demand, and a higher value for the remaining gold in the world. Animal skins, or live animals, are not suitable as money, because they are not easily divisible, nor can they be put back together when taken apart. If an item can be divisible, it can be fungible, which is the next point.
• It should be fungible: that is, one unit or piece must be equivalent to another, which is why diamonds, works of art, or real estate are not suitable as money. If an item is fungible, then it can be countable, which is the next point.
• It must be a specific weight, or measure, or size to be verifiably countable. You must be able to weigh, measure, and count, your unit of account! And this is why paper dollars are not suitable as money any longer. What are you counting? What are you measuring? Dollars are nothing but promises to pay in more dollars.

Precious metals are a great medium of exchange:

To be a medium of exchange:

• It should be cheaply and easily tradeable, with a low spread between the prices to buy and sell, in other words, a low transaction cost, and be able to be quickly and easily bought and sold anywhere in the world. Land is not transportable. Even US cash is not accepted everywhere in the world anymore.
• It should have a high value to weight ratio, and thus be easily transportable, and cheap to store away. Precious metals have a high value to weight and size ratio. This is why oil, coal, or water are not suitable as money even though they are valuable. It's why real estate is not money, it's not portable at all. It's why copper is not money, nor is wheat, nor balloons. While even air is valuable and necessary to live more than 5 minutes, and while air can also fungible, air is neither rare nor valuable enough by any significantly measurable units to be useful -- unless perhaps you are a scuba diver under water.

  $300 of gold is .15 of an oz., and can be easily hiding in any wallet.
  $300 of silver is just under 10 oz., and such a bar easily fits into your back pocket.
  $300 of copper is 33 pounds, which is a major strain to lift.
  $300 of oil is 3 large barrels, and is too heavy to be lifted by a person's own strength.
  

• It should be durable. Gold does not decay. Silver tarnishes a bit, but it's negligible. Coins are often mixed with 10% copper to improve hardness and durability, and coins are made with ridges around the rim to prevent coin shaving or debasement. Paper money, surprisingly, is actually expensive as money, because paper wears out quickly, and it costs money to have to re-print the paper.

These fundamental reasons why silver and gold are true money, help to answer the top ten excuses why our friends have not bought silver and gold, which are listed here:

http://silverstockreport.com/2009/bashers-say.html

EXCUSE IN CAPS, followed by my answer/rebuttal.

TOO HIGH NOW. No, Gold and silver can never be valued "too high" against paper money. Paper money is by nature fraud, and always will be. It's interesting that people thought gold was "too high" at $1000/oz. back in Dec. 2009. Clearly, with gold at a stable $1600 just over two years later, we can see more clearly
that they were all wrong who called gold "too high" a few years ago.

HOW TO SELL? Gold and silver are easier to sell than US "dollars", which are not accepted in many nations these days.

CRAZY GOLD BUGS: No, we who understand gold are not crazy. People who pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to Harvard to be taught lies might be crazy.

I'M CLUELESS ABOUT GOLD: Well, if you went to Harvard, I can see why. And I hope this article helped to change that for you and your friends.

SHUT UP: Well, this is written, not oral.

PRICE CHANGES: As you can see, it's paper money that is changing in value, far more than gold and silver, but silver and gold will continue to gain value during this time.

GOVERNMENT WILL FIX: As you can see, government cannot change a single fundamental nature or property or feature of silver and gold. Gold and silver expose the lies of excess paper money printing by governments.

SILENCE: Yes, I know, the nay sayers are once again speechless. Hey, gold also doesn't talk, but that does not mean gold and the nay sayers are useless. Gold, if you examine it, reveals its properties to you. Similarly, by examining the arguments, or silence, of the nay sayers, we can see we are on the right track.

I'M BROKE: Hey, gold is not for every man. It's really just for those who would be kings.

BAD BROKERS: Now you can see why the brokers, and their lackeys, the "financial advisors", talk people out of gold and silver. They would go bankrupt if people bought the real things, because their short positions are 15-20 years of mine supply. Furthermore, brokers don't earn commissions on gold that you hold in your own possession and keep in your own vault, and neither do we. We only earn our commission one time, when you buy it from us.

Getting back to the fundamentals.

Gold is easily transportable. This means that the brokers really have no excuse to not send it to you when you buy it. Assays are free. Shipping and insurance for the shipping costs are less than 1% of the value. Thus, the only reason to not send you your gold or silver when you buy it, is because the sellers are running a scam, or are bankrupt.

And there you have it. You now know more about the essential nature of gold than 99.9% of people in the world.

http://www.silverbearcafe.com/private/04.12/whatgood.html

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Currency Debasement and Social Collapse
Ludwig von Mises

Why Did Gold Become Money?
Tyler Durden

JP Morgan Silver Manipulation
Jason Hommel

Why Silver Is Money
Jason Hommel

This is What I'm Doing with My Own Money Right Now
John Embry

A Return to the Gold Standard, or Gold Behind Currencies

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

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Silver is Money

This is fascinating… how silver is mined… and why it SHOULD be much more valuable! After you watch this, you will understand why everyone has been saying that silver is grossly UNDER priced… and… Why this price manipulation is causing a depletion /extinction of this metal in the marketplace.

Why Silver & Not Gold

The Silver Suppression Scheme
Is Ending
David Morgan

SGS Notes: Okay, we've crammed a lot into this newsletter, we admit it! But, if you've been following the economic news and the precious metals market, you'll be aware that there is a lot looming on the not-too-distant horizon. We feel the urgency to get you as much information as possible so that you can be prepared.

Two Scenarios For Next Precious Metals Rally (Part I)
Jeff Nielson, Bullion Bulls, Canada

Let me preface this piece by first stating that my reason for writing it was not to induce people to guess which scenario they found more probable, and then to place their bets beforehand. Rather, my purpose was exactly opposite: to prepare people for either scenario so that when they recognized one or the other unfolding they wouldn't do something stupid in a moment of panic (or greed).

Sadly, in our markets to "do something stupid in a moment of panic" generally means doing precisely the opposite of what one should be doing. This also explains why the bankers like to start panics. First of all, as the cause of these panics the banksters are neither "panicked" nor (obviously) surprised themselves. So they continue to operate calmly (in this feeding-frenzy) while the sheep make themselves especially easy to shear.

As a result of this never-ending game being played in our markets by the bankers, there is genuine utility in looking ahead (something the sheep almost never do) so that when events do unfold we will be prepared to act (calmly) - as opposed to reacting in panic (as the bankers desire).
With that preface out of the way, the next task is to explain/define these two, looming scenarios:

• The crash-driven rally
  
• The event-driven rally
  

Putting aside the fact that gold and silver are the most undervalued assets on our planet today; despite this ever-present truth the sheep generally need a "reason" to jump on the precious metals bandwagon. The irony here of course is that simply by jumping on the bandwagon the sheep supply the necessary momentum to drive prices higher - meaning that no "reason" is every truly necessary for gold and silver prices to go higher, in accordance with their ultra-bullish long-term fundamentals.
So the Catch-22 of the precious metals market is that we always need some catalyst to break gold and silver free of the intermittent bankster-created "log-jams" which have occurred in this market over the course of its 10+ year bull run, even though there is never any reason necessary to bid-up these grossly undervalued assets. In the last several years we have seen (arguably) three such catalysts. Two of those catalysts were events and one was a "crash".

Taking these catalysts in chronological order, the first of the three was the Crash of '08. Critics will argue that a "crash" is precisely an example of an event-driven catalyst. However, as I alluded to previously a market-crash is a particularly unique form of event, due to the extreme and unusual sentiments which accompany that event. The second reason to distinguish this catalyst from an "ordinary" event which serves to drive the market higher is that the circumstances prior to a crash will be markedly different from the circumstances of any other event-driven rally.

To begin with, one very likely clue that we will be on the precipice of another banker-created crash is that gold and silver (and likely all commodities) will begin to rally strongly without any identifiable cause for their strong surge in prices. To be more precise, the mainstream media (i.e. the propaganda machine) will not supply us with any "reason" for these soaring prices (other than pointing to their favorite scapegoats, the evil "speculators").

They will not tell us that those price increases are nothing but playing catch-up for the previous $trillions in money-printing. Understand that what responsible precious metals commentators generally tell their audience is that we accumulate gold and silver merely to preserve our wealth - i.e. we're not doing this (greedily) looking to turn a profit. However, the fundamental truth is that the decades of suppression, and the even more extreme manipulation of recent years mean that gold and silver are more undervalued today than they were at the beginning of this bull market over ten years ago.
Similarly, with the banksters' paper grossly overvalued, this means that most commodities should be soaring to much higher prices, simply based upon the long-term ramifications of year after year of hyperinflationary money-printing. Here we come to the ultimate fear of the banksters, and the political stooges who serve them: they know that the end of their entire, paper Ponzi-scheme will be imminent when prices for hard assets (i.e. gold, silver, and commodities) begin to soar without any explicit short-term causes.

Unlike the brainwashed sheep, they know their history. They know that the ultimate cause of all hyperinflation is a general loss of confidence in (worthless) paper - just as the Dutch "lost confidence" in their precious tulips 400 years ago. Thus when prices begin soaring (i.e. the paper begins to crash) "for no reason", the real reason will be that people are losing confidence in the paper and dumping it in favor of hard assets.

This precisely describes circumstances in the spring and summer of 2008, and explains why the bankers decided that nothing less extreme than a "crash" would suffice to put the brakes on the looming hyperinflation. What this means is that unlike an ordinary event-driven rally for the precious metals sector we will be tipped-off prior to the next crash being manufactured: we will see another instance of spiraling gold, silver, and commodities prices with charts showing a clear exponentially-rising pattern.

The banksters will not sit back quietly and allow their $100's of trillions in Ponzi-paper to evaporate. Inflicting severe economic hardship on 100's of millions means nothing to them. Indeed, the bankers have an even more extreme "solution" for dealing with a pending hyperinflation scenario: starting a war.

Hitler started World War II to cope with the aftermath of Germany's hyperinflation from the Weimar Republic. However Hitler wasn't a banker. He had no mountains of worthless paper to protect. His only motives were to create a smoke-screen for the economic ruin from the preceding hyperinflation and to cover-up his own economic mismanagement, which is an inherent aspect of all Fascism.
With the bankers (and the ultra-wealthy Oligarchs) being firmly in charge of our governments today, war would be a tool that they would use undoubtedly before any hyperinflation reduced their mountains of paper to what it really is: "Monopoly money". Thus should we see another repeat of the explosion in gold, silver, and commodities prices which took place in the spring and summer of 2008, many would suggest that we should hope for a market crash.

Those with the inclinations to be "traders" (i.e. the greedy) will be sensing opportunity at this point. They will note that we will have a clear warning before the next crash is manufactured. They will note that such a crash will occur when we see a distinctive repeat of what occurred in gold, silver, and commodity markets in the spring/summer of 2008. They will look at the charts for gold and silver for 2008, and they will think to themselves "sell".

This would be a colossal failure of analysis, and another triumph for naked greed. Simply because identical circumstances cause the bankers to use an identical "tool" (i.e. a market crash) does not mean that the consequences of their reckless intervention in markets will be identical.

Our economic circumstances in 2012 are enormously different than in 2008. Today our economies are all much weaker. Today our economies are all much less solvent. These two different dynamics both have significant implications in any crash scenario. Create a crash in a (relatively) strong economy and there is resistance; that is, that residual economic strength will push back against the downward economic pressure of a crash - slowing the descent and stretching-out the length of time of that downward slide before "bottom" is hit.

Conversely, create a crash in a weak economy and all you have is free-fall. We would (will?) see a crash which is much faster, and much more severe. This alternately means that anyone attempting to "time" this event by selling their gold/silver and then (assuming they can) buy it back it cheaper could miss badly in either direction.

The fact that a 2012 crash would tend to be a much faster event would mean that it could be over before all the would-be traders are expecting. They are sitting-and-waiting (for even cheaper prices) with their pile of depreciating paper, while prices have already began bouncing back. And as with the Crash of '08, the rebound in gold and silver prices will be at least as rapid as their plunge, and likely even more rapid - leaving all those greedy "traders" still waiting at the station.
On the other hand, with a crash in 2012 undoubtedly a much more severe economic event, would-be traders could easily jump back into the market too soon - and do their buying with prices about to plunge much lower. We can assess those relative probabilities by looking at our other different dynamic for 2012: much less solvent governments.

The Crash of '08 sparked the Money-Printing of '09, which in turn has directly led to the Debt Crisis of 2010-to-present. The "64-trillion-dollar question" today is this: if a crash in 2008 caused a debt-crisis (when our economies were relatively strong), what would a crash do in 2012 - with our economies all weak, and all of Europe already in a debt-crisis. The answer to that question is really simple. Everybody is Greece.

The combination of an even worse crash, with much weaker economies, already in the midst of a debt-crisis means that either the money-printing would have to be much, much more extreme (i.e. guaranteed hyperinflation) or it would fail to halt our economic crash despite the extreme money-printing.

Understand that every new "dollar" of paper created is created with more debt. Understand that our interest rates are already as low as they can go, and still we see the debt-dominoes going bankrupt one-by-one. So doing much more money-printing means piling on exponentially more debt onto already insolvent economies while revenues are simultaneously plummeting lower. This precisely describes what just took place in Greece.

So when "everybody is Greece" (including the world's worst debt-sinner, the United States) what are the holders of $10's of trillions in Western bonds going to do? Will they stoically and nobly "go down with the ship" like the Captains of Finance that they are? Or will they all scramble for the nearest "lifeboat" like proverbial rats deserting that sinking ship? I'll let readers answer that one for themselves.

In the Crash of '08, it was only the gold-bugs (and silver bulls) who were thinking to themselves "paper is going to zero". The sheep were still all running towards that worthless paper. In any crash in 2012 (or 2013) it will be obvious to everyone that "everybody is Greece", and all that paper is going to zero.

What this means is that in any future crash event, any sell-off in gold and silver will end very quickly and very abruptly, when all of the "rats" from the bond-market (belatedly) try to swap (worthless) paper for (valuable) metal. Naturally, all of the extreme money-printing taking place means that the underlying paper currencies are just as worthless as the bonds.

This should mean that all the sheep would be dumping their paper currencies for gold and silver too. However, that would imply rational thinking. Since the panic of any crash event means the opposite of rational thinking, the holders of our paper currencies will undoubtedly do even worse than the bond-holders.

As I continue to point out to readers, it would take much less than 10% of these paper-holders turning toward the 5,000 security of gold and silver to cause precious metals prices to soar to many multiples of present prices (especially in the tiny silver market). This comes at a time when people are only holding about 1/10th as much precious metals in their portfolio as is the historic norm.
The question for the precious metals bears and skeptics is this: if gold and silver prices can go on a 10+ year bull-run while ignorant Western investors have under-owned this asset class to the greatest degree in history, what happens when all of the "stupid money" of the West belatedly rebalances their holdings?

As an aside, this raises a secondary question: how can the drones in the mainstream media continue to talk about "bubbles" in gold and silver while these assets have never been so under-owned by Western investors?

When thinking investors begin to ask (and answer) these questions for themselves, their strategy for any crash scenario should be clear: don't idiotically sell the gold and silver they are already holding, greedily hoping they can cash-in on some "obvious" short-term trade. Rather they should be buying more gold and silver in any crash, even in the face of rapidly falling prices. They would know that any plunge would be very short in duration, and will reverse higher very, very strongly, when all of the paper-holders finally begin to "see the light".

Naturally, the my hope and that of all other gold and silver bulls is that we can see gold and silver begin their next, inevitable rally from some event which inspires much less fear and economic carnage than an economic crash. In Part II, I will flash-back to two such events, and note both their significant similarities and significant differences.

To read Part 2 click here

New At SGS!

Introducing our new Silver Bullet !

Whether you are protecting yourself from Werewolves or Inflation, this Silver Bullet is for you! We are excited to introduce this Silver Bullet novelty item. This item includes a set of TEN 1/10 oz .999 fine Silver Walking Liberty rounds, contained in a semi-transparent 12 gauge shotgun shell.

This item is not only a great investment in precious metals, it makes for a great conversation piece. If your group or organization would like to customize this item, we will work with you to create a custom label with your favorite slogan or logo. (Additional pricing will apply)

We also have the 1/10 oz rounds available for purchase individually on our site now. These are the size of a dime and a good alternative to junk silver which is only 90% pure.

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Gold "Bargain of Lifetime" As Gold Standard Inevitable, Possibly Within Year - $10,000/oz Looms
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Get Physical Gold & Silver!
Adam Taggart

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Why Gold & Silver?
Mike Maloney

The Golden Revolution

Bill Murphy Pounding Away at the Gold Cartel!

On the lighter Side… ; - )

New 1/10 oz Rounds      

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Coin Tubes also available!

Quote of the Week

"Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have - to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice."

- George Washington

SGS Notes: Our key article this week is quite lengthy but very informative … I hope you will take the time to click the 'Read More' to see the full article… we are only able to publish the initial portion of it below:

The Coming Paradigm Shift in Silver

Steve St. Angelo

The biggest problem for investors today in trying to forecast the future price of silver is the enormous amount of contradictory analysis on the Internet. There are bulls, bears, paper traders, physical buyers, technical analysts, hedge funds, commercial banks and silver manufacturers all trying to play a part in this highly volatile silver market. Trying to sift through the huge volumes of silver analysis on the internet can be extremely frustrating. In addition, some of this information is not meant to inform, but rather to confuse or mislead the investor.

There is a great deal of misinformation on the internet when it comes to silver. I find it ironic that one of the so-called "bullion specialists" seems to give bearish commentary whenever the price of gold or silver rises to new highs. This is akin to a CEO of a corporation telling the media and shareholders that the company's stock price is too high and needs to drop down to more sustainable levels. What CEO on Earth would say something as stupid as this with the best interest of the company and shareholders in mind? Furthermore, how many CEOs would keep their job if they repeated this over and over for the past several years, and got it wrong time and time again?

Unless you have been in the precious metals markets for quite some time, it is easy to be misled by this type of information. This is the very reason behind the motivation that I had to write this article. In it, I will attempt to give the reader-investor a more detailed and fundamental comparative analysis of the future price of silver, rather than the typical fly-by-night technical charting or bull-bear rant. This should give a more commonsense methodology in forecasting the future path of silver and its eventual paradigm shift.

Paradigm Shift: -n, a radical change in underlying beliefs or theory

The coming paradigm shift in silver will not happen due to technical analysis, fundamentals, or supply & demand forces, but rather due to a change in mass psychology of investors. Even though fundamentals and supply-demand forces will play a part in this shift, they will not be the ultimate cause. I believe technical analysis as it is used today, only charts the amount of manipulation and mass psychology in the silver market.

Throughout history, a paradigm shift occurs in rigged markets when the manipulation of the financial system and economy is no longer sustainable. This occurred in the banking and housing markets in 2007-2008 when we had what I call a "Negative Paradigm Price Shift"- a trend where prices or values are declining.

Negative Paradigm Price Shift in Housing and Banking
Prior to 2007, the real estate market was kept alive by the work of clowns and magicians in the mortgage industry and banking system. For several years everyone was having a great time. As housing prices and sales continued towards the heavens, bank profits hit all-time records. Everything was going along just fine until the market realized one day that there was nothing left after "Liars Loans" were levied to keep the Ponzi going. Once the housing market collapsed, so too did the banking system. Like two twins attached at birth, one could not live without the other.

In true waterfall fashion, investment banks, commercial banks, government-sponsored entities and insurance companies went bankrupt, were either taken over or became a mere shadow of their former selves.

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Quote of the Week

Thus, the fight over gold and silver as media of exchange is about more than mere money, let alone making money. For it is a fight with only two possible outcomes: either control of their own lives by the people themselves, or control of the people and their lives by political and economic elitists.

- Dr. Edwin Vieira

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The Banker's New Gold

Jeff Nielson
BullionBulls, Canada

In a fresh sign of bankster desperation, we recently learned that they have pushed lease rates for gold to the lowest, negative level in history - i.e. they are paying people more money to "borrow" their gold than at any other time. We know this is a sign of desperation, because back in the real world, buyers are paying premiums near record-highs to buy their (real) gold.
There are numerous implications regarding this latest bankster tactic to suppress the gold market, but before getting into those let's explore all of the reasons why bankers like "leasing gold" in the first place. The starting point is to note that it is with gold-leasing that we see the beginnings of the banksters' 100:1 leverage in the gold market.

A banker is holding a quantity of gold in his vault. He "lends" the gold to a trader, and suddenly you havetwo parties both pretending to be the "owners" of that gold. Naturally, the banksters also like the fact that this is a totally opaque, unregulated/unreported transaction. The banksters can secretly lend out their gold, and since the transactions are never reported, we lack the absolute proof that none of this "loaned gold" is ever repaid.

There is certainly plenty of circumstantial evidence on which to base such a conclusion, however. In order to review this evidence, we first need to know what is being done with the bankers' leased gold. A detailed analysis by veteran precious metals commentator Frank Veneroso explains how and why "The ultimate borrowers in the gold lending operation are these shorts in the gold futures and forward market."

We immediately see a second reason the bankers love gold-leasing: all of the "leased" gold ends up being shorted onto the market. What this directly implies then is that in order for these gold leases to ever be repaid the short positions must be closed out so that the gold (supposedly) backing the trade can be repatriated to the bank. However, what we see in the gold market is a huge, permanent short position in the gold market - which has swelled enormously since Veneroso wrote the article above nearly a decade ago.
We now know that at least some of these gold leases have never been repaid, since the gold that was loaned out remains on the market. However, as a matter of simple arithmetic we can deduce that few if any of these leases are ever repaid. As I noted above, each gold lease creates "paper gold" (i.e. a "fractional reserve" gold market) and increases the bankers' leverage in the gold market.

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David Morgan

SGS Notes: Our main article this week is one of several from the Cheviot Sound Money Conference that was held in the January. Clicking on the photo link will allow you to listen to one of the key speakers of the conference who gave this speech below. Don't miss the links in the right column of that page to other very informative other speeches...

Gold & Silver Are The Currencies of the Free

Dominic Frisby
Goldcore 

The President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, called for a new post Bretton-Woods currency system involving gold, in November 2010. Zoellick said that gold was worthy of consideration as a reference point for modern currencies and as an indicator to help set foreign exchange rates.

At the end of January, the Cheviot Sound Money Conference held an excellent conference in London which examined the practical application of gold and silver as money within a modern context.

The context to these proposals is crucial as without an understanding of the modern financial and monetary system one cannot possibly comprehend the continuing importance of gold and silver.

We live in an era of surging trillion dollar deficits and surging national debts in the US and internationally.

The US recorded its biggest monthly deficit in history two days ago with a $223 billion deficit for February alone, the 29th straight month of deficits – a modern record. The US budget deficit in 2010 was over $1.45 trillion and is forecast to be of a similar magnitude in 2011. At the close of business on Feb. 28, the total federal debt stood at $14.195 trillion ($14,194,764,339,462.64).

We live in an era of massive creation of government bonds.

Foreign central banks hold $5 trillion in US Treasury bonds and agency debt alone. Chinese foreign exchange reserves alone are soon to reach the $3 trillion level.

We live in an era of of thousands of trillions of dollars, euros, pounds etc. of derivatives.

The enormous OTC sector of derivatives alone is worth nearly $600 trillion on paper, roughly 10 times world economic output.

We live in an era seeing the creation of and speculation with trillions of dollars (euro, pound etc.) of electronic currency.

According to the Bank for International Settlements, as of April 2010, average daily turnover in global foreign exchange markets was estimated at $3.98 trillion, a growth of approximately 20% over the $3.21 trillion daily volume as of April 2007 - soon after the financial crisis began. Some firms specialising in foreign exchange have put the average daily turnover in excess of US$4 trillion.

We are experiencing a scale of global currency debasement, the likes of which the world has never seen before.

We live in an era where thousands of millions of people live on less than a dollar or two a day in the "developing world". While millions of people in the "developed world" are now debt slaves - both individually and as citizens of increasingly bankrupt nation states.

Reformation or replacement of our debt-based fiat paper and electronic financial and monetary system is one of the most important debates of our times.

The modern monetary system of paper and electronic money is inherently unstable and unsustainable and there is a strong case for considering using gold and silver as money once again.

At the Cheviot conference, Money Week's Dominic Frisby gave an excellent talk in which he outlined why gold is the currency of the free.

Frisby eloquently outlined how the modern system of finance, banking and credit (or debt) impoverishes and enslaves. It has "made wars that should never have happened possible; its brought about a relentless needless commercial expansion and malinvestment that has raped the earth."

He points out how the world is cursed by monetary illiteracy and it is amazing how few people understand the modern monetary system, and how it is to blame for the huge inequalities in wealth we see in the world today.

"Money must be sound and true, at the moment it is neither and society is corrupted as a consequence."

Dominic Frisby's lecture can be watched here:
http://www.cheviot.co.uk/sound-money-conference/presentations/why-gold-is-the-currency-of-the-free

There were a number of other excellent talks all of which are worth viewing. The highlights include Chris Powell, the Secretary/Treasurer of GATA (Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee), lecture 'Gold price suppression purposes and proofs':
http://www.cheviot.co.uk/sound-money-conference/presentations/gold-price-suppression-purposes-and-proofs

There is then an excellent panel discussion and question and answer session on gold at the end which involved Max Keiser, James Turk, David Morgan, Ben Davies, Richard Cragg, Sandeep Jaitly. It is surprisingly entertaining and very informative:

http://www.cheviot.co.uk/sound-money-conference/presentations/panel-discussion-with-audience-q-and-a

GoldNomics - Cash or Gold Bullion?

Our educational video, 'Goldnomics - Cash or Gold Bullion?' complements the excellent interviews from the conference. It clearly shows how gold has retained value throughout history.

'GoldNomics' can be viewed by clicking on the image above or on our YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/goldcorelimited

The US dollar has been the strongest fiat currency in the world in the last 100 years and indeed it became the reserve currency of the world during the period (due to victories in the two World Wars and the accumulation of the largest gold reserves in the world).

Despite that the dollar has lost 97% of its value in 97 years. The massive loss of purchasing power of the preeminent currency of our age, the US dollar, clearly shows gold's importance as a currency, as money and as a store of value.

Individuals, families and societies can never be free as long as money is based on debt and compounded interest and as long as the money we use day to day is constantly depreciating and being debased.

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SGS Notes: This week we can only say, there's a 'Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On!' Not just geologically, but in the markets as well... we've seen silver up over $44 this week, and gold broke through the $1900 barrier before heading back down. We see the big manipulators scurrying to cover their short positions and a lot of new activity 'out there'... The Warren Buffet Bailout of B of A is a big item...another is the Jackson Hole conference on the economy. This week's newsletter, like many, will try to cover the highlights...

The Upside for Gold and Silver will Knock Your Socks Off Embry

Geoff Candy Mineweb

With no easy solutions to the globe's debt problems visible, Sprott Asset Management's John Embry expects gold and silver to be significant beneficiaries but the road ahead will not be easy.

With no easy solutions to the globe's debt problems visible, Sprott Asset Management's John Embry expects gold and silver to be significant beneficiaries but the road ahead will not be easy.

For many commentators, gold is considered not only a constant store of value but, also, a barometer for the health of the global economic system and the currencies that pump through its veins.

For, John Embry, chief investment strategist at Sprott Asset Management, the current parabolic rise in prices, which have beat even his optimistic performance expectations this summer, is indicative of the unsustainable debt situation in which the world now finds itself.

Speaking on Mineweb.com's Gold Weekly podcast, Embry explains, "We've reached a stage in the debt cycle where it doesn't appear we can move forward and on that basis you need more and more debt creation to generate the same dollar real GDP growth - and I don't think we can get that kind of debt growth. So to keep these systems stuck together they [governments] are going to have employ quantitative easing in massive quantities, and if they don't, the current softness in the economy is going to turn into a rout."

Given the current levels of growth, Embry says, any halt in the funds propping up the banking system will result in significant deflation in "fairly short order" because the deflationary pressures within the West are huge.

But, he says, it is not just the West that is likely to suffer. "The Chinese miracle is grinding to a halt, they've dined out in the West for years and they paid for it by taking back our crappy paper but the fact is that they kept their economy going at breakneck pace and I would also say it is probably one of the most unbalanced economies I have ever seen.

"They have depended so heavily on exports and capital spending and now the export markets are weakening at the same time they have massive over capacity. So those two engines are coming to a halt and the hope is that they can do lateral arabesque into consumer demand to keep the thing going. I think that will be a hard act in the short run and consequently China faces some fairly difficult economic problems going forward.

What this means for prices?

While this rather bleak scenario does not bode well for the financial system as a whole, gold's performance over time [as well as that of silver] is likely to "knock your socks off", Embry says. But, he adds, especially after this latest move, he would prefer to see a correction in prices before that happens.

"I don't want to see this thing just scream away and become out of control and conceivably if you got a strong effective action in either Europe or the United States - that might be the catalyst for a significant correction of a couple of hundred bucks - but having said that I don't see the easy solution."

Embry points out that it is also important to note that, "It's not gold and silver that are doing anything. There have been constant stores of value for centuries. It's the value of the paper money that they are being denominated in that is at risk here and you know every attempt in history, fiat paper currency has always ended in tears and this one has been going for 40 years since Nixon closed the gold window and it's probably in its terminal stages."

Indeed, he is of the belief that the world will ultimately see a return to some kind of a gold standard.

"When we do have to recast the currency system, just to restore confidence there will have to be some backing that maintains discipline - and gold has traditionally filled that role. So I can see gold being introduced as a maybe fractional reserve like there was before 1971 in the United States. but to do that given the amount of paper out there and the limited amount of gold, they would have to mark the gold price up dramatically."

And, while he cannot put any kind of timing on such an event, he does think that gold could move as high as $2,500 within the next twelve months.

Quotes  ____________     

“Gold, unlike all other commodities, is a currency,” he said. “And the major thrust in the demand for gold is not for jewelry. It’s not for anything other than an escape from what is perceived to be a fiat money system, paper money, that seems to be deteriorating.”

Alan Greenspan

For Full Article, Click Here

SGS Note: Perhaps Mr. Bernanke needs to confer with Mr. Greenspan...

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SGS Notes: These days, events are happening almost daily in the precious metals market. The latest big news this week is the move by Hugo Chavez, dictator of Venezuela, to Nationalize the Venezuela gold industry, and to repatriate the country's gold holdings around the world. See links in 'Other Articles' about this.

Gold, Silver And 'Leaky Buckets
Jeff Nielson, BullionBulls, Canada

To those of us who have "found" precious metals, their (financially) life-saving properties are blatantly apparent. Indeed, apart from explaining the 5,000 year heritage of gold and silver as premier financial assets in our civilization, most of the arguments in favor of gold and silver are straightforward, simple arithmetic.

Because of this reality, one of the great frustrations for all precious metals bulls are the thankless (and generally fruitless) efforts we make to try to enlighten friends/relatives/associates. The pattern of such attempts is maddeningly similar.

Some friend or loved one mentions how "inflation" is hurting them financially. So the gold/silver bull begins to explain what inflation really is, who is causing it, and how it is done. So far, so good. However, as soon as we move on to explain how we protect ourselves from this "inflation" (i.e. through accumulating gold and/or silver), a subtle metamorphosis inevitably takes place with our subject.

A bland/placid expression creeps over their face, and is frozen into their features. Through years of experience with this phenomenon, I know exactly what that expression translates to in terms of the person's thoughts: "I'm trapped with this dangerous lunatic. How can I escape?" At that point, any attempt at "conversion" becomes purely an exercise in futility.

After each such failure, I inevitably review the process which has taken place, and ask myself where I could have gone wrong. The reality, of course, is that the fault does not lie with ourselves, nor with the individual whom we have failed to convince. Rather, the "blame" belongs to the propaganda machine of the bankers, which for the past century has blared out one message above all others: paper currency = money = wealth.

It is the fact that this simple, but totally erroneous equation is embedded in the "programming" of most of us which prevents the precious metals message of financial salvation from penetrating the psyche of those so afflicted. Thus, the initial step in being able to re-program the minds of these propaganda victims is to de-program them first. It starts with repudiating the bankers' odious "equation" (above).

First of all, paper currency does not equal "money". This is actually an entire discussion in itself. I could abbreviate it by listing the four qualities which all "good money" must possess. However, without expanding on the reasoning behind those traits, such mere assertions will not sway the brainwashed mind. Readers can review my own previous discussion on this, or the many similar efforts of other commentators, however the conclusion is unequivocal: paper currency is not money.

Now let's examine the third element in this propaganda-chain: wealth. The more cumbersome way to refute this equality/equivalence would be to explain why paper currency does not equal wealth. However, the better way to do this would be to simply point out the basic difference in the properties of these three elements. Paper currency is tangible. Money is tangible. Wealth is intangible.

This can be easily demonstrated anecdotally. Many people (including myself) often go days at a time carrying out all of our commercial transactions without ever once using "money". Thanks to the credit card (which is simply an electronic cheque-book), we no longer need money to convey our wealth to a vendor to make a purchase. It can all be done electronically because of the intangible nature of our wealth.

In similar terms, if we get up in the morning to discover that interest rates have been raised or lowered, this immediately affects property values - and the wealth of each/every property owner. Our properties have not changed in any way. We have not done anything ourselves. However, our level of wealth has gone up (or down). In fact, countless exogenous events affect our precise level of wealth at any given moment. Clearly, if wealth was not intangible than its exact level at any moment in time would not be so fluid.

Our equity markets leap higher or plunge lower (affecting the wealth of any/every equities-holder) often based only on "sentiment" or "expectations" - purely intangible drivers themselves. Obviously anything which can be altered by mere attitudes is intangible. As with any "intangible" (in our material world), we often find it helpful to adopt a (tangible) metaphor to allow us to have a better conceptual grasp. In the case of wealth, the obvious metaphor is a liquid. Indeed, the very frequent use of the term "liquidity" as a synonym for wealth is proof of such suitability.

Once we have conceptualized wealth as a "liquid", then it becomes equally simple to conceptualize "money" and "paper currency" within the same metaphor. They are containers for this liquid. Now let us make our metaphor even more tangible and precise.

Instead of "money", let us divide this into two "containers": gold and silver - the best/most-preferred forms of money in the history of our species. And instead of "paper currency", let's call that container "U.S. dollar". Finally, let's simply refer to these containers as "buckets".

We now have a very specific metaphor, and a very clear choice for each of us. We each have our own quantity of liquid (wealth), and we can store/hold that liquid in the "gold" bucket, the "silver" bucket, or the "U.S. dollar" bucket. Now let's examine the quality of each bucket.

Why have gold and silver been the preferred forms of money for our species for 5,000 years? Because they perfectly preserve (i.e. contain) the wealth of the holder. Look back 2,000 years to ancient Rome, and a stylish Roman could adorn himself in the finest toga, sandals and accessories for the cost of 1 oz of gold. Flash ahead to today, and any gentleman could obtain a top-quality suit, shoes and accessories for the cost of 1 oz of gold. Clearly, the gold bucket does not leak.

Now let's look at the U.S. dollar bucket. In the less than 100 years since the creation of the odious Federal Reserve, the U.S. dollar has lost approximately 98% of its value. Obviously the U.S. dollar bucket does leak. Hold your liquid in the U.S. dollar bucket long enough and you will lose all of it.

A (literal) "Devil's Advocate" would argue that a bucket which takes nearly 100 years to lose all of its liquid is "good enough". The rebuttal to this is as frightening as it is simple.

In the 40 years since Nixon severed the last connection between the U.S. dollar and gold, the dollar has lost more than 75% of its value. In other words, the hole in the bucket has gotten much larger. Today, as the price of food soars, and the price of gas soars, and the price of gold soars, and the price of silver soars none of these items have changed in any way, rather it is the value of the U.S. dollar which is plummeting. The hole in the bucket is rapidly getting larger.

Throughout history, all paper currencies which have not been backed by gold or silver (i.e. "fiat currencies") have failed. The most common means of failure is through the destruction of these paper currencies via hyperinflation: the value of the currency plummeting to zero. We can describe "hyperinflation" in our metaphor very easily: it's when the entire bottom of the U.S. dollar bucket has disappeared. Liquid (i.e. wealth) pours out the bottom as fast as we can funnel it in.

Looking at the first two buckets provides us with a crystal-clear picture. We have the gold bucket which never leaks. Not in 100 years, not in thousands of years. We have the U.S. dollar bucket. Not only does this bucket "leak", guaranteeing the loss of all liquid/wealth over time, but the hole in the bottom is getting larger every day - and soon it won't be capable of holding any liquid at all.

Given this stark illustration with just two buckets, some might presume that my inclusion of a silver bucket in this metaphor is redundant. However (as we shall see), the silver bucket is actually quite distinct from the gold bucket.

Obviously the silver bucket is just as leak-proof as the gold bucket, but silver buckets cost much less. After decades of being impoverished by our own, elitist governments (primarily through storing our wealth in 'leaky buckets'), many people can no longer afford gold buckets - however virtually everyone can still afford silver buckets.

This makes silver the "People's Bucket", a leak-proof container to store our "liquid" (wealth) which everyone can afford. However it gets even better. In continuing with our metaphor, we must all understand that the bankers have their own "Magic Bucket". How magical? Every drop of liquid which leaks out of the U.S. dollar bucket ends up in the bankers' Magic Bucket. That's pretty "magical"!

It is because the bankers have their own Magic Bucket that they hate silver buckets with every fiber of their evil beings. For the last century, and especially the last 50 years the bankers have made a concerted effort to destroy all of the world's silver buckets. How? Through manipulating the price of silver to a ridiculous low (in real dollars, the price of silver hit a 600-year low in the 1990's), they simultaneously destroyed "supply" (by bankrupting more than 90% of the world's silver miners), while causing demand to explode. Global inventories and stockpiles have been obliterated.

The result of this is that in relative terms there has not been this little silver in the world (above ground) in thousands of years. This is true both in relation to the quantity of gold and on a per capita basis. This means that in relation to gold buckets, silver buckets are now very rare - some might even call them "magical" too.

Not only is silver a leak-proof bucket to carry our liquid (wealth) which is still affordable for the average person, but it has become extremely useful in countless industrial applications - meaning that "everyone" wants silver buckets. Because of this high scarcity and soaring demand, it is a matter of elementary supply/demand analysis that the price of silver must rise to many multiples of its current price.

To translate this back to our metaphor, when we put liquid in our silver bucket, not only does the silver bucket prevent any leaks, but it actually increases the amount of liquid in our bucket. The silver bucket is also a Magic Bucket - but not an "evil" Magic Bucket like the one owned by the bankers. The bankers' liquid increases through leeching all of the liquid out of the U.S. dollar buckets, while the silver Magic Bucket increases the liquid of the holder without stealing any liquid from anyone else.

Let us review (one last time) the three "buckets" we can choose from to store our liquid/wealth. We can choose the gold bucket, a leak-proof bucket guaranteed to hold every drop of our liquid over the long term. We can choose the U.S. dollar bucket: a leaky bucket, with a hole in the bottom that gets larger every day - and which is guaranteed to lose all the liquid contained over time.

Lastly there are the silver "Magic Buckets". These marvelous devices not only ensure against leaks, but actually cause the liquid contained to increase in volume. The only down-side to these Magic Buckets? There is a very limited supply.

It can be virtually impossible to explain to a brainwashed mind how/why U.S. dollars are just scraps of worthless paper - just as it was impossible to convince the Dutch 400 years ago that tulips were mere flowers. It can be equally difficult to explain the concept of "saving our money" (i.e. wealth) in the form of gold and/or silver - despite the fact that 100's of millions of Indian peasants understand it and have been doing it all their lives.

Conversely, even the most brainwashed mind should still be capable of understanding the difference in "utility" between a 'leaky bucket' guaranteed to fail in its sole purpose, and buckets which have demonstrated themselves to be leak-proof over thousands of years.

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SGS Notes: The big news this week was the downgrading of the US credit rating from AAA to AA+ with S&P. I won't fill the newsletter with that since it's been in all the news... But what we are about to watch is the coming spike in gold and silver prices due to this and other factors... The downgrading of the US Dollar will have a huge domino effect on other currencies around the world. So we will be seeing unbelievable volatility everywhere in the markets... and demand is about to go sky high.

Silver's Performance to Triple That of Gold over The Next 3-5 Years..

Eric Sprott

Silver is likely to be the investment of the decade in the same way that gold was the investment of the last one as both industrial and investment demand come to the fore, says Eric Sprott

According to Sprott Asset Management CEO, Eric Sprott, Silver is the investment of the decade. Not only is it likely to reach $50 an ounce by the end of the year but, he says, over the next three to five years, it's performance is likely to treble that of gold's.

Speaking on Mineweb.com's Metals Weekly podcast, Sprott said, "We've been huge proponents of gold over the last 11 years, and we've been involved in silver over that same time period but beginning about a year ago it became extremely evident to us that the investment demand for silver was massively understated."

This move also appears to be occurring in India, where festival celebrants, deterred by high gold prices have been buying silver ornaments as gifts. (See: Silver puts gold in the shade.)

He adds, as a result of this, the ratio between the two metals is likely to get back to a more "appropriate" level around 16:1 - it is currently around 37:1 and only in June last year it was sitting around the 70:1 level.

"If one looked at the silver and gold sales as an example of the US Mint, so far this year, people have put the same dollars into silver as they've put into gold - which can't carry on with the price being 38:1 - you just can't have the same amount of money going in. We see the same thing in the ETFs - the silver ETFs have been growing while the gold ETFs so far this year, have declined," he says.

One of the main reasons for this, according to Sprott is that more and more people are viewing gold, and now silver, as the reserve currency and given the state of the world, there is a shift from paper to hard currencies.

It is not, however, just Sprott who sees this shift toward hard currencies. The state of Utah, recently signed a law which has made it the first U.S. state to recognize federally issued gold and silver coins as legal tender.

Asked why there is likely to be such a large relative outperformance, Sprott says, "the fundamentals for the two metals are entirely different. There is huge industrial demand for silver, there's not much industrial demand for gold. It's interesting when you look at how many dollars of gold are produced in a year and what's available for saving, and how many ounces of silver are produced per year, and how many of those ounces are available for investment, the ratio is something like there are 10 times more gold available for investment in dollars every year, than there is silver. So if the guy is just as happy to own silver as gold, the fundamentals are going to diverge markedly here."

With the growing industrial uses for the metal in, among other areas, photovoltaic cells, and the medical field (for its antibacterial properties) on top of the growing investment demand, higher prices could result in some substitution but, according to Sprott this is not really a concern as the dollar value of the silver is almost immaterial to the total cost of the product.

Any clouds to the silver lining?

Asked if there are any potential hiccoughs to the run for silver that he is predicting, Sprott says that while there are a few things that would cause him to change his mind, he does not really see any of them coming to pass any time soon

The first cloud, according to Sprott would be fiscal and monetary responsibility by governments and central banks but, he says, this is certainly not evident at present and would go so far as to say, " ever since we had QE1, the reason to own gold and silver has just changed materially here because of the irresponsibility of the central banks in the world

The other potential hiccough, he says would be some kind of massive mania type blow off, " you have to take your best guesses when something like that might end - I don't see it as being anywhere near that stage at this point."

And, finally he says, "The other thing that would have an impact is if, ultimately, gold and silver in fact are named reserve currencies - then we will all have accomplished what we're after and you may or may not need it neat because it's now money."

Where to from here?

According to Sprott Silver will move to $50 dollars this year before powering ahead, "If you ask me in the three to five year time frame, obviously I think it's going to go north of $100 simply because we'll get that 16:1 ratio and I certainly see gold going a lot higher, so that's my outlook here and therefore the rewards for owning silver and the equities will be quite outstanding."

Quote of the Week                               

“By this means (fractional reserve banking) government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft.”

--John Maynard Keynes
The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1920

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Gold and Silver Beyond the Limit

Peter Schiff

Perhaps the debt ceiling should be renamed the "national debt target," for it seems Washington is always trying to reach it. One could say it's their only reliable, time-tested achievement. And without fail, upon reaching their national debt target, they promptly extend it further in order to discover how quickly it can once again be attained!

While I have little doubt that the ceiling will be raised, my readers have been curious as to the implications for gold in each of the debt and "default" scenarios possible after August 2nd. This month, I'll outline how each outcome could affect the price of gold and silver.

BEARISH GOLD CASE #1: DEBT CEILING NOT RAISED - ENOUGH CUTS MADE TO AVERT DEFAULT

My readers know that this scenario is actually what the US government should do. The debt ceiling should not be increased and massive cuts must be made. We know this outcome is extremely unlikely - it would require not only a resolute steadfastness to sound money, but also a 180-degree change of philosophical beliefs by the majority of Congress (and the American public) overnight.

Yet in our fantasy world, if this did occur, it would be bearish for gold. It would mean the US government was shrinking, that debts were being paid, that the entire US economy was becoming more solvent and viable. Gold would be less important to own, as the risk of both currency crises and sovereign debt crises would be lower.

BEARISH GOLD CASE #2: DEBT CEILING RAISED - FEDERAL BUDGET BALANCED

If the debt ceiling is raised in order to avert imminent default, but the spare time is used to truly bring the federal budget into balance, the US economy might still be saved. But when I say "balanced," I mean it. This would mean not only eliminating the entire $1.5 trillion deficit, but also leaving enough of a surplus to cover all outstanding debt and unfunded liabilities. For perspective, Senator Rand Paul's proposal to but $500 billion a year, widely considered more radical than landing a man on Mars, would only address 1/3 of the annual deficit - it would take cuts many times that for the US to return to solvency.

But let's be optimistic: if the budget could be balanced, then the fact that the debt ceiling was being increased yet again would not be so awful. Since the US government's fiscal policies would be completely reversed, we could expect to start seeing a strengthening of the dollar (so long as Bernanke stopped the printing presses too) and a weakening of gold and silver.

However, this is just as much of a pipe dream as the first scenario. No government in history has dug itself out of the hole we now face without defaulting. If Congress even tried to enact a plan like this, people would be rioting in the streets over their lost entitlements. And we'd suddenly have millions of unemployed soldiers. Not exactly a recipe for peace and prosperity.

BULLISH GOLD CASE #1: DEBT CEILING NOT RAISED - US DEFAULTS ON TREASURY DEBT

This is the scenario that President Obama and Secretary Geithner are threatening. They claim that if the debt ceiling is not raised, they will have to immediately begin defaulting on Treasury interest payments. This is rather unlikely, as interest payments make up only 10% of spending, but let's say they stop paying anyway.

If they do this, market interest rates for US debt would skyrocket, meaning the only buyer left at rates the Treasury could afford would be the Fed. In other words, if they default on August 2nd, QE3 will start on August 3rd. Of course, a default would be absolutely devastating to the dollar and a boon for gold and silver. Global confidence in the invincibility of the United States would be shattered, and the underlying problem of excessive spending would still remain to be addressed.

Another interesting scenario would be if Congress didn't raise the debt ceiling and the Treasury just kept borrowing anyway. It's not like the Executive Branch follows laws scrupulously nowadays. What if they just ignored it? Someone could challenge the act in federal courts, but the odds are often in the President's favor. In this case, gold and silver might experience less of an initial spike, but their long-term prospects would be elevated as the world recognized that we were one step closer to becoming a banana republic.

BULLISH GOLD CASE #2: DEBT CEILING RAISED - SYMBOLIC CUTS IN SPENDING

This scenario is by far the most likely outcome of the debt talks in Washington; they will raise the debt ceiling and make spending cuts which sound substantial, but which only mange to slow the accumulation of new debt.

The plans on the table suggest cutting a couple trillion in cumulative spending over the next decade. In other words, they propose cuts that only reduce deficits by about 10-20%; they do nothing to reduce actual debt levels. So if these talks are successful, then instead of a $1.5 trillion deficit each year, perhaps we only suffer a $1.2 trillion deficit. Meanwhile, the debt continues growing. This is "success" in Washington.

Clearly, this is bullish for precious metals. It means more of the same - more spending, more debt, and necessarily more money-printing.

Over the past 50 years, the US debt ceiling has been raised over 70 times. In other words, there is no ceiling at all - it is as fictitious as the idea that central planning works, or that the US has anything resembling a "free market."

So, I guess it stands to reason that regardless of the debt ceiling increase, it is likely that the US will be downgraded by one or more ratings agencies. The effect will be massive because the world's largest pension, mutual, and sovereign wealth funds typically mandate investment only in AAA-rated securities. A downgrade of US debt means those funds must immediately sell off their primary reserve asset. The effect of this cannot be overstated, and gold would be the first and best refuge for an onslaught of orphaned capital.

Despite gold once again hitting new highs, I can only recommend my readers continue to keep a healthy portion of their portfolio in precious metals. Given the sad realities of the US fiscal and monetary situation, it's prudent to assume that nothing will be solved by August 2nd.

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