Just for general info, I promote a total metals based monetary system in lieu of the hope of ever having a totally honest governmental/monetary non-debt-based system! SHOULD that EVER happen, then I would quickly change the monetary system to a 'handshake'; I.E. 'My word IS as good as gold, or better'! Wake me up when that happens......

Looking to purchase some gold and plat coins soon, would appreciate knowing what the best deal would be. ( mapleleafs, eagles ect.? )

Thanks in advance.

Barney, that will work very nicly thanks.

LGB -- I think this comment might be best directed at you, though I'm sure a few others might 'look' at it more than once: This century will go down in history as the dark ages! I'll bet that you can't conceive it as such in your wildest imagination!

You are very welcome for the site. Yes he updates it in the morning and again in the evening. I read it twice a day and I'm very impressed with the work that Steven Jon Kaplan does.

I wouldn't want to wake you, it is indeed a worthy Dream! "Those were
the days".However as they say "you stumbled into the truth" when you
say that "the people" will use other other metals. Historically, Silver has been called "The Poor Man's Gold", and I vaguely recall in the 1970's
that at one point Silver actually lead Gold up CB'S could not interfere as
much. I wonder what the impact is of these currency deaths on Silver demand WORLDWIDE?

Nomercy: This is your time in the sun. The B of Canada was buying $ to shore up the C$ today. The cause is Asian selling of Canadian debt in favour of US debt. This means we are getting close to the problem of the U$ being the last holdout against the Asian flu. Expect C rates to go up tomorrow. Big question is how important is this . Good for exports bad for consumers buying Asian products until they start competing amongst themselves Real bad timing for Florida and Arizona resort owners expecting Canadian snowbirds during the next 3-4 months.

Eldo

Metal based currency, yup, however, i would like to add another idea and throw it into the ring. Years ago I read a polemic in the Wellington library about wheat and gold. Unfortunately, I am told that most books on gold are out right now ( another unorthodox index for SDR_er ) , so I shall have to rely on far from perfect memory.

Some days ago I posted a challenge to spell the relationship between wheat and gold, I am not sure if the lack of response was because noone reads me ( and i wouldn't read me- a la Groucho ) or because nooone knew.. any way, for the first time on kitcom ( does that mean the lefties have taken over kitco? ) the relationship bewteen gold and wheat;

there are 480 grains in a troy oz

480 grains of wheat.

why 480? That is rather obscure, but there are 24 grains in a pennyweight, and 20 pennyweight in a troy ounce

It was discovered ( ?? ) that and measurement of 480 grains of wheat had the same weight, this is a manifestation of the law of large numbers, the variance is small enough to be ignored. That weight became the Troy ounce.


And so on to the monograph, the author ( was written in 1930's I recall ) advocated the adoption of a dual gold/wheat standard. The idea was similar to the separation of capital and interest. A paper currency could be issued by a nation that was backed both by gold and the food production of that country. ( This production was measured by the staple, wheat, rice, maize, barley, whatever ) This, said the author was a measure that would allow the CB to fairly back the domestic currency, this fairness ( ie strength of both capital and income- keeping the citizens fed ) would translate into the readiness or reluctance of other countries to accept the first currency in trade exchanges. The comfort to the accepting country is that the currency can always be exchanged into gold/food, according to criteria and details long since forgot




aurasowthewheatthendigthegoldthenprosper

Peter Munk knows exactly what he is doing...

You on the other hand need to break out a few of your old Finance books and do a bit of reviewing.

As a share holder of a nice bit of ABX I am very happy to see that the plan calls for buyback of 10% of outstanding shares ( that should be about 31 million shares ) at the prevailing low market price.

This will not only support the stock price from further decline but increase the inevitable upswing when the market makes a bottom and heads up.

From the point of view of increasing shareholder value this is one of the best uses of cash on the books. The other would be to float some bonds at a favorable rate before ratings drop further and start acquiring the juniors while they are still at bargain basement prices.

I can think of several targets.

Selby -- Inflation is, as deflation does! Or shall we simply say expendable personal resources, regardless how many 'bucks' are in the system somewhere. Infaltion/deflation; Two headed coin, as I've said.

Eldorado: Right. I don't care about the Florida and Arizona resort owners. I love the cold and snow and the sking and the slush and the air so cold my nose puckers-- but I have my heart set on a cheaper Lexus.

Thanks for the Great news...I have been looking at a real estate workout deal in Florida were a large percentage of the owners are Canadian residents. This should allow me to offer less in US dollars....and it will go further for the Canadians as they stay home this winter and watch their dollars a bit closer than usual.

Aurator -- I fail to understand the whole basis of 'backing' a currency when the currency CAN BE the 'backing! USE THE METALS as THE currency! What could be simpler and safer? As I said, if someone or some company wanted to write a note against their holdings of it, that is their business. If someone wants to loan out or speculate with their excess, that is their business. If a government official ( S ) overstepped their Constitutional fiduciary responsibilities, shoot the SOB! Use the KISS philosophy! That is, 'Keep-It-Simple-Stupid'!

PI, agree that in general, share buy back good for remaining shareholders ( this had only recently been allowed in NZ, previously it was illegal ) , but, ask John Disney about ABX cf other properties, esp in S Africa..I suspect that analysts put a too high risk premium on S AFrica. What does that say about relative value?

Please direct me to any other websites that track either cash market or derivative prices for any other global commodity, through the 24 hour clock like Kitco does. Currencies, equity index, bonds, even agricultural markets...I'm very interested in the pulse of commerce. Thanks very much.

Private Investor: This could be your moment. My hope is that the C rates go up about 2% so I can lock in some good rates in new bonds--despite the end of the world possibilities in favour someplaces. Buying Canadian owned Florida property looks good to me. Even the air fare might go up enough to keep the snowbirds grounded this winter. I plan to avoid the whole fly south issue this year and stay warm by my monitor.

Nice point....

I have often made the argument to my Japanese business associates that the wheat fields of the midwestern USA are more valuable than all the land in Tokyo....

And this was nearly a decade ago when Tokyo land values were up and rising....

I would argue that just because a bank was willing to collaterialize Tokyo real estate for a loan of $100,000,000.00 did not make it more valuable than acreage that would feed 1,000,000,000 people.

You must also remember that alot of the ASIAN REAL ESTATE BUBLE WAS DIRECTLY RELATED TO TAX POLICY. Real estate assets if sold were taxed at the rate of nearly 100% of profits, therefore it made no sense at all to ever sell real property because there was no real gain.It also played into the mix of lowering available supply of real estate while over population increased the demand...viola....skyrocketing real estate value...until the bubble burst...

Selby -- S__t happens. Especially with currency 'confidence' plays! Enjoy.

Eldo, the problem is liquidity of the metals, assuming we are talkin Au and Ag only, settlement of transactions in metal is impractical, there isn't enough in existence for the PMs to *be* currency without alloyin with another metal, And then you get back to the old problem with debasement of the metal, shaving the coins etc. ie recall all the 2023 silver eldorados ( 9875 ) with brand new 2024 silver eldorados ( 9200 ) , kings and queens, ceasars and tyrants were doing it for centuries.

Watch the incorrectly attributed Gresham's law in action with a total metal-backed system.

No, a gold/asset *backed* paper currency is imho the only way to encourage trade.

Eldorado: Going to do my best. Night.

This should be illegal. It is stealing through awareness arbitrage. Until you figure out that the dollar being paid to you is devalued through money creation, you continue to charge the old price. By increasing money supply and "fighting" inflation ( awareness ) , the Federal Reserve is stealing from you in broad daylight.

The primary reason why share buybacks are looked at ith disfavor is because they can be used to manipulate share price. The SEC in the USA does not allow buybacks to take place in the final half hour of trading....this is because the companies can window dress after a bad day to make every thing look ok..

BEWARE THE SEC IS CONSIDERING CHANGING THIS RULE TO ALLOW COMPANIES TO MANIPULATE THEIR STOCK ALL THE WAY UP TO THE CLOSING BELL .... this scares the daylights out of me... but on the whole under such current conditons it helps to mop up some delution.

Japan and Hong Kong do not seem to be sharing South Korea's pain. Does anyone have the ranking of the worlds economies? When does South Korea slip to number 12?

PI re Japan & real estate, yes, and what most analysts fail to understand is that the Japanese shareholder in a company would expect the company not to pay dividends. In fact the Japanese shareholder would be averse in investing in a dividend-paying company.

The logic goes something like this,... I have given my savings into the hands of these captains of industry and banking, they know more than I do, it would be foolish of me to take money away from these people ( not the company now ) when I have already given it to them. The directors must make profits, out of these profits, we make more profits, reinvestment, R & D, if a company pays me money, what does that say about the company? they are not keeping up, they are falling behind.


I apologise if I offend any one with this... it is my musings from reading and observing...

auratoratoratora

Aurator -- Amazing what they'll do to inflate the currency, isn't it. If you print money FIXED on the value of gold, then that NEEDS to be sancrosanct! However, the value of goods is always based on the current value of the gold, and otherwise. Things DO fluctuate relative to each other. I believe those societies were importing more goods in exchange for gold than they were exporting. Not good! The least they should have done is exchange goods for goods at the border with a net of zero. Essentially, when you become a net importer of goods, you are doomed, as you now have little to offer and your inherent wealth gets 'distributed'. Your society now has to start over.

But ofcourse my friend...that is how the game is played...but as long as the wage slave does not figure this out it shall continue...THIS IS THE REAL STORY THAT SHOULD BE COVERED ON NBC'S NIGHTLY FLEECING OF AMERICA SEGMENT...

Every nation in the world does it....the japanese are currently ( printing ) increasing their money supply by 1% every single day in hopes of averting a meltdown....this is a central banks main obligation to act as lender of last resort and make certain that there is enough liquidity in the system to flw smoothly...It is not a plot!

Anyone have the latest scores in ASIAN markets?

Aurator- Thanks for the grains of wheat, grains of gold explanation. I always have wondered about the use of "Grains" as a name for a weight. Unfortunately these days with the price of diesel, labor, equipment,etc.relative to the POG I rarely use grains anymore. Just not enough to bother with. Sorry about the "nothing to Crowe about" comment last night.

"this is a central banks main obligation to act as lender of last resort and make certain that there is enough liquidity in the system to flw smoothly...It is not a plot!"

So what we are saying is that through money creation, the Federal Reserve steals from the seller and gives to the buyer ( in the short run, before expectations match reality ) and the FDIC redistributes ( steals ) from the population at large for the benefit of the saving minority in the form of account insurance. Go modern fiat banking system go!

PI -- Every governments solution to the 'problem'; through 'money' at it in the hope that the problem will go away. They don't seem to realize though that they are further enslaving the people with increased debt servicing. Makes for a 'swell' attitude!

For the little things you steal, they throw you in jail. For the big things you steal, they make you king!

No, I don't have RYO but saw several recommendations. Just a small investor but it's fun ( meant to say it was fun until recently. ) About 25% in nat. res. stocks rest in cash:

1/3 Au stocks: largest holding is NEM which I got upon the acquisition of GLD. 1/3 Ag stocks. 1/3 other nat. res. stocks.

Firm believer in the 2nd Amendment and the reasons the Founding Fathers put it in the Constitution.

themissinglink -- Change jail to 'clink'. Better but not perfect. But otherwise a damn fine line! Perhaps 'too' fine, in the sense of being truthful!

Thanks, although I am just passing it along from my failing memory. I remember it with a Mexican accent.

G'Night!

PI
sure I know the reasons to allow, and to regulate buy-backs, I was taught company law by a wily New Yorker ( they're all Wily eh Ted? ) and worked on the markets. thanks for the info that there is talk of relaxing those rules..it is v impt,

auragumshu

Producer

No offense, digger.


Anyone tell me the human population of this sweet gold world? got some figuring to do.. like is there enough Au & Ag to support commerce? i dont fink so, but ..

"the real gold's inside us all
you only fall for lies and stories when you want to"
Steve Goodman


aurafingersandfumbs

Date: Fri Dec 12 1997 00:01
refer

Interesting you mentioned platinum coins. I went in to aske about them myself today. With the way platinum is dropping, platinum coins are starting to look good also. I look at the pressure on paltinum as a last ditched effort to manipulate the pm's. All is going well.

I will get some gold and soon maybe a little platinum.

Japan Nikkei 225 ^N225 1:04AM 15904.30 -145.85 -0.91%

THE SUNERIAN KING WAS DEAD. In the city of Ur, his capitol, the royal court marched solemnly behind the King's bier to the buriel site. The sun's rays created a glittering dance of light as they played across the gold and silver artifacts that adorned the monarch's body. The prococession descended into a deep , sloping pit to the accompaniment of a rhythmic musical sound coming from the gold and silver jewerly worn by members of the court. Some of the courtiers carried more useful objects: Military officers bore golden weapons ; musicians held lyres and flutes made of silver. The King's favorite chariot, worked with both silver and gold, was drawn into the burial pit by oxen. Three score ladies of the court took their places, wearing intricate gold and silver headdresses befitting their rank.

When the procession ended and the priest's prayers were done, the court members drank deeply from gold and silver cups. In a few minutes the narcotic brew had done its work; the courtiers fell into a deep and final sleep. OTHER citizens of Ur, arrayed atthe mouth of the pit, spread a blanket of earth over the royal bier and the lifeless attendants. When the pit was full , a shrine was erected above it to mark the spot where the entire Sumerian court had made the ultimate demonstration of fealty to their sovereign.

Ur was a city of ancient MESOPOTAMIA, LOCATED INLAND FROM THE GULF OF PERSIA IN WHAT IS NOW SOUTHERN IRAQ. the funeral ceremony is now known to have taken place early in the third millennium before the birth of Christ.
Until relatively recently, however, historians believed that the Sumerian civilization of this period existed only in myth.

If not for the tenacious permanence of gold and silver , the highly developed culture of ancient Ur might have remained unknown, its glories lost forever to the ravages of time. Then , in 1927, the British archelogist Sir Leonaard wooley uncovered thefirst of 16 royal tombs at Ur. In the final stages of excavatigng the buriel site, Sir Leonard and his wife sent away their team of diggers so that they could proceed undisturbed, at a careful pace. For 10 days, spent mostly lying on their stomachs from dusk to dawn, the couple painstakingly used knives, brushes and even their breath to clear away the last ofbthe dirt and debris. The skeletal remains they uncovered had turned almost to dust, but the treasure trove of jewelery, weapons, utensils and other objects made of gold and silver remained uncorrupted by time or nature. With the help of an inscribedfoundation stone, they could be dated to roughly 2700 B.C. and thus helped to establish the First Dynasty of Ur as historical fact rather than mere legend, Moreover, the artistic designs showed that early Sumerian metalsmiths had achieved a sophistication that was believed to hAVE DEVELOPED ONLY MUCH LATER--AND NOT IN SUMERIA BUT IN ANCIENT EGYPT.

Great durability is a primary quality that sets apart gold and silver-- and the more recently identified platinum family-- --from the other 10 or so elements that constitute all earthly matter. Gold, silver, and platinum aare called the noble metals, a name tht in chemical terminology refers to their outstanding resistance to the corrosion and oxidation that cause base metal such as iron , copper and tin to weaken and disintegrate.But permanence is only one of many attributes that through the ages have erned gold, silver and platinum the accolade " noble" in a broad sense. the metals are strong and heavy, but they are at the same time wonderfully malleable. They can be drawn out to form extremely thin wire and thread, or forcibly shaped without fear of crushing or shattering. They are pleasing to the touch and delightful to the eye. And though the noble metals may be found throughout the world, they are rare enough to stimulate the acquisitive drive in human nature.


you funny fella 20 hundred sometime. Got a bounced e-mail, ask Ted to forward your new 'un please.

LGB
Don't stop posting, I don't agree with much of what you say, but you're learning to say it more engagingly. I shall always read that with which I do not agree. Your ceasing to post is something up with which I shall not put. And a preposition is something you should never end a sentence with. ( Another 2 Churchillian quotes for you Vronsky )


auraprepositioning

Thank you for the Heads up...which Jap bank will be next?

Only the US dollar exists in amounts vast enough to support worldwide comerce in key commodities such as GOLD, PMs, OIl , wheat , grains, etc, etc, remember you need an orderly liquid market...only the dollar is vast enough to play that game without the house of cards coming down.

1 oz gold + 2 pts vodka = rocket fuel

For the Golden Boy

Like a tiresome Greek chorus, Ive been chanting warnings

about ABX for a long time. To see you begin to question

the merits of this outfit warms the old cockels ( ?? ) of

my heart. Can I see 10?? As I posted a few days ago,

I could see 8 ( US$ that was ) .

This share buy back is hype - which is what ABX does

best. If Im not mistaken, they lost money at a higher

gold price, and THEY think they cannot find a better

use for their shareholder's money?? Watch for insider

selling --- I smell rats. All the above IMHO.

Aurator-The initial amount of PM available to the world population must be irrelevant. A finite amount of anything, PM, dollars, pukakoe feathers or whatever distributed ( shall we assume ) evenly would rapidly turn into a zero sum game of global proportions and I am sure Bill Gates would have my game tokens in short order. The current ~3% gain in PM through production is not enough to sustain economic growth. Paper money and all its derivative cousins seem to be the only way to provide the amount of wealth to drive an ever expanding world. Now the responsible stewardship of the paper is another thing. The oft quoted ( Here at least ) passage by Mr. Greenspan about a gold standard being the only thing betwen the public and confiscation of their assets by the government through inflation cuts to the heart of the argument. For without a standard to to be judged by i.e. Gold; who indeed shall guard the guardians.

PI
a grand speach. a speach being a tasty, golden yarn. Thank you. The wonder is, that the gold of UR, the golden coin of Croesus, the golden goblet of Cleopatra, the money-changer's gold in the temples, the gold of Oaxaca, the gold of the Spanish Maine, the gold of the Pirates, any piece of modern gold could, just could have been part of any one of these golden wonders. That is what auric saw and felt. That is why an ounce of gold weighs so much. It is not in the dry metrics I dropped the other day of the difference between the Troy oz or the Avoirdupois oz, no, the reason gold weighs more is simply the weight of human history.

Have you ever held an antiqity?

Have you been inside a 7,000 years burial chamber?

If you have seen or felt an object that has been held or been occupied by humans for a millenium or two, there is a burden or a gift given by the thousands of humans who have held or touched or lived in the place, this is the weight of antiquity, the weight of consistency, the weight of cherishing or coveting, the emotional, pschic weight of humanity. And, before anyone criticises this salty old aurator as becoming some spoon-bending crystal-loving flake, before you do that, have you ever held anything in your hands older than one thousand years?


aurarchaelogist.

for LGB

Learn the words to that song - "Its not what you do it's the way

that you do it "

Any friend of Aurator cant be ALL bad.

Or

As Father Flannagan might have said ( if he was into money games )

"There's no such thing as a bad trader"

Welcome to "Boys Town" - Girls too Coleen you little sweetie.

Great stacks of gold bricks--each one three and five eighths inches wide, one and three quarters inches high and seven inches long-- line the underground vaults of Fort Knox, Kentucky. This main storehouse of the United states gold reserves contains more than 300,000 of these bars, each of which is worth more than $16,000 at the official government rateof $42.22 an ounce--a mere fraction of the market value.

Tell me more....more ....more...

Please fill us in on ABX....

Golden boy recalls that that you are the keeper of pearls of wisdom on this matter.

If the past is any indication of what we might expect, I see a basing pattern for golds and silvers developing from these levels. This should mean a trading range, the size of which should be determined in the next couple of weeks. SSC, for example should trade between 3/4- 1 1/4 for the next couple of months and then I expect a breakout. This from checking my charts that date into the early '70s.
Gold similarly should trade at these levels for a month or two.
The markets, averages, should trade down, also into the February/March '98 period before basing and then going up. Many stocks, should participate in a spring rally, which may either test the recent highs, or surpass them. They may be lead by the small caps, and the cats and dogs, as the old timers used to call them.
If one thinks about it, when a parabolic pattern develops, the top is not a spike formation but a cone shape affair. This may then mean that we may go to new highs, but percentage wise more slowly. Again think of a long term parabolic pattern.
Oh well, we shall see.
The sharp drop in platinum also is a repeat of a pattern from the '70s
when platinum spiked only to come backe and then gold moved up and later platinum surpassed it once again.
RJ, am I mistaken or hadn't you called the shot in silver, not too long ago, where you spoke of a sharp move up to around 620 range where you spoke of laying in shorts, or was that another poster??? If so why the numble pie?

nothing more than a " barbarous relic" of more credulous times....well credulous times are coming to an economy near you this winter/summer.... or at least creeping around the corner sooner than later.

Date: Fri Dec 12 1997 02:19
PrivateInvestor

good question as always. I wish I knew ... I will think on it and see what happens.

I do it is getting time for the bolsa to start moving though. It has been off the radar for awhile and falling.

Brazil Bovespa Index ^BVSP 3:47PM 9109 -353 -3.73%

Seems to me they better be getting the IMF package ready for them soon. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, but its coming soon.

I think the most important thing to remember is that Japan had no time left last week. Not so much for themselves, but they needed to act immediately to help shore up the region. They didn't act they talked. And the region is headed South, as in follow South Korea boys.

I guess my bet is next will be Brazil. Then some important Bank in Europe maybe ING.

Time for sleep - Good Night all,
I will dream the golden dreams of miners,
cold, wet, and bone tired
reach for the hands of morpheous ( sp ) knowing
tomorrow will be the golden day.

For Private investigator-

I will dig out an old diatribe on ABX - which understates costs,

has most expensive reserves of a $/oz basis and tried very hard to

buy bre-x - etc etc blah blah

But first I am dissatified with platinum - as my great prophesy called

for plat to hold 362, gold to hold 480 dm, and 395 swiss. My great

prophecy is falling apart as plat in yen broke a dreaded Gann line

and seems headed for old low of 352 ( ish ) and 45000 yen/oz.

Using Disney's univeral constant of 0.74 or Disney's awful constant of

0.69 would set gold much LOWER unless gold holds in currencies.

Brrrrrrrr

Believe silver has fixed top of up trend channel at 6 bucks - now

do we return to bottom of up trendy ?? This may not be much fun.

What happened to Santa Claus ??

Crusty
May I save you the trouble?
I think this is the one, Bart, Oh Deus ex Machina, may we have a F A Q list plse ( and statistics on the birds at the water-fountain and whence they came?


Date: Wed Nov 26 1997 06:42
John Disney__A ( ) ID#24140: To all
I KNOW you all get really tired of me talking about
this but when anglos takes western areas they are
really getting something pretty hot. Areas has about
70 million oz of reserves. At their present price of
about 5$ they have a market cap of about 460 mill $.
Now work it out. thats 460/70 = $6.50 per oz of
reserves.
Lets compare with ABX ( my favorite company hehe ) .
At 17$, we have a market cap of $6340 million for 51
million oz. That 6340/51 = 125 $ per oz of reserves.
Lets look at Lihir, 42 million oz and a cap
of 900 million shares at say 1 dollar a share ( ?? ) or
900 mill/42 mill = 21$/oz.
Anglos could always get Vaal Reefs,southvaal, etc.
Their problem was taking wes areas, joel, and Randfontein
away from JCI.
Anglos is BIG TIME with 32 % of de Beers as well
as minorco rusplats samacor etc - its already a resource
base monster.
Someone asked about Rothschild ( ? ) interest or
influence in RSA. Well if there is any it would be via
deBeers and in Anglos I imagine. So if a guy was really
clever and wanted to take JCI's pants off ( namely Mzi
Khumalo and Brett Keeble ) and pick up quality reserves
for well under $10 a oz - it might be worth assisting
in driving the price DOWN for a while until JCI shakes
their gold interests loose.
One thing is sure, if it went that way, we will
never know.


auracopyandpaste

We had a brown out ( first one in a long time ) here that went black. It totally jacked my 'puta. I don't know what happened to my e-mail and it is screwing with my data gathering programs also. I am vewy MAD :- ( ( . I will have the problem fixed tomorrow....maybe.......of course I may have a new server by then too. Hell, I don't know and am tired. I was working on a project right before I got putajacked. Lost ALL my info and someone will hang by the thumbs.....dammit!!!

I'm getting the dreaded POP server error something or other.......I must learn to be more literate when it comes to these blessed things. Ted will not be able to get through either....I don't think.

hold your thought........

away...to sleepy sleep

gonnaripanewaholetomorrow

go gold.............I think it will be time to collect ( friday ) .....just a gut ;- )

With Korea down 7% and Indo down 8% at the moment per Bloomberg and gold down $1.10 per DBC we have an anomaly. Thats right, a very strange condition. This will not last and the yeller metal will soon get more attention. I suspect losing in four days on the NYSE the big gain of the previous five days is just a start. The CB's have a real challenge facing them. And Eldorado, I agree, we have to have liquidity in the financial system and for a long time the dollar has supplied that but will faith in the dollar last forever with the political leadership we have had? And yet, the globex at the moment shows the NYSE will open some higher? Insanity rules!

 move over, I'm coming to bed too.

Sorry, crusty, don't think it was the one you meant.


Nick@C Tiriti ( tha's Maori for Treat ) of Waitangi ( that's grieving waters ) coins? can you scan and post a pic?

aurazzzzzz

RJ & parrotheads u seen this Jimmy ( not Warren ) Buffet lyrics entire

Now. move over B! zzzzzz

RJ

http://www.soasoas.com/glc/index.html#3

For Aurator/private investigator

tanks salty for takin da pressha offa me wid dis gumshoe heah.

I tink a gottanodda diatribe somewhere. I gotta go and get

some eats now.

Robby,

Per your query on websites, for forex quotes and "stuff" on crude
oil, metals, et al, you might try Reuters.com. Bloomberg.com
also does a reasonable job. Finally, The South China Morning
Posts website is excellent for news and updates on Asia equity
markets.

Hope I've been of some help.

How much of those Western Area "reserves" you mentioned can be commerically mined at a cash cost equivalent to the current gold price and how much could be mined at a cash cost of less then US$250.

Looking at the quality of the reserves.

PARIS ( MktNews ) - The European Central Bank will hold gold as part of its reserves, Banque de France Governor

Jean-Claude Trichet said Thursday.

Trichet declined to confirm the 5% gold holding suggested in a reporter's question, but noted that the figure did "not

correspond to anything he had heard".

There had been preliminary exchanges among European monetary officials on the question, but there was no

agreement to make discussions public.

He confirmed, however, "there will be gold in the ( ECB ) reserves".

http://www.economeister.com/news/1997_12/11/101700mo.htm

December 12, 1997
Gold Mines Start Cutting Output
As Price Slump Tarnishes Metal

By NEIL BEHRMANN
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

LONDON -- First the slide, then the
attrition.

More gold mines are beginning to close
or slash output and will cut further if the
commodity remains depressed for a long
time or falls even further, analysts say.

Gold languished at $285 at London's
close, down 22% from the year's highs.
Adjusted for inflation, the price is back
to levels last seen early in 1973, when it
traded at $80, analysts say. Reflecting
market worries about the impact on the
miners, the South African gold stock
index is 58% lower from its highs this
year, the Australian and Canadian gold
indexes are 53% lower and the S&P
index of U.S. gold stocks is down 45%.

"If gold remains around $280 an ounce
well into the new year, 13.8 million
ounces, or 22% of Western gold
production, will be at risk," estimates
John Barker, an analyst at RBC Dominion
Securities. "Out of 64 gold-producing
companies we monitor, 25 aren't
profitable at current costs of production,"
he says. A prolonged gold depression
won't only cause closures, but mines will
be forced to restructure operations and
postpone exploration and development
of new mines, he says.

"It is exceedingly difficult to gauge
future cuts," says Roger Chaplin, head of
research at T. Hoare & Co. In the past
year, mines in Australia, North America
and to a lesser extent South Africa, sold
forward a sizable proportion of gold at
much higher prices on the derivatives
market, he says. Yet if the price
depression lasts for 12 months, mines
could easily slash production by more
than 10 million ounces, he says.

The South African gold industry, which
produced 15.9 million ounces last year,
will suffer most, analysts say.
Meanwhile, producers in North America
and Australia are also biting the bullet,
says Paul Burton, editor of the
International Gold Mining Newsletter.
Already, 10 producers around the globe
announced closures or the intention to
cut back about three million ounces, or
5%, of Western production, he
estimates. And mines are abandoning
many newly uneconomic exploration and
development plans, Mr. Burton says.

"On the basis of production costs, only
about half of Western mines, producing
63 million ounces, would be profitable if
they sold gold at $285 an ounce,"
estimates Stewart Murray, managing
director of Gold Fields Mineral Services
Ltd.

"Of course it is gloom and doom at the
moment, but if there are sizable
production reductions, gold could rally
and save several mines," says Martin
Potts, an analyst at Williams de Broe.

S+P futures up 5.20~~~~~~~good mornin all!

December 12, 1997
Edit Page Features Greenspan's Dilemma

By CLAUDIA ROSETT

Confused about the manic swings of today's global economy? You should be. Over the past 15 years or so, the mix of advancing technology and more open markets has wrought a revolution in world finance, trade and production. Even for experts supposed to be guiding us through all this, the complexities quickly turn baffling. Just ask Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, whose job is to manage the U.S. money supply, and whose single most illuminating remark in recent times may well have been that, "in the current state of our knowledge, money demand has become too difficult to predict."
True enough. Capital now flows around the globe on a scale trillions of dollars beyond anything possible just a generation back. Demand for funds is more than ever a moving target. The U.S. booms, setting records for stocks and job creation. Meanwhile, in a welter of competitive devaluations and wrecked financial institutions, much of Asia seems poised to fall back into the abyss. Japan has gone from Juggernaut Inc. to the world's biggest rotten bank system. Gold is turning into dross, plunging more than 30% against the dollar since 1996. And for every pair of economists there are the usual three opinions over whether gold's drop portends world deflation or just cheaper jewelry.

Great Depression

It would all be a touch less bothersome were there fewer parallels to events preceding the Great Depression of the 1930s. That remains an episode about which there is much smart theorizing but as yet no sure understanding--except that clearly it was an experience the world does not wish to repeat. So who, or what, is keeping us all safe? If there is one man most in charge of the course the world's economy now steers, it is arguably Mr. Greenspan. Whether or not he knows how to predict the demand for money, he is at least the single best-placed person in the world to influence supply. Standing athwart the dollar, Mr. Greenspan's mission as head of the Fed is to manage the U.S. money supply--via open market sales and purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds--so as to maximize the long-run sustainable growth of the U.S. economy. The core of that task involves providing for a predictable, and preferably steady, value of the world's single most vital financial instrument, the dollar.

And so it's the world, not just the U.S., that will be looking anxiously to Mr. Greenspan this Tuesday, when he next chairs a meeting of the Fed's Open Market Committee--to debate the appropriate price, or interest rate, for the dollar.....

Harder to Answer

The current economic crisis in Asia has made such questions all the more
pressing, even as it has also made them harder to answer. The falling price of gold--traditionally an indicator of the dollar's value--has left some analysts wondering whether the U.S. is heading into a deflation. This would penalize debtors and might help explain the buckling of heavily leveraged Asian economies such as Thailand and South Korea. But in a world of swiftly proliferating, ever more sophisticated financial instruments, there is now a school of thought that gold is falling
simply because it has become for investors a less interesting store of
value than alternatives such as the dollar itself.

That sounds interesting, but what does it leave Mr. Greenspan to look to as a benchmark? A clear answer would be a help to the world, but maybe the best we can hope for is that Mr. Greenspan--as he ponders such
problems--might start to share with a world at least as puzzled as he is, the details of the Fed's internal debates.


Ms. Rosett is a member of the Journal's
editorial board.

Hey Ted ( welcome to the world outside the sack ) and others of this august forum. It looks like gold and silver are slouching back in a most disgusting fashion. Straighten up you two and fly right. That ought to do it. Now to parrot the joke of the day.

While Bill, Hillary and Chelsea were vacationing at Camp David the
housekeeper was tasked with looking after their pet parrot.
They hadn't been gone for more than a couple of days when the parrot
was found dead in the bottom of it's cage.

The housekeeper knew the first family would be desolate at the loss
of one of their family pets, so she set out to find a replacement bird
and visited nearly every pet store in Washington.

After nearly two days of looking no-stop, she came across an almost
exact duplicate of the bird. As she purchased the parrot, the shop
owner cautioned her that the bird had previously be owned by a Madam and
had lived for several years in a house of ill-repute.

The housekeeper replied that no one would ever know and she took the
bird back to the White House.

The morning after the Clintons return to the White House, Chelsea walked
through the room and the bird said, "Too young."

A little later Hillary came into the room and the bird responded with,
"Too old."

Late that afternoon the President entered the room and the bird said,
"HI, BILL!"

With grand jury activity picking up in Arkansas, I'm

very confident that my extremely well-placed sources

will prove correct when they predicted recently that

the scandal-plagued President and the Mrs. will soon

come under intense legal attack.

On top of everything else, a President who is

weakened and unable to deal with problems like the

eroding financial condition of Asia could prove to be

too much for even Alan Greenspan and his secret

stock market "Plunge Protection Team" to fix.

HERE'S SOMETHING ELSE

TO WORRY ABOUT

BY JOHN CRUDELE

BACK in the spring, this column warned that the

Asian economies were showing signs of trouble.

Nobody cared.

The pundits on Wall Street went into their ugly

American routine, saying "So what! We will survive

without them."

This column then warned that because of the

economic trouble the Japanese might start selling

some, if not all, of the $300 billion worth of U.S.

government securities they own. Again, nobody cared.

The well-paid know-it-alls on Wall Street figured the

Japanese would never sell because interest rates are

much better here. Today, the Japanese have officially

asked Washington to help them sell the bonds because

- high rates or not - they need the money to bail out

their companies.

When the Asian problem became too obvious a

couple weeks ago for even the perpetually optimistic

to ignore, I started to warn that the profits of

American corporations were in jeopardy. Nobody

cared - strike three.

One genius on TV even said, in front of dozens of his

viewers, "We don't sell much over there." Over the

past few weeks, company after company here has

reported financial problems because they do, in fact,

have a lot of business in Asia.

So that this isn't just an "I told you so' column, I will -

for my next trick - tell you what to worry about next.

The Dow Jones industrial average is down just 300

points this week. I say "just" not to minimize the

decline, but to point out that stock prices could drop a

lot more without much provocation.

The next big problem for the stock market could be

seasonality. Stocks, especially small equities, typically

rise in price at the end of the year. This is in

anticipation of what's called the "January effect," when

investors historically have favored small capitalization

shares.

The fact that small stocks aren't behaving as they

normally do should concern investors.

Problem two is next week's triple witching hour -

when stock index futures, index options and individual

stock options all expire at the same time.

This column noticed years ago that traders had a

tendency to boost stock prices during this week.

That's because "cash" is a bad word to most traders.

They'd either take the money from their expiring

contracts and purchase stocks, or roll the money over

into the next quarter's contracts. Either move helps the

market.

The trouble this time is that traders, portfolio managers

and mutual funds may decide that - with the escalating

problems in Asia - they should actually cash in the

derivative contracts. If that happens, next week could

be very ugly for Wall Street.

Third. Nobody really knows the extent of the

problems in Korea, Japan and the other Asian nations.

Each day seems to bring new surprises for Wall Street

to digest. And there's no reason to believe the news

will turn good anytime soon.

Lastly, there's the biggest problem of all, topping even

the Asian situation. And that's the Bill Clinton

scandals.

With grand jury activity picking up in Arkansas, I'm

very confident that my extremely well-placed sources

will prove correct when they predicted recently that

the scandal-plagued President and the Mrs. will soon

come under intense legal attack.

On top of everything else, a President who is

weakened and unable to deal with problems like the

eroding financial condition of Asia could prove to be

too much for even Alan Greenspan and his secret

stock market "Plunge Protection Team" to fix.

http://www.nypostonline.com/business/1610.htm

Peter Munk will never be the success story that John Disney is ( grin thing ) .....ABX sucks so bad they ( S+P ) gave it the highest debt rating of all N.A. ( but all of them suck too ) gold mining companies....

Will you PLEASE take that crash helmut OFF. Every time you put it on the market goes back up.

Henry Cisneros, former Clinton appointee from San Antonio, has been indicted on 17 felony counts.....

That he just bought the Sears Tower in Chicago~~~~~~~~Munk had ONE company failure in his long and illustriuos career and that was in guess where ( NOVA SCOTIA ) with a company called Clairtone----where he made the mistake of joining the gov'ment in a business venture....

Illustrious ( duh ) ......

Question: How could the Dow 'rally' during November, as inflows to mutual funds fell sharply? . Manipulation of free markets, will cost dear, ask the Japanese.

Investors' net purchases of stock mutual funds dropped in

November to the lowest level since March, the industry's

main trade group estimated on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the main factor believed to be hurting stock fund

purchases--worries over Asia's economic mess--also helped boost

bond fund purchases to the highest level in nearly four years.

The Investment Company Institute estimated that net new cash

flow into stock funds totaled $13.5 billion in November, down 26%

from the actual $18.2 billion net inflow in October.

If the November estimate is accurate, it would be the lowest

inflow since March's $10.3 billion. Fund purchases dropped in

March as interest rates rose and stock prices sank.

http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/BUSINESS/t000112411.html

Bond yields fell below 6% yesterday. Ole Buffett looks pretty smart now for buying all those bonds a couple of months ago. Gold ain't goin' nowhere as long as the dollar is STRONG. And the dollar is just gettin' stronger relative to everything else.

Ted, the crash helmut is not necessary. We have Bubba in the White House to protect our investments. As the cottom farmer was heard to have said, "We will fear no weavel". Europe always seems to be the place where the markets start developing civility after a blood letting in the East. I predict the DOW will go up 98.6 today.

What political party dominates in Nova Scotia?

SILVER: Futures lost ground at the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange, after rallying early in the session. The March Comex contract dropped 6.5 cents to $5.81 a troy ounce. Observers said producers took advantage of a surge to $6.16 in early trading to sell.

Fri 12 Dec 97 In the News

The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday, December 12, edition that Barrick

Gold chairman Peter Munk will speak at next month's World Economic Forum in

Switzerland, where he plans to debate the price of gold with the bankers.

The Globe's Allan Robinson writes that Mr Munk says the pronouncements of

pending bullion sales by various central banks have cost nine of Europe's

central banks US$32 billion during the past year because of the resulting

plunge in the price of gold. That loss represents an unacceptable reduction

in taxpayers' wealth, he says. The Swiss plan to sell gold has been a main

factor in the metal's recent decline. Mr Munk says right now the knee jerk

reaction of pessimism which has been accelerating during the past three

months hits every gold mining company the same way. Fear in the market

because of possible future central bank sales have cost Mr Munk and his

shareholders dearly. In the end, Mr Munk believes that the bankers won't

allow the value of gold to be debased at the expense of taxpayers.

The PPT was obviously coordinating Europe for a rescue. Yesterday had to be disconcerting. After the good PPI today report Iwould short the hell out of bonds. As the countries economic difficulties arise BYE BYE dollar and BYE BYE bonds. The gold chart is the most perfect chart I have seenas someone always sells at a downtrend line that could be drawn withj a ruler. The recent intensity of this situation tells one that the world economic and finanncial is precarious indeed.

I said to a frient yesterday try to think of something going on in this country that is not a lie. His son cant get a job ( there are plenty of jobs at 7 per hr ) and he is college educated, the stk mkt is artifically propped up making it a bubble, the govt lies about the "micky D" economy and the Clintons. He said you are right.

Mornin ROR: The STUPID party has a stranglehold on NS politics...Actually the premier ( Mac-somethin ) is in the Liberal ( not what ya think it means ) Party but the ideas of the NDP ( National DUMB Party ) actually are the ones that are in vogue in NS and especially CB....The role of politicians here is to C how much money they can SCAM from Ottawa and other hard-working Canadians....any more ?'s

Debt is now one step above JUNK status....

With the Canadian Dollar near its historic low vis-a-vis the U.S. buck border towns in the USA ( like Calais-Holton Maine ) are in a state of near depression as Americans flock across the border for BARGAINS....

Tort, that joke was a knee slapper!

Internationally acclaimed analyst Gene Inger, is beginning to become interested in GOLDs prospects. ...no doubt the yellow metal is somewhere near at least an interim low point. We view it as a value buy, but not very good as a hedge. As far as gold goes, we prefer stocks to bullion. His complete intra-week report at:
http://www.gold-eagle.com/gold_digest/inger121197.html

Not surprising to see silver back off as it hit 6.22 Wed nite. This was the high in 1995 when there was much more of the stuff arpound and gold was near 400. Will gold drag silver or the other way around and in what direction? The bearishness on gold is startling.

With all due respects, I don't think it's very complicated, buying an asset for $23 that's worth at the most $8 doesn't make much sense and it's purely poor business. So I agree with Jon Disney that it's alot of hype and watch for insider reports. Sure they may have the best credit rating of the mining co's and they probably ought to, but that's because thay have a very low debt to equity ratio which has nothing to do with the fact that their stock is way over valued at 3-1 ratio. The only way a stock buy-back makes any sense is when the asset value of the shares is greater than the price of the stock. Then it's a wise decision.

Down 50 cents~~~~~~EB alert: Ya still lost in cyber-SPACE bro?? PPI down .2% ( better than expected! )

Excuse me, where are you getting your $8 figure for ABX??

To ted ( and skylark )

1. Munk is not a loser and he is much more successful

than I am. Same goes for Bill Clinton. Im not talking

about Munk as you well know oh mighty snide and rude

one, im talking about mining investments. Didnt realize

Peter was a hero you worshipped - Maybe you'll outgrow

that one day.

2. Latest Mining Journal has arrived - Lets look at

some data, lads.

ABX

Shares,mill - 373

Production, mill oz - 3.0

earnings/share year end sept. - minus 0.28$

Average annual gold price to sept - 353$/oz

Reserves - 51 mill oz

Market cap - 6000 mill,$

Cost/oz reserves = 6000/51 = 117$/oz

Company debt,mill = 500

so -.28$/oz * 373 mill = loss of 104 mill for year

so - 104 mill$ on 3 mill oz = loss of 104/3= 35$/oz

so - profit ( -35 ) = revenue ( 353 ) - cost $/oz

so - cost $/oz = 353 + 35 = 388 $/oz

Rather high for world beaters like yourself and Peter

wouldnt you say TED old bean. Above numbers are average

costs as cash costs can lie. P/L statements cannot or

somebody goes to the slammer. This of course gives no

credit for vaunted and hyped forward sales - which of

course would make the costs look WORSE.

For skylark - you must know that I cannot tell

you the future processing cost of the WA 71 mill oz

deposit. But I do believe that the AVERAGE cost will

be MUCH better than anything MUNK comes up with.

For TED please buy as MUCH ABX as you can and

morgage yourself to the hilt to do it. Forget I

suggested watching for insider selling. Im sure this

stock will make you rich and maybe even as famous as

peter and you will maybe even buy a building somewhere

like he did, hey bob.

Be nice if someone checked my numbers to see if I

made a mistake - did this analysis on the fly - not

you TED = you jes keep right on buyin - peter will

take GOOD care of you, you bet.

3 nyah nyah, ted and

4.my daddy can beat your daddy

JAMES DINES LATEST ON GOLD ( December 10, 1997 )

Internationally acclaimed newsletter editor, James Dines, shares his LATEST ON GOLD. Additionally, he calls attention to two of his favorite precious metals stocks: Agnico-Eagle and Stillwater Mining - both are hot-wired to their charts, just CLICK the name. It is also obvious analyst Dines cottons to silver:
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials/dines120997.html

Silver ain't dead yet. Height of the Jupiter sextile is all next week. Regarding the stock market, the Dow's plunge back below the resistance trendline connecting the August and October peaks, after briefly penetrating on the upside, is very ominous.If the Dow cannot go above 8050 convincingly, and then to new highs, look for a little backing and filling, and then a plunge into January. January 22nd is our panic date ( give or take a day or two either way ) as Mars AND Jupiter square NYSE Sun. This HAS to be a jolt, up OR down...but if the Dow can't get back above 8050, it's all over. Great day all, must go off to toil in the "mines."

Last night someone posted that their net asset value was 3.3B divided by 372m sharesd and I get around $8 I don't know if the 3.3b is correct but no one challenged those numbers. Looks like John Disney has most recent.
Peter Munk is very successful. But what he's is beinmg applauded for now is his real estate deals. Could it be that the ABX swan song has begun?? Who's going to be left holding the bag?? Maybe that's another reason for the big time selling lately.

Mike SPOKE....and Silver jumped 6 cents....Oh My!!

for the private Eye and the golden boy.

Look shamus, we got some VERY SENSITIVE GUYS in dis area, know

whad I mean, and my advice to you is

- dont say nuttin about no peter munk

- dont ask no questions about no holocaust

- and dont mention da war.

Watch your back, gumshoe, ya seem like a straight up guy, see ya later

Mike: Jan 22 is Spud's birthday, and the date of the British army's annihilation by low-tech, high-smarts Zulus at Iswallahandra ( sp? ) in Natal. Wonderful movie recounts British stupidity in "Zulu Dawn".

for the private Eye and the golden boy.

Look shamus, we got some VERY SENSITIVE GUYS in dis area, know

whad I mean, and my advice to you is

- dont say nuttin about no peter munk

- dont ask no questions about no holocaust

- and dont mention da war.

Watch your back, gumshoe, ya seem like a straight up guy, see ya later

You de man......

Friday December 12, 8:50 am Eastern Time

U.S. business inventories up in October, sales off

WASHINGTON, Dec 12 ( Reuters ) - Inventories held by businesses piled up in October as sales stalled at factories, wholesalers and at retail outlets, the Commerce Department said on Friday.

Stocks of unsold goods rose 0.4 percent to a seasonally adjusted $1.041 trillion -- twice the 0.2 percent increase forecast by Wall Street economists -- following a 0.7 percent jump in September.

The report adds to signs of a relatively lackluster run-up to the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas holiday shopping season. On Thursday, Commerce said November sales by retail stores of all types of goods from cars to clothing had gained only by 0.2 percent from October.

Friday's report showed that, during October, total business sales fell 0.1 percent to $762.1 billion after a solid 1.3 percent increase in September.

As a result, the inventory-to-sales ratio that measures how long it would take to sell off stocks at the current pace rose to 1.37 months' worth in October from 1.36 months' in September.

Retail inventories were unchanged in October at $320 billion following a 1 percent increase in September. But at the manufacturers' level, stocks of unsold goods were up 0.4 percent to $451.1 billion after a 0.2 percent September rise.

At merchant wholesalers, October inventories climbed 0.6 percent to $269.7 billion following a 1.2 percent surge in September.

Stagnant sales hit all levels of business in October.

Retailers' sales fell 0.2 percent to $213.4 billion after a 0.3 percent drop in September.

Manufacturers' sales dropped 0.1 percent to $335.2 billion after a 1.6 percent gain in September. At wholesalers, sales were flat in October at $213.5 billion following a 2.4 percent gain in September.

At auto dealerships, inventories of unsold cars were up 0.4 percent in October to $89.71 billion after increasing by 0.7 percent in September.

Core rate of PPI was down .1%.....Feb. Gold down .90

xau5:

I am not the writer of the piece to which you refer, I am however well acquainted with the author as he is my brother. Unfortunately ,his partner of the time, Stan Salvigson has recently passed away.

I am flattered that you mistook some of my musings for theirs. Since I spend much time discussing all this junk with my brother I assume some of his views become mine and vice versa.

If you want to email me my address is DAronstein@worldnet.att.net
I'm not too good with keeping up correspondence, ( Strad if you're out their please accept my appologies ) but I try.

To golden boy

Re ABX assets = Mining journal says = $9.63 per share. You are

close enough IMHO. But, I hate to see boyhood idols crumble - first

Peter Munk, next Superman, then Popeye the Sailor oh where will it

end??. What have we started ??

Friday December 12, 7:23 am Eastern Time

US sees "serious problems" for WTO pact-sources

GENEVA, Dec 12 ( Reuters ) - The United States sees ``significant difficulties'' remaining before a global pact to liberalise financial services can be clinched, sources close to U.S. thinking said on Friday.

With only 12 hours to go before the deadline for a deal in World Trade Organisation ( WTO ) talks, one source told Reuters, U.S. negotiators saw ``significant difficulties to be overcome in the quality'' of market access offers on the table.

The sources were speaking as signs grew that the U.S. administration was coming under growing pressure from some key sections of the domestic industry to hold back from a deal, which would involve over 90 countries.

``There are still serious questions ( to be resolved ) ,'' said one. ``The U.S. is doing everything possible to work through the issues, but there is still a distance to go.''

Some sources close to the high-pressure end-game negotiations said one key problem which had re-emerged was the fate of the stake held in Malaysia by giant U.S. insurance firm American International Group ( NYSE:AIG - news ) .

Earlier on Friday, Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said in Kuala Lumpur that his country would not cave in to U.S. pressure to allow more than 51 percent ownership in insurance firms under a WTO pact.

Bill, its obvious we need to encourage Mike to speak up a bit more often, eh? Better yet, that he would tell us when he would speak so we could position well.

JOHN DISNEY: Not asking for future processing costs. If Western has the reserves that you state, then they are proven, probable and capable of being mined at a commerically viable rate. What I am asking is are these "reserves" that you mentioned capable of being mined profitably today at the present gold price and if so, what percentage could be mined profitably if gold were to drop 250 at present operating costs. If you are basing your value of Western on reserves, the answer to this question should be apparent to you.

More particularly can any of these "reserves" be mined at $50 to $100/oz. In comparison, according to Barrick's most recent studies, proven gold reserves at Pierina are around 6.5 million ounces and can be mined at production cost of between $50 and $100. What percentage of Western reserves can be mined at this cost?

Don't be so rational! It's scary~~~~~~

All:

A small tidbit which may have some meaning. Three days ago, before silver took off, the comex contracts were down a few cents. In marking our options positions, I noticed that they had barely declined, and that as a result, the implied volatilities had increased. Yesterday, comex silver was down between 3 and 7 cents depending on the contract. Oddly enough our options positions actually were up across the board. This says to me that the pressure is starting to build for another run. As I've said here before, anomalous strength in options is usually good sign for the underlying.

Dollar hits new 11-year low

Interest rate hike expected after recurrence of
Asian flu forces Bank of Canada to intervene

Friday, December 12, 1997
By Marian Stinson
Money Markets Reporter

The dollar plunged to a new 11-year low yesterday because of speculative selling in Asian
markets, triggering aggressive buying by the Bank of Canada and raising expectations that it will
raise interest rates soon, possibly even today.

The recurrence of the Asian flu also battered Canadian stocks and bonds and prompted the
chartered banks to raise mortgage rates by as much as 35 basis points on terms of six-months to
seven years, reflecting rising costs of financing the loans. A basis point is 1/100th of a percentage
point.

The dollar closed at 70.08 cents ( U.S. ) , down 0.14 cents from Wednesday, the lowest since
March, 1986. It dipped as low as 69.98 cents during North American trading.

The Bank of Canada's reluctance to raise rates added to the selling pressure generated in Asia, said
Harvinder Kalirai, Canadian-market analyst with Idea Inc. in New York. Because heavy buying by
the central bank failed to stem the slide, market players are expecting it to raise interest rates soon,
possibly even today, he added. "The way they've been intervening they have no choice but to [raise
interest rates]."

The stock market losses started in Asia and Europe and carried on in North America. Hong Kong's
Hang Seng index sank 5.5 per cent, Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell 2.6 per cent and losses in most
markets across Europe ranged from 1 to 3 per cent.

The Toronto Stock Exchange 300-stock composite index plunged 109.6 points to 6,644.93, or
1.62 per cent, while the Dow Jones industrial average got clipped 129.80 points to 7,848.99, a
drop of 1.63 per cent.

In New York, semiconductor equipment maker Kulicke & Soffa Industries Inc.'s shares plunged
$6.75 to $18.12 after it warned that the economic slowdown in South Korea would hurt its results.
Lattice Semiconductor Corp.'s shares fell $3.18 to $55.31 after saying that its $3.5-million backlog
in orders to South Korean clients was at risk.

In Toronto, natural resource stocks continued to suffer over fears that demand for exports to Asia
will soften along with commodity prices. Base metal stocks fell 3 per cent, the weakest sector of the
Canadian market yesterday, followed by oil and gas stocks, off 2.7 per cent, and forestry stocks,
down 2.6 per cent.

Despite the selloff, Finance Minister Paul Martin said the continuing turmoil in Asian economies
would not have a major impact on the Canadian economy.

"International markets are volatile and there are periodic bouts such as this but what is most
important is the strength of the Canadian economy," Mr. Martin said outside the House of
Commons yesterday.

"And when you look at our growth, look at job creation, look at our low inflation, the fact is that
Canada is in the midst of a very strong recovery and I feel very confident that that's what's going to
continue. And that, in the end, is what is most important."

"I think that North America economies are very, very strong," he said.

"Obviously, turmoil such as this is not helpful but I'm quite satisfied that the IMF has matters well in
hand and that the individual countries in Asia are prepared to do whatever is required to put their
economies back in order. So I think we're going to have a very good '98."

In a bid to support the dollar, the Bank of Canada bought the currency twice yesterday morning
during North American trading after the Bank of England provided support in European markets.
The Bank of Canada also intervened in Asian markets for the first time in seven years to smooth the
slide.

"When Asian markets are falling, foreigners don't look to Canada as a safe haven," said Jeoff Hall,
an analyst with Technical Data in Boston. Yet many analysts see the Canadian dollar selling as
overdone. "It's taken an unfair flogging . . . but with two black eyes and a bloody nose it doesn't
matter where the next punch is coming from," Mr. Hall said.

Most analysts are forecasting an increase of 25 basis points in the central bank's key rate to 4.25
per cent. However, some say it will take a 50-basis- point rise to bolster confidence in the dollar.

"I think we will see a 25-basis-point increase, especially if we see weakening in the currency in Asia
overnight," Mr. Hall said. "The market laughed off the last rate hike by the Bank of Canada on Nov.
25 and was unresponsive to the Oct. 1 increase," he said. The next day, the dollar dropped to its
first 11- year low of recent weeks at 70.19 cents.

The currencies of Australia and New Zealand were also hammered yesterday as investors
channelled their funds into U.S. dollars.

The selloff in Canadian bonds in the past few weeks prompted the banks to boost mortgage rates
across the board by as much as 35 basis points, lifting the five-year loan rate to 7.05 per cent from
6.70 per cent. The increase boosted the monthly carrying cost of a $100,000 mortgage by $21 to
$703.50.

The one-year rate climbs to 6.10 per cent from 5.90 per cent.

Since mid-November the five-year bond yield has risen 38 basis points to 5.38 per cent and that
increase in the cost of funding mortgages is being passed along to consumers, said Alister Smith,
Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce's deputy chief economist.

CIBC was the first to announce the increases that take effect today. Other banks followed its lead.

With files from Shawn McCarthy in the Parliamentary Bureau and reporter Stephen
Northfield in Toronto.

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Copyright  1997, The Globe and Mail Company
All rights reserved.

and let us know if you see more corelations along these lines.

TODAY: Total for Dec.:

Gold: 77 6,166
Silver 191 8,735

In Late Nov. Gurus estimated no more than 5,000 silver deliveries for Dec. contract.

Friday December 12, 9:17 am Eastern Time

Bank of Canada raises bank rate 50 bps to 4.50 pct

OTTAWA, Dec 12 ( Reuters ) - The Bank of Canada said it raised its key bank rate by 50 basis points to 4.50 percent, effective immediately, by intervening in the money market on Friday.

The move effectively raised the central bank's target range for the call loan or overnight lending rate to 4.00-4.50 percent from 3.50-4.00 percent. The bank rate is the top of the central bank's target range for the overnight rate, and is also the rate at which it lends to financial institutions in its role as lender of last resort. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point.

The move immediately boosted the Canadian dollar to US$0.7075. On Thursday, the dollar fell to US$0.6998, its lowest level in 11 years. Financial market turmoil in Asia, falling commodity prices, and the Canadian central bank's reluctance to raise interest rates had all contributed to the currency's slide.

The Bank of Canada said in a statement after the bank rate hike that the move was aimed at calming markets.

``Volatility in international financial markets, tied to events in Asia, has continued to affect Canadian markets. This action by the Bank is designed to contribute to more settled domestic markets in which investors can focus more confidently on the strong fundamentals favouring non-inflationary growth in the Canadian economy,'' the bank said.

It was the fourth rate hike this year by the Bank of Canada, but it was the first move in more than two years of more than 25 basis points.

"Fool's Gold - When Central Banks Lose Their Lust For Gold, Gold Bugs Should Beware"

Editorial in the Economist, Jan. 1993 when gold around $330. Went straight to $405 in July and finished the year at $395ish.

Perhaps there is some hope after all?

TODAY: :

Gold: 77

Silver: 191

Total for Dec:

Gold: 6,166
Silver: 8,735

Please explain the implications of delvery notices and magnitudes of importance. Thank you kindly.

Thanks silver bull appreciate your efforts.

I was sorry to hear about Arden's trouble.

BEST WISHES ARDEN. Get well fast. We wish your input already.

RJ Please send info on investing with you or your company.
tnx.

Rember the definition of inflation is MONEY SUPPLY not prices.

The definition of PRICE is demand.

SOMETHING IS AFOOT! ALL WEEK the Worlds Largest Stock Exchanges are awash in RED... and those few that are up, barely eked out small gains. Some exchanges plummeted 5-7%. We are talking down markets in ALL the Americas, Europe, Asian & Pacific countries, Africa and the Middle-East... vivid testament to the worsening Domino Effect gripping the entire globe.

Just by extending massive loans to Asian Banks, the IMF IS NOT ADDRESSING THE ESSENCE OF THE PROBLEM: Which is simply that the borrowers cannot repay their debts! UNFORTUNATELY, ASIAN Debtors bit off more than they can chew financially.

It doesn't take a double Ph.D. in Mathematics AND Finance to understand the ludicrous folly of the Asian Banking Debacle looming on the horizon of the Land of the SETTING Sun... and the horrific ramifications which inevitably will ensue.

THIS is the LATEST analysis of the Asian Banking Domino Effect by John Kutyn -
http://www.gold-eagle.com/gold_digest/kutyn120497.html

Internationally acclaimed analyst Gene Inger, is beginning to become interested in GOLDs prospects. ...no doubt the yellow metal is somewhere near at least an interim low point. We view it as a value buy, but not very good as a hedge. As far as gold goes, we prefer stocks to bullion. His complete intra-week report at:
http://www.gold-eagle.com/gold_digest/inger121197.html

Lurker 777 - Great site for historical currency info. Mucho gracias!

SILVER HAS RISEN MORE THAN A BUCK IN RECENT WEEKS

Internationally acclaimed newsletter editor, James Dines, shares his LATEST ON GOLD. Additionally, he calls attention to two of his favorite precious metals stocks: Agnico-Eagle and Stillwater Mining - both are hot-wired to their charts, just CLICK the name. It is also obvious analyst Dines cottons to silver:
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials/dines120997.html

RJ:

My aversion to short sales of commodities is not rooted in my upbringing or my training in business school. My parents are not speculators and have very little interest in the markets. My formal education ended when I dropped out of the engineering school at Cornell U.

As I have said before, 90% of what we do is systematic. This means that a silly computer program looks at a bunch of numbers every day and decides where to place bets.

Up until now, I have found no set of inputs that could successfully be manipulated to produce a good positive return stream from being short commodities. The best I can do so far is to find a nearly flat return stream that has negative correlation to our long only system. We will be implementing this system shortly as it will increase our risk adjusted returns and allow us to increase leverage on the long side.

Commodity markets are asymetric with regards to their risk profiles. There is an absolute level below which prices can not fall. That level is 0. If I buy one ounce of gold at $285, I can not lose more than $285. If I short one ounce of gold at $285 there is no limit as to what I can lose. This might seem like a trite statement but it feeds directly into any systematic approach.

To make money trading, one must buy low and sell high or conversely sell high and buy low. The trick is obviously to determine what is high and what is low. Because the markets are asymetric it is easier to 'know' when they are statistically near low. The same can not be said for high.

I do not deny that commodity prices go down as well as up. So far I have not been able to devise an approach which can capture the downs without getting skewered by the ups. I would gladly pay good money for a system which could do this.

You have made the point that your clients capture interest by being short. This is no different than those who capture the same interest by being short in the futures market. I would even wager that the market pays a higher interest rate on shorts than your firm.

Best of luck on your trading.

Looks like palladium finally dropped. Bart show it at zero on the real time frame. At least on my 'puter. :- )

Wall Street-Dead Terrorist Bounce to replace dead cat bounce .About time for all us cat lovers.Away to see lions at the circus.

EB:

I'm kind of surprised that you haven't already won. With the Asian currencies in complete and total collapse I would have thought that the asset liquidation would have forced enough of the yellow metal onto the market to do the job. It does appear that this forced liquidation is taking its toll on platinum.

Even though my horse is staggering, the damn thing just doesn't want to die. Perhaps you need to call in the good doctor Kevorkian.

HOT NEWS: Steve & Rowena Blizard are proud to announce the birth of their first child, son Nathan on 11th December, 5.19pm Perth ( Western Australia ) Time. Now a day old, he is coming on just fine. Very cute. Mother is coping well. Not sure about Dad! Very tired! If you see the odd break in news articles, this is why!!! Thanks again to all our well wishers several weeks ago. We need it!

BREAKING STORIES:

Jakarta rattled over new health fears for Soeharto

http://www.smh.com.au/daily/content/971213/pageone/pageone6.html

Jakarta's decayed ruling families hostage to crisis

http://www.smh.com.au/daily/content/971213/world/world6.html

Shares slump on global angst

http://www.smh.com.au/daily/content/971213/business/business5.html

Asia: the time is right, but proceed cautiously

http://www.smh.com.au/daily/content/971213/business/business10.html

Red alert for Korea's banks - Korea is in DEEP TROUBLE NOW!

http://www.afr.com.au/content/971213/world/world1.html

ALSO - The latest from the Intelligence Digest:

US prepares for mass casualties in Korean war

The US has asked Japan to draw up contingency plans for receiving

120,000 casualties in the event of a new Korean war.

MIM ( Mt Isa Mines ) crashes to 18-year low as investors bail out

http://www.afr.com.au/content/971213/invest/invest1.html

Insurers refusing to cover Year 2000 Millenium Bug problems

http://www.afr.com.au/content/971213/invest/invest5.html

US locomotive on track for a long uphill ride - The Maverick

http://www.afr.com.au/content/971213/market/markets4.html

Too many eggs in an Asian basket case

No more Letters of Credit for Korean Manufacturers!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.afr.com.au/content/971213/market/markets5.html

IN REVIEW:

Crisis shoves Korea's giants to wall

http://www.afr.com.au/content/971211/world/world1.html

ASIAN BACKWASH HITS RUSSIA

http://www.businessweek.com/1997/50/b3557102.htm

ASIA'S NEXT CASUALTY? Bad banks could clobber China

http://www.businessweek.com/1997/50/b3557097.htm

Whistling past the graveyard in Asia

http://www.businessweek.com/1997/50/b3557052.htm

DEAR IMF: DON'T MAKE ASIA'S FLU WORSE

http://www.businessweek.com/1997/50/b3557152.htm

Rupiah now down 100% for the year

http://www.afr.com.au/content/971210/world/world1.html

Korean Won down by 10%. Down 70% for year.

http://www.afr.com.au/content/971210/market/markets4.html

Clinton shifts strategy on nuclear war

http://www.smh.com.au/daily/content/971209/world/world8.html

Billion-dollar buyouts lead attack on bankruptcy

Korean Shipbuilding Group had 20 times debt to equity!

http://www.afr.com.au/content/971209/world/world1.html

Korean steel hits US & European production

http://www.afr.com.au/content/971208/market/markets11.html

The good, the bad and the ugly banks of Asia

http://www.afr.com.au/content/971204/world/world4.html

BOOKMARK Steves News Page:

( Courtesy of Colin Seymour )

http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~netking/blizard.htm

LONDON, Dec 12 ( Reuters ) - Gold prices could be heading for
a test of the lows either on Friday or early next week as
sentiment remained bearish and market nerves jittery, dealers
said.
"People are looking for a test of $280.00 if the current
level ( around $283.00 ) breaks," one dealer said.
Bullion was fixed at $283.05 per ounce, down from $284.80 on
Thursday.
The fix established a fresh low from August 6, 1979 when
gold fixed at $282.70.
Gold lost Thursday's mild gains as the booming silver market
corrected dramatically from its intraday high of $6.14 bid.
Light physical demand in Asia was overwhelmed by fresh selling
to take gold lower by the European opening.
Some dealers were surprised that the bearish tone continued
with the merest of blips despite relatively positive comments
from Swiss National Bank ( SNB ) vice-chairman Jean-Pierre Roth.
He said gold still had a reserve role and that the SNB would
co-ordinate its proposed gold sales ( probably next century ) . The
SNB would need permission to sell the 1,400 tonnes it sees as
surplus to its needs, officials have said.
"We do not intend to reduce our gold stocks quickly. We are
convinced that gold will continue to play a role as a currency
reserve especially in times of crisis," Roth said in a speech
released ahead of the SNB's annual winter news conference.
Roth also confirmed the SNB had been a lender to the market
since November.
"These are relatively positive comments. But people are
looking for any excuse to bring the price down," one dealer
said.
He said he forecast that the $280.00 level would hold under
test and provoke a short covering rally next year.
Alternatively if $280.00 broke then a fall to $260.00 could
happen rapidly. "The miners are looking to buy back hedges at
$260.00 and use the profits to buy equities," he suggested.
a permanent turnaround in the market would not be seen until
production was turned off.
"At this point it depends on the reaction of producers. I
reckon it will require 500 tonnes of permanent closure to see
the market move up," another dealer said.
Silver's rally based on forward tightness brought fresh
selling and took the heat out of the forward curve. Silver was
indicated at $5.78/$5.80 down six cents.
Platinum was unchanged at $360.00/$362.00 but palladium slid
again to be indicated at $201.50/$203.50 having fixed at
$202.00, its lowest since October 24.
( ( Brian Spoors, London Newsroom, +44 171 542 8058, +44 171
542 8077, london.commodites.desk.@reuters.com ) )

Steve: Congrats on the new boy. My own son, the first boy in my family in 43 years, will hit his 1st birthday in a few days. It's a GREAT feeling!

fundaMETAList

Well done and congrats. to all!! Son Nathan will grow up to be a well schooled newsie and this has been your best news post todate!! ...regards to all

Never have been blessed to hold much gold, let alone antique gold.

As a 16 year old I spotted a very small opening in the rimrock above where I was riding in a caon east of Cottonwood, Arizona. I left my horse and climbed through the scrub and detritus to the entrance, which I -a normal size teen-ager-had to duck to enter. Found shards of pottery and miniature corn cobs almost as small as those found in Chinese food today. They were dessicated, but not brittle.
At the time I thought I felt the spirits of those gone before. Now, I am not sure. I hadn't thought of it for over twenty years. Always have wanted to go back and check it out. BTW, been more than a half-century.
We were at war then and other things have since taken precedent in life.

I continue to enjoy the posts and reposts and repartee and camaraderie on this site, not to neglect the education I derive from it.

A most hearty congratulations! It's early, but, A Toast of Tequila to Ya!!! Best wishes to you and your lovely family!

Platinum is a true commodity. Gold is money. Big difference.

Many thanks for the kind wishes. Overlooked to mention that he weighed in at 7 pounds, 9.5 ounces at birth. Nice & healthy. I fear he is going to
be horribly spoiled, as he is the first grandchild on both sides of our direct family. Also, Nathan is the first male on my wife's side of the family. So having a boy is quite a novelty, particularly with my father in law who never had any sons.

Just came in from the Mid-East press:


IZETBEGOVIC CALLS FOR MUSLIM-WESTERN
COOPERATION. Bosnian Muslim leader Alija Izetbegovic told
the closing session of the three-day summit of the Organization
of the Islamic Conference in Tehran on 11 December that
Muslims should work together with Western countries. He said
that "Islam is the best, but we [Muslims] are not the best... The
West is neither corrupted nor degenerate.... It is strong, well-
educated and organized. Their schools are better than ours.
Their cities are cleaner than ours... The level of respect for
human rights in the West is higher and the care for the poor
and less capable is better organized. The Westerners are
usually responsible and accurate in their words... Instead of
hating the West, let us... proclaim cooperation instead of
confrontation." PM

D.A. - me to. the bottom? more to go? I think I know...

Tolerant1 - Were you the handle: 2weeks ( 2 ) ? YES? NO? ( circle one )

Ted - morning you ole dog.....my puta is still on the 2 day disabled list. I'll be damned if I can get a live one on the phones too. Once they got ya they think they can ignore ya'.....we shall see...

away



I know you probably aren't out there, but when you get a chance, please peruse the following and try to explain your contention that gold enters into the SDR in light of the way the SRD value is calculated.


SDR Valuation Basket:

U.S. dollar 39 Deutsche mark 21 Japanese yen 18 French franc 11 Pound sterling 11

SDR valuation basket: since 1981, the SDR basket includes the currencies ( currently the U.S. dollar, Deutsche mark, Japanese yen, French franc, and British pound ) of the five member countries of the IMF with the largest exports of goods and services during the five-year period preceding the revision. The weights of the currencies in the basket are based on the value of exports of goods and services of the members issuing these currencies and the amount of their currencies held as reserves by members of the IMF. The value of the SDR in U.S. dollar terms is calculated daily as the sum of the values in U.S. dollars--based on the exchange rates quoted at noon in the London market--of specified amounts of these five currencies.

The above comes from:
http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/facts/sdr.htm

looking for U.S. traded platinum stocks other than still water. thanks

http://www.yahoo.com/headlines/971212/business/stories/microcaps_1.html

Gold Mining Outlook
by Steven Jon Kaplan

http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/4915/index.html

Silver touched $6.22 in the active March 1998 contract on Wednesday evening, the highest price for the active silver contract since March 23, 1989. Gold touched $281 per troy ounce at 10:57 a.m. EST Tuesday, its lowest spot price since June 4, 1979.

Updated @ 9:00 a.m. EST, Friday, December 12, 1997.

COMMENTS OF THE DAY: Commodities, including precious metals, closed moderately lower on Thursday. Gold dropped $2.60, silver was down 6.5 cents after hitting a new 8-1/2 year high, platinum sank $12.50, and palladium lost $1.70. Bearish opinion about gold remains at a near consensus. Since silver hit a new multi-year high but ended the day lower, this marks a bearish key reversal. Meanwhile, platinum has surrendered nearly all of its 1997 gains.

The London Bullion Market Association said Friday that average daily cleared turnover for gold in November was 40.8 million ounces, compared with a record high of 42 million ounces in October, and up 32% from 1996.

Swiss National Bank directorate member Jean-Pierre Roth stated on Friday that the bank intends to continue to hold onto a significant portion of its gold reserves and that it has no intention of reducing its gold stocks rapidly. He added that "in the eyes of many, gold is a synonym for stability and security."

Due to the low gold price, Getchell Gold of Canada is cutting its workforce by 20% and suspending the use of low grade stockpile ore.

South African gold producers no longer have to market their gold through that nation's central bank, representing a further relaxation in exchange controls, according a report on Friday by the Finance Ministry. South Africa "will also not be altering its exposure to gold as a consequence of the revised arrangements."

Barrick Gold of Canada, often a trend-setter in the gold mining industry, announced today that they will buy back ten percent of their outstanding common stock in the open market. CEO Peter Munk stated, "The shares are trading in a price range that does not reflect the value of the company's mining and financial assets and future business prospects. We have the financial strength to undertake this program."

According to New York-based CPM Group, private investment demand for gold bars and bullion coins has increased sharply over the past two months as gold prices tumbled. Net private investment demand is projected to total 9.3 million ounces in 1997, up 129.2% from 4.1 million ounces in 1996, with 1998 demand predicted to rise by an additional 33%. CPM found that the closest historical parallel was with the end of 1992, just before a major gold rally in 1993. CPM noted that large institutions in the industrialized economies appeared to be the only group not buying at this time, instead waiting for prices to start rising forcefully before they make the bulk of their purchases.

According to Ann-Rose Heibel Dietrich, member of the board of directors for the Deutschen VerkehrsBank, it would make sense to take advantage of current low prices to build strategic positions in gold. According to Ms. Deitrich, the introduction of the planned European common currency will diminish the range of investments in currencies and their differing returns, which would boost the price of gold.

Gold mining analyst John Tumazos raised his estimated gold price for the years 2001 and 2002 from $400 to $425 per troy ounce. According to Mr. Tumazos, the current deep decline provides the foundation for a stronger recovery in the early years of the next decade. "Short covering, the forced liquidation of bullion loans or voluntary liquidation of bullion loans could cause violent reversals in the gold commodities markets, which may cause a $50 per ounce reversal in a brief interval such as one month." Mr. Tumazos also stated that "Federal Reserve chairman [Alan] Greenspan's December 2 remarks provide a basis of optimism for gold or other commodity investors. For the first time he acknowledged 'deflation' as an economic problem. A reversal in Fed Chairman [Paul] Volcker's priorities to fighting unemployment rather than inflation in June 1982 was the turning point in the 1982 gold market bottom."

Steve and Rowena 

Congratulations and all happiness to you both, and a warm welcome to young Nathan. May his future be golden and joyous!

And in the midst of all this,Steve-Perth, you still had time to post a host of URLS for us- Thank you!

Best regards

I have always been tolerant1 or tolerant.

CONGRATULATIONS STEVE and ROWENA BLIZARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! on the birth of your healthy bouncing-baby-boy!! Good news to all gold-bugs everywhere!!

May his days be filled with joy and his nights filled with calm......ohmy!!!!! :- ) ) ) )

away...to buy diapers by the crate

happyforsteve&rowena

Felicitations:
"Your lives will never be the same again" - a whopping 9 months of experience speaks. Take *lots* of pictures! Enjoy your "gold-pupae" - they grow incredibly fast. ( Mine has already graduated from rug-slug to rug-rat :- )
Health & happiness...

APB ( all points bulletin ) for 2 formerly 2weeks.....where has he been anyway?? Sound off 2!! I miss your 'stuff'......uh huh.

btw

sorry Tol1...honest mistake. You two have some of the same style and elegance..........but gold is a commodity, like Platinum, imho. But then....I'm usually wrong at least twice in one day ;- ) .

away...to strive for perfection and achieve greatness...or fall on my face...bonk.



go platinum go silver go gold go to work

Carl, Good Morning!
The first post I ever made to this board was a brief explanation
of the SDR, and the URL where the IMF's calculations of same might
be found ( also included, I believe, the pacific.com sight, which does
a better job of explaining IMF's calcs ) .

When I have my theatre-goers hat on ( the williling suspension of
my disbelief ) I buy into it all; however, when I walk the circle,
I am forced to consider the fact, for instance, that the term
"weighting" is wonderfully vague, and could mean anything. I don't
fault the IMF for that necessarily, these entities work in secret
for reasons that are obvious to us all.

My conjectures are based solely on a pattern that I found, the
existence of which brings forward questions that we, as reasonable
people, must ask. I am SURE that the IMF equation that exists to
fix the weightings is complex-beyond-my-humble-imaginings. Yet, there
was, on 12/8/97, a definite link. Beyond that--there is just more
work to do!

For Skylark

Wes Areas South deep project will be at a final depth

of 2700 meters. Twin shafts commenced sinking in sept,

1995. Final depth and full production will be reached

in 2003. MJ states costs are 240$/oz - incusion of

Joel reduces to 226 $/oz by 2001. Big dough will be

needed for full realization - up to 200 mill $.

It is hard to compare "cash costs" between RSA

mines and NA mines. RSA mines cash cost include

everything but capital expenditure. They can be tied

directly to the p/l statement as in the excercise I

did on ABX. Barrick's cash costs dont seem to relate

to anything, and cannot be tied to their lousy

results. They say their cash costs are as low as 100

or 170 per oz but when you lump it all together it

comes out MUCH HIGHER.

I was unfair to abx in my prior diatribe. They took

a one off cost of some 385 mill $ in the 3rd quarter.

They say their revenue will hold 420$/oz through 2000

via hedging. So adding back the one -off cost of 385

mill means they should have made profits of $90/oz

with revenue hedged at 420. Says average costs are

330$/oz. This is in line with Western areas.

You ask what percentage of WA south deep could be

mined at a "cash cost" of below 100 $/oz - Id say zero

and Id say "so what". If you look at a breakdown of

Abx production you see about half at 175$/oz

( betze-post-nevada ) and a quarter at 100$/oz ( meikle-nevada )

- BUT somehow through some strange transmogrification

their average costs are about 330$/oz when it hits the

p/l. Maybe the administrative cost of low cost mining

in far flung places on andean mountaintops is higher

than people think. Maybe its not as simple as going

a mile and a half deep in the ground just a short

drive from downtown joburg.

I believe that the AVERAGE south deep cost will

be under whatever barrick comes up with in the average

cost department.

I will make no furthur effort to explain abx. Buy

lots of it if it makes you feel warm and snugly -

OK by me. But pardon me if I dont join you.

Tried to access your comment and get this message. http://www.geocities.com/WallSt does not exist. Would like to know what the write-up has to say.

Congratulations and Best Wishes to Steve & Rowena Blizard on the occasion of the birth of their son Nathan- a new goldbug?

http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/4915/index.html

Congradulations Steve. The more the merrier.

It should be clear to even the most ardent gold bug by now that the demonetarization of gold is well along its way. There has been a lot of discussion around the appropriate ratio of the price of gold to silver and to the dow, with the assumption being that gold was underpriced.

What seems much more likely is that gold is way overpriced. As gold reverts to the status of silver, the old 16 to 1 ratio will be re-established with the fall in the price of gold, making for a market stabilization price for gold of under $100 given todays silver price. Only continued, and I would argue needless, central bank hoarding holds the price of gold above its true market value.

To the contrary, it has already been revealed here by SDR'er that contrary to your unbacked statements, the IMF covertly backs the value of all currencies in gold, and that we are merely seeing their sorry efforts to cover-up a litteral world of failing "paper" promises. Feel free to both smoke AND inhale, little Karl99, like our pants-dropping Prez.

Your idea of gold at $100/oz ivery interesting, but unsustainable
unless we have major deflation such that the production costs,of which
the very lowest currently ar $175/oz, plummet. It doesn't sound likely
to me.

"When the first baby laughed for the first time,
the laugh broke into a thousand pieces
and they all went skipping about,
and that was the beginning..."
Sir James Barrie

Congratulations! Enjoy the laughter.

Congratulations! Be sure to get Nathan a Koala and a Kangaroo each year.

Karlito 99 - Please explain your reasoning for your statement. Demonetization by whom?? An attempt by the governments/CBs? Absolutely!.
Look around the globe, gold is being used a lot more than previously thought as money today. Just released LMBA stats show 1,300,000 oz of gold flowing daily thru there and that is just a fraction of golds flows on daily basis in the world. Just because gold is down due to CBs manipulation of the demand/supply equation and perhaps gold's indication of deflation does't mean its demonetization.
Explain in detail your silly statement, unless you are just repeating CNBC drivel!!

What I've read about central banks leasing gold in the last 15 years has done everything to devalue gold. I believe this to be more a factor than "hoarding" by the CBers. In fact, one gold analysist I've read said that as much as 8,000 metric tons of gold is currently being "leased" - more then twice as much as most people thought! A lot of gold exists "twice" IMHO. Also - current consumption is out pacing production by 30% to 40%....it's going to hit the fan soon.

Am I missing something? Isn't demonitazation ( I can't spell that
worth a damn so didn't try ) what Nixon - God bless him - did in about '72? So the fed could pump at will - just as they are today?

The IMF, like other central banks, will eventually abandon any link to gold as the meaningless throw back to a bye-gone day that it is. With the price of gold so dramatically overvalued, they can not afford to make such a move overnight. But slowly, and deliberately, one-by-one, the CB's and the IMF will abandon gold as a needless component of any country's reserves.

Argentina has made a brilliant move in being one of the early adapters to this. They will benefit from both selling at a higher price and getting US Treasury interest payments. Others will follow. It may take more than 10 years to sell off all of the CB gold reserves. The long term direction for the price of gold is still down and it will remain going down for a long time to come. The bottom won't be hit till the price breaks $100.

You non-gold bugs better finish it off today!! Two hours to go! If not pounded to a new low today, next week will be UP, IMO.

Very interesting reading. Also some new links at the end of the article to add to my bookmarks -- which is now beginning to look like a Who's Who in Gold.

The market is currently coming to grips with the fact that the recent price slide has crashed into many operations economic limit. Mines are forced to first reduce operating cost, which reduces production.
The market must value ( in terms of dollars ) gold first with respect to what the cost of recovery is. In addition, the market must value gold for its industrial use. Then the market places a value on gold for its ability to store value. And finally, the market values gold for its enhanced stores of value ( coins, etc. ) . Get real no.99, there is not a revaluation of gold occurring, but a test of the economic limit by the market.

For the past week major trading nations have been meeting in Swiss,
to set new rules,standards, systems etc... for world trade, banking etc..
under the WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION. Midnight tonight is the
deadline for the week old meetings, to come up with a new agreement and reports are that there will be no agreement indicating the US is holding out for better consessions from others, and threatens to walk.
Analysts have stated that if this agreement had been in place, the
current "crisis" in SE Asia could have been contained weeks ago.
IMHO if there is no agreement we could be in for serious world trade
and banking ( paper currency ) disputes. Black Monday?

The yield curve on treasury securities is getting flatter by
the minute. This will make for interesting conversation at the next fed meeting. With PPI down, asia crashing, conditions are
ripe for more hosing by the fed. How about a lowering of rates
from the fed?

Any abandonment by CBs is thru necessity to shore up collapsing domestic economies, with demand STILL exceeding new mined supply, I would contest your assumption that gold is overvalued.

Present ( last 5 years ) supply imbalance is due to CB dishording, has nothing whatsoever to do with valuation ( see my earlier post: "Fool's Gold-When Central Banks Lose Their Lust For Gold, Gold Bugs Should Beware". That was an editorial run by the Economist in Jan 93 with gold at 330. Went straight to 405 in July.

Market fundementals, excluding CBs, are in great shape. When did you last see any free market product produced at less than the marginal cost of production for any length of time. You didn't. With current prices, production is already slowing. The longer the price stays around these levels, let alone falls further, the greater the attrition on the producers, the lower the supply, the greater the risks the CBs run.

Jan93 taught one or two CBs a lesson, the Dutch in particular. It is not the job of CBs to speculate in the long term.

Would you please learn how to post your messages?

It is

very

annoying

to read

your

posts

when

they

look

like

this.

Your comments are dying on the vine as you post them. Gold will outlast the IMF. The IMF is nothing but a bureaucratic whorehouse for the socialistic takeover of soverign nations through the printing of unbacked paper.

Steal from those that have and steal more from those that get. That is your message.

Death to the IMF and all the swine that rob the people to fund it. That is my message.

Congrats ole boy!!!

If we leave aside the CB's who are not really playing with much of the worlds production anyway--who has decided not to buy gold such that market conditions are lowering the price.

The poor fools that trust the politicians and bankers that print the worthless paper they have put their faith and fate in.

Next.

Carl--The currencies included in the current basket, which are those of the five member countries with the largest exports of goods and services during 1990- 94.... The current basket will be in effect until December 31, 1999.

You'll note that the 5 currencies in the basket are SELECTED ( to be the 'basket' currencies ) on the basis of their import/export.
If you go to the URL below, you'll note that there is a 'weighting'
assigned by IMF to each of the basket currencies; that, IMO, is where
the neato equation no doubt comes into play!
http://pacific.commerce.ubc.ca/xr/SDR.html
Hope this helps.

Karlitto99@12:14
G R E A T!!! I'll dollar cost average all the way down! Thnx!

Can't wait to see MSFT with it's 53 PE bring this market to it's knees.

I caught an interesting story on ABC news last night. They explained that the custom in Hong Kong is to give all those invited to a wedding a little square of cake of a size that would roughly cover two extended palms. In recent years the custom evolved into sending a coupon for the cake along with the wedding invitation. After awhile, the coupons which were redeemable at any time became instuments of barter, practically traded as money. In the last week a rumor circulated that a prominent bakery in Hong Kong was financially insolvent. Thousands flocked to redeem their coupons and the film clip on ABC showed long lines of disgruntled people. Good grief, it looked like a bank run. They HAD TO CALL POLICE IN to manage the crowds. If this is what would happen over one or two dollar pieces of cake, what do you say might happen when it's life's savings? This sends a chill thru me. I believe the worst is to come.

Karlito, since gold is now at its 1973 level, inflation adjusted, where it was right out of the gate freed from US gov't control. And since it is inflation adjusted at the same level as it was in 1929-1930, it seems impossible to drop much lower, much less to $100.

Dream on

All things are possible and you make your point well,
however, I give your theory a .5% chance .

1. If all CB's sell, how do they coordinate who
sells first and who sells last? USA will not sell
gold of 242 Mil. ounces at $100. Heck, a 25 Bil
treasury auction is a drop in the hat for them.

In all reality, and this is actually what is happening:
Some are selling, some are buying, most are
lending. Why would they lend an asset, and why
would someone borrow, sell, or buy an asset that has no
instrinsic value?

2. Even if ( and this is really far-fetched ) all CB's sold
their gold, who would they sell it to? Answer:

A smart CB such as India, China, or Japan who need
to add to their assets ( because they know gold's true
worth ) . Karlito, there are those countries where gold
is a part of life, tradition, and religion. It is not merely
a commodity, it is a status and form of money.

And at your $100 price most all mining companies would be
out of business, therefore no new supply would come
on hand. Those who do desire the value of gold will have
very little quantities on which to work with.

Karlito, remember, most CB's are not selling, they are
lending. This has artificially driven the price of gold to
where it is today. I do not propose to be a goldbug.
I see an inherent discrepancy in the value of gold vs.
it's historical price. I don't claim to see the future or be
able to predict the price 6 months or 10 years down the
road. But, gold will have it's place in the world.

You actually think that thousands of years of psychology
can be changed in 10 years? You're definately mislead
by the speculation and broker-fed game of profits.

When one buys gold one has permanently and unconditionaly, ensured the value of the aquisition. When the wealth of the Asians resettles, I would hope that there are good people that aquire it.

Well, then, if they have no cake...


let them eat bread. : ) Or maybe won. : )

Damn funny posting. I especially liked the comment
that "This gave me chills". : )

Karlito99_A: I got a real laugh out your recent post...gold to $99. I haven't laughed so hard in months!

tolerant1. Maybe-- but those folks usually get into gold at the top and don't bother with it the rest of the time. We decided here a few weeks ago that the price from about 600 to 850 was driven by the unknowing buying gold and that relativley little actually changed hands at those prices. So I speculate that there is a refusal to buy at 310-300-290--and so on ---by "daily" buyers not transient "fools".

Dear Mrs YEAR2000

It looks right when I preview and then whammo - I get double space.

I'll try to learn if you teach me, baby.

For Tolerant - here here - death to the IMF. I second that motion.

Karlito_A: Just read your post about how gold is no longer needed by Central Banks. You should make a comparison between how each country is doing, economic strength, standard of living, etc, and their gold supplies. You need to ask youself why Silver is in a rally when gold is not -- since in many ways they are both currencies ( as well as commodities ) and historically linked. You need to ask yourself why the more plentiful precious metal ( silver ) is now suddenly so valuable and the the rarer more precious metal -- gold -- is not. You need to ask yourself why people like Alan Greenspan believe that our dollar should be linked to gold again. It takes some digging to figure this out about AG -- he would do it if he could. You need to ask yourself why the Rothschilds, the Indians and the Chinese buy gold if it is indeed worthless. Think of how many dollars the Rothschilds could buy if they wanted to sell all their gold -- they could solve the pending dollar flood crisis for us!

Why are the countries most at risk for economic crises the ones with little gold? Why do the countries with the highest standard of living the ones with the most gold? Would you rather live in Switzerland or Russia? You must not have heard the latest on the Euro bank is that it will have gold reserves, although details about who will keep the gold is not yet clear. For obvious reasons, Germany and France will refuse to let their CB gold out of the country.

In an ideal world where all national leaders could be trusted not to debase their currency you would be correct that an anchor in gold is not needed.

I rest my case. I am reassured that you post on this site. That can only mean one thing -- that at least you are not sure about what you are saying.

Unbelievably, CNNfn is running a story blaming Newmont, Barrick, etc, etc, as major players in the December sell-off.

Unbelievably, CNNfn is running a story blaming Newmont, Barrick, etc, etc, as major players in the December sell-off.

Karlito: I take it all back -- why don't you tell your friends that I will be glad to buy their gold at $200 /oz or less - whatever the offical price is below 200/oz. I suspect that you will immediately find other Kitcoites who will accomodate you. Of course, we will be checking specific gravity and weight, among other things. I suspect even LGB will be in line for the real mcCoy at those prices!

Let them eat their copper and gold and thereby decrease the surplus population.

ALL: FYI, from the Globe....

1. ABX Chairman Peter Munk will speak at next month's World Economic Forum in Switzerland...where pending CB bullion sales have cost Europe's CB's $32 billion US. In the end, Munk believes bankers won't allow the value of gold to be debased at the expense of taxpayers.

2. CIBC Wood Gundy Securities Inc. is predicting Gold will rise above $300.

3. Wood Gundy believes that gold mining companies will be able to sell gold over 5-10 years at an average price of $340.

4. Wood Gundy has strong buy recommendations for Placer Dome, Cambior, and Goldcorp.

5. Wood Gundy believes that the worst is over because CB's appear to have largely completed their gold selling programs and the new European bank will hold gold reserves.

6. Vahid Fathi, mining abalyst from Chicago said $260 gold price is possible but highly unlikely. He says, "too much has been made of CB selling. Most of them have already sold.

Who's not buying. All those who "believe" the negative PR instigated by those players controlling this market with massive short positions. The ordinary investor does not dig deeper.

I'm trying this for the second time ... Can anyone ( John Disney, perhaps ) tell me what the available above-ground and below-ground
estimates are for platinum stocks world-wide? I have recently been
told that Ballard Power is using large quantities of platinum ( 100's
of ounces/month ) just trying to perfect its batteries - when this
event occurs the consumption will presumably skyrocket as they
go into production... not to mention the thousands of other uses for
Pt. -- jewellry, other industry, etc. Any comments or input would
be appreciated.

Steve, send ol' Nate over. We're short one on our rugby squad!

Congrats from this point on the globe. Truly 'precious'. Another miracle entires the world. A mile o' smiles all around! And just in time for Christmas.

STEVE & ROWENA...ahhh the memories ( I have, You'll have, we all have ) . Blessings to the three of you in your family adventure. And a word of advice from a dad with a grown son. Don't listen to the BS that others will tell you. PICK the kid up when he cries. He's a little helpless stranger in a damn strange land. You'd cry too. LET him come into your room and sleep with you when he's scared at night. He might be having a dream about a short position in Platinum going against him. Let the kid draw on the walls of his own room. He might be a talented muralist some day, or working out an incredible equation. Or just having fun expressing himself. The bunch of you can paint the room with rollers every two years, anyhow. It's fun. And try not to ever do anything out of anger. Sorry to preach, but I like to think I have something to contribute after all these years. Congratulations.

Good morning! You are in FINE form this morning!
You certainly said everything that needed to be
said ( and said it very well indeed! )
BBL

USA-TODAY
For the latest 13 weeks, M2 averaged $3,974.7 billion, a 6.7% seasonally adjusted annual rate of gain from the previous 13 weeks. M3 averaged $5,243.5 billion, up 10.3%. Both measures of money supply will give impetus to rising inflation.

The Hong Kong Oracle, Milhouse, has always maintained there is a positive correlation between the trends of money supply ( M3 ) and the price of gold. In light of M3s accelerating growth rate in recent months - the highest increase in over a decade, and nearly DOUBLE the Feds upper range guideline - it is well worth a re-study of Milhouses analysis, US MONEY SUPPLY AND THE DEMAND FOR GOLD:
http://www.gold-eagle.com/gold_digest/milhouse831f.html

Ted - check your wood pile for spiders. This is a test. Can't receive but I can give.......always a giver. My rocket scientists are working on fixing the problem. They said they have been up all night.....yeah right. With a bottle o gold and a mirror and a crack pipe more like. Diddly dard burnit!!!! Dag Nabbit!! I need my mail!!!!!!!!!!!!

Karlito 99 opened a pretty big can-o-worms. I bet he is sitting at home yukkin it up right now. I, personally, don't see gold at $100.00. But if it happens it will certainly be a BIG BUY!! OH MY!! Can you imagine selling a one OZ. Maple or Phil. at $100.00??!? 3 for the price of one?!? "Attention K-Mart shoppers"! "We have a blue light special in isle GOLD"! No FU#&%N WAY!! sorry Tol1, I could only use gutter speak with this one. Excuuuuuuuuuuuuse Me! ( said in the best Steve Martin imitation )

go gold bugs!!! Tear him a NEW one.....aaaaarggghh mateys!!!!

away...to get to K-mart before opening

uying the whole lot

The fact of the matter is that people trust paper, the equity paper that most will lose their savings in when this puppy clanks.

Gold is the last thing on their minds. The vast majority of people whose equity money helps hold up the market know not about the currency markets.

Where will Korea get the money to cover their debts in just a month?
Default seems the only option.

Thank you for your response, but I don't see the difficulty in the IMF expanation of their weights. Take today's forex rates as pound=1.6582, yen=.0077, mark=.568, franc=.1698. ( These may not be exactly the ones they will use tomorrow - they say rates at noon? ) Then take the following weightings and sum the resulting products.
dollar:582, mark:.446, yen:27.2, franc:.813, pound:.105. Because the forex rate can be taken as 1 for the dollar, you have .582 + .253328 + .20944 + .1380474 + .174111 = 1.3569264

So where's the gold, except of course that gold is priced in these currencies everyday ( instead of the opposite as they should be ) . I think you may be being misled by the fact that as forex rates change, the basket mutes the change in gold price day to day.

I've missed reading a couple of months of postings at Kitco, so excuse me if this has already been discussed, but I think the divergence between what is happening with gold and silver prices to be very interesting, indeed.

It seems to me that this tension in precious metals prices can't continue much longer, and gold must either rally rather explosively, or the price of silver must come down.

I'm betting on the former.

My guess is that once silver rallies through the psychologically important $6.00 level, traders who aren't normally drawn to precious metals will HAVE TO sit up and take notice of a contradiction that is begging for resolution.

With fundamental forces seeming to favor both a rally in gold and sustained high silver prices, this seems to come as close to a no-brainer to me as one can possibly come, particularly when you factor in the attractive price of gold calls nowadays. But, of course, there are no guarantees. . .

Try http://www.cpmgroup.com

Frustrated: Maybe. But I don't think the "ordinary investor" has much effect on the price of gold as it goes down. The people not buying or buying to lower the price are the "players" who buy and sell gold daily for investment or industrial use. I would be holding off buying too if I was in the business and the price continued to fall. I doubt if there are naive players in the gold market at this point.

The difficult thing for me is to get my head around the implications of the "store of value" idea destroyed over the last 20 years, the "hedge in times of financial calamity" idea take it on the chin right now and be left with the alternative that the price has to stop declining or the mines will shut. There is a precedent for closing the mines in the uranium industry. There are towns in northern Ontario built by uranium mining companies that are now functioning and thriving as retirement communities using all the former mining buildings hospitals etc. Don't get too locked into the importance of the shut down of mines. It has happened before.

for skylark

More info . The s deep deposit is 199000 tons at

9.5 g/ton - which I make to be 59mill oz. MJ say the

project to develop it is estimated at 1.1 billion rand

or 225 mill US - ie 225mill$/59= $4 per oz.

Now Take Lihir = this deposit is 15 mill oz but

rather than being just out of joberg with wall to wall

black miners looking for a job, this deposit is a bit

east of woop woop in the New Ireland province of

Papua new guinea. I would guess that a short walk

from camp and you just might end up as someone's lunch.

713 mill us has been spent to date and at least 800

mill is fully committed. So we are looking at

800 mil/15 = 53$/oz in capital cost up front.

Maybe this is the part of ABX costs that they dont

like to talk about.

Has anyone heard of it? It is traded on the Canadian Exchange.

ANYONE??!? Need some info....if you can....thanks in advance.

away

elooking into gold stockies

morning ( afternoon ) to Mr. Sheller ;- ) thanks for the new article. It is good. you da man...

JTF, Please, please, count me in when the sale comes on gold under 200. But perhaps by then the IMF will be in the market for something to value the SDR besides baskets.

To my way of reading, the 'weightings' INSIDE the basket of
5 currencies is one evaluation tool; and the values used in the
weightings is not available ( insofar as I know ) . The weightings
are given. Period. There is no explanation as to what, EXACTLY,
constitutes each 'weighting'. But I am convinced it is not the
import/export goods and services. ( Or more accurately, not that
empirical figure alone. I suspect the weighting equation is such that it would give Crook pause!

The import/export amount is simply the criterium used to select
the five currencies that appear in the five year basket.
"Every five years the IMF determines which five currencies will enter the basket, and which weight will be applied to each currency."

It determines which five, and it decides what weight, the two are not, to my way of reading, linked to a single standard ( i.e. the import/
export figures ) .

I must get back to meeting my deadline. I'll have to leave you to
solve this! Good luck!
bbl

To All

Reading the Papers - News you wont get in the US Press.

1. RSA just had a ppi index of 4.9% year on year - Lowest

since 1971 !!!!!

2. Economist Intelligence Unit survey reports RSA

offers the cheapest operating costs of any country

likely to attract significant foreign investment.

Ahead of Indonesia,Malasia,Hungary. Germany was the

most expensive and the US the second most expesive

of the 27 countries surveyed. Data was from the

first of the year - recent collapse of some asian

currencies could alter the rankings.

3. Anecdotal department - while shopping today bought

Canadian salmon for 3$US/kilo - seemed cheap to me

when I thought about it. Lovely stuff.

Your dbl spacing doesn't bother me but maybe are you hitting an [Enter] at the end of each line? Just trying to help. Thanks, Dave.

Thankyou!

Internationally acclaimed analyst Gene Inger, is beginning to become interested in GOLDs prospects. ...no doubt the yellow metal is somewhere near at least an interim low point. We view it as a value buy, but not very good as a hedge. As far as gold goes, we prefer stocks to bullion. His complete intra-week report at:
http://www.gold-eagle.com/gold_digest/inger121197.html

Your dbl spacing doesn't bother me but maybe are you hitting an [Enter] at the end of each line? Just trying to help. Thanks, Dave.

D.A., Your 10:27 - You wrote to RJ, it was interesting to read for me too. I can agree on some of your items, and disagree on others. It is really more difficult to say "this is top" then "we have a bottom". The system, I use ( home made ) is good for 65-70% on lows and 55-60 for tops. Better then random 50-50. Mostly, I use it for paper stocks, but sometimes for commodities too. When we have an obvious trend, like it was with paper during spring - summer this year, it is simple. Its different times we have now. High volatility, sideways, can go both sides. In such situation, IMO puts are better then calls. It always drop faster then goes up. Thats the trick. Theoretically, it can drop only to limited value - down to zero, and has no limit up, in reality it will never go to zero and never grow to 100 times so much. What is more important in my view is how fast the price changes, whatever the direction is. Faster it goes, more money one can make in shorter period of time.

CB's hold gold because it is an anchor of value in a changing sea of currencies and economies. It is the ultimate asset. If your paper or someone elses paper burns gold does not burn; it will be there for you in case of crisis. If you need to rebuild your national reputation ( value of currency ) from zero you can start with the recognized value of the gold you possess.

Case in point is Korea right now.

Let's say that Korea had 100 tonnes of gold in their national vaults. That's 100 Mln troy ounces. The won has dropped from 840 won to the US$ to say 2000 won/US$. In effect their national worth has dropped by 58%. Their equities have dropped by say 40%. That's a compound decline of 84% in relationship to the US$. Yet their gold reserves did not disappear did they? What happens when a nation becomes bankrupt is that nation is for sale at whatever price someone would be willing to pay for it. In this case 16 cents on the US$.

If no one will lend you money ( interbank loans ) because they do not know what you will be worth tomorrow, then gold is used as colateral for emergency loans to see you through. The nation which has gold can still operate, whereas the nation which has little gold in relationship to its asset base or economic activity level is bought for a song because noone will lend to them because there is no baseline colateral.

This is why the Warwick conference on monetary systems happened in 1990, the year Alan Greenspan recently called a "contained depression" when Japan imploded. Gold was the underlying theme there and I'm sure is much on the minds of those who know just how low a nation or group of nations can sink into oblivion.

Here's a question for you. If the Asian economies are almost all export dependent and if the USA tanks into a major recession because of international illiquidity problems around the world and if the USA is virtually the only major importing economy, what will happpen? Is this a self feeding death spiral? At what point will we recognize there is a problem? If, say tomorrow, all paper became worthless because the network of activies which supported its value basicly imploded where would we start from again? Remember, the gold did not evaporate.

IMHO, its nice to have gold and I'm pretty sure that alot of people in Asia would agree with me if they had it prior to this fit-shanning that has happened to them, eh?

Don't hit [back] button or you'll get a double post, dummy.

Gold is the world's most malleable metal, which means it doesn't harden or become brittle even after much twisting and bending. Gold can easily be formed into different shapes or hammered into thin sheets or fine wires. Its softness makes it popular with jewelry makers.

Gold does not rust or decay. It doesn't tarnish. Gold is hard to destroy. Even most acids can be spilled in it and not hurt it. Gold reflects light and is a good conductor of electricity.

Gold is, indeed, a miracle metal.

that we discussing apples and oranges! Please look at this post
from yesterday...
Date: Thu Dec 11 1997 17:52
SDRer__A ( ) ID#28594:
Forget everything else ( for a moment ) there is just us, and say, Hong Kong dollars. Convert Hong Kong dollars to gold. Multiple by 209.945. Compare the results of that calculation with the Hong Kong dollar converted into SDR.

That is all I was observing. Not the internal calculations of the
SDR per se, but this strange tracking one may observe ( or that I observed on 12/8/97 figures ) between two supposedly separate entities.
Now, I must go! Have fun my friend!
bbl

If I might make some very humble suggestions for you to look at:

IPJ - International Pursuit
TNX - Tan Range Exploration
OROP - Oro Peru

CONGRATULATIONS to all three of you!!! You thought the PM's markets were exciting? Well...caring for a new little life will help put it all into perspective! More precious than gold, more volatlile than silver prices - you've entered the most rewarding part of your life. I know - I've got two, with the third due in about 6 weeks. Also, I heartily second all the fantastic advice from Mike Sheller. ( I'm not entirely convinced about the drawing on the walls part - but everything else was really really important stuff. ) You can't hold them too much. ( I have one in my lip right now as I try to write this. ) If they need to cry ( after all else has been checked - diaper clean, tummy full, and snuggly warm body ) then they need to cry. It is good for them. My two had their daily cry times. Every evening at about 6:30 they'd start their "exercise" sessions and would scream nonstop for two hours or so before dropping into a blissful sleep. I'd put earplugs in and hold them in my lap for the duration. That's one of the things we attribute our kid's warm and outgoing personalities to - strange as it may seem. Being willing to do that certainly eliminated any stress we may have felt about an otherwise uncontrollable situation, so maybe the kids picked up on our calm. I don't know. All I do know is that we'll do the same with our next little one when the need arises, since it worked so well before. Enough advice. You can always e-mail me if you want more. Only blessings and congratulations to you both and your newest little Goldbug, Nathan. Just think, someday you'll be able to tell him that he was born right near the bottom of gold prioes right before they took off!

Karlito99-Demonetization of gold ?? only govt's/CB's wish - WILL NEVER happen-see all the posts on this site, no need repeating it.

Gold to $100 ??? ( actually two targets;$180,$103 ) is possible if one assumes a deflationary crash. Gold may be indicating this scenario under our noses!!! However, if this goes then the DOW will get down to 500-1000 again and gold relative to the deflated prices will be even more valuable than today.

Don't be repeating this demonetization drivel that the mass media is putting out.

Do you really believe that 5,000 years of gold's track record is going to be abandoned??? Not by gov/CBs ( who cares what they try, they will fail!! ) but by the reality of true money??
So far fiat money has 5,000 years of miserable and total failure. Not one paper currency survived more that a fraction of gold's history as money.
About 2,000 years ago, Rome had a very!!! stable monetary system. This system was based on gold money ( 22 k coins ) , primarily. Their inflation averaged 2.3% !!!! for almost 200 years, a lot better record than $US. Then they decided to increase the money supply ( needed money for military expansion ) by reducing the gold content in the coins. This was the begining of the end for their monetary and eventually political systems. It was as if they printed more paper money.
Even AG knows, as he stated, the monetary value of gold. Plain and simple:gold introduces THE discipline into the monetary system that politicians and others abhor since it takes away the unlimited expansion of money supply option from them.

So, we may see $100/oz gold but it will buy you a lot more than an oz of gold does today. Also, the DOW would be in the toilet ( where it is headed anyway ) .

What was the price of gold in Dec 1996?

Selby: You ol' curmudgeon...{:- ) ) , you predicted $280 gold here nearly a year ago. Must say I thought you were a bloody pessimist at the time, but my portfolio ( OUCH!!! ) and Bart's charts tell me you were correct ( and most gurus-of-the-time were wrong ) . Recall celebrating bottoms firmly in place at $390, $370, $340, $325, $315.....yessiree. Finally gave up buying gold stox at about $340, except for one little one at $315 or so ( I'm must be L-D ) . Dumped a few but nowhere near enough... Gann lines...Fibonacci curves...foreward viewing...horrorscopes...all for naught. Well, congrats. Lately I've not been following the Kitco discourse much ( about as much fun as paying taxes ) , but wondered if you suspect that a bottom is close. Won't hold ya responsible if I do something inane... Thanks in advance. Greetings to Ted down on the Cape ( Breton, not Cod ) .

Friday December 12, 2:13 pm Eastern Time

Fed, Asia, euro make it tough for US debt traders

By Isabelle Clary

NEW YORK, Dec 12 ( Reuters ) - A steady Federal Reserve, Asian turmoil and European convergence were the unlikely partners making for a tough fourth quarter for U.S. fixed-income traders.

``It was a surprisingly tough quarter for fixed-income divisions, although the directional move was one in which people should have made money,'' said Nomura Securities International chief economist David Resler. ``People said it was a rally with no riders, meaning no winners.''

Resler referred to Wall Street's difficulties in trading the rally that drove the Treasury 30-year bond yield from 6.33 percent in early October to 5.95 percent.

``You may believe that 'the trend is the friend,' but when the market flip-flops a lot within a trend, it's very difficult for firms to make money,'' Resler noted.

Economists and fixed-income strategists agree that, in order to make money, market players had to be at the right time on the right side of three unusual bets:

-- the U.S. economy would strengthen in the fourth quarter but the Fed would remain on hold due to dormant inflation,

-- large capital flows pouring into defensive Treasuries positions would outweigh the impact of a strong U.S. economy,

-- the safe-haven move would spill into the long end, leading to a flatter Treasury yield curve.

``One reason why the ( Wall Street ) shops didn't do well on that rally is that the U.S. economic data were strong and nobody was positioned for such a rally. In fact, a large part of the rally resulted from people trying to cover their shorts,'' one senior trader at a primary dealer said.

Whether the bond yield would convincingly break the 6.25-percent level was the key bet to make in early October.

``Retail did well because that's the people who buy to hold. If you bought bonds in early October, you did great. But that's not what the Street does,'' the senior trader added.

Wall Street players said emerging markets desks were hit by the Asian crisis and have not weathered the storm yet.

``By the end of the day, once the Asian crisis is over, there'll be some great buying opportunities in emerging markets, some great plays. The problem is that we are not at the end of the day yet,'' an emerging market player said.

The European debt was not more friendly to global debt desks due to the convergence ahead of the single currency.

``Believe it or not, I did better betting the JGBs ( Japan's long-term benchmark ) would go through 2.0 percent ( yield ) , than I did trading the European ( debt ) crosses. The convergence has already happened, the European spreads have collapsed, there is no volatility,'' the global trader said.

While mortgage-backeds rallied along with Treasuries, they underperformed Treasuries in most weeks since early October.

``A lot of the business is playing the spreads Treasuries versus mortgage-backed. Treasuries outperformed them most of the time because concern about pre-payments weighed on the mortgage-backed,'' a fixed-income strategist said.

Sharp drops in Treasury market rates lead to refinancing, leaving debt holders with a less profitable investments.

But players in a market where everything is about spread agree the Treasury market has fallen victim to its own success. It is working so efficiently that there are very limited profits to be derived from the bid/ask spread.

``The Treasury market is difficult because it's such an efficient market. Everybody has access to the same screens, the same information. There is no inefficiency that more astute players could take advantage,'' said Prudential Securities fixed-income strategist Michele Laughlin.

Commenting on the fourth quarter, Laughlin stressed ``it's always difficult to trade a market or even to invest in a market when you have an external event like the Asian crisis.''

Regional crises fueling large capital exodus usually outweigh the fundamentals of the safe-haven nation.

``With such flows, it's very hard to know what price levels are relevant. No one cares about the technicals or the fundamentals. You're trading solely on price action with no way to tell where there is value,'' Laughlin also said.

``Because of the low inflation environment, people went out to the 10- 30-year sector, which is uncharacteristic for a flight-to-quality move where you usually see the curve steepen,'' the Prudential strategist added.

Market players shared the view trading Treasuries has been for the past three years essentially a means to attract investors and direct them towards more rewarding transactions for the firm.

I have been reading Kitco comments and making some small contributions providing my thinking on various subjects, trying to figure things out. I have been involved with gold and silver exploration and development for the past decade or so and am notlikeing the current situation.
Is gold dead or are we in a temporary trough which provides unparelled opportunity.

Paper vs gold, feathers or tulip bulbs. What is this paper we all relish? Is there good paper and bad paper? It seems that if paper represents something tangible it is good paper. If the company in which you hold shares has real assets, your paper has value. If your paper money can be conveted into something having tangible value, it has value. If you look at a country which issues paper and a gigantic corporation, its paper represents all of the assets within that country.
If people outside the country can use it to acquire hard asets within another country it expands its base beyond the boundaries of the issuing country just like a U.S. corporation having forign operations. Romania's currency could hardly be expected to be utilized outside Romania to finance a new factory as few want anything in Romania. But paper currency from some of the larger countries, at this time, can be used off shore. The user of such currency can convert it into a hard asset. It is sort of like a gold producer selling forward at an established price to insure repayment of his loan. After the deal is done, it doesn't matter if the issuing country greatly inflates its currency, he is locked in. The people who are hurt are the people that are holding the currency. Sure they may be locked to a given rate, but if the interest rate souars as it did during the Carter years ( Remember when it was considered wise to have your money in anything but money, prior to Regan coming into office ) , the value of the currency went way down.

So we get down to the primary question which puzzles ;me. l What is the U.S. currency worth. Judged by one scale, it represents all the hard assets which are tied to it. But what about the $100's of billioins which are held in paper by foreign reserves. People say that if they sell them;, and threats are being made that they will do so, that this will have a disasterous impact on the dollar. By analogy, many canadian Jr. mining companies which had a large percentage of the shares held by insiders enjoyed prices recently which defied their true value because the instituions and investors were hungry for shares and they had people veating the drums, encouraging people to purchase the shares who did not look too closely at the underlying assets. Had the insiders placed their shares on the market, there would have been so many shares flowating around that their market makers would not be able to sell them all and the price would have plummented. ( Such companies shares did amyway when the institutional and private investors lost interest-not to mentioin their shirts. ) Is not the U.S. in the same position with the dollar overhang. If so, why the continuing euphoria. Could it be that people are making money by managing mutual funds and that these clever people are all singing the same sweet song, buy, buy, buy and the public, like lemmings, are marching to the tune. Has the pendulum swong too far? If it swings rapidly backward, will trillions of potential dollars simply vanish to the point that the dollar substantially increases in worth? What happens to gold in such an event.

I am currently living in Scottsdale. When the bottom fell out after the bottom fell out folloiwnt in ne

You're right, I'm not sure how much impact the ordinary investor has on the price of gold, but still, many are being influenced by misleading information.

When the bank of Australia surprised the gold market by announcing it's sale of 167 tonnes of gold, the price of gold had actually risen slightly immediately after the announcement -- and then it plummeted.

The media and analysts began attributing the break in gold to the Australian sale. The sale was not an overly large transaction in comparison to other official sales over the past several years. And, considering the market had already absorbed the sale without much reaction to the gold price the net effect of the announcement should have been mildly bullish.

The international commodity and hedge funds, which are massively short in the gold market used and even promoted the negative publicity in order to add dramatically to their short positions and drive the price down from the 330's to 314. This is just one example of how the shorts are manipulating the market.

However, why would the ordinary inverstor buy gold when he can make 35% ( or at least he has been led to believe he can make 35% ) in the equity market.

As far as mine closings, I wish the producers would get together and shut all the mines down so we could get this bull market on its way.

Oh, ha, ha, ha, har, har, haaaaaarrrrrr, huh, huh!!!! Oh dear, I really have to chuckle, excuse me!!! You young bucks ( pardon me, and doe's too ) have a good handle on things. You don't need old farts like me around.

To me, it doesn't matter how IMF came up with their weightings. The point is they're weightings of PAPER CURRENCIES. Once made, ( last in 95 ) , the weightings determine exactly how the SDR is to be "valued". I don't understand what you mean by "weighting equation". Do you mean some equation for calculating what the weights were to be? I mean by weighting equation an equation which weighs things, in this case currencies.

Now, if you mean that they somehow took gold holdings of different nations into account when they established their weights, then I guess we ( or at least I ) don't know that. But even if they did, it wouldn't show up in the calculations of SDR's. And it wouldn't make the SDR less relativistically based. It would just mean that the currencies of countries with big gold holdings would end up being weighted more in the SDR setting in 2000. But as long as those countries don't back their currencies with gold, they will still be just paper and promise.

It seems to me they are doing the very thing which will undermine the SDR, it has no standard by which to keep its value. It is as if the meter were standardized by averaging a bunch of "in the markets" meter sticks every few years. Where would science be without that platinum bar with those two marks on it that EXISTED at the Bureau of Standards all those years?

RCA ( 1925-1929 ) and MICROSOFT ( 1993-1997 )

Deja Vu All Over Again?! From 1929 to 1932 RCA lost 97% of its market value. Recall RCA was the #1 High-Flying Tech stock of the 1920s. The is an eerie and uncanny historical resemblance here...
http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials/rca_msft.html

Hey I'm only 55!!!! I actually predicted 250 as I recall but I don't know if that is the bottom or if we are near the bottom now. All of the reasons for gold to go up are not working and there is no reason that I can see for it to stop at 285 either. Nothing is different at 285 from what happened at 300 as far as I can see, How gold can be playing the various roles attributed to the "noble" metal in the face of Asian problems and its own decline is beyond me.

Yes.

Is anyone else getting an "Error 404--not found" message in the frame above? Trying to find the closing prices and the frames seem to be out of sync.

Something called internet 'go site' is messing with me. Anybody know what is going on with that?

Somehow, my computer posted without my having pushed a button, but to continue where I left off.....

I am living in Scottsdale, AZ. When the bottom fell out with the S & L debacle, you could have bought much of Phoenix for very little money. Thre jsut wasn't much available and prices plumented. I suspicion it was the same over much of the country. It would have been nice to have dollars and a little vision at that time. That was deflation and it hurt like hell. How to play the game? If there is deflation, it is good to have dollars or your dollars in something which does not deflate too badly. Gold? Aside from a drop of rughly half down from $850 which was apparently way overpriced, it did not do too badly. If it is underpriced, as many of us believe, it should do better than holdings are dumped, there should be too many dollars floating arouond which should be inflationary with all hard assets, including gold, going up. What effect does our national debt have in periods of inflation and deflation? I am still trying to develop thoughts in this area. It is a tough one to figure out but I think that we are in strange territory.

It came up about the time I mysteriously posted. Then when I attempted my bookmarak, I got it too. After several tries, I got back but even now do not have auto marketing reports, have error:404 not found

All:

Just got around to looking at the m's for this week. The are going up. Strongly.

Just to put into perspective the power of this surge in broad money growth consider the following. The entirety of debt which is in need of rolling in the worlds 11th largest economy, Korea, is assumed to be around the $100 billion dollar level. In the past 9 weeks, US broad money supply has grown by just this figure. In other words we have created enough money in a mere 9 weeks to paper over all the problem loans in Korea.

If there is one thing that central bankers fear more than inflation it is deflation. With everyone well schooled in the errors of the great depression, you can be damn sure they will do everything they can to avoid a replay. How does one go about this, easy. Crank up the presses. It is happening right before the worlds eyes only no one is looking.

Tried one link-got geocities. Tried second one and 'puter froze on me. I give up for now. The road to hell...Thanx for trying.

Would you please be so kind as to enlighten we illeratti as to the source of your wisdom. I refer to the totally specious reasoning you have used. I won't hold you to task for the use of a non-word.DEMONETARIZATION or however you spelled it.
Seems your mentors were as deficient in spelling, syntax and English usage as they were in History and economics.

This isn't working either http://www.kitco.com/gold.graph.html. Boo Hoo, I'm lost without my 24 hour gold chart. If someone figures out what is going on please let us know.

I would like to repeat this post for all to print and hang on your respective walls. It will serve as your 'pledge to allegiance' with your morning coffee and croissant/bagel/lox/pizza whatever. It will be the reason we awaken from the nights slumber. It will be the twinkle in our eye. It will be our sunshine on the doorstep drying the dew. ohmy......the sweet dew.

http://www.kitcomm.com/comments/gold/1997q4/1997_12/971212.141432.steadyeee.htm

Excellent job, Sir Steady....now go over to the side of the room with all the people who have 'snatched the pebble'...with the Sheller's and the Cherokees....and that Cape Breton snot nose.....Irvine's and OZ/NZ's alike. Oh master..................uh huh.........

away...to sneak back to work......possibly.....

-ro-sham-bo

thanks Tol1...duly noted

hey nick fan - We play the Rockets 2-nite.....it couldn't be more bleak.....go vanExcellent! where is gold.......? go gold

Selby: Good to hear from you. Emotion.sentiment tells me a bottom must near, but reason agrees with you. No sense trying to catch any more falling knives. Much as we love to hate Andy Smith and the likes around here, they seem to have been right so far. Sooo...I've got my gold ( trigger ) finger locked up. BTW, I knew you were ca. 55...and I've got a year on ya.... Regards...

How about this thought. Everything is measured against gold when you get right down to it. Would you not call the drop in gold from a year ago hugely deflationary.

Now look at the "M" supply and it is easy to see that something is way out of line.

There is going to be a debacle like none other in history. You cannot print your way out of deflation. The US dollar is dead meat. RIP

Rockets will be 10 straight after tonight. May gold go that well...*after* this weekend when I intend to turn some overtime into precious yellow stuff.

Hey, you been drinking some of that OJ??!? And a day after th ecrop report said ( again ) biggest crop EVER. Maybe I can peel off my Jan. after all. Nice rally next week? need it.....ohmy!

http://www.futuresource.com/cgi-bin/charts32s.exe?chart=Orange+Juice+Futures&month=Jan+%2798

away...to find Anita B.

freshsqueeszzed

Wash the 'old fart' words & concepts out of your brain! This is the 'net. The great equalizer. We don't care what anyones 'age, gender, yada, yada, yada' is. What counts is what's in your heart and mind. So lay it on us, Big Guy. We want data, information, insight and wisdom. And of course the occational really decent joke ... glad you're here and hope you stay!

EB:

As GSC would say, 'the gold stocks are outperforming the bullion today' this is a good sign.

Some short term predictions ( wishes ) for tonight and tomorrow.

1. Some good news coming out of SE Asia.
2. Silver crawls back towards the 6.00 level while we sleep.
3. Gold goes nowhere overnight but drifts quietly higher in London
4. The stock market doesn't do much of anything because its caught in the options expiration mode and 950 is an attractor.
5. Gold rallies a little tomorrow morning
6. Silver picks up a head of steam
7. Gold rallies a lot in the afternoon.
8. Silver has another orbital day
9. I give thanks to the market gods.

Boy, I was worried there for a minute! I thought the internet police were on to me! I'll rest easy knowing that one of you computer wiz's is fixing things.

WASHINGTON, Dec 12 ( Reuters ) - Even as the dollar goes from strength to strength,inflicting pain on corporate America and putting a lid on U.S. exports, the chances of central bank action to halt its rise remain almost zero, analysts said Friday.

My comment: I keep forgetting that the dollar trade volume is so high that there is no way that R. Rubin can push the dollar down if it wants to go up. As you all probably know, there is concern that there might be another "tsunami" of competitive devaluations if the dollar continues to rise. The consensus from this post below is that Japan will not try to push down the dollar.

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/971212/economy_dollar_sched_1.html

I just saw your post on Hong Kong dollar etc. Please notice that your "magic" multiplier ( 209 ) etc. is just the price of gold in dollars divided by the SDR in dollars that day. Its a given, when you convert the currency into gold and into SRDs.

such as "The Market". What is the "Market"? Certainly it is not just a large group of individuals practicing capitalism, is it? No, it is more, much more thatn that. It is a force of human diversity engaged in the pursuit of wealth. It is a force of human cattle, stampeding. It is a force of one man. It a force of a million men. It is life. It is death. IT IS THE ARENA WHERE MAN HAS BREAD, OR DOES NOT HAVE BREAD.

Today, the market has decided that I am not to have bread. That is okay.

Printin Clinton, Rubin, dirtbag Camdesuss all to meet next week with a few other "heavy" financial players. They are apparently alot more worried about the Asia "GLITCH" than previously reported eh.

Tolerant1:

Let us get our definitions in order. Inflation is defined as rising prices in the coin of the realm. Where I sit that is the US dollar. If stuff and services cost more dollars then that is inflation. If I can get more stuff and services for the same dollars then that is deflation.

I say that stuff and services are going to cost more dollars. Inflation.
I don't make any representations about whether standards of living are going up or down or anything else. All I say is that its going to cost more dollars than it used to for an equivalent amount of stuff and services.

Gold, silver, platinum, uranium, wheat and cauliflower are examples of stuff. Barbers, hookers, and psychiatrists are examples of those that render services. Prices of stuff and services are heading higher. Whether or not more or less people will be able to afford them is another story.

Away for now.

They can't print the stuff fast enough to keep this implosion from happening. Japan's money supply up 20+% in three weeks and look what good its done for them. Korea is toast before breakfast. The best they will be able to do is bail out fast enough to let the big boys jump ship. Then it's in the drink for all us little fella's.

I continue to wonder what will happen when no one is credit worthy. They can print it or credit it all they want to then, but there will be no respite from the bankrupcies that will eat us alive world wide.

August and September they were saying this whole thing was a minor, very localized thing in Thialand, then Indonesia and then Maylasia. No problem. IMF to the rescue. End of story. And now? Korea, Japan, Brazil, Russia, Mexico ( locked out of debt markets last night I understand ) . Now people are getting nervous enough to *block news* coverage of the 14 bank failures in Korea ( out of 30 ) , the riot police protecting the banks from little old ladies who just want to know when they can withdraw their money...

IMHO, as the chorus at the CB's is want to sing, its ..

Bankers and Brokers first.
Ladies, children, if you will please.
Stand aside; we have to save
those who sold you on this ride.

We must understand
and have a proper set of priorities.
And so, if you don't mine,
stand aside; please, please.

For Dave ( in co )

I swear - I write first in notepad - then I paste with cntl-v.

then I preview before I send - In preview - it is singled spaced.

then hoopla - I send - and then I look and to my dismay - Ive been

DOUBLED SPACED.

Evil forces are at work here.

Next spring should be a good time to buy a Japanese car. Be about time for me to trade my 13 year old Mercedes with 300 thousand.

poetically.

Points well taken. What I was trying to say is that normal definitions do not seem to work. Gold getting hammered is considered deflation. Yet at the same time paper is being printed fast enough to melt the press.

Paper, everywhere paper. Nobody rushing to gold. What we end up with is the old story of he who has the gold. Prior to that, chaos and the markets worldwide getting clanked.

Watch out for Clinton, he will make matters worse than imaginable.

They may have to rewire the Full Metal Puppets on CNBC. They keep stuttering when the say "global market meltdown."

Congradulations on your newest family member, Nathan. Thanks for posting the links to the sites that provide information on whats going on in the far east. I tell people about this and they look at me like I'm crazy. Then they want to know where I "heard" that.

Congradualtions and thanks,
Steven Wilson

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/971212/markets_asia_leadall_1.html

Makes your words of wisdom easier to read. How's that? Give me a worthless gold coin and I'll say more.

Union Bank of Switzerland ( UBS ) and Swiss Banking Corporation ( SBC ) planning to merge ( status=speculation ) - if Swiss banks are so hot, with gold backing why would they want to do this. In my opinion, companies that are successful tend to prefer to keep to their own devices. When they get into trouble, they start looking for ways to rearrange the deckchairs, by mergers or demergers, restructuring, layoffs etc.

Perhaps these banks have been selling their gold...

Heard these?- UBS = U Been Sacked, SBC = Sacked before Christmas.

By the way, John Disney__A, I've had those spaced-out lines, it seems some "new lines" are different to others especially when pasting. Probably a CR or LF. The edit box does its own new line when you type up to the end, which means to fix the problem you have to go through deleting every end of line, then putting back the character or space you just deleted. A case for a nice Perl script to tidy up the text, I would think.

Of course your definition is simplified for clarity.

The whole is a tightly woven fabric of inter-relationships, each thread being pushed and pulled with the whole.It is like birds in flight banking and turning with awesome precision as one. Where will they go together?

That is why we will see
in/de-flation eventually:
in goods and services,
in labor and wages,
in national currencies,
to cover all bases.

Friday December 12, 4:18 pm Eastern Time

White House urges Korea to act quickly on IMF plan

WASHINGTON, Dec 12 ( Reuters ) - The White House on Friday said it was important for Korea to move promptly to implement an International Monetary Fund reform package.

``The United States believes it is very important for the Republic of Korea to quickly implement those arrangements it has made with the IMF,'' White House spokesman Mike McCurry told reporters.

"There should be no delay in that," McCurry said.

The spokesman added that the United States was watching the situation in Korea closely.

McCurry's remarks were similar to Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin's comments on Thursday that it was important for Korea to fully implement the reform package agreed to as part of a $57-billion IMF-backed financial rescue package.

THis is a test.

qrt

Can't wait for Louie Roukheiser and "Wallpaper Week" this weekend.

One things for certain about this mess in Korea. Although will have to tighten their belts for a few years, the Koreans will work their way out of this mess. They simply concentrated on their industrial capabilities, and ignored financial matters. They will figure an honorable way out, and they wont make this mistake again.

I lived in Korea for about two years, while working on an industrial project in Pusan. Their society is incredibly stable. Extremely low rates of divorce, crime, illegal drugs, and unwed births. Very high emphasis on family values and education. These protesters portrayed by the US media represent an extremely small percentage of Koreans.

Heres an analogy. If a family has a hard-working automobile mechanic as the bread-winner, and his wife maxes-out the credit cards, eventually the family will recover, no matter how bad the economy gets. Why? There is always work for a good mechanic. ( Okay, call the analogy police and turn me in... )

One interesting fact: arranged marriages are standard for about 95% of Koreans. They pay private detectives thousands of dollars to investigate the families of prospective spouses. This forces the families to take care of their own. If Uncle Joe was arrested for stealing a loaf of bread twenty years ago, your daughter may have to marry a janitor instead of a doctor!

TO ALL: Hope you bought your silver today. RJ--you are my hero.

Try writing your post in a word processing program ( e.g. Word, Word Perfect, et al.. ) , then cut and paste.

Also, don't hit the [Enter] key at the end of a line. In Notepad, before you copy the text, it should appear as one long line.

Has anybody heard from our friends at Kitco? I am curious what has happened to their website. The discussion group is the only page I can access. Error 404 and error 401 for www.kitco.com
Some outfit called GoSite, Your Internet server has locked us out. What in tarnation is the deal?

http://personal.fidelity.com/82DEV/the_hub/html/VIX.html

Does anyone have the gold spot close? Trying to figure the Dow/Gold Ratio.

nomercy: Canada rates now same as US. So now you can buy Canadian debt or US debt and get the same return. What would you do?

I also lived there for several years.

What you say is all true, but I'm sure you will agree, the other side of the coin is not so pretty.

Corruption is so much a part of Korean society that it is almost invisible. That is, it is so normal that it is not recognized as a negative force. Yet it is immensely negative.

Everything from a visit to your children's teacher to fixing a traffic ticket to your promotion at work to the assessment of your property value includes the payment of a bribe. Any transaction without a bribe has not been properly completed in the Korean view. This goes down to the poorest and up to the richest, and is known and expected throughout the society. It is as natural as tipping your restaurent server is in North America. In Korea, many could not live without this part of their income.

This is a fact of Korean life. Unfortunately, the repercussions have surfaced in the banking system which will not forgive this behaviour the way more traditional transactions will.

Combine this traditional background with the incredible pride of the Korean people, and you will not see them yield easily to an outside force like the IMF. The problems are fundamental, and solutions will take a long time.

Swiss central bank stands by gold


ZURICH, Switzerland, Dec 12 ( AFP ) - The Swiss central bank stood
by the role of gold in the monetary system and as a rampart against
economic crisis, in a statement issued Friday.
The bank sought to counter concern in the gold market that it
might sell heavily from its reserves, and said separately that it
did not intend to tighten monetary conditions in 1998.
A director of the bank, Jean-Pierre Roth, said that the bank
"has no intention of disposing rapidly of its stock of metal" and
that "those who are waiting for us to make massive sales will be
disappointed."
Roth said: "We are convinced that gold will continue to play an
important role as an instrument of exchange reserves, particularly
in the event of crisis.
"In the eyes of many, gold is synonymous with stability and
security, and it is our intention to retain big reserves of metal."
The Swiss government wants the central bank to sell some of its
gold, over a period of several years, to finance a solidarity fund
for the benefit of victims of natural disasters and violence
throughout the world.
A few weeks ago the price of gold fell sharply owing to concern
by dealers that central banks, and notably the Swiss central bank,
might sell huge amounts of gold.
The bank said at its end-of-year press conference that
inflationary pressures in Switzerland were weak.
But, it said, the bank's monetary policy "will also take account
of uncertainty arising from European monetary integration".
This was a reference to the launch of a single European currency
on January 1 1999. Switzerland is not a member of the European
Union.
In the last few days the Swiss franc has risen sharply, notably
against the German mark, and this has caused the central bank to
inject big amounts of liquidity into the banking system.
The president of the central bank ( BNS ) , Hans Meyer, said that
there was no need at the moment for Swiss interest rates to rise.
The discount rate has been at just 1.0 percent since September
1996.
Meyer said that the launch of the single currency might cause
unforeseeable and unwelcome changes to the value of the Swiss
franc.
The bank would do everything possible in the field of monetary
policy to counter undesirable effects in terms of the macro-economy
or the exchange rate, Meyer said.

Who are these pirates, anybody? C'mon, Vronsky, you out there? You got a nice web place, any clue who these infiltrators are?

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/971212/korea_funds_1.html

Comex warehouse gold stocks FELL 385 oz to 674,894 oz. Eligible stocks continued to dwindle away, falling 485 oz to 165,245 oz.

Comex warehouse silver stocks FELL DRAMATICALLY by 1,199,164 oz to 123,029,705 oz. Folks, thats about 40 tons of metal. You don't exactly plan to remove that much like you would go to the ATM machine and take out $40! These large chunk drops every few days are really interesting. I wonder if they are going directly from the warehouse to an airplane? Anyone know the cargo capacity of commercial flights? Seems like 40 tons would fill up a pretty large plane!

Anyone know the close for gold and silver

The Russkies have a big plane, the biggest, that will haul 985,000 pounds gross takeoff weight.

The Master Puppeteer's Show ( aka WSW ) with fast talking putrid puppets, spewing the latest financial and investment sophistry or just plain drivel is promissing to be exceptionally good tonight.

As tolerant1 suggested, the puppets are likely being rewired so the words "global financial meltdown" flow out of their mouths with less asperity.

ps - Heard that all cities that have FRB $$$ presses are reporting shortages of printing ink.

Mr Smith,
You asked, "What is a market?"

I kinda like Martin Baker's definition

"A group of smart, highly paid people with a common economic purpose and the collecive intelligence of baby trout."


Steve
congratulations to you all, thanks for sharing your joy, to Sheller's advice I would merely add, take Nathan fishin too.

auracastingflies

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/971212/korea_oil_1.html

Ah, sorry Good ol Boy, but my handy dandy price thing is busted.

Gold $282.90, silver $5.89

Ted-Where the heck are you!!! Away to see Mr.Bean and the Ted Spread.

Hey, mine is too. Who were those guys?

Yes, speaking of oil. There is a rather interesting situation brewing off the coast of Vietnam in international waters. New discovery, multi billion barrel field, Prudhoe Bay class, and the kicker is that it is contested. I believe Vietnam is hosting world producers while Chinese gunboats have the platforms surrounded. The situation is not new, in fact it is several years old, but the volatility for SE Asian fireworks is there, has been there, and is getting very ripe.

Dow/Gold Ratio = 27.71

XAU/Spot Ratio = .239

For the past 25 years, the US has opposed and resisted a return to the gold standard. Is this because they choose to continue to expand their existing $5 Trillion + debt structure, which can only lead to ultimate default and chaos? We wonder why in recent years no suggestion has immerged from the Fed that they intend to sell any part of their alleged, vast hoard of gold. Could it be that in event of an inevitable collapse, they intend to return to a gold standard to rescue the economy?

Meanwhile, most of the news recently out of the European currency merger would suggest that most countries would support a minimum 5% gold reserve to back their currencies. Anybody with any notions?

Arden nice to have you back. Hope all is well with you, considering.

Can you by chance tell us at what point in the dropping warehouse numbers did silver start its breakout move? A percentage would be nice.

Then is it possible to use that percentage to give us a level that we might expect a move from gold?

It seems from our silver experience that the market has to get pretty slime on stocks for bullion to move at all.

Thanks

If you live in California GET OUT!!! January 1988 The Big One.Any Comments Mike Sheller?

At the rock bottom very least the government will reenact legislation making it illegal to own gold. Producers must sell to Uncle Sugar, and citizens must surrender all bullion for retenderment. Scary thought, lets not go there.

I was in California in 1987, but nothing ever happened.

1998

I agree with EB that Steady's 14:14 post is very important. Gold could go down to 100 dollars but it would buy a better suit or more bricks than it does today.

However, I do not believe gold is signaling deflation at this time. Very simply normal supply and demand dynamics are not the reason for the current gold price levels. If they were then gold would be signaling certain doom.

The current price levels are either due to monetary authorities driving down gold to present a deflationary picture in the face of huge surges in liquidity and/or due to hedge funds finding themselves in a pikle ( impending short squeeze in the physical metal ) and doing the only thing that seems to work at the moment ( keeping gold in a controlled downtrend ) until a miracle happens or gold reaches 0 ( which ever comes first ) .

POORBOY.. I'd say we are safe from the 1988 disaster.

As usual thanks for the posts. Hope you are feeling better.

As in the early '30's where on the free market gold was trading at approx. $20 an ounce, Uncle Sugar shelled out $35 to bullion holders, i.e. a 75% overnight increase. Has anyone ( except perhaps a diehard Dell Computer investor ) reaped such an impressive gain, while at the same time saving the country from economic chaos?

John Disney - You might try using Word or Write to compose your messages. With Notepad, you have to hit "Enter" at the end of every line because it doesn't "wrap". It seems that Kitco automatically double spaces between paragraphs when posting, but not when previewing.

DA.. Ref: your comment about gold stocks being up.

London gold down; Comex gold down; Jberg index down; most S African gold stocks down all day.

Many other US stocks down. The XAU was up mostly due to ABX. For most of the day, PDG and BMG were down, and came up at the close.

It appears that funds are buying the obvious big mines, not the small. This is sometimes a good sign, but without a Jberg/London confirmation, the funds will stop after a day or two and XAU will come back down. Perhaps the buy-back promise by ABX has had an effect. In any case, I agree that we may be close to a buy unless gold rolls over again on Monday, taking XAU with it.

.dlog fo ecirp eht htiw od ot gnihton sah tamrof neercS !!!YAWA OG stsop yensiD .rM yaw eht ekil t'nod uoy fI

GFD, what is a market? What happens when "the market" drives the price of something to the economic limit of producing that something?

That is where we are now. Shortly "the market" will realize that it is at the low end or bottom price for todays gold. I own a mine and look at things from a miners perspective. In one sense it is upsetting to me to see and read that there are mine closures going on right now, but in another way, in the spirit of competition, it is good, for those that can stay open will be okay once "the market" gets a taste of less and less supply.

That Mercury Retrograde sure makes the mind find the past.Away to find Toto

Sir, it is against my nature to exchange gold for paper money. Furthermore, I am adamently against Uncle Sugar denying my ability to make like-kind investment exchanges with my metal.

Seems we are in the same business. I have long believed that gold mines should produce for a total cost of under $200 to he real healthy. However, it does not matter what the cost if you sell forward and lockin your profit as the big boys have done. I still don't know if Pegasus had done this, if not they should be in deep do do- gulpgh.u

Would the Fed prevent this by some kind of direct assistance: perhaps
opening the discount window to the Korean central bank? If something like this were to happen, what effect would this have on the $ and U.S.
short rates?

Aurator: I like your 17:36. When I read that I thought about what happens when one disturbs a flock of birds on the ground. All of a sudden they all fly up together, move over to one side, circle around, move en masse to the other side, and land in a tree or ?. Not all the birds go in the same direction, but the vast majority do so. Also the process is that they all move in sequence, with all the flapping and turning -- as if they were tracing an imaginary path in the sky.

The market action is similar. One thing I've noticed is that a major event triggering a market response enhances the "lock step" ( herd-flock-school ) response in the market. After that event, "echoes" in market action follow for some time following the event, based on the Fibonacci ( fractal ) series, described by that mysterious ratio -- 1.618 -- that is also found in the Pyramid of Giza, as well as in one of the Central American pyramids. If you have read Fischer's book titled "Fibonacci Series and the Spiral Curve" ( I think I have the name right ) , you will see that the 1.618 ratio can identify time and price changes, before ( underline before ) as well as after the big event. Fischer has gone far beyond conventional Elliot wave/Gann/Fibonacci analysis by the way.

I find this time reversal symmetry somewhat disturbing, despite that this is a common event in Physics analysis. There is one logical explanation of why this happens: that the forces that allowed the event to occur had built up a hidden synchrony before the event -- hence the precursor event -- which may not have been appreciated at the time for what it was. Any other explanation is too much for my little human brain, since it involves market precognition.

Given our October "ping" as sharefin calls it, the above comments may be especially relevant. Only problem is, I don't have a clue when the next market "ping" will be. However, the third "ping" may be more predictable.

I wonder -- just how much of what we do in this world is actually truly independent? Another thought -- I wonder what contrarian type gold bug birds do -- since they don't fly with the flock!

One last mind boggler -- Just last week I tried out a new method of time series analysis, called Daubuchet ( sp? ) Wavelet analysis on one year of daily Dow Jones data. This is light years more advanced than Fourier analysis, because the transforming algoritm uses little packets limited in time, rather than infinite fourier analysis, so the ends of the time series don't create errors in the analysis. What you get are the time periods over which the market is correlated. To my amazement, out came the Fibonacci series in days, out to several months of correlation! I think only one number was missing in the first 8. This is the first time I have ever seen a direct proof that the Fibonacci series ( and fractal analysis ) really applies to a real-life market situation! We really do move like a flock of birds, and the durations of our "flocking" are given in days by the Fibonacci series, just as those investment Guru's first told us years ago!

Pegasus did some hedging but apparently not enough.

Would you say the Barrick announcement signals the turnaround in the gold price... after all, who would know better?

BTW, I agree with Mr. Smith in principle.

I think these are the buy of a lifetime right now. There are not many silver stocks. I cannot say enough about the work of the GOLDBUG. There is much to be learned on the pages at www.gold-eagle.

Please take the time to go to http://www.gold-eagle.com and read the thoughts on silver from the Goldbug. There is much on the gold-eagle site. But I heartily suggest a thorough read of the Goldbug's thoughts on silver.

Silvers time is here or near, but it will be of no value unless you have a solid foundation upon which you can base your decisions. I subscribe to the Goldbug newsletter and have gotten mountains of solid information and suggestions.

I have made solid money in silver and intend on making more. And I for one can easily say that a great deal of what I have invested in and learned came out of reading the Goldbugs thoughts.

Consider this a blatant plug for the Goldbug from an appreciative reader and investor.

"The trouble in 1930 and 1931 originated within the banking community rather than on the stock market. In May 1931 there was pressure on the German and Austrian banks which they could not withstand. Lower world prices had raised the value of money debts, while shrinking the funds on which the debtors were relying. In other words, the move from an inflationary to a deflationary environment left many people baffled, and even more people deeper in debt, with little hope of paying their way out...

To enable Germany to meet its formal obligations, reparations had been financed by short-term borrowing, much of it from the United States. [South Korea alleged to be in trouble with short term debt repayments due by end 1997, with IMF refusing to bring forward emergency loans] Suddenly this could not go on...

The final blow fell when Austria's oldest bank, Credit-Anstalt was faced with losses which exceeded its entire capital [Can you spell "Yamaichi"]. After failing to get help from the French [US and Japan], the Austrians [Koreans] turned to London [the IMF]. So did the Germans. The Governor of the Bank of England, Montagu Norman came to the rescue of the Austrians with an advance of GB Pounds 4.5 million [Make that 60-odd billion $]. The French were furious and joined sterling's attackers, selling pounds with unconcealed vigour...[hmmm] The pound's gold parity was suspended on 21st September."

Excerpt from "Into the Upwave", Robert Beckman, Milestone Publications, 1988, ISBN 1 85265 110 5

There ain't no way gold will dip to $100. The supply will come to a halt long before that as mines stop production, and there will still be demand, which will convince the idiot sellers that 250 is low enough.

I seem to remember that before FDR confiscated gold the international value of the dollar, tied to a low price of gold, was too high, and other govts were devalueing their currencies. This was killing US exports, and too many imports eventually produced the tariff bill blamed for the depression. ( Hoot-Hawley? ) When the dollar was re-evaluated in gold, it repositioned the dollar with other currencies, but it was too late. By that time, all of the economies were messed up.

Does this sound familiar, as the dollar keeps going up.

.od ot gnihtemos deen uoY .efil a teG

For a large capitalization project, with ample reserves and high production as well as good cost control, why not sell forward?

Thanx to all those replies to my entry on the Gold Standard. They were as I expected. You have a cute argument. We are on the gold standard because you can buy gold with your money.

It doesn't work though. Just becuase you can buy copper with your money doesn't mean we are on a copper standard does it?

Sorry people. Gold is now a commodity to be bought and sold at market prices. Granted, you can use this commodity for monetary purposes. Like I have said, I too hold the yellow metal and see the virtue in holding a tangible asset, but all but the goldbugs agree that it wont play a substantial role in any monetary system. It lacks flexibility in an ever changing world.

Do you watch the X-Files? Mulder has a poster that says 'I Want to Believe' above his desk. Seems appropriate for many on this line.

But if you had a 1,000,000 ounce deposit which you could produce at $200 total costs and had the opportunity to lock in at $400, why not! What is the maximum amouont of time you have found that you can sell forward. aoo

Mr. Smith: A market is a market. A normal market whose price signals are meaningful does not have government or other proportionately large parties deliberately introducing price distortions for policy or trading reasons that have nothing to do with normal supply and demand.

IMVHO mine closures, demand from India are essentially irrelevant in this market. ABX going broke is the least of anyone's problems here. Just look at the monthly LBMA statistics. That has nothing to do with traditional gold market dynamics - not unless they merged with martian gold markets.

I think you will believe in less than 6 months how real gold is as the only internationally recognized money. Mark it on a calendar.

Precisely.

Yeah, its almost as if theres a couple of rich guys in London, maybe two or three in Europe, sitting around all day tossing millions of ounces around.

Ck out my post of Dec 7 @21:36.

In distant years I was instructed that money is divisible, easily transportable, recognizable, desrirable and for the life of me I can not recall the fifth critera, but gold fits them all. Any where in this world I can buy things with gold which I can easily transport ( copper, horses and houses do not work well ) . If it fits the definition of money, it is money. I would hate to be trasporting various odd named currencies printed by different governments around the world trying to buy airplane tickets and breakfast. Seems not too long ago U.S. Ben Franklins were discounted by 10% in the far east due to the fact there were so many fakes. They sort of flunked the recongnizability test. Can anyone help me with the element I am missing?

Hello, Dave, hope everything is well..

Both you and me are in the same camp, may be even in the same tent
on the subject of Fathers & Second.

My way of thinking is similar to the way the cocktails are made -
I pile pieces of info in my head, shake it many many times and
it's done.. And so, I have really good news for you and me - WE
ARE SAFE!!!

All this gold price mistery can be solved really easy, if you use
Maxwell Smart famous phrase:

"It's an old US interests and US dollar trick"

There were few posts on this site that I initially did not understand
completely until today. Today it finally came to me...

This show consists of 3 parts. We already watched part #1, we are
watching the second half of part #2, and there will be also part #3.

Part #1. - A.G.'s warnings that stock markets are too high ( over year ago ) . Our hero is a smart guy and knows that everybody, including the
U.S., is going to be in a toilet if bubble.... ( you know the rest )
Nobody seems to listen to him...

Part #2. - Finally it started.. U.S.debt ( means U.S.interests ) and
US dollar are in danger... O'key, gold should go down to save and
STRENGTHEN them... It works, both are very strong, everybody thinks
it's the SAFE HEAVEN.

But now, the problem is that U.S.dollar is TOO STRONG in relation
to the other currencies, which will be BAD for the U.S. economy -
we are now watching this part of play.

Part #3. Planned and careful weakening of the U.S. dollar in relation
TO THE OTHER CURRENCIES. How can you do it without big problem and
in a NATURAL WAY? You adjust the INTERNATIONAL price of gold in US DOLLARS, and because major currencies are to some extent connected to each other through gold, it will work..

You heard this before from TV guys - "...low gold price shows that
inflation is under control and U.S. dollar is strong and blah,blah"

So, price of gold in US DOLLARS will rise, because IT WILL BE IN THE
US INTERESTS. I guess not to $1,000 or more, but to the level which
will help the U.S. to keep U.S. dollar in desired proportion with other major currencies, otherwise the U.S. production output may choke
a little bit without overseas buyers and a lot of CHEAP imports.

I think we will be watching part #3 in the nearest 3-6 months.

There are many other factors involved, but it seems to me this play
will have the biggest impact.

What do you think, Dave?

We are not on a gold standard because the dollar is not defined as
a specified weight and fineness of gold and convertible on demand
at the bank issuing the banknotes. Under a gold standard the
monetary unit is gold and not the banknotes which are merely a paper
claim to a specific amount of gold of a specific weight and fineness.
The fact that one can buy physical gold with fiat money doesn't change
the fact that the bank of issue ( the Fed ) is not required to redeem its
bank notes for gold on demand. It's this characterisic of the gold
standard that restrains the bank of issue from issuing unlimited amounts
of banknotes and credit money ( demand deposits ) .

I bought Jan 10 calls on HM for 9/16 and April 12.5 calls for 7/16. What are my chances? Comments appreciated.

To each other, tossing ounces to each other. Crazy old coots are probably getting a good laugh out of it too.

Does the obvious establishment panning of gold to the public mean they are buyers? Its seems too obvious and unsuttle. IE make the average guy hate gold, WHY.

JTF-What seems correct today is always gone tomorrow .Planet analysis of the markets works as well but the line-up now is similar to many groups over thousand year periods as we have no understanding of these periods everything now should be wide-open to any and all interpretations .Happy Trails.Away to find Ted

The book for ABX per share looks to be in the nine dollar range., However a 2 to 1 or 3 to 1 price to book is not unusual with Notre Americano mines. Nem had a book of $10 and change when it was selling for 40 bucks, Homestake a book of $5.xx when selling for for 15 . You remember, those were the good old days! Just like the P/E for mines is MUCH higher than a food company.
I don't know why SA mines have better book values, I have heard some say it was because accounting is different there ( now don't get your dander up John, I said I don't know!:- ) ) . But then their cost of production higher, or so a lot of folks this side of the pond say.

SPOCK..

Even if there is not an official gold standard, gold has an effect upon the stability of a currency. If S Korea had a stockpile of gold, their currency would not be falling like a brick. It would hold most of its value. I don't find it odd that during this time of turmoil, the currencies of US, UK, Germany, France, and the Swiss are high value currencies, and Australia and Canada are plummeting to new lows, along with all of Asia.

CJS1_A.. Keep up the history lesson. One question. What was happening before OCT '29.

remember what the fifth element is in the definitition of money. Recognizable, easily transportable, divisible, desirable, and ?

remember what the fifth element is in the definitition of money. Recognizable, easily transportable, divisible, desirable, and ?

I am one of the little guys, but I believe the principles are essentially the same as for the big boys in that I need to recover capitalization costs and reward that capital with a healthy return over time, operate as effeciently as possible within the cash flow constraints, and to replace every ounce I produce with an effiecient exploration program.

Do I have it right

If you mean by lacking flexibility, it restrains banks from issuing
unlimited quantities of banknotes and creating unlimited amounts of
credit, then you are right: gold does lack flexibility.
Do you actually believe that creating paper banknotes and credit
actually leads to prosperity? If that were true, the fastest growning
economy would be the one whose central bank prints money the fastest.

Economic growth is casused by capital accumulation not printing money.
It would be possible to have very rapid economic growth with a stable
or declining money supply because the money supply is irrelevant to growth.

Easily replicated? No, thats no it.

Spock: I really believe you do! Donald was pulling your leg with his ( Bankers Black? ) humor. Yes, you can redeem your dollars in gold bullion any time you want. But -- the US government long ago gave up on fixing the price of gold in dollars. The last time we were truly on the gold standard in the US was well before 1972, when Nixon threw in the towel an d closed the gold window. Have you read about that period of time from the 60's to 1980? During that time the central banks tried to pull off the same game they are playing now. In fact, Mike Stewart pointed out that the 1974-1976 period in the behavior of gold/gold stocks was a carbon copy of what is happening now. The 1974-1980 period is a very educational one, and you should read up on it if you want to be a true believer, because the central banks tried almost exactly the time thing they are trying now -- and most people bought it hook line and sinker!

Unfortunately when we went off what was left of the gold standard in 1972, and the dollar fell to its true value, no longer supported by CB gold sales -- the world had its worst currency crisis since the great depression era. All because the dollar had inflated.

We are living the same lie now -- and gold is now worth much less in dollars than most commodities, just like it was in 1976. If you still don't believe us, and you wish to believe the hype of the popular media, just sit back and watch! I doubt that gold will rise above $2000/oz until well after the millenium ( perhaps 2010 ) , but we will have nice 200%-300% profits in gold stocks before year 2000. The only problem now is guessing on the bottom ( very near ) , choosing gold stocks in companies that don't go belly up, and hoping that the world's financial system does not melt down. Gold coins/bullion were invented for the faint of heart that don't want to ride the gold bug Tsunami!

Have you noticed that pre-1933 gold coins are already going up in price? Hope you keep your powder dry, and join the rest of us in a wild ride -- which will probably begin in a few months. Right now there are countries in the world where the price of gold is going down, but their number seems to be decreasing daily. Won't be long before the US will be the last holdout in the competitive deflations that are sweeping the world like sharefin's Tsnuami. Then what? The dollar stays up all by itself as we flood the rest of the world with dollars? Eventually all those reserve, etc dollars will come home to roost.

Right on, but it seems sometimes the big boys can confused as to whether the goal is to proeduce ounces or produce at a profit. Unless they lock in such companies as Amax Gold, Homestake, and Pegasus were extremely hight cost producers, not to neglect the South Africans.

Thanx for that. But Germany had gold as part of its reserve in 1923 and it didn't stop their currency going down the toilet. Australia had almost 250 tons of gold in 1986 when the currency fell to 57c US. Japan does not hold signifiacnt amounts of gold reserves and they have one of the highest standards of living in the world despite their current problems.

Hey look, I think the CBs are silly to sell their gold. It is a tangible asset in times of emergency but it is not the panacea to all economic problems as many on this info line suggest.

Just for the sake of idle curiosity, if we returned to the gold standard on Monday, how many bucks for an ounce? I have no idea, but I would think it would be a rather large number. Guessing $1000/oz.

Poorboys: I don't recall asking the question you just answered, but I have wondered about this, as I believe that the concept of "time" is a human construct, and cycles in time give us perspective into predicting what will happen. Unfortunately, as you point out, one only gets part of the story, as there are many variables we know nothing about!

I agree 100% with your answer, but I am truly puzzled that you answered something that I have thought about but never posted about on Kitco! How did you do that?

Flexibility does not only mean printing money. As Mr. A. Greenspan has mentioned, it also means destroying money if necessary to prevent inflation.

As I have said in a previous note, the world is a much larger and different place than at the turn of the century when the gold standard was in place. Would you take a horse and cart on a freeway?? Change happens and we have to adjust. Money is money because people believe it is and if 95% of the popn accept paper without any qualms then it is money. If the 5% of goldbugs disagree then they are the ones out in the cold.

I agree we are living in interting times and like you I too hold gold, but the doomsday scenarios posted here are ludicrous. This line is a classic example of what happens when a relatively small group of people start reinforcing each others beliefs without any further outside input. Strange and unrealistic concepts become dogma and anyone who disagrees with the mantra is persecuted and abused.

Friday December 12, 6:49 pm Eastern Time

S. Korean rescue package sufficient - Camdessus

WASHINGTON, Dec 12 ( Reuters ) - International Monetary Fund managing director Michel Camdessus said on Friday that a $57 billion rescue package for South Korea would be ``sufficient'' and that Seoul was meeting its promises to the IMF.

But Camdessus also told public television's Newshour with Jim Lehrer that the package would not achieve results overnight.

``The package is there for restoring confidence over time and to help the country to fix its economy,'' he said. ``You do not do that overnight.''

But Camdessus said the South Korean government was meeting its promises to the IMF. ``The government of Korea is delivering what it has pledged,'' he added, defending the scale of the rescue deal.

``We believe that the financing is sufficient,'' he said, adding: ``The worst is behind us, provided the Korean people and their friends persevere in the program.''

Financial markets have reacted very negatively to the rescue package and some analysts had said that the $57 billion bailout would not be big enough to cope with Seoul's massive financial problems.

Yes sir, and one of the missing variables is always the market flushing the toilet just at the right moment. I am a firm believer that timing in the precious metals market is equivilent to nothing.

Gold does work as a standard, but, only if that entity which controls the standard is relentless in enforcing the standard. The Bank of England at one point was known for its unwaivering and strict adherence.

In addition you do not need to have all the gold on hand or stuck in a vault in order for this to work.

"Shit happens." No, not with those things you have control over and the gold standard is one of them.

El Nino' is not.

Spock: You do understand most of the picture! You are right,of course -- the information on this website is distorted by the posters. You have to decide for yourself how much is true, and when it is true. The way I look at this is that my Dad is and was a "doom" and "gloomer". He made alot of money watching his gold investments double and triple in the 70's, peak in 1980, but then he held everything all the way down to the present time -- so he lost all of his gains, and then some! One must change with the times.

What you have to do on this web site is to filter the "gloom" and "doom". The US may have a market crash, and it may have a serious massive inflation problem, but it may be many years from now, even though the crises in the world are very real. The "gloom" and "doom" you are getting here are the possibles. You have to filter this and choose the "reals". This takes time -- but is exactly the same problem you would have in believing the distorted information in our news media. Hang in there, and you will learn what to believe, and when to act.

JTF: Poorboys "did that" because he is in tune with astrology. When "science" does the same in the Age of Aquarius ( dawning ) we will ALL get somewhere.

Good ol' Boy:
Is it homogenous?????

Thanx. Yes, I am sifting the wheat from the chaff. I'm just hoping to inject a touch of reality back into the discussion. I've never been one to just simply agree with people for the sake of 'nicety'.

Best wishes.

Gold, Shmold. SSC up 6% today, and I'll sell once again at 1.20 when it hits. Silver ends up 10% on the week. Now all I can say is "F" Gold, buy Silver!

Would it be to much to ask for the details of your work? Could you email me how you implemented it and your general thoughts on how to use it? Thanks.

Friday December 12, 7:02 pm Eastern Time

Japan will not be next, IMF's Camdessus says

WASHINGTON, Dec 12 ( Reuters ) - International Monetary Fund managing director Michel Camdessus said on Friday Japan would not be the next Asian economy to fall victim to the financial crisis that has swept much of the continent.

``Let me tell you that Japan will not be next,'' he said in an interview on public television's ``Newshour with Jim Lehrer''.

``Japan is a rescuer in this business, Japan will not need to be rescued,'' he added.

South Korea has become the third Asian economy -- following Indonesia and Thailand -- in just four months to win a multibillion dollar bailout package after much of the continent was engulfed in financial turmoil.

The IMF is contributing almost $35 billion to the three packages, while Japan has pledged some $10 billion in bilateral support as a second line of defense should the IMF's funds be insufficient.

Camdessus insisted that the situation in Asia was not a crisis but a ``transition to a form of maturity''.

``Every crisis is a mixture of dangers and opportunities. Now we are trying to contain the dangers to take advantage of the opportunities,'' he said.

Unfortunately, I was taking programming classes instead of Econ classes so I'll leave the analysis to the experts here. But I am trying to learn.

Are you saying that in the next phase, after driving the price of gold down to support their Goldilocks "no inflation" economic numbers ( lies ) , the Financial Elite will allow the price of gold to rise to save the US financial markets from consequences of the US trade deficit?

They will have to explain to the sheep that rising gold no longer signals inflation. Will they use the mine closings and/or "gold is now just a commodity" as excuses for the price rise?

Am I close? I do like the part where gold goes up.

JTF: As an astrologer, especially one who has done a number of charts for a number of Kitcoites, all of whom I have only the greatest respect, and love, ( Even LGB ) , I have to tell you, even without seeing your horoscope, that you MUST make a commitment to something deep, and hard, and SOON. You are wavering, hovering, hesitating, over the abyss. There is a mystery you can unveil, and a windmill at which you can tilt, but you are waiting, wavering, unsure. I tell you now, jump! Leap off the cliff. You are a brilliant, open mind, in need of a committment....do not be afraid to be seen as crazy. Leap. Your greatest work as a scientist is yet before you. You need only LEAP.

Where Have you heard any CB say they are selling their Copper? This
massive PR campaign against Gold is designed to keep the incredible numbers of paper $BILLS from buying GOLD and send its price thru the roof and thereby keep the current paper Game going.
How long will it last?

Tolerant1, I think we should file Camdessus"

``Let me tell you that Japan will not be next,'

In the same place as

"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." -- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.


"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." -- Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

yady yady yaurator

Tolerant1

Then again, perhaps Camdessus knows that Indonesia is next in line.

BTW, isn't Brunie's currency backed by gold? course the sultan musta lost a packet doing his Witney impersonation "205 for 10,000 Steel" on one of the KL meltdown days.

Spock, you don't understand the rules here. Being "nice" is required only from non GoldBugs. Karlito's posts of yesterday and today, are a great example. he posts a rational, well reasoned argument for further declines in the price of Gold, and is practically lynched from all quarters.

"De riguer" here, is to fall lockstep into the "Massive crash coming tomorrow due to debt and Gold will skyrocket cause it's the only real money" thinking. If you can throw in some Y2K stuff, a conspiracy here and there, completely blind yourself to the century you live in and the plenty you posess, if you can see only negative in the world and no positive, if you believe the CIA/FBI/US Armed forces shot down TWA 800, so much the better.

Any departure from this, any grasp on reality of the world today, and disagreement with Doom and Gloom theorists, any factual debate on what Gold's value has done relative to dollars, donuts, homes, cars, etc......is considered heresy and you will be duly exorciated accordingly.

Your's was the post that gave me today's best smile. "CB copper selling" yep, CB's hold most of the world's copper in their reserves all right.

Those damned tri-lateral paper bug one worlders, phonies. When are they going to quit manipulatin Gold's price anyways? Maybe they should drop leaflets in those nations where there are still buyers..Indai and such, you know, a covert operation headed by the CIA with connections to Rothschild and the LBMA.

Hmmm, didn't I hear stories about Black choppers over there in them backward nations droppin them leaflets already??? Oh yes, it was ASIA where they are doin it, cause the Asian's aren't buying Gold anymore now that there currencies are collapsing. In fact they're sellin the stuff en masse...hey WAIT A SECOND, isn't the populace supposed to rush to BUY Gold when there nation has financial / currency problems??

Hmmm, must be the Gold buyin and sellin is being MISreported by them media conspirator CNBC types..ummhmm ummhmmm..those bastards....

Is the fifth quality of money durability?

I am amazed beyond belief and words of the imbecility and irresponsibleness of the following:

WASHINGTON, Dec 12 ( Reuters ) - International Monetary Fund managing
director Michel Camdessus said on Friday Japan would not be the next Asian economy to fall victim to the financial crisis that has swept much of the continent.

"Let me tell you that Japan will not be next," he said in an interview on public television's Newshour with Jim Lehrer.

Public officials of the "Camdessus" ilk MUST BE HELD IN INTERNATIONAL ACCOUNT for their financially careless and reckless remarks.

ARE ALL YOU LAWYERS OUT THERE ASLEEP? OR IS IT YOU HAVE NO UNDERSTANDING OF WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE WORLD OUTSIDE OF "OJ" TYPE OF OCCURANCES?!

??????????????????????????????????????????/

Friday December 12, 7:19 pm Eastern Time

IMF backs S.Korea deal, says Japan won't need help

WASHINGTON, Dec 12 ( Reuters ) - International Monetary Fund head Michel Camdessus defended the international community's record-breaking $57 billion rescue package for South Korea on Friday and said Japan would not need help.

``Let me tell you that Japan will not be next,'' IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus told public television's ``Newshour with Jim Lehrer''. ``Japan is a rescuer in this business. Japan will not need to be rescued.''

Camdessus, in his first comments since the IMF approved the South Korean rescue deal, said the worst was over, provided all sides fulfilled their promises.

``The worst is behind us, provided the Korean people and their friends persevere in the program,'' he said.

He said the rescue package was large enough and the authorities were meeting their promises to the IMF.

``The government of Korea is delivering what it has pledged,'' he said. He added: ``We believe that the financing is sufficient.''

The $57 billion package, even bigger than an U.S.-led international bailout for Mexico in 1995, was the third multibillion dollar loan masterminded by the IMF this year. Countries have been hit by tumbling currencies and ailing stock markets, while Seoul's problems have been compounded by a weak financial sector and a mountain of bad debt.

Financial markets have reacted very negatively to the rescue package and some analysts had said that the $57 billion bailout would not be big enough to cope with Seoul's massive financial problems.

But Camdessus said it was unrealistic to expect the rescue deal to solve South Korea's problems overnight.

``The package is there for restoring confidence over time and to help the country to fix its economy. You do not do that overnight,'' he said.

``We must be committed to our program, deliver what we promised, and our friends in Korea must do the same.''

REF: aurator ( Camdessus knows something we don't... ) ID#255284:"

With all due respect to you, methinks you afford too much credit and empathy to Camdessus. He could care less, one way or the other, because he collects his salary regardless of what happens, and irrespective of his stupid remarks -- in my very considered opinion. In fact one might believe he earns more by toting the 'conventioanl line.' You probably know what I mean.........................................

Vronsky
no need to shout,old bean, this lawyer's awake. I shall ignore your rudeness, but both Tim & I have responded to you. see Date: Wed Dec 10 1997 04:15, ... Date: Thu Dec 11 1997 02:37.... Date: Tue Dec 09 1997 19:36
not once have you replied...or commented that you have understood or appreciated this free advice...

aurameterrunningnow

Now Mike, I appreciate you bein nice to me and all, in spite of my sarcasm re Astrology, shows class on your part, BUT, leave poor JTF alone with that metaphysical proseletyzing will ya!

I'm all for spiritual / metaphysical beliefs, that there's a huge universe beyond our puny ability to understand it is self evident, HOW ever, remember that in areas where any thesis and beliefs can be easily and readily tested by scientific experimentation...in THOSE areas, "faith" should be discarded and FACTS should be tested through well designed studies/experimentation.

There are thousands of such "faith" based beliefs that are accepted today by far too many. The wacko's who believe that vaccines are the basis of disease for example. ( Thank God their cult wasn't around when Polio and Small Pox vaccines stamped out those dreaded diseases ) .

This has been my basic beef with astrology. Or many other mystical / metaphysical methods of prediction. Too many times, claims are made that are readily and easily testable. When such well controlled studies are done, the results become all too clear.

( Check any of the good "skeptic" site on the web folks, "Skeptical Inquirer" is a great start )

Firstly IF you read my post you would see that I said US$ chasing Gold,
since GOLD is ONLY down against the US$. Gold is up against most
of these battered SE ASian currencies substancially, so I don't know where you get your info from. As I said in my previous posts I would hate
to wake you up from your wonderful dream, but I won't the Markets
will do it for me.,and oh! yes Virginia there is a SANTA CLAUS, I look forward to your cogent responses as abovenoted.

ROR--I have no clue on where the HM calls are going, but I have also accumulated more than a handful over the last two months. However, it should give you confidence that you are thinking like a Hoosier now! : ) Go Larry B., go HM, and Go Gold!

G'Day from Kalgoorlie, Western Australia

I was informed yesterday, from a very reliable source, that Pegasus Gold Australia Pty Ltd are being placed in receivership. Does not look good from Pegasus Gold Inc USA, who are at risk of defaulting on a "mere" US$353 million. Not good.

Aye, Haggis

Actually TZADEAK, Gold's value has declined in those Asian countries, not risen, and quite proportionally to other commidites. You must be confusing inflation with deflation.

As to money growing on trees. It does indeed in countires with expanding economies and expanding populations. If it didn't, the populace would have fewer and fewer dollars, chasing goods and services, and/or their economies would have to grind to a complete halt with no credit liquidity to fuel the expansions, industries, enterpreneurs, technologies, etc etc of tomorrow.

In such a world where money did NOT "grow on trees" we'd all be living as we did in the last 6000 years or so. Not a great improvement over our current condition. I for one, would prefer this life with money growing on trees, to one of working 14 hour days just to make enough to eat a little bread, till I die at age 22, with no wordly posession to my name.

Maybe YOU would prefer to live in such a world, as for me, I'll take the money growing on trees gladly, as long as they don't grow TOO MUCH, or TOO LITTLE of it, in proportion to our debt, our economic expansion, our GDP, and our expanding populace.

Out of the dark ages, harvesting that money tree, ( thankfully ) LGB

Spock: I really believe you do! Donald was pulling your leg with his ( Bankers Black? ) humor. Yes, you can redeem your dollars in gold bullion any time you want.

I have been missing a good conversation I see.

What I said is true; but the problem is that we all can't. If we were to try at the same time many would fail and the whole mess would collapse. If we were on a true gold standard all holders of cash dollars could convert. The paper notes would just be a convenience, an easy to carry receipt for gold. Each act of conversion is a vote. A vote of "no confidence". Our founding fathers knew exactly what they were doing.

Vronsky,

20:17, you have misunderstood the conversation, amigo, 'twixt el toleranto and old salty....the implication of the posts was that, while the press lauded Cam's statement as a positive message for the world, I applied two spins to the same statement, the second post contained just a slightly more subtle interpretation. English is a b!tch of a language, full of half-meaning, inuendo, inflection and subtlty, I beg your pardon, I forget that there are non-native speakers, and tend to fly a little in my use of anguish languish, it is one of the things that I am passionate about, this mother tongue, this bstard polygolt mishmash of a dozen millenia of poeples. I love it, but I can be obscure. I am always happy to talk about my tongue.



aurator

say aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh

Thanks for that Pegasus post, I've been watching them closely to determine if it's a good high risk play. I think I'll wait till the receivership is announced, watch the inevtiable final plunge in share price, buy the following day on the open, and make a 1 or 2 day play out of it. That strategy has worked wonders for a lot of players in distressed and "bankrupt" or "Re-organized" companies.

You just said "I am always happy to talk about my tongue." ( Psst, I know this female who..well..NEVER MIND! )

Howdy to all! I've missed three days of Kitco action due to $16 oil and it's effects on my day gig. I see nothing has changed except silver...wow!!!

I read the Camdessus excerpts posted earlier...I also watched one of his hit men ( a pompous bow-necked Windsor-type ) on CNBC around noon ( CST ) . This junior-league guy had a vastly different take on the Korean calamity than what his boss has said...the circumstances he reported were:

1. The Koreans had indicated they weren't going to do the IMF deal.

2. That the omnipotent IMF would see to it that the Koreans will change their mind.

3. If the Koreans didn't cooperate...there would be no S. Korea.

4. That as of now, no oil would be delivered to their refineries.

Camdessus and his investors are playing hard ball...they intend to own the world's 11th largest economy. Is this green-mail on a new level?
Not really. These are big, bad wolves breathin' hard.

I bet "junior" ( the boy on CNBC ) is working on his resume...if he's still breathing. Don't think this kind of crap doesn't happen?...I had the "honor" of being around World Bank guys and their "strong arms" when I worked for the Murchison family.

Congrats to STEVE-PERTH...You know have the ultimate possession. Good work.

Christopher Ruddy appeared last night on Tavis Smiley show to discuss his coverage of the Ron Brown controversy.

G'day Aurator....just got yer missive---thankx! EB: Got yer thingy but mine to ya bounced back into my stupid face ( SMACK ) ----think this ISP disease thing is spreading~~~~~~~~~~~as I've been down + out for mucho hours...

LGB LOL

a cck pheasant just walked up my driveway, golden breast and flank feathers, scarlet & green neck.

auraoutahere

No further comment needed

This is from the WGC site ( an excerpt )

Developing Markets

SE Asia & S Korea

Covers Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam & S Korea

Dishoarding exceeded purchases by a net 15 tonnes during Q3'97. This was prompted largely by the 40% depreciation of the Thai Baht against the US$, which meant sharply higher gold prices in local currency terms.

There was some profit taking, but the bulk of the volume reflected distress sales. The fact that consumers were able to convert this gold back quickly into cash highlighted, once again, gold's traditional role as a store of value and asset of last resort.

LGB2 Quote from 20:27 Dec: 12, 1997

"Gold's value has declined in those Asian countries, not risen,"

I don't believe you have read any of my posts and I am now convinced
that you really have not studied History especially the History of paper currencies. You make the point over and over and over and over and over and over.......... that somehow I or WE goldbugs want this "crisis"
to happen. Read my posts and you will see that "crisis" is the last thing I want to happen, but the fact is it will for a great number of reasons. Why don't you read some on this subject.Why do think we have had all those countless wars after war after war....?
Consider yourself lucky that this time all that may happen is our ( North American ) paper currency will be devalued and we won't have to fight
or maybe loose our lives in a war like was done in the past.
PS Before I respond to any of your posts PLEASE read thru my posts
and you will find that I am not always a GOLDBUG, I believe in Gold
only in times of currency deaths ( revaluations ) because Gold is
THE CURENCY OF LAST RESORT!!!!!/
And your definition of paper currency is way off!!!

LGB: Although that is exactly what I knew you would say, I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU MADE SUCH A RACIST STATEMENT. Thanks for not disappointing me.

HA, HA, HA, HA

Aurator: 'It' can be a bore at times ...eh!...EB: Just tried again and the damn thing came back again---move ta Cape Breton where ya can actually recieve e-mail ( sometimes ) ....

( CNCN ) Pegasus Gold Australia Files For Voluntary Administration In Australia

NEWS RELEASE TRANSMITTED BY CANADIAN CORPORATE NEWS

SPOKANE, WASHINGTON--Pegasus Gold Inc. ( the "Company" ) announced its wholly owned subsidiary Pegasus Gold Australia Pty Ltd has voluntarily appointed Administrators of that company in Australia.

The Administrators are Peter Geroff and Gregory Moloney of Ferrier Hodgson of Brisbane. The firm specializes in insolvencies.

The appointment of Administrators follows the decision to suspend operations at Pegasus Gold Australia's Mt. Todd gold mine, located near Katherine in the Northern Territory of Australia, and place the mine on care and maintenance effective November 15, 1997. Pegasus Gold Inc. has concluded that it is not in the best interests of all stakeholders to continue to fund significant operating losses of its Australian subsidiary.
By suspending operations at Mt. Todd, along with the appointment of Administrators, the Company is endeavoring to protect both the Mt. Todd assets and the funds advanced by the Company to Pegasus Gold Australia, pending the determination of restructuring proposals.

The Administrators have advised that under Australian law they are required to provide Pegasus Gold Australia's creditors with a report about its business, property, affairs and financial circumstances as well as their recommended course of action.

Peter Geroff, one of the Administrators, and a partner in the specialist insolvency firm of Ferrier Hodgson said "the intention of the Administrators while performing a review of the whole of Pegasus Gold Australia operations, is to continue to keep all stakeholders fully informed, including the current employees of the Pegasus Gold Australia as well as the Jawoyn people ( the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land upon which the Mt. Todd Mine is situated ) with whom the Company has always had an excellent relationship. After that review," Geroff continued, "the Administrators will discuss proposals with creditors of Pegasus Gold Australia, and liaise with Pegasus Gold Inc. and its banking group."

Statements in this release which are not historical data are forward looking and involve a number of risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to the price of gold and other commodities and currencies, production, construction and permitting or regulatory delays, reserve estimation of tonnage, grade and metallurgical recoveries, exploration success and reserve growth, litigation, capital costs, and other risks that are detailed in the Company's SEC filings.

Pegasus Gold Australia Pty Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of Pegasus Gold Inc., an international gold mining company headquartered in Spokane, Washington. Pegasus, a Canadian company by incorporation, currently produces about 500,000 ounces of gold from operations in North America as well as Australia. The Company carries out exploration internationally through offices located in Mendoza, Argentina; Kalgoorlie, Australia; Itaituba, Brazil; Santiago, Chile; and Panama City, Panama. The common shares of Pegasus are traded under the symbol PGU on the American, Toronto and Montreal stock exchanges. Options on the Company's common shares are traded on the Chicago Board Options Exchange and the Montreal Exchange.



FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT:

Pegasus Gold Inc. John W. Pearson ( 509 ) 624-4653

01:25 EST DECEMBER 12, 1997

"Dow Jones News Service"
"Copyright ( c ) 1997, Dow Jones & Company, Inc."

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/971212/henry_walker_hrw_ax_1.html

Here are my current gold positions and would like your input. I am 42 and own 5 bussiness and have franchised 3 more. I am new to options trading and only invest risk capital. I believe this train could leave any day now and don't want to miss it. I believe gold may not have bottomed yet and my long term ( 1 year ) outlook is very bullish. I hope to be fully invested within the next month. I would like to buy more coins but would like to cover my ass ests. I enjoy the option market and have $2,500. more gambling money left.
When I buy coins ( 100 ) I buy a Jun. 99 put for insurance so not to have more than 10% downside exposure. My objective is to have bullion coins with limited downside risk and a realistic chance to profit from my options. ( MAKE U.S. DOLLARS )

100 Philhomonics with a Jun. 99 270 put- coin insurance.
Feb 98 280 put -short term bearish sentiment
Jun 99 370 call - long term
Jun 99 340 call - long term
$2,500. cash
This represents $35,000. how would you of invested it?
Can I expect more profits from gold mining stocks ?
Platinum coins?

Quite a week:

Gold: By the end of last week, gold had broken out of the -15%/year downward-trending channel that had contained its price movement since the beginning of 1997. Since the beginning of October, gold has been in a tight channel that is steeply heading down at a rate of 80%/year! Hard to imagine the channel could get steeper. A small rally, still within this channel could take gold up to $290 ( if it happens soon ) . Otherwise, sideways or down. My first target will be to see gold break out of this channel to the upside. As of now, this is the trend, and it is vicious!

Platinum: With the quick drop this week, platinum has broken out of the -20%/year downward-trending channel that has contained its price movement for several months. Looking at the recent price movement, it is also now in a tight channel that is trending down at the same rate as gold, about -80%/year. I hate to say it, but this may get worse. The platinum/gold spread has been forming a pennant pattern going back to early June, with a base just under a spread of $80. This is approaching an apex in the next few weeks. It has to break one way or the other. To me it seems most likely that it will break downward, thus the price of platinum will start to approach that of gold again. Bad news for platinum longs if this happens ( including me! ) .

Palladium - Having reached the apex of its pennant pattern, it had to break one way or the other. As I predicted, it did finally break downward, following the downward trending line of resistance, which seems to define the top of a new downward-trending channel. Given the currency and financial problems in the far east, IMHO, palladium may finally join platinum and drop into a steep down channel.

Silver :- ) - Saving the best to last, silver has shattered the upward boundary of the steep up channel that has contained its movements for awhile. What now? If this is the result of a real shortage as we saw earlier in palladium and platinum, we might look at their action has an indication of what might happen to silver. These both broke out of their respective channels and continued up a distance roughly equal to the channel width, then dropped back down into the channel. I have drawn a dotted line a channel width above the silver channel. If silver gets up to this level, I will be tempted to short it. Until then I will just watch.

I would appreciate any comments relating to the above.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/971211/alan_keyes_1.html

LGB is now composing a eloquent note explaining what he really meant by his previous foot-in-mouth posting, "99% in BET poll think OJ was innocent."

All: This forum is good for all kinds of things. For those looking for a present for their young daughter or granddaughter, I have a suggestion. In addition to the obvious 1/10 oz tiddle wink or silver round there is a toy on the market that you use to melt solder ( I think it's solder ) and pour it into molds to craft trinkets. The trinkets are used to make rings and other items of jewelry. It's called, appropriately enough, Precious Metals. Hopefully your little future gold bug won't use it to melt down the gold piece you got them.

fundaMETAList

I cant believe that many people are still reading and responding to his postings!

14 days till 'it' is over~~~~~~~~~~~~ go team gold and ROCKETS---you da man Sir Charles....

Oil is only priced in US$ worldwide. Gold is only priced in US$

worldwide. It is important that this process of dollar backing

continue, as it is the only thing keeping this digital currency

alive! It is also important that all other currencies seek the US$ for

backing, as they would not survive on their own. Why would not

these countries just hold oil or gold for backing? Because oil is not

buried in their back yard and real gold would bankrupt them in a

minute. You see, a country can buy all the paper gold they want as

that gold

remains on deposit at the BIS controlled CBs. But, if they try to

buy real gold outside the LBMA system the price would explode

and the BIS would not come to rescue their currency. All real

bullion outside the system must remain available at production cost

prices ( in US$ ) for the cross trading of oil thru the LBMA. There

are only two threats to the world fiat currency system at present.

The oil states could stop buying US$ for oil and drop all paper gold

for real bullion. Or, the masses could buy up all the physical

supplies thereby breaking the OIL/GOLD/US$ bond.

The paper gold market controlled by the BIS/LBMA system is,

alone equal to more than all the gold in existence. This market

works like a hybrid currency using approximately twenty to forty

percent of all CB gold in leased form as backing. The paper behind

the lease is a form of CB/gold and is used as a fractional reserve

that has built this huge market. This system has worked and does

work well. You have but to look at the good value that is received

when dollar debt ( digital currency ) is purchased with oil. The

world works! But this system cannot continue. There is a limit to

how far gold can be inflated in quantity using fractional reserve

leasing as backing. The fatal flaw was found in the forward sales

of unmined gold. The whole system counted on the expansion of

cheap mining techniques to supply much more gold at a cheaper

price far into the future. This happened to a degree for a few years

but then just leveled off.

Now the LBMA continues to flood the market with paper gold as

if nothing has changed! But it has, we reached production cost!

That wasnt suppose to happen until the mining industry had raised

supply many times what it is today.

To close:

Notice that we say  they use oil to buy gold and they use oil to

buy dollars. You should try to think in these terms as oil is the

real value here. Oil functions as the true gold for the modern

world. Indeed, it was only when the world started needing oil for

everything that gold was dropped as backing for the US$ and

replaced with oil!

The falling price of physical gold only hurts the mining industry

( and its stockholders ) and leveraged paper buyers. All others

benefit from a lower value of gold. Look now as even the western

public are buying coins. They help themselves even in the face

record Dow Jones.

Will the BIS try to settle this unbalanced market by destroying

LBMA? Or will they drive the CBs to lease another 20% in an

effort to inflate this paper gold currency. Just like the fiat dollar,

if inflated it loses value. This is not lost to the oil states.

This is a bright man. He has held position in the government and this is now getting to be serious business. There are huge implications simply by his writing to members of Congress.

There will now be tremedous reverberations.

It's time to come out of the closet LGB2. The harder you try to convince us that you are liberal the more your conservaive inner lining shows. Just keep telling yourself that you really care, you really are enlightened and an intellectual, you worry about the effects of ozone and the plight of the homeless.

We see what's really going on here. All of us went through it one time or another. At first you don't even notice it. It starts with small things like telling racist jokes at others expense, maybe even some vague feelings of homophobia. The next thing you know you've got hair growing on your back and you're framing pictures of Ronald Regan and hanging them in the Den.

Before too long you'll be slouching in front of the TV with empty beer cans all around you, the baseball game blaring and a house full of kids running around like a herd of wild animals.

None of us were able to stop it until it was too late. God help you LGB2.
You are becoming your own worst nightmare. You may still be able to save yourself. Suggest renting Greenpeace videos, practicing yoga and making some large donations to the DNC.

It star

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/971212/worse_to_come_for_ko_1.html

Allen:

My definition was not simplified for clarity. Its just the definition of inflation. Here's one from Websters unabridged:

inflation,n.
1. the act of inflating or the condition of being inflated.

2. an increase in the amount of currency in circulation, resulting in a relatively sharp and sudden fall in its value and a rise in prices; ...

Why this occurs, who wins who loses, what prices go up fastest, etc. may well be a complicated issue. Rising prices as a result of rising amounts of currency is not very complicated at all.

Another: Here...here...agree with your 21:06 post completely. I firmly believe that the next big bonanza for investors will not be in gold stocks...but in oil. Not today...not tomorrow..nor next week...but if yoyu have a distant investment time horizon..oil's the play. For many of the same reasons cited in your post.

AND IF OIL WOULD BE IN SHORT SUPPLY OR PERCEIVED TO BE IN SHORT SUPPLY?

Why do you continue to support the toothless whore known as the IMF. The American people should be privy to each and every deal you cut with their hard earned money.

You are forcing the American people into further debt, yet you claim to balance the budget.

You are supposed to be the elected leader of the United States. Not the whipping boy for an organization that thrives on interest payments made from the sweat of working people around the globe.

You are living in OUR White House.

Above based on 263 million oz. gold in treasury

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/971212/china_yuan_not_to_de_1.html

You should only include the cash dollars, not the debt amount. Last week the number was $490.2 billion.

STUDIO.R & WDL:

If you owned an oilwell in your back yard and

noone could take control of it, then oil is the

best investment. But, most people use various

forms of western paper to trade oil and that

paper will burn in a currency fire. Make no

mistake, a currency fire is now in process and

it has much fuel remaining. Even Korea will

find out that oil is all that counts. Their paper

will die! Gold would have helped them in a

different world, but for now gold is in the

background as the IMF tries to add more

paper to this inferno. If one owns real gold

, it will be with ease to view the world currency

developments. They will be truly of biblical

proportions!

http://www2.netcom.com/bin/webnews?a=Biz_Top:X.X.CD7_jIuRUna

LGB, you are the master of the straw man argument. This a strong statement given what comes out of the Clinton administration.

A gold standard only forces the government to defend the value of its currency; it does not restrict the money supply, so long as such growth can be accomadated without devaluing the currency. ( i.e. "good growth" )
So get off of the 'dark ages' argument- I've been ignoring it for so long but I guess your ignorance isn't going away.
Anyway...
Things are better now- if you like computers. According to headline news ( not my news source of choice ) nearly half the adult US population is functionally illiterate. Schools are armed camps in most cities. Most of us ( here ) face marginal tax rates in excess of 50 %. Our kids face MTR of 80%. And don't forget that $22,000 per capita Federal debt. I'm doing well, like yourself. But don't miss the bigger picture.

I greatly admire you for taking the time to contribute to this forum. I feel power behind your words.

Assuming that these hybrid currency paper/gold transactions are no longer acceptable to oil states, do you see any other possible solutions that might be acceptable terms of exchange? or are the rules of the game so rigid and entrenched that any change in the status quo is impossible? Are solutions being discussed? And if so, are these discussions framed in a win/win context or do we have a stalemate?

Plaintalker- good point, and I'm sorry I was one of those responding.

A few days ago I thought that maybe AMX was a good investment for anyone thinking about investing in gold mining stocks because of their size and reputation etc. esp. after I saw that they thought they could produce gold for bewteen 50-100 oz. However, like I've also said here before "ya better do ya' du diligence" becauce on closer inspection ( and not nearly close enough ) more and more warning signs appear. For instance, their presently 3-1 ratio price to assest value, the fact that who knows how long til that mine in SA comes on strteam and at what cost production, and now today a news release about a confidential report out of Wood Gundy saying that at 260 gold ABX is worth 3.40 per share.

This whole sector is dangerous territory for anybody but the novice, the pure gamblers, or foolhardy, INHO.

I agree with your prognosis. Fortunate enough to have the wells in my backyard...but limited future value, in spite of "long-life reserves", due to future price controls on domestic production...been there...expect the same again. Gold did well when oil supply was short.

If I did the math right the gold now on deposit in the U.S. Treasury would have to be revalued to $1878 per ounce to fully cover all the paper money now circulating. That would return us to the pre 1933 status. Gold at $282 is a bargain.

Just asking? Okay. But don't you need to add a zero?

I think there is confusion over the difference between cash dollars and credit dollars. Cash dollars were backed by gold but did not earn interest. Credit dollars were never backed by gold but they earned interest. Before 1933 it was your choice. In the best of times on the gold standard it was always necessary to get your credit dollar back from the person who borrowed it before you could convert it to a gold cash dollar.

Gold does not earn interest. When you loan it out it is "credit gold" in the possession of another. ( sort of a pun there )

Is there any way to find out if the 9,000,000
oz. deal really happened?

Where might the trade have taken place?

Is this whole gold trading business really that
much "cloak and dagger"?

OK. But what do you think foreingers are going to do? take more paper$
or try to redeem for Gold baked US$ and then exchange for Gold.
I think we've been there[Deja Vu] when Nixon closed the Gold window.

To: DJ @ 20:57 and any respondents - Why is it that Platinum still seems to be "hinged at the hip" with Gold? Isn't Playinum some 15 - 20 times more rare; costs more to extract; and has the dual purpose of serving as an industrial metal as well as a precious metal? I just don't get it. The fundamentals of dwindling supply regardless of the Asian situation should have worked to place a bottom above where it is currently. If fundamental aren't being considered, what is driving these insane panic sales? I am in large long position at $450 plus. Will I ever, in my lifetime ( 20 more years ) see it at $450????

O'tay. I see where your thinking is in what you posted.

SW,
What is "cloak and dagger"?

That is all the gold window ever did. It was there to redeem greenbacks for gold from CB's. It operated from 1933 to 1971, only for CB's, only for greenbacks. They delivered $35 in greenbacks and received 1 ounce of gold. It worked fine mostly because none of them asked for gold until DeGaulle. The other countries held the paper because they felt it was as good as gold and they received foreign aid and defense benefits and did not want to upset Uncle Sam and loose those.

A mystery, not above board, secretive, behind the scenes, surreptitious.

From my limited information about PT although you are correct that it
is rarer than Gold, PT is a recent comer to the precious metals, and
IMHO is only considered more valuable than Gold in Asia, hence the
recent Plunge.Gold has been the CURRENCY OF LAST RESORT and
is and has been worshiped by CB's and populus as such.. Why don't you ck PT vs the SEA currencies and you'll see it has gone up.It is down in US$ The demand expectations of the equation from Asia may also be
effecting the price, also because Asians hold PT as jewelry
and coins more than NA or Euros it may be that the markets perceive
possible forced sales. On the other side of the equation the two major producers of PT are not exactly perceived as stable SA and Russia.
Any sign of problems in either will send the metal sky high. In addition
I agree PT's use in fuel cells ect.... will keep demand up. I personally
love PT any metal that can reduce toxifying pollution from our air
deserves a place in my heart.

SCHULTZ,
It is a many hard question you ask. The
transactions are still working, but some
are covering the back side with real
bullion. I ask you, when your worth in
the ground is equal to much of the earth,
is an IOU of the same future value?
Only gold has such a history book for
reference. These people do not trust
foolish thoughts of value from western
minds. That history book is only in the first
chapter.
This game is deep and one for your 007
to play.

Bej-

It seems easier to just repost my earlier explanation about the current PL market. That platinum and gold seem to be moving in tandem is an illusion. Silver, Gold, and Platinum are all trading on their own fundamentals or technicals. If the last year has taught anything, it is that gold will tell you nothing about the mystery inside platinum or silver.


Repost:

Nobody knows how much aboveground platinum exists today. The figures out of South Africa are fairly reliable, but there is no information available about Russian stockpiles. These figures are never revealed but most of the official stockpiles have been looted over the last several years, some finding its way onto the open market through Switzerland. It is widely regarded by industry watchers that Russia's stockpiles are nearly or completely depleted. Wittiness the platinum delivered to the NYMEX last year with pictures of the Czar stamped in them. 80 year old platinum sure looks like the bottom of the barrel.

So there is no telling just how much platinum is in the world - or rather on top of it - at any given time. Only 8% of all platinum produced finds its way into private investor's hands. There are no stockpiles of platinum or palladium to depend on during times of supply disruptions. ( quite apart from silver. $6.50 + will bring a lot of silver out of the woodworks. The price has been down for so long that $6 - $7 seems a kings ransom. So beware to silver tide, there is a lot of it in the world )

As for why platinum is suffering recently; The Russians shipped all their scheduled deliveries in November and are on track for December, so there is temporary liquidity in the market. This makes the metal available for the speculative shorts to sell on the TOCOM and buy on the cash market for arbitrage. Additionally, Japan's own currency woes have left some scrambling for quick cash.

The Russians don't like the prices this low, and could easily cause a $80 - $100 rally with a few well timed press releases, just like they did in the spring of this year. Export authority for further shipments in 1998 will be held hostage to the Russian general budget, which is not expected to be signed until April or May. Shipments from Russia should cease by mid January. South African platinum is not so subject to price fluctuations. SA platinum - about 80% of world production - is virtually all under long term delivery contracts to Japanese industry. Platinum and palladium purchases are based on an average spot prices over the last several months. This evens out the peaks and valleys for both the producers and consumers alike.

Platinum could well go back to the recent highs - $450 - $480 by year's end, but it is looking as if a significant rally may wait until January. I would buy platinum at these prices in a normal year. With impending supply disruptions and potential market manipulation by the Russians, - $500 - $600 platinum seems a reasonable trading range for 1998, particularly if palladium stays above $200. With palladium at more than half the cost of platinum, it now becomes cheaper to use platinum in applications such as catalytic converters. What is good for palladium is good for platinum. That they are moving in opposite directions is an anomaly, and is confounding amateurs and pros alike.

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/971211/oil_russia_1.html

You are certainly correct, however the issue of the current situation
wherein foreigners hold TRILLIONS in US$ debt created over the last
26 years or so is a serious threat to the US. This is why I have suggested in my previous posts that only the NEW DOMESTIC US$ would be partialy backed by GOLD and foreigners will be left out. Thus the
"FOREIGN US$ IMHO would be worth eventually 10% or so of the
DOMESTIC US$, is the only possible way out as I see it. No way the US
is going toi give up its hoard of GOLD!!

"Cloak and dagger" is an expression I would use
for an action ( or trade ) done in great secracy.

My experience as a trader has taught me to
value such things as
a ) time and sales - as reported on various exchanges
b ) open interest - as reported on various exchanges

The market always moves to size, you spoke of
"making the turn". I would love to see documentation
of a trade that size.


No offence intended, of course.

Hey Sevens e-mail me at rjd@pacbell.net

SWEAT:
You will not see 80% or more of
gold deals. If it was done with all
to see the discount value would
be lost as the world price would
explode. This is not the relm of
any public wall street. At one
time it belonged mostly to the
Barron. Now it is large with the
BIS and super rich. Wars will be
fought over the lack of visibility
of these dealings.

Greetings from a fellow rock licker from Nevada. Thanks for the Pegasus news. Any layoffs elsewhere in your neck of the woods?

There is indeed a currency fire in progress; it can only get worse and many who hold paper currency and digital currency will find out too late the value of gold.

You must also realize that as currency expires worthless, as is happening now in Asia, that the activities that now require oil will also diminish. Fewer factories will operate, less electricity will be needed. Planes will fly less and fewer ships will sail. It will be so for many years. You may have already noticed a reduction in oil demand. Oil producing states that have not used debt wisely will experience difficult in making payments to their lenders. Those oil states that have had surplus funds will have difficulty in obtaining the return of the money they have loaned. The downward spiral of deflation will have many victims.

That is pretty consistant logic you've got there.
Oil producing states DEMAND higher gold backing
than they are getting in the currencies they are
recieving.

I'm gonna e-mail Al and tell um

QUIT PRINTIN SO MUCH GOLD

To tell you the truth, I believe you.

There is a great deal in your last thought. Oil ( and all associated ) which did so well in the 30s may find itself in a very bad position indeed.

You seem to be suggesting that the U.S. could have a two tier currency like South Africa, one domestic and one foreign. That is possible. I have seen some talk like that. Those kinds of schemes can postpone, but not prevent the eventual meltdown. Things are happening pretty fast, they almost need to start it tomorrow. I am beginning to see some signs of panic as this Korean problem begins to register. I think it is too big and too interconnected with the rest of the world to stop, IMF or not. Citicorp is refusing to discuss it at all. That is a very bad sign.

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/971210/after_the_bell_citi_1.html

http://www.yahoo.com/headlines/971212/business/stories/dollar_3.html

DONALD;
I oil says I am currency and I will
buy gold for $10,000/oz.. Then gold
will be at that price. Then all the bullion
reserves will ballance debt for oil states.
If Arabia says, I will sell oil for $10US
a barrel or in gold valued at $10,000
what do you think would happen?

If I had gold I would get oil very cheap!
Or if I had only US$ I would have to
pay the higher price of $10.

In this day this cannot be, in that day
it will look correct. This has been
discussed for that time to come.

I will be gone for a time.

December 12, 1997
WTO chief says banking deal agreed

GENEVA, Dec 13 ( Reuters ) - Trade negotiators clinched a long-awaited deal to free up the world's booming banking and insurance markets in the early hours of Saturday in Geneva, World Trade Organisation chief Renato Ruggiero said. "We've done it...We've made an historic deal," a smiling Ruggiero told reporters after the accord was struck just before a
two a.m. ( 0100 GMT ) deadline for its completion following late-night negotiations.

"This is the golden year of the international trading system," he added, referring to previous accord clinched this year on opening up the telecoms and information technology sectors.
http://canoe2.canoe.ca/ReutersNews/TRADE-FINANCIAL.html

Dear tolerant1,
I am taking time from my busy schedule to answer your earlier post. As you well know I do not have much to say around here when it comes to really important stuff like the monetary policy.
Your letter should have been written to AG since he is the visible face of an invisible gov't and as such knows a lot more than I do. I must say though that the big boys behind AG like me a lot. You know well that they got so much on me that I will do anything they ask me to do. They even got me re-elected!
One of the few things I do know is that the IMF, World Bank and CBs are just an instrument in whatever these guys are after. So, do not single out the IMF. It is all one big, global family.
PS-Another thing that really surprised me to find out that once AG monetizes the debt ( buys the debt instruments on the open market with his freshly printed $$ ) we , the taxpayers actually owe the debt to a private organization, the FRB. That still has me confused, but I do not ask any questions since these guys could get mad.
So, please no more letters to me since I know nothing!

Yours, sincerely Printing Bill.

ABC 20/20 12/10/97 "She warned the government about the Oklahoma City bombing."

http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a49582.htm

This was a former conspiracy theory.

I definitely agree, this is a real crisis. I just heard tonite ( from Rep. insiders ) that the US Congress will not be voting to give US$ Bail out to Korea, and the predictions for the political situation there are dire indeed! I also heard talk about Korea actually DEFAULTING on their loans "GOD HELP US"the avalanche of defaults that might set off. And what will happen to the Thousands of US troops there? But as I posted earlier
I beleive the US Gov has been printing a new US$ DOMESTIC for
such an event. They are far from being out of the GAME. But I guess
the REP. congress is going to GET Clinton?
BTW your comment about less demand for Oil left out the fact that
CHINA where all this SE Asian former production is now, will be importing
alot more oil, they have build a whole lot of new roads in anticipation of
much heavier car ( oil ) traffic and commerce.

Clinton welcomes WTO bank pact
WASHINGTON ( Reuters ) - President Clinton Friday welcomed a global accord to open up international banking and insurance industries, saying the pact would ensure market access in sectors where the United States led the world. "In the wake of recent financial instability, it is particularly encouraging that so many countries have chosen to move forward rather than backwards," Clinton said in a written statement.
WTO banking pact approved officially by all-official

GENEVA, Dec 13 ( Reuters ) - A World Trade Organisation pact to free up the world's banking and insurance markets was officially approved by all trade delegations soon after its conclusion in the early hours of Saturday, a WTO official said. The official gave no immediate details.

Heard on the radio: Six ( 6 ) U.S. banks receive US$14 billion of Korean bailout.

Gee. What about the equity value I lost when East Asian markets turned south as some of these same banks began their various hedging operations in the region.

Maybe if I phoned Mr. Camdessus, he'd see that my losses would also be covered.

Wait. As a taxpaying U.S. citizen, that money he's handing-out is part mine anyways!

I'm getting confused. Something doesn't seem fair here.

I agree with your analysis. The new currency is already printed and is stored at the new US Mint facility in Ft. Worth. The new currency is reportedly smaller than the current dollar and is made out of some sort of polyester material that makes a stack of these new dollars slippery when held in a bundle. They are supposedly almost impossible to tear or rip. The printing is light brown, blue and pink to prevent copying from commerically available copy machines. I am informed that the Great Seal of the US predominantly appears on one of the sides. I have been told that they are "inside butt ugly" but that should come as no surprise after seeing the new 50's. I find it highly appropriate that they selected Grant, one of the most notoriously corrupt politicians in the 20th Century to grace this new bill.

When A.G. suddenly changed his sincere view from U.S. stock market being irrationally overvalued, to his modified viw that U.S. stock market is O.K., ( you recall this change, right? ) , it was in fact an INVITATION to would-be survivors of coming worldwide financial/market crisis. It worked. A.G. made a terrific work, saved U.S.stock market by bringing a lot of buyers from outside.

Gold was wisely advertised as not being a safe heaven
any more, and U.S. paper of any kind won a big victory.

"Trashing" gold on every level was A MUST to do, because gold was a proven competitor for money, as history of markets shows.

Lack of support for gold from Fed, and Fed has an unbelievable influence in the world, triggered "mad dog" type of short selling, then forward sales and etc...- you know the story...

The funny thing is that it is not necessary to create
any special effort to bring gold back. It is also not necessary
to worry how to explain this rise, look - WE HAVE DEFLATION!!!, not
inflation, lets get back to the NORMAL level!!! The fact that EURO will
be backed by gold has NO CONNECTION WITH FED, right? Guys in Europe
already confessed for at least 5% in gold, but I am wondering why the smart SWISS guys reduced their currency backing from 40% to TWENTY FIVE,and not FIVE percent? Fed has nothing to do with it, right? Swiss know they should be in balance with EURO, they would not like to have
their currency much stronger or weaker than EURO. Plain, and EXPECTED short covering of huge short positions - Fed has nothing to do with it, rumor is that Soros is playing, like usual... Still no inflation, just a lot of pure technical factors from outside...Gold is back to $350-375, and still no inflation signals.. US$ is better balanced in relation to the OTHER currencies, stock market SLOWLY corrects, no big pain for the U.S.A.

This is not a Fed conspiracy, this is a protection of the U.S. interests in its pure form, organized by a smart guy who knows what is going to
happen in 1 year from now, because he is a PROFESSIONAL with POWER.

Don't want to waste a lot of your time, just try to imagine the whole picture and combine known facts together, like investigator, just try..

Just FYI PBS aired a detailed hour program a couple of years ago on
the printing and design of a new US$, you might want to contact them and order a copy of the Video and see for yourself. I am suggesting
a possibility.