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Why Are Russia And China Hoarding So Much Gold?
Will oil soon be traded in a currency that is thousands of years old? What would a “gold for oil” system mean for the petrodollar and the U.S. economy? Are Russia and China hoarding massive amounts of gold because they plan to kill the petrodollar? Since the 1970s, the U.S. dollar
has been the currency that the international community has used to trade oil around the globe. This has created an overwhelming demand for U.S. dollars and U.S. debt. But what happens when the rest of the globe starts rejecting the increasingly unstable U.S. dollar and figures out that gold can be used as a currency in international trade? The truth is that it doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure that out. Demand for the U.S. dollar and U.S. debt would fall off the map and there would be a rush into gold unlike anything we have ever seen before. So are Russia and China accumulating unprecedented amounts of gold right now because they eventually plan to cut the legs out from under the petrodollar and they want to gobble up huge stockpiles of gold before the cat is out of the bag? Of course they will never admit this publicly, but there are Read more…
Gold Sellers in Houston Must Submit to Fingerprints and Mugshots
Instead of reducing crime, the new law will instead put a damper on the sale of gold, silver and other precious metals
Last week the Houston City Council passed an ordinance requiring people who sell precious metals to be fingerprinted and photographed.
According to KTRK-TV, the ordinance is “meant to help track down criminals who try to resell stolen valuables. Gold-buying businesses will now be required to photograph and fingerprint sellers as well as photograph the items that are being sold to the dealer.” In other words, citizens who sell gold will be considered criminals until they demonstrate otherwise.
“It’s going to allow us the tools necessary to combat a lot of the high-end jewelry thefts that’s going on in the city, whether it’s robberies or burglaries,” Houston Police Officer Rick Barajas told the news station last Wednesday.
Audi S8s, Shelby Mustangs, BMW M5s, Dodge Chargers and Honda S2000 roadsters are stolen thousands of times a year and yet people who own them are not required by government to be fingerprinted and photographed in Read more…
China May Now Have World’s 2nd Largest Gold Reserves
Today acclaimed money manager Stephen Leeb stunned King World News when he said the Chinese may already have the world’s second largest gold reserves, eclipsing Germany to grab the number two spot. Leeb knows China is incredibly secretive about its insatiable accumulation of gold, and believes they are not fully disclosing their entire gold position to the world at this point. Here is what Leeb had to say: “I’m focused on precious metals and this fascinating battle between the East and the West, Eric, especially China and the United States. There is an economic ‘Battle Royale’ going on right now, and I think the Chinese definitely have the upper hand.”
Stephen Leeb continues:
“They have a stronger economy and a clear plan as to what they want to accomplish. They have a much longer-term perspective, and this spells very, very tough times for the United States.
I wish it weren’t true, and I wish this country would wake up. But everywhere I look right now I see limited Read more…
Gold and Silver Registration in Illinois
A bill to register gold and silver coins: It had to come. It has been introduced in Illinois, the most anti-gun state in the USA. … Creates the Precious Metal Purchasing Act. Provides that a person who is in the business of purchasing precious metal shall obtain a proof of ownership, create a record of the sale, and verify the identity of the seller. Provides that a person who is in the business of purchasing precious metal shall not pay for the precious metal in cash and shall record the method of payment. Requires the purchaser to keep a record of the sale for one year or, if the purchase amount is over $500, for 5 years. Provides that a person who violates the Act is guilty of a petty offense and subject to a fine not exceeding $500. Provides that the Attorney General may inspect records, investigate an alleged violation, and take action to collect civil penalties. − TeaPartyEconomist.com
Dominant Social Theme: This is to keep everyone safe.
Free-Market Analysis: Thanks to economist Gary North for this one. The bill, Illinois SB3144, passed the state senate in the spring and was handed off to the house this fall. With three Read more…
Chart Of The Day: Chinese November Gold Imports Soar To 91 Tons; 2012 Total 720 Tons
Regular readers are familiar with our monthly series showing the inexorable surge in Chinese gold imports. It is time for the November update, and it’s a doozy: at 90.8 tons, this was the second highest gross import number of 2012, double the 47 tons imported in October (which many saw, incorrectly, as an indication of China’s waning interest in the yellow metal), and brings the Year to Date total to a massive 720 tons of gold through November. If last year is any indication, the December total will be roughly the same amount, and will bring the total 2012 import amount to over 800 tons, double the 392.6 tons imported in 2011.
Indicatively, should the full year total import number indeed print in the 800 tons range, it will mean that in one year China, Read more…
Why is Putin stockpiling gold?
Russia is bulking up its gold reserve
By Brett Arends
I can’t imagine it means anything cheerful that Vladimir Putin, the Russian czar, is stockpiling gold as fast as he can get his hands on it.
According to the World Gold Council, Russia has more than doubled its gold reserves in the past five years. Putin has taken advantage of the financial crisis to build the world’s fifth-biggest gold pile in a handful of years, and is buying about half a billion dollars’ worth every month.
It emerged last month that financial gurus George Soros and John Paulson had also increased their bullion exposure, but it’s Putin that’s really caught my eye.
No one else in the world plays global power politics as ruthlessly as Russia’s chilling strongman, the man who effectively stole a Super Bowl ring from Bob Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots, when they met in Russia some years ago.
Putin’s moves may matter to your finances, because there are two ways to look at gold.
On the one hand, it’s an investment that by most modern standards seems to make no sense. It generates no cash flow and serves no practical purpose. Warren Buffett has pointed out that we Read more…
Silver at four-month high amid QE3 hopes
Silver prices touched their highest level in more than four months on Monday as the prospect of a fresh bout of quantitative easing from the US Federal Reserve rekindled interest in the precious metal.
Investors have largely shunned silver this year after being burnt by a year of wild price swings that saw it touch a 30-year high in April 2011 before plunging nearly 35 per cent in a fortnight.
But silver, whose primary use is industrial despite a recent surge in investor demand, has jumped 15.8 per cent in price in the past three weeks and on Monday peaked at $32.20 a troy ounce.
The gains have outpaced those of gold,
which has risen just 5.2 per cent over the same period.
The “mint ratio” between the two precious metals, a favorite trade of hedge funds and other investors, has moved 9 per cent in silver’s favour since mid-August – the first time silver has outperformed Read more…
Silver prices jump, playing catch-up to gold
Silver prices shot up 4.5 percent Tuesday, playing catch-up to gold.
Silver is both a precious and an industrial metal. Traders can buy it to hedge against a volatile stock market, as they do with gold. But it can also be used to make products like computer chips, meaning prices can rise when traders expect demand from manufacturers to go up.
In March contracts, silver rose $1.616 to $37.14 per ounce. It’s up roughly 10 percent from where it was a year ago.
Sterling Smith, senior market analyst at Country Hedging in St. Paul, Minn., said part of the reason silver is surging is that traders believe it’s Read more…
Silver may continue to outperform others
Silver has displayed a smart rally in the current year so far, rising 21.2 per cent from January onwards. And, there are indications it would continue to outperform other metals like gold and copper. This would be good news for India’s largest silver producer, Hindustan Zinc, as the metal is likely to contribute 14-20 per cent to its Ebitda (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation) margins.
Barclays Capital’s commodity outlook says: “The current profile of our price forecast suggests precious metals would be the strongest sector in 2012. We expect silver to reach $38 and rise even further in the third quarter of 2012, before profit booking sets in. At present, it is in a consolidation mode.”
Barclays says physical demand has been driving silver for the past few weeks.(Click here for graphs)
Following record gains in silver in late 2010 and early 2011, prices crashed towards $25. Since then, they have rebounded to $33-36. Currently, silver is facing strong Read more…
Key Players Buying More Gold Now
Investor appetite for gold is heating up, in part because of signals from hedge fund guru John Paulson, the guy who saw the real estate meltdown coming in 2007 and became a billionaire as a result.
The Paulson & Co. founder “told investors it’s time to buy the metal as protection against inflation caused by government spending,” Bloomberg reported today.
Bloomberg reported that 12 of 22 companies surveyed had a buy on gold, with five surveyed neutral.
Paulson & Co., the largest owner of the SPDR Gold Trust Exchange Traded Fund, which trades in gold futures, cut its position in 2011, Bloomberg reported earlier, probably to cover losses in securities.
A Feb. 14 SEC filing showed Paulson & Co. with $2.9 billion worth of SPDR shares, according to Bloomberg’s latest report.
Meanwhile, central banks—even as they act to inflate Read more…
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