Long Silver John

On Gold and Silver Coin Shortages

I can't imagine any legitimate reason why a gold/silver repository would not eagerly want an independent audit and publish the findings. It's pretty fundamental to their mission of safeguarding other's property.

Silver Backwardation Ends

I haven't yet put any money into GoldMoney, but I did read their patent. Notably, their patent rights depend on them maintaining 100% ratio of electronic gold grams and actual physical grams in storage. That point of discipline would help keep in check any tendency to begin issuance of electronic goldgrams in excess of stored physical inventory (i.e., fiat money creation). The other thing is that their inventory is audited, unlike Comex.

Gold as an Inflation Hedge

It's pretty simple: physical gold and silver are the only assets I can think of where I no longer have to trust anyone. Our history is replete with examples of how the government, their banking pals, industry and others having control over money can't be trusted. For fun, read the "gold cases" from the US Supreme Court in the 1930's, where they turn themselves into a pretzel to renege on the plain promise stamped on every Gold Certificate, that it can be redeemed for gold coin. They completely reneged on that promise.

Gold Set for Huge Rally

Just finished reading Rothbard's History of Economics, going back 2,000 years. An artificial increase in money supply (by debasement, issuance of fiat currency, etc) has never had any effect other than to lower the value of the currency. It can sometimes be masked by countervailing real-world situations (e.g., deflation caused by technological increases in production, flight to the dollar), but in the end it causes inflation. What's scary is how the governments/IMF are manipulating the price signals that we usually rely on to see where things are really headed.

Revisiting the Weimar Gold and Silver Ratio

Buy physical. It's the only asset not exposed to government confiscation or private fraud by counterparties.

High Premiums on Silver? Better to Buy Gold

So what happens if Dubai uses its new EFT to corner the market on Silver? As a sovereign nation, I doubt it's subject to commodity trading or anti-competition rules (just as OPEC gets away with antitrust behavior).

Why wouldn't they try to get a spike up in prices after carefully accumulating a large stockpile?