All: Just in case no one posted, it seems Hashimoto is still surviving, and is suggesting the use of the Japanese savings funds to keep Japanese corporations alive while their bankrupt banks go under. Sounds promising to me, for two reasons: Hashimoto has apparently retained power, and apparently many bad banks will be allowed to fail. Sounds reminiscent of RTC.

http://www.nikkei.co.jp/enews/SPECIAL/rec/news44.html#gen220

This may be the critical point for Japan -- are they pulling back from the abyss -- or are they not? All depends on how many hopelessly indebted firms they try to support. This would be a good time to set up strict reporting rules so that Japanese corporate balance sheets actually reflect true financial healthiness.

Brother Tom, W&C lab produced some sad results,
we might need a longer PMSP then I hoped...
Guess we got to wait till this summer heat goes away,
although you winter deals should work just fine, as
it seems to me...Hope your spirit is high and you
are in good health. PMSPxPMSP=BIG BUCKS.

I must have had a few too many last night.
In honour of your b/day.
Talk about tying one on.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I guess one way that a reasonably accurate determination of the total number of date specific embedded processors might be determined, is by finding out the total number of RTC chips ever sold, and subtracting the total number of PCs and Macs ever sold. That would certainly give an upper bound and probably wouldn't be too far off the actual number. Although this is good theory, I have no idea where to obtain reasonable accurate estimates of these numbers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Since I happen to own a semiconductor market research company, I'll add my two cents:

First, most of the industry statistics programs don't track at this level of detail ( RTCs ) , but no big deal -- lots of private research firms do.

However, the number you'll arrive at is probably closer to a *lower* bound rather than an upper bound. RTCs are just single-function ICs that handle time/date. Virtually all low-power embedded MCUs have timer/counter functions embedded into them, so they can ( and very often are ) coded with clock/calendar features. For example, a common device like a programmable thermostat uses just a single MCU; it'd be silly to use separate components when it's so much cheaper to use an MCU. In fact, many such embedded systems use 32KHz crystals originally intended for watches and digital clocks to generate their main system clock, and internally divide the system clock down by powers of 2 to generate regular interval signals that run the hardware counter at some reasonable rate like 1 Hz.

Not only do you need to worry if the primary application code running on these chips is compliant with Y2K, you also need to worry about whether the clock/calendar software that handles timekeeping is Y2K compliant too!

Some MCUs actually have "real" clock/calendar functions as well, so software isn't needed to run the clock. Also, specialty memories for embedded systems such as serial EEPROMs sometimes include clocks.

In addition, most PC chip sets today ship with an integrated RTC. External RTCs are added only if precision is needed ( generally tier one corporate systems from IBM, Compaq, etc do this. )

Anyway, the number of ICs capable of timekeeping capability is way, way beyond the number of non-PC real-time clock chips sold. The trick is figuring out how many actually make use of this ability.

To put things in perspective, the Semiconductor Industry Association's World Semiconductor Trade Statistics program reports that in just the first three months of 1998, 1 *Billion* ( yes, 1,000,000,000 units ) of microcontrollers were shipped, and 60 million microprocessors ( including
those in PCs, which amount to about 25 million ) were shipped.

Every one of the MCUs could potentially be performing a timekeeping function, some using hardware, some using software. That's 4 billion chips this year alone. I went back to some stats for five years ago, and in 1993, 2.2 billion microcontrollers were sold. Some quick analysis
shows that about 32 billion MCUs were sold since 1980.

These things are really pervasive. Honestly, very few are probably time/date sensitive, and some very small percentage of those aren't going to be Y2K compliant.

But it's a reality that a really small percentage, like one-tenth of one percent, Multiplied by 32 billion means 32 MILLION embedded systems could be affected.

Let's hope that the percentage of non-Y2K compliant embedded systems is something manageable, like .001%. Because if it isn't, millions of systems will fail. It's just how the math works.

J R Stockton's Critical Dates
http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/critdate.htm

Greenspan's Evasion Produces Alarmed Programmer
http://www.garynorth.com/y2k/detail_.cfm/1894

The World Gold Council has blamed the dramatic fall in the world's gold
price to the lowest level in 18 years-on the increasing use of hedging by
producers. 1997 saw gold prices off 25% and the average share price fell
45%. The largest hedger was Barrick, which sold its entire 1997 production
at $420.00 an ounce for an extra $269 million in revenue. Most of the large
mining houses had similar varying results.

If these gluttonous producers continue they may eventually destroy the gold
business. If these companies were not hedging prices would be $100 and ounce
higher. As we have said many times shareholders should demand managements
cease the practice or vote them out of office. At $400 an ounce barrick
wouldn't be selling at $15 a shrare as it did recently, but at $50.00 or
more a share. When are shareholders going to wake up and throw the
managements out. They are killing the mining companies.
They have deliberately depressed the price of gold and attempted to tarnish
its luster permanently. It is as if they had a conscious desire to
permanently destroy gold mining production. Readers should show their
disapproval by conveying it to management or just not owning stock in any
mining company that sells forward. Institutions and individual investors
should sell Barrick and drive it to $3-$5 a share and maybe they'd get the
message. Hedging is a great strategy now, but there may not be an operating
mine three years from now. Barrick hedges to stay in business, not to bring
a shareholder return. All the leverage has been removed. A total loser for
the shareholder.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Japan
Shintaro Ishihara, 27 yr member of parliament retired and author in 1989
of "A Japan That Can't Say No" is again calling on Japan to stop letting
Americans push them around. In his new book "The Japan That Can't Say No
Again", he urges Japan to use its huge U.S. Treasury holdings to help it say
no to U.S. demands.
Mr. Ishihara has a strong following within his own generation, but has an
even stronger effect on those in their 20's. He says America's triumphalism
and its efforts to broaden its financial hegemony is contrary to Japan's
interests. "It's a conspiracy" to buy anything that is reasonably priced.
"Japan should create a hedge fund to buy up assets that would otherwise go
into foreign hands." they'd do this by selling U.S. Treasuries. He also
sees Japan "supplanting the role in Asia of the IMF, which he sees as a tool
of U.S. capitalism. Japan should use it holdings in these securities as a
trump card each time the U.S. Treasury pushes Japan to stimulate its
economy. Why can America, the world's biggest debtor nation, be taking
advantage of Japan, the world's biggest creditor? "How can this go on". He
is right, especially now that it is transparent, that the U.S. wants to
bestow Asian power to China, for a few pieces of silver.

We think the only way to arrest the yen's decline is to use huge
corordinated intervention. Japan has $204 billion in U.S. Treasuries. If
they sold the Fed would have to buy the paper monetizing it creating instant
U.S. inflation. The Fed may be forced to do this, like it or not. The only
other tactic that would work would be for the Fed to cut interest rates.
This would signal support for Asia and make the yen and Asian currencies
more tempting buys. The dollar would go down and gold would go up.

G-Nutz
the bold eagle : golden eagle "en" is a legacy from a battle royal at asgaard ( I mean kitco ) between Bartman ( million thanks for the site ) and Vronsky that, to us mere humans, showed a touching lack of grace and humour.

Vronsky, as I recall, began to bleat about freedom of speach demanding his right to post links to the Galled Eagle during each time segment unceasingly ( sans cesse ) while not realising that Kitco is hosted in Canada by a private act of charity and humanity by Mr Bart. The gods lost their temper and levity.

The Giants have fought, The dice were cast ( alea jacta est ) and the mortals bear the burdens. Has always been so. I do not mean to complain, it does no good anyhoo.

and an "en" is smaller than an "em" yes?

Brother, I really loved you 11:35 post...
Did you hear that blooper bought gold and
feels good when all others around him feel
bad? What we gonna do about it? He said it
was a small purchase, but it scared the hell
out of me anyway...

LONDON, June 26 ( Reuters ) - Major gold companies were rethinking support for an industry-sponsored initiative to mint a millennium gold coin and were exploring other venues to promote bullion, industry officials said on Friday.

The Financial Times reported that major gold mining firms had backed down from backing the launch of a millennium gold coin.

The world's largest gold producer, South Africa's Anglogold Ltd ( JOH:ANGJ ) said its support for the project had been halted because the project would duplicate other projects. "We looked at the potential and thought there is too many other initiatives and another one is not going to be part of the process," Anglogold spokesman James Duncan told Reuters by telephone from South Africa.

Industry officials said the project had been discussed at a recent meeting of the executive of the industry-funded World Gold Council ( WGC ) .
Duncan said the idea of a project like a millennium coin was not dead but major producers had to identify where they should lend their support.
"The thing in our head is that it is far from dead it is just that we have to identify where our support is best placed. One process has been stopped in its tracks because it looked like duplication of efforts," Duncan added. He said Anglogold, under the auspices of the WGC, was
looking at other initiatives to promote gold already in place and evaluating what support it could give further.

The Financial Times quoted Canadian gold giant Placer Dome Inc ( TSE:PDG ) chief executive as saying that the group looking at the potential of the coin concluded that it would not be attractive to sponsor the initiative in the light of several other millennium projects. When the millennium coin was first mooted earlier this year, the industry said such a coin could consume up to 1,000 tonnes of gold but analyst and bullion market sources were sceptical about the total amount of gold used.
542 8077. london.commodities.desk@reuters.com ) )

http://www.latimes.com/HOME/NEWS/OPINION/t000057709.1.html

The IMF -

"....the world's recognized emergency lender, the IMF, is financially depleted and facing heavy criticism. Over the past year,it negotiated $120 billion of emergency financing for East Asia and $57 billion for Russia, including huge chunks of its own funds. But the IMF is running out of money, and the United States seems unwilling to contribute its share to replenish it. The fund is apparently down to $15 billion of hard currency and $23 billion in a special borrowing facility......"

Oh Dear.........

Haggis
Yes indeedy, an interesting post. What happens when the bank of last resort ( the IMF ) is itself bankrupt?

What power then is there left when moral hazard gives way to panic?


All

Anyone know current price of the 1 kilogram silver kookaburra Collection? RJ's got a single kilo as a paper weight ( I'm sure the paper don't blow away, RJ ) but what about the collection that contains the 1 kg, the 10 oz, the 2 oz and the 1 oz all in a fancy box. I understand the edition was limited to 1000.

Shit is about to hit the fan.............

QUICK............

Buy a metal detector.........

And, for all those City Slickers - what is a metal detector used for....

What has happened to ANOTHER..........?

http://users.netconnect.com.au/~ozgold/

He developed tetanus and was temporarily disabled after being bitten by a creature called a "Biting Ear"...but I hear he's doing better now and selling books on USAGOLD site since his predictions all came to naught.

Liberty
Here's a blast from the past, written by Jim Blanchard in Nov 1993, called the Gold bull just in time to get run over by the PM train heading South.....



JIM BLANCHARD
Gold vs. Central Banks: Round Two

As we move away from equities to a rebirth of opportunities in hard assets,
we're at a critical opportunity in the market, particularly for gold and silver
and mining shares.

If central banks control the gold price, why is gold a good investment? This is
Round Two in the central banks versus gold fight. During the first round in
1968, the London Gold Pool sold tremendous amounts of gold, but large
speculators didn't believe what the central banks said. In three days the Pool
sold three tons of gold, 96 million ounces. The pool collapsed, and gold soared
20 percent from $35 to $42.

People say things are different today. There's no inflation, the power of central
banks is so complete that they don't have to worry about gold, and the
extraordinary profits we made in gold in the '70s are gone forever.

When the gold bull market began in 1993, central banks didn't believe it was a
threat. By the time it had gained 20 percent, they were panicking and had to
enter the market to cap gold at $400. I think that's what they've done for the
last 24 months. This is the lowest volatility since 1968. According to Gold
Fields, central banks have sold 244 tons in the first six months of 1995. In the
last 24 months they've sold 2,000 - 3,000 tons to keep gold at $400. Yes, there
has been a conspiracy to hold gold down.

Can they control the price of gold forever? No. And after you suppress a
market for two full years and use huge amounts of resources, you can't afford
to keep selling. At some point central bankers throw in the towel, let gold rise,
and try to control it at a higher level.

Central banks have gotten themselves in a trap. When you artificially hold a
price down, it snaps farther when freed than it would have otherwise.
Speculators will break their backs if they try to let gold rise just a little. We'll
see a move like we've never seen before.

When the price of gold springs up, gold shares, silver and silver shares will go
up two or three thousand percent. This is not pie in the sky. It happened in the
last bull market. The highly leveraged shares ( which are much better managed
today ) are ready to soar.

http://www.investorweb.com/newsltrs/gnl/november.htm#Blanchard


Don't forget, everybody, do your own research, Now if someone could just help me with the Kookaburra info I sought below....TIA

Between you and me - I think the Yanks have fallen asleep, in more ways than one ?!

Think of it - a World, Yank free !!! What a thought.

For Brother Oris ..
Hey lets pretend we bought a bunch of Drooy .. and
we sold it at 50 .. then we bought 2 castles in Italy..
then we joined the flying tigers in 1937 and shot down
a lot of Japanese planes and the Chinese gave us a
reward of 12 Natashas each .. Man ..this is better than
the movies .

... I'm staying up, thinking about Japan, Y2K and whether or not I can talk my wife into letting me buy that Ruger mini-14 I've been coveting.

How are things down there guys? Getting any interesting weather? Your right smack in the middle of winter right now, aren't you?

Watch it, bub. The night security detail is tracking yer. Any anti-Merkinizm will be noted and placed in your file.

Where ya been, mate? Working?!

No more, no less...as the brine falls from my shoulders...I am captivated by the candle lit world you would have us usher in.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

NAMASTE'....................................................................................................all that your HISTORY walks upon are not soft shell crabs............

No......No....................not at all........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

To all..
Flying my MIG - 17 ..... and Catching light and
meaningless flack from the Cheesehead sector. He seems
to have problems sorting things out .. problem started
when he was born.
No one has commented on my observation that a falling
rand reduces the marginal cost of the worlds largest
gold producing coumtry. The average cost of many
mines now is close to $200 if the current rate holds.
If it falls to say 7.5 as the golden headed cheerleader
suggests .. the cost will fall to $160 and gold BELOW
$ 200 looks feasible.
Only comment so far was the squeal from CH who
insists that no one buy RSA stocks ..
I agree .. dont buy ANY gold stocks .. short the
North Americans .. and buy PUTS on cheese.

Allen
Did you ever manage to check your story about Dutch insulin production against the Danish Manufacturers, Novo Nordisk?

see my
http://www.kitcomm.com/comments/gold/1998q2/1998_06/980611.063459.auratoree.htm

Tolerant1

as for candles, the Bard in
King John

"Bell, book and candle shall not drive me back,
When gold and silver becks me to come on."


beck me to come on, yay..

Crusty

I saw your statements on the decreasing costs of SA mines, res ipso loquitor, I thought, things speak for themselves, no?

salty

For Reify ..
I just noticed once again that your studies indicate
that gold is about to go up .. How surprising !!

For Brother Oris..
Yes Bloomer just bought gold .. That's the signal
Ive been waiting for .. Buy more puts on $XAU..

For Bloomer/Oris..
Saw TV documentary called "wings" last night that
pointed out that phantoms in Vietnam were unable to
dogfight with 20 year older MIGS and took heavy losses
in early years of war.
Pilots not trained to dogfight. This led to TopGun
program to train Yanks to cope with MIG's much tighter
turning ability. These Migs costs one twentieth of
cost of phantoms at that time. US military planners
had to revise their view of technological "advances"
during this period.
Example .. phantoms at outset trained and equipped
to intercept bombers at long range and shoot dowm
with missiles targeted by radar .. This hopeless
in Nam as radar targeting led to shooting down own
planes and visual confirmation requirement soon
instituted. Despite "technical superiority" .. US
took heavy losses from MIGS until pilots and planes
trained/equipped to FIGHT rather than kill at long
range with lots of cool technology.

I'm working on an Excel s/s which simulates an economy with user defined levels of 'interconnectedness' and % failure in random mode. Will probably put it up Monday afternoon or Tuesday afternoon at the latest.

The model will randomly assign alive/dead status to initial set of 10,000 'entities' based on % set to be dead. Each entity will have 0, 1 or 2 connections as a vital supplier to other cells. The average level of interconnectedness can be set from 0 to 2. Interconnections are assigned radomly and averaged to match the user defined setting.

A day incrementor will allow the user to watch the progress of the model as the 'knock on' or 'ripple' effect proliferates over time.

This is a version of the physical experiment that I suggested to JohnDisney using 144 bottles and string. ( I thought that he and Oris could team up on that, but they never followed through! )

Anyway, the model is resettable. You can change the % failure at outset and the average 'vital' interconnectedness in the economy.

There are a few assumptions. 1 ) No major infrastructure entities such as electrical are represented, 2 ) This model will only show disability not repair effects, 3 ) It assumes a random interconnectedness, 4 ) It assumes a random death pattern, 5 ) It assumes that the relative importance of each entity is small and equal to the other entities, 6 ) The 'day' increment is the average of the order/fulfillment times for each customer/supplier relationship, 7 ) Only connections which represent a one way supplier to customer relationship are considered.

This is a fairly simple and conservative model. It shows the effect during the first part of the roll over. It doesn't take into account things like groupings in industries, vertical supply chains ( such as GM's situation ) , concentration in producer marketshare, etc.

By definition 'death of the economy' is that 50% or more of the entities fail.

My feeling about this is that any setting of average 'interdependency' below 1.0 will produce a pattern of 'burn outs' or areas which die but the whole economy may not die.

At 1.0 we are talking about the possibility of the whole economy shutting down eventually, but it would take a while for this to happen, possibly as long as 5,000 order/fulfillment cycles.

As interdependency over 1.0 up to but less than two we see an increasing rate of rapidity in failure of the whole economy.

At 2 we see a geometric explosion of failure. This failure would occure as early as 'day' 12.

This 12 day scenario assumes that at 2 interdependencies and only one vital entity dies at first ( an initial death rate of 0.01% ) .

At a death rate of 5% we see that if this model is set to an interdependency of average 2 then the economy dies in about 7 order/fulfillment cycles.

At a death rate of 10% we see the economy die at about 6 order/fulfillment cycles.

-----

The criticism is raised that this is not a realistic picture. But it is a model that allows us to look objectively at cascading failures and how they might play out. Personally I believe our problems are much worse tha this model might imply, but at least it will give a hint at the direction things can take, and the speed at which thinks can fail.

Salty ..
.. and they'll all COW TOW ..

"Bell, book and candle shall not drive me back,
When gold and silver becks me to come on."

I love that ...

Salty ..
The Bard had a way ..
with words ..

Apollo---loggies

my 03:34 doesn't read as quite the meaning I intended. Gulp!

No follow up on that. This was off the record comment by company rep at a conference in Oregon a few months ago ( ? ) . I do not know it validity or accuracy.

If the EC is as strict as the US then IMHO ALL drug and food manufaturers will be forced to go off line and prove their manufacturing lines on the date change. Even if they remediate early it can not be assumed that they caught everything.

Thoughts?

Will catch up on any replies later.

Why hasn't a plunging Rand been a "GOLD MINE" for RSA AU Stocks ?
Also why does falling cost of production portend a lower POG ?
The only thing it necessarily portends is higher profit margins, yet the JO mining index falls day after day !
LOWER COSTS AND AU BUYING MORE Rand, YET rsa au STOCKS DROP, WHY ?

THANKS FOR YOUR REPLY.

y.o.s.


tar baby

Crusty
The poet of Stratford sure had a way with words, some call him Shakespeare, others have doubts that was his name

At the risk of getting into trouble from Allen's Merkan-watch ( don't you know I'm paranoid enough? ) It reminds me of a story, "overheard" after a play, one Merkan to ANOTHER "I dunno what's so great about Shakespeare, all he does is string clichs togother." ;-0

Allen
Thoughts on your last post regarding EU & US regulations acting to inhibit food and drug manufacturers from restoring production post Y2K, very astute observation! ANOTHER previously ignored and uncalculated RISK of a low tolerance system.
Just in time inventories, little capital in the war-chests, single parts suppliers, such low tolerance systems are efficient when running at full speed, but,like riding a bicycle, there has to be forward movement, to keep the system stable.

Stop the bicycle and the rider falls off.

For Newtron ..
IF you assume that a commodity can FALL to its
marginal cost of production .. which many kitcoites
have assummed .. and using that assumption have put
a floor under the gold price around 250 - 300, then
you must face FACT that the floor has been drastically
lowered...
Sure .. RSA stocks are looking at great profit
margins .. Harmony looks grand .. BUT the market
seems to see something else .. what can it be ??
Suppose these mines start selling forward at these
dollar prices ?? These RSA mines are HAPPY at these
prices. Suppose the poor bugger that offtakes from
abx at 400$ wants to RE-negotiate or go belly up ??
Do you REALLY see HIGHER prices ???

Allan ..
Your excel work scares me ..
but I cant find that many bottles .

Salty ..
called him Shakes-a-farfel..

but not many..

where is everybody ??

Crusty

Yeah I easily get spooked by s/s too.

As for bottles, how about dominoes instead? OR mousetraps loaded with ping-pong balls? OR long-tailed cats in rooms of rocking-chairs? OR Abbot & Costello clones in Russian suit-case A-bomb factories? OR one-armed knife-throwers with dropsy flinging stillettos at erratically-spinning blond bombshells? OR vodka-soaked pickle-wielding caucasians sniffing with zivatrons?

It is so confusing, this cyber-life. The faster we go the behinder we get.

crusty/all

how many anagrams can you make out of "shakes a farfel?"

Well, that question sure "shakes a farfel" with me. How about you?



NaCl in 7th heaven

tunin out before I appear under the AUspice. Gold'n'spice, what
have we here? Gold for spice for profit. therefore I feel generous.
if altitude sickness is experienced while reading this post, please
reach for a spew bag. fists of rightous harmony. yo.

Salty ..
We're the only guys left ..
to carry the ball ..
Speaking of balls .. the RSA
cricket team is very inpressive ..
the bowling .. this Klusener is
almost as quick as Donald and now
Kallis took 4 for 14 vs England
and bats centuries. Really the bowling
is astounding. Have you seen them.
The RSA Rugby team needs a kick in
the @ss.

Hey crusty lookee, it's a Russel in the Hedgerows, gidday Hedgehog!

You looking for the lost Spice Girl prickly little buddy? Feet firmly on the ground, deeply rooted, like the mighty kauri. And.

Hands move as clouds.

and this allows the mind to quest for a point of singularity

OMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

Ibn Al Crus'ti

Not seen Klusener. Beginning to be glad that MacSporran-man didn't see my wager, now that we've spun a couple of times, the wager is off, and I can call him Yella.


Hey, anyone know how long till aphelion? Please post. TIA


King auratorius III of auratania

( getting delusions of grandeur, me. But if you're gonna get delusions, might as well make them grand, eh? )

Last Call....

Q:  Why do New Zealand race horses run so fast?
A:  Because they know what we do to our sheep.

I've been a baaaaad, baaaad, boy.


nite

"M. Jacques Declass, chairman of the World Soybean Oil Council, a local booster group, annouced Friday in Keokuk, Iowa, US that he was personally fed up with producer hedging. "I mean, give me a break, these guys keep selling stuff they don't even have, fer gawd's sake..."



A representative of the Keokuk State Bank, who did not wish to be identified, pointed out that producers often wish to lock in a price on an exchange in order to guarantee a profit for a given crop year. "I think Jacques 's been dippin' a little too much into the corn, if you know what I mean. What does he think the Board of Trade is there for?"



M. Declass was unavailable for further comment.........."

aurophile

good morning, mon liege,

Not to hedge is to Speculate. Non?

( As Russell might say ) And RUSSELL NEVER SLEEPS

magic is a symptom of chaos, magic will lead us but blind us
with its patterns.

King Auratorious, most noble and good, keeper of the faith, may the Good Lord grant thy every wish, and may Hares-to-hounds win the daily double at Gulfstream in the second race. This I ask in Russell's name, Amen. How be you, Mon?

Hog of the Hedges

Uh uh. I beg to differ. Magic is not a symptom of chaos. No. I concur with Arthur C Clark ( That's twice in one night I've referred to this great mind ) that any advanced technology can only be perceived as magic.
How many of us can describe electricity? I recall a well-educated literati stumbling over the magic of electricity. His electric razor di not go at first when he plugged it in, so he lowered it below that electric socket and it started. "Why did you do that?" I asked.
"To help the electricity go down-hill"

Some magical thinking about gold at kitco sometimes, eh?

Don't it just make you want to shake your farfel?

Aurator, you may get a charge out of this.

http://www.sni.net/hans/product/products.html


Is farfel being difficult once more?

you may not. I shall try again.

aurophile

and warm rabbits to you and all the loyal_&_noble folk_@kitco


nytolTeddo

Couldn't the RSA mines lock in their currency advantage with currency derivitives without hedging their production forward which would lower the POG as you point out.

The floor may be lowered, but only for non US producers as you point out. How much of world AU production is produced in USDs ? If USD cost of production remains at $280/300, whereas RSA can produce at $200 it seems to me that this wuold be a sufficient boombershoot for the POG to remain above $280 and heaven would continue to rain silver dollars on RSA Au Stocks. The fall in the JO miners must be au bears combined with investors who are simply bearish on any security denominated in a falling asset. But this just seems to me to be building relative kinetic value in these shares.
Am I dreaming ? This is just one more anomily as good action translate into bad for RSA AU Shares. I suppose when the Rand strengthens on a tear that it will be bad action that translates into bad pricing as logic would dictate.
Scroodled in & scroddled out !
Se la vie.

Y.O.S.


TAR BABY

Auratorious, perhaps a morsel suffices:

"Background Material

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Whether you realize it or not, you are being strongly influenced by a very powerful electrical force - the earths electric field. This field produces currents through your body that are 250,000 times as strong as the currents that run your brain. Recognition of this fact, research, and experimentation have led former Bell Labs engineer and scientist Al Larson to a series of insights into many previously unexplained phenomena. His findings cover a wide range of topics, such as dowsing, the human aura, consciousness, bio-circuits, Feng Shui, natal astrology, stock markets, remote viewing, energy field medicine, de ja vu, dreams, and religious experiences. His own discovery of sudden impulses shows how we are all connected by the field in a Cosmic Internet. Al provides a rational explanation of how these phenomena work through the earths electric field, along with guidance of how this knowledge can be used to improve your own life. Do not miss this clear, concise, convincing explanation of how things work. Just $18 + $2 Shipping/Handling


............................................................YEL...$20"

As GE used to say, "Living Better, electrically..........."

aurophile

actually, no. Farfelator is growing to be a worthy kitco citizen, a kitcozen unfarfelled. Just such an easily pronounceable F* to Farfle with, if you catch my drift...


Kitcozens of the world UNITE BUY GOLD NOW....
You have nothing to lose but your paper wealth, your health, and your arfoles.

I shall carry word of this sighting to Comrade Humble1. Rsst well.

perceived left field events in an evolutionary system take us from the edge of chaos to the cliff face and a few kms down. puff puff.

Waiting until summer is over does not seem that unreasonable. I think Ill just use a few contracts on whichever way gold is going until we see a real breakout in the price. Seems we have been under $300 for quite some time.

All seems to be a question of the strength of the US$. What happens when the US funny paper is no longer desired by the world? Think maybe the US$ price of gold will go way up? The Euro got anything to do with all this? Are we watching the price of gold or the currency markets?

Think I will go read the THOUGHTS of ANOTHER while he was @ Kitco...maybe I can figure out when gold will be @ $320-360.

Disney...watch out for all gold mine forward sales denominated in US$. What is strong today may be very weak by December. BTW...how many days is it til 01/01/99. Not that many eh! We watch this new gold market together. Yes?

What do you do with an extra 5,000,000,000,000 that comes home? What do they call the Indonesian currency?

PMSP

Tom

Couldn't the RSA mines lock in their currency advantage with currency derivitives without hedging their production forward which would lower the POG as you point out.

The floor may be lowered, but only for non US producers as you point out. How much of world AU production is produced in USDs ? If USD cost of production remains at $280/300, whereas RSA can produce at $200 it seems to me that this wuold be a sufficient boombershoot for the POG to remain above $280 and heaven would continue to rain silver dollars on RSA Au Stocks. The fall in the JO miners must be au bears combined with investors who are simply bearish on any security denominated in a falling asset. But this just seems to me to be building relative kinetic value in these shares.
Am I dreaming ? This is just one more anomily as good action translate into bad for RSA AU Shares. I suppose when the Rand strengthens on a tear that it will be bad action that translates into bad pricing as logic would dictate.
Scroodled in & scroddled out !
Se la vie.

Y.O.S.


TAR BABY

Greetings!

Reference to any person living or dead is unintended. T'is but a work of fiction. Over the edge. Beyond the fringe.

Cheers! Good night.

FYI....
http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/980626/gold_compa_1.html

Newtron ..
I just see the North American
producers under pressure in most
cases. Real safety play is buy
the RSA stocks ( or even calls on
ASA ) and puts on $XAU. That way
gold pretty well washes out and
you play the NA disadvantage and
the RSA low cost advantage.

I suppose in Russia or France this would be no problem. They needn't be large ones. Do have enough string, though. And a very sturdy set of dice.

Back to the jungle, again!

http://www.tfc.com/syndication/tfc/dohmen.html

http://www.tfc.com/syndication/TFC/dohmen.html

a world financial crisis leading to cascading competitive currency
devaluations, leading ultimately to a collapse of even the US dollar.
In such a world wide deflation, first stock markets collapse, followed by
bond markets, leading to a final flight to the only reservoir of value
remaining: gold. This was the scenario in the hungry thirties.
The new boy on the block this time around is the CB gold lease,
and forward selling by gold producers. Under forward selling, we
have a mechanism to destroy the last refuge of wealth as gold mining
companies sell themselves forward into oblivion. Gold deflates too.

Is that an adequate summary of the present situation? If true, we will
have finally arrived in a situation where THERE IS NO PLACE TO HIDE
WEALTH, AND NO ESCAPE FROM A WORLD WIDE RUINOUS DEFLATION.

If this is true, and I can see it, and you can see it, the question
arises, can the CBs see it? If Monetary reserves are in the form
of paper currency, and gold, and the paper is collapsing, will the
CBs sit by while the gold also implodes in value, or WILL THEY RAISE
LEASE RATES AND HALT THIS MADNESS BEFORE WE ARE ALL RUINED?

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/980626/ny_preciou_2.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/980627/pakistani__2.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/980626/venezuela__2.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/980626/chile_peso_1.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/980626/colombia_c_1.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/980625/japan_risk_1.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/980626/us_fx_deal_1.html

Tampering scandal hits Mongolia Gold

By PAUL BAGNELL
Mining Reporter The Financial Post
A sample tampering scandal has marred the prospects of another Canadian gold mining
company.
An independent report on an exploration site operated by Mongolia Gold Resources Ltd. said
two sets of earth samples -- which showed high gold values and caused the company's shares
to rise -- probably did not come from the site.
Rather, said Vancouver mining engineer Gary Hawthorn, the samples appear to have been
taken from small mining areas near Mongolia Gold's 49%-owned property in Mongolia, then
substituted for the real samples before assaying took place at laboratories in Mongolia and
Canada.
Hawthorn's report was published on April 28 but attracted little attention probably because the
company's shares never hit the levels seen in other recent gold fraud cases.
Shares of Vancouver-based Mongolia Gold ( MGR/VSE ) climbed to $1.60 from $1.04 in the
two weeks after March 3, 1997, when the company reported a "large gold-in-soil geochemical
anomaly" on the Bumbat West property.
On April 17, 1997, Mongolia Gold announced further "encouraging" but "preliminary" results
from a second round of surface tests.
On July 4, it said it was unable to duplicate the impressive results of the two earlier sampling
efforts.
In his report, Hawthorn said the most likely explanation was a "plan to replace some of the
original samples" with gold from the nearby mining properties.
Dave Webb, Mongolia Gold's president, said Friday the company's staff and sample security
measures at the site met industry standards during the period in question.
Hawthorn said stricter regulations introduced by the Vancouver Stock Exchange in November
would have brought the deception to light earlier.
His report said it was "unlikely" Canadian company officials were involved in the scheme. But
one senior employee refused requests to make a statement on the affair and other "senior
Mongolian" employees showed a lack of interest in having local police called in, he added.
Angela Huxham, VSE's director of surveillance, said the exchange's probe into insider trading
at Mongolia Gold was "inconclusive" and the VSE was satisfied with the company's record of
disclosure on the matter.

Royal Oak management gets special stock
deal

By PETER KENNEDY
Vancouver Bureau The Financial Post
Royal Oak Mines Inc. won shareholder approval Friday to cut the exercise price on about 5.9
million management stock options to $1.10 a share from as high as $4.90, despite investor
dissatisfaction.
During the gold producer's annual meeting in Vancouver Friday, one shareholder argued
company executives should not be treated any differently from other shareholders.
"That is how a lot of people see it,'' said Peter Moll, an investor who has seen the value of his
stock ( RYO/TSE ) tumble to 85 in March from $4.15 in early 1997.
On Friday the stock closed at $1.30, up 5.
However, Royal Oak chief executive Margaret Witte made no
apologies.
She said the stock options were repriced to reward the executives
who stuck with a company that had narrowly avoided insolvency
while putting its US$420-million Kemess gold-copper mine in British
Columbia into production.
Pummelled by the slide in gold prices, Royal Oak has only survived
by securing a US$120-million loan from Trilon Financial Corp. of
Toronto.
"It's a very tough situation for a chief executive when you can't take
cash out of the treasury to pay your general manager a bonus when
he exceeds expectations,'' Witte said.
She said none of the company's senior management has received a pay increase in the past
two years.
The company has only been able to pay bonuses by forgiving housing loans granted to some
executives.
While production began at Kemess last month, the company is constrained by weak gold and
copper prices and US$300-million debtload. As a cost-saving measure, it has reduced the
number of directors on its board to five from seven. It has also combined its 1997 annual
report with 10-K documents filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission in Washington.
As well, the company will spend only $2 million on exploration at its Namosi project in Fiji this
year. Billed as Royal Oak's next development project, Namosi holds an estimated four million
ounces of gold and nine billion bounds of copper.
However, Witte said Royal Oak has paid about $50 million to Kemess suppliers and
contractors in the past 48 hours and expects to pay the rest of them off in the coming days.
Also on Friday, Royal Oak received the go-ahead to install a shareholder rights plan aimed at
giving management time to seek alternatives if the company becomes a takeover target.

Just another heads you win tails I lose proposition for the general sucker going general Au share public.
What else is new ?

Y.O.S.


TAR BABY

in the stock market continues. Persons surveyed identified by initial:

SW: Says he has all his kids' money for college in mutual funds but he can "smell a big change coming" ( and he doesn't have a talking dog who can smell things for him ) . He thinks there will be a panic in the markets as everyone realizes the extent of their dellusion and what's at stake. So he's taking them out next week... the money, that is. He's also toying with the idea of selling his N. Califorina home to profit on the 100% increase in sale price of his home since he bought it, and renting until the housing market collapses and then buying in again. My sister in S. California has a similar idea. My wife and I here on the Right Coast have been talking about doing that for months. We'd better hurry. If too many folks get this idea, it doesn't work.

AC: Says she has made a fortune in the stock market, not in mutual funds but in carefully selected high tech stocks, of which she has now collected 40. She thinks mutual funds are for dopes who actually believe that they are getting professional help for huge fees from 23 year old fund managers who are simply following the methods of fashion. As keen as she is on stocks, she is also worried about the market, citing the fact that more and more humans from around the world are paying more and more for stocks that are worth less and less, and that the speculative market will crash. She asks, "But where do I put my money? Buy gold and silver hoard it in a safe deposit box? Ha-ha ha ha."

Ha ha ha ha-ha ha-ha ha ha ha! HA HA HA-HA HA HA HA-HA HA HA HA HA-HA!

-EJ

I've been riding this Compuputer like a "Rocking Horse Winner" since March & now I must be go off into my sweaty trance to either come up with a new winning horse or vegitate until my current picks either recover on the back stretch or I, awake no more !


Y.O.S.


TAR BABY

Fidelity Select American Gold & Precious Metals Charts:
Five Year Chart http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/5969/agpmlt.htm
120 market days Chart http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/5969/agpm120.htm
30 market days Chart http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/5969/agpm30.htm
10 days Hourly Chart http://www.geocities.com/WallStreet/5969/agpm70.htm

I tried this strategy out on my wife to consider selling our house at the top & she even went with me to check out the market. Bottom line she won't rent & that dog won't hunt.
Darn !

TB

Hell, if you can ride a motorcycle, it ain't no big thing for you to read this little note. Ray, I really like the way you wail "Born to Lose...I've lived my life in vain." I know you feel it too, the pain. God bless you and let's do lunch. studio.

http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/8182/john.htm

worth living for,oz is going back to the people,great stuff,i even helped it along,

To All
The Witte lady kills me .. she wants to REWARD
executives who stayed with the company when it almost
went bust .. but THEY were responsible in the first
place for RYO lousy performance .. they were already
rewarded .. they got paid I assume.
These company executives are the Kommisars of US
socialist Capitalism. The shareholders are stuffed.
No wonder business likes Clintons .. they are just
like him.

My only real brother lives down under with ya'. Enlist him...he'll want to be boss though. g'day to ya'll.

GM

GM

GM

I bought 200 generators to sell, should have bought air conditioners.

It's hot and getting hotter-- field dried corn anyone.

follow...I'm on Mars...it is hot but bearable...

"We are not here concerned with hopes and fears, only with the truth as far as our reason allows us to discover it. I have given the evidence to the best of my ability..."

Charles Darwin The Descent of Man 1871

and one of my all time favorties:

Job 4:7:

"Consider, what innocent ever perished, or where have the righteous been destroyed?"

A Giant its MARS HOT HERE Island that is Long GULP of RESERVA to YA!!!

I'm goin' to drive out to California and pick-up Ronnie Reagan and haul his butt back to Washington. He still could play chess, run the hell outta' the country, with naked babes all 'round him, all at the same time........better than fifty Dick Clintons. g'day.

No....no.....no.........you should have bought some rangy. hee...hee...ugh. I need an air conditioner for my guitar....got one? Screw Home Despot and Walfart.

tall Buckwheat shall stand and the official opening of the O'TAY CORRAL will commence...

Do not fear the Coward Erect...I have seen this before...he and his will rot from the inside out...it is only a matter of time now...and time is short as the water rises my friend...

More importantly...I wish you could see the Corral...

A GIANT GULP OF RESERVA in your HONOR...

GM

I am furiously working on my rope tricks for the grand opening of the O'Tay...the toughest feat being my attempt to urinate up on. Never been done before, not even by Will!....and it can be very messy if not executed flawlessly. I am Fearless ( y stupido ) .

A maximum GULP&PUFF to YA!!!!!!!!!! studio. and as always, GO GOLDBUGS!!!

What Kitco needs is an agent, sounds like Kitco has some hot string players. Hope to hear each and everyone of them in person when gold gets to 500. How long do you think I will have to wait?

For Rhody..
Now wait a minue ..If a currency collapses .. it has
to fall RELATIVE to something else. It doesnt just
fall over sideways by iself ..
So what is the dollar going to fall AGAINST ..Someone
I forget who now thinks it will fall against the YEN.
Because he thinks Japan is cheaper than the US .. I
dont think so .. but lets look at what sort of real
yields a guy can get on his dough in different
currencies. I use an Economist of March 15 because I
cancelled my subscription .. One of you active subscribers
can update my numbers

Format .. country,eurobond yield,cpi
USA,5.59,1.6
germany, 4.44,1.1
switzerland, 1.94,0.0
Japan,1.14,1.8
Britain,6.23,3.3

now lets calculate real yields by ( ( ( 1 + by ) / ( 1+ in ) ) -1 ) *100
where by = bond yield/100 and in = cpi/100
USA = ( 1.0559 ) / ( 1.016 ) =1.0392 -1 = 0.0392*100 = 3.92%
similarly
Germany = 3.3 %
Switzerland = 1.94 %
Japan = -.4 %
Britain = 2.8 %

This says that the US provides the highest real
yield of any major currency. Maybe thats changed a bit
since March 15 .. but not that much .. has it ??
So what will the dollar fall against ???

Just as an interesting calculation .. look at the
rand .. the bond yield is 15 % at least and inflation
is about 6 %. so thats 1.15/1.06 = 8.5 % real.
Because of this, I do not join in with the general
hysteria that seems to be affecting some of the girls.
The Rand has traded about level with the Aussie
dollar for a long time now .. Let cheesehead and whoever
it was rave .. it gives them something to do.. keeps
them off the streets.

YEA Cheesehead Cheesehead CIS BOOM BAH !!

And now, sir, WE USers are miles behind! ( behind the biggest behind of our time ) !~!!!~!!!! Bro falls a wee bit short of perfect, ohmy!.....however, should work well.

.. and I would rather have my MIG
though rose leaves die of grieving
Than do high deeds in Hungary
to pass all men's believing ..

GM

HOW LONG YA' GOT?????? I may not be able to play, by edict of the damn Grand Jury. I am currently court-restrained, and constipated, for I am the first picker UNJUSTLY! charged with Musical Malpractice. FREE STUDIO OF THE IRONS!!!! FREE STUDIO!!!!! VIVA STUDIO!!!!!

GM

.. and I would rather have my MIG
though rose leaves die of grieving
Than do high deeds in Hungary
to pass all men's believing ..

Interesting piece avaiable from Veneroso. See Editorials "Rubin in a Box" at www.golden-eagle.com
Also the piece you get from e-mailing them at MACROGOLD@aol.com is very interesting. Concerns movement of mobile global speculative money. Seems to indicate a crash in Latin America will preceede the US Crash ( against the Euro ) Hmmmm...

IMPEACH DICK CLINTON!!!!!!!!!!! ( CUT 'EM & HANG 'EM!!!!!!! )

GM

walk. hot as hell, yessir.....bbl.

I typed golden-eagle!! Bart?!

Please E-mail me to explain this Editorial Interference. Is this Twilight Zone.Net or Outer Limits.Com?

Island that is Long...in Cold Spring Harbor, LOVELY PLACE...If you can, schedules allowing, arrive or wish to stop in for a day and such please contact me. 516-425-7185 or tolerant1@msn.com or tolerant@hotmail.com

Day or night you may contact me...I seldom sleep...

NAMASTE'

Charts look pretty good dont they?

ERLE, Haephestos is a GREAT handle! People from your planet are very creative!

ALL: Here are a couple of links with many other mythological names for those who would like to get away from being just numbers on a computer screen. "I am not a number! I am a free man!" from 'The Prisoner'

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/2938/poly4.html
http://www.halcyon.com/theosnw/ctg/ctg-hp.htm

The Fidelity charts look great. US to support Yen as early as Sunday. Does gold look good or is it just real good Cuervo?

GM

of another January spurt. "Just a mirage". Thats all you are to me.Gulp.

When I look at these two great leaders, history throws a lot of questions into my mind, which I cannot resolve. But I dont give up hope. As long as questions araise, I might find answers.

Tshiang-Kai-Tshek ( spelling? ) had a superior vision and judgement, in military strategy, and in the very long perspective of what was wrong about communism, and about what was right about the principle of personal property in the constitution of a society.

Mao, the son of a Chinese peasant family, saw the fate of the poor and the necessity of a social revolution. He fell intellectually into the traps of the communist ideology. He developed an interpretation of the essence of the works of Mardochai ( i.e., Karl Marx ) ,and tailor-made them for he explosive social problems of the Chinese society of his time.

There was cruelty operating on both sides which these two leaders represented. The Nationalists were blind and cruel towards the suppressed poor. The communists were cruel towards those who owned property.

And there were the Japanese colonialists who suppressed part of the Chinese empire with untamed brutality. Tshian-Kai-Tshek hesitated to attack the Japanese, because he recognized their military superiority. Mao wanted to unify his troops with the Nationalists and fight the foreign suppressors. Once Mao got his way, they attacked the Japanese and got beaten back miserably, with the effect that Japan controlled now even greater areas of Chaina.

Basically, the USA victory over Japan defeated the Japanese occupants in China simultaneously. And it was probably American weapons and military advisors which helped to decide the victory of Mao over Tshian-Kai-Tshek's Nationalists who had to withdraw to Formosa. Both, the liberation of China from Japanese colonial suppression and the victory of Mao seem to be the direct or indirect result of American interaction in Asia.

Meanwhile, the red regime has learned that without capitalism there is no economic success possible. The Chinese in Taiwan do not kripple the feet of women anymore.

Communism in China and in the Sowjet Union had never the same face. In spite of all the killing which was going on, had the Chinese preserved their 5,000 years old entrepreneurial tradition, their family values, the values and virtues taught by an old cultural heritage and tradition.

There is not such a thing like "Russian" entrepreneurial tradition and Solshenizin's call for the reestblishment of the "Russian village" symbolically representing old Russian tradition and values, probably came too late.

China has a great future, provided WWIII doesn't happen.

Alberich the Dwarf

Cleseau here. Are you buying gold. Theses charts say BUY,BUY,BUY.
I bought Friday. Guess that pretty much does it for gold. Gulp.

Thank you 6pak for the post and for the url.
This Saturday morning finds me catching up on my reading.
Your post helped put me in a good, hopeful mood to start the day.
Mercy help the bugger who is bend on destroying this mood for I wish to retain this it for as long as I can.

Aurophile - I too adhere to no religion. Though I was raised a Catholic {what a barbarous introduction to human religion!} - I have briefly looked into other religions and found all of them unsatisfactory. The most recent candidate which seems at least a little intriguing is about "Urantia". It has more of a cosmic/mulitiple universes approach which has some parallels with cosmogony and physics.

Guess I rebel against anything that smacks of collectivism which forces one to surrender individuality. Reckon that may strike a chord with many Kitcoites as well. Gold and Silver as coins in my purse gives me that secure independence from distant institutions which have historically debased or absconded with the value that "backs" up fiat notes or cyberdeposits.

Shorter term, the Euro will give US Dollar trouble, but looking out, the Yen will strengthen. It always has.It's a counter-cyclical deal. Asia ain't dead, its just got a Bear problem. US next, after LA. Then Europe last.

http://www.gold.globalcenter.net/legislation.html

whether to do-do or go blind.

to be at home with mom and the kids, or even at Goldman Sachs. Anywhere but on the HOT SEAT.

Preacher

I read your earlier posts on Silver Standard this week and believe your
visit forced him to confess their Russian problems earlier than they
would have liked to before the complete drill results were in for
Bowdens silver project. I wonder if this news is already priced in
or will we see a sell off on monday. I'm down 30% but plan on taking
the ride longer term.

We should have bought more PAASF because the La Colordada
drill results looked pretty good.

Do you think Dines was the purchaser of one the $5 million private
placements in Silver Standard earlier this year?

Most of the great illuminators of humanity, historical, scriptural, and mythological, arose to abolish religion and proclaim Man free to find his own inner God. Our true inner God is that, without which, ANY "god" would be a blithering idiot. Consciousness, Intelligence, Reason, Will. And lo and behold, these great abstractions of the Universe are within US! At our disposal! How we use them determines the unfolding of our lives, our dream, our reality. In this sense, all intelligent beings are agents of "God." Religions are created by illuminated human beings who eventually forget that illumination is an inner thing, and pass along tired, stale, lifeless formulas and advice, which the codify and legalize as "religions." Then the letter killeth. Only the spirit giveth life. Sorry...I thought this was Sunday morning for a minute!

You have struck a chord..."The Prisoner." Great stuff podge...A GIANT GULP of RESERVA to YA!!! Now I must go...off to pull gold from little ears...heh...heh...

Did you ever notice that when you get the "L" out of gold, you get "god"?

Speaking of gold, a look at the nearest futures daily chart shows what could be construed as an inverse head and shoulders forming. I know Reify might disagree with me ( he's so damn picky when it comes to chart formations...must be a Virgo! ) but I would say that a close above $303 basis nearest futures would let gold run to 321 before resistance kicks in. Watch that neckline! A break thru 303 is the short term buy signal on futures here.

As for Silver, I see multiple layers of resistance at 5.45, 5.60, 5.70, but mainly the price needs to get past 5.60 for an upside breakout from the downtrend line over the big abc correction from the previous peak. Then we could be on the way to new highs later on.

I believe the term is doo-doo....not do-do.......get your scatalogicisms ( new word ) correct ;- )

away...to a FUNtastic weekend



fin who shares ( katzenjammer-kid ) ....thanks mate............... ( couple-o-VB's ) ( ? ) ..........it'll do ya right.......good on ya'!

any sweet-tooths out there?? :-$ )

http://www.digisys.net/futures/chart/ts_cha84.gif

http://www.digisys.net/futures/chart/ts_cha49.gif

looks SWEET to me? eh Earl.....pray tell w/ those candlesticks oh yers.....

Mike Sheller: You just summed up the history of

mankind.

your post is great,i to do not follow a religion,would prefer to "try" and right my own book,

eh...In your most special HONOR, an ounce...Harmonic played by Phil I believe...shall be given to the infant wearing the most JAMMIN hat...

children all over Huntington dream of hearing your name because they know gold is about to fall out of their ears...

Now I must go... bbml................................yEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEhAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!

I tried yesterday to post a link to this article which I wrote a year ago and which Gold ( en ) Eagle was kind enough to publish and continues to post. I learned of the battle of the Gold Barons which makes it difficult to refer readers to the site. Excuse the length. Also I thank Bart Kitner for continuing to provide this excellent site where one can read many opinions on gold.



I had not read this piece for quite a long time, and was astonished that so much of it remains pertinent ( by my own admission;- ) ) ) a year later. Obviously the short term comments were, well, short term. This appeared just a few short weeks before the first domino of the Thai/Japanese loan unwindings fell.



In putting this up I am obviously tooting my own horn, but I think the question remains: .....................



IS GOLD DEAD?



24 June 1997



In a world in which U.S. Treasury securities are preferred above all other national monetary reserves, and where gold is dumped to meet the dubious goals of European governments in order to join a monetary union whose worth, ex-gold, is questionable, is gold really of any value? Likewise in a world where devastating inflation is a thing of the past and where the entire world economy is emerging from two decades of malaise, can gold even pretend to provide a financing mechanism in any way sufficient to need when compared to negotiable debt securities and stock equities? After all, the quantity of gold relative to world trade, population, and all other measures of human activity is steadily shrinking.



Is gold worthy of investment consideration when it cannot even keep pace with the rate of reported inflation or the CRB Index of commodities futures? In a recent letter James Turk ( Freemarket Money & Gold, PO Box 4634, Greenwich, CT 06830 ) asks the question "Is gold still leading?" Since the U.S. gave up the pretense of maintaining the price at $35 the ounce in 1971, and even before, gold's price has usually been a harbinger of things to come. Gold has tended to make its bear and bull moves before those of most physical commodities and assets.



There have been major exceptions such as in 1974 when the CRB topped out in February and gold not until the end of December, and in 1975 when the CRB bottomed in March while gold did not do so for another fifteen months. These two instances have been explained away by the fact that gold became freely tradable for Americans only on 1 January 1975 and that the enthusiasm leading up to that date caused imbalances which took a year and a half to abate.



1980 is often given as a case in point wherein gold peaked at its all-time ( in U.S. dollars ) high in January, while the CRB did not top out until 20 November. As I have shown many times, the orthodox top in gold from the Elliott Wave perspective ( on which point the grand master, A.J. Frost, agrees ) was late September 1980. Nevertheless in 1985 and 1988 gold did lead the CRB considerably, although again in 1992, the CRB bottomed ahead of gold, as did the XAU Index.



Although the CRB Index is not running away at the moment, it is holding within 5% of last year's highs while gold continues to fall. Turk explains the discrepancy in this way: "There are no central banks dishoarding soybeans. No oil company is forward selling today crude oil they hope to produce in 2005." A very telling explanation.



And yet I believe that this observation, reflecting physical gold management policy of the central banks and gold mines since at least 1988, begs the question. Is the forward selling and dishoarding ( for which, of course, there is always an opposite side buyer ) merely masking what would other wise have been a modest bull market for gold, or does it represent a long term and decisive change of perspective on the part of thosecentral banks and gold minerswho are perhaps best informed as to the economics and politics of gold? Despite impressive historical analyses concluding that gold has always been and will always be the ultimate money, and studies showing that it holds its purchasing power over time, has fractional reserve banking based upon interest bearing government securities of an issuer which has proven itself to be the borrower and lender of last resort, finally reduced gold to just another physical commodity? Is gold merely another metal like copper and palladium whose price is dictated by producers and industrial users and with no steady investor or central bank hoarding?



Why are many central banks dishoarding and/or lending gold to the market? Why are many savvy and powerful mining houses selling forward production for many years to come in some cases? In both cases the answer seems to be optimization of return on assets and decreased financing cost. Central banks are profit centers for most governments. In the case of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board and its banks, all profits after expenses are returned to the Treasury each year. Countries which are fortunate enough to have a significant asset base in their central banks expect those banks to contribute significantly to the fiscal needs of the government.



We often subscribe to the fantasy of the central banks as the reservoir and safeguard of the nation's treasure, but in fact they are largely trading banks like any private national or international bank. They are expected to earn a respectable return on their assets for their "biggest shareholder." This is their primary "redeeming social value".



Much of the gold hoards of European and American central banks was acquired in the nineteenth century when the gold standard was in effect and when gold was the only asset held by central banks apart from short term cash needs. When all the major world currencies devalued in the 1920's and 1930's ( "revalued" gold upward ) , this was seen as a windfall for the central banks in the devastation of the depression. The gold held by European central banks preserved the credit worthiness of their exile governments during World War II and contributed to the aura of gold's importance in their reserves.



With the advent of floating gold prices and floating currencies, the persistent belief in gold as the ultimate store of value led to a gold frenzy in which gold rose from $35 to $850 in a less than a decade. This was a virtual buying panic as many felt that nothing else had value except gold since everything else "floated" and was subject to political whim.



At the same time that this reinforcement of gold's aura was taking place, the Age of Hedging was being born. With currencies, interest rates and all physical commodities trading relatively freely, or at least with new volatility, futures and forward markets grew enormously to enable both producers and users of all of these "commodities" to cope with volatility. The oil, metals, interest rates, and currency "shocks" of the 1970's, coming at the end of the long economic wave, had an extremely negative effect upon national economies and world trade. Without getting into the economic cycles at this juncture, suffice it to say that it became clear to politicians and bureaucrats and traders that if currencies and interest rate contracts were commodities, so too was gold. If all is relative, all is relative.



So for central banks as well as mining houses, gold came to be seen not as a store of value or a speculative asset but as just another product or asset. Just as a farmer produces corn year in and year out, weather and financing permitting, a gold mine produces gold. As long as the miner can produce it at a profit he may as well lock in that profit by forward hedging just as many farmers do. Just as farmers borrow against their asset base to raise their crop, and hedge it to please their banker, so too did mining houses borrow to expand production throughout the 1980's and 1990's. And since gold is considered excellent collateral, they were able to borrow more cheaply by gold collateralized loans or actual borrowing of gold to be sold now to be repaid at a later date. The enormous growth of great companies such as Barrick Gold Corporation, Freeport Gold & Copper, and RTZ Corporation is a testimony to the wisdomat least so farof such an approach.



If gold is just another commodity whose production is seen as little different from farming and whose value as an asset base is no more important than any other asset, what is its "value?" If the hedging of interest rates, equities, currency values and all other major commodities is freely available and with deep markets, does gold still have a meaningful future as a hedge against inflation or deflation? Aren't interest rates and currencies a more lucrative and sensible way to invest or speculate ( an investment is a speculation with less leverage! ) Isn't gold after all, as has been said many times, a barbarous relic? Lovely perhaps, immutable, undefilable, but ultimately in the dustbin of history so far as finance is concerned?



This is, of course, the judgment and opinion of the market for many years past. We need not raise the specter of manipulation or regulation of gold in coming to this conclusion, although I believe there is ample evidence that it is in the best interests of both central banks and the stock and bond markets that gold be seen to be weak and of dubious value. ( A curious example recently was the first time issue of a very large number of one year gold warrants by Dresdner Bank within days of their approval by the U.S. Treasury as a primary dealer in treasuries. Was this merely an astute guess by Dresdner that this would be seen as a signal that they were "with the program" or was it suggested to them? )



If gold has been terminally discredited as a meaningful financial asset and if central bank dishoarding and producer forward selling persists, why should gold ever rise again? Gold is a relatively tiny market compared to the U.S. Treasury bill, note and bond market or compared to world equity or currency markets. Despite the revelations of the London Metals Exchange earlier this spring that the volume of transactions loco London was much larger than at Comex and much larger than previously thought, it is a poor cousin in total value and trading volume. Surely it must continue to be very easy to control the market through central bank and mining transactions?



On the other hand, it is such a small market which is quite depressed and with a menacing overhang of enormous short positions. Much of the futures, forward and options market is used for commercial hedging and as part of ever more complex derivatives strategies; however, there are still large numbers of naked options being written and ever greater numbers of forward sales against which future deliveries must be made or hedged against on the upside.



I do not think I can answer the question whether gold will ever regain its monetary role in any semblance of its former glory. Currency speculation and the income stream of treasury issues held are terribly competitive, especially as the U.S. is seen to be continuing to arise from the ashes of the 1970's and 1980's as a renewed world economic powerhouse and sole ( so far ) major military force.



But I do think the gold market will probe for any weakness or loss of momentum on the part of the central banks and miners. A smallish market is eminently susceptible to a campaign by a well-financed group in an attempt to run the shorts. With financial markets on a rampage there has been little incentive to do this, except for minor forays by a silver group off and on for a year, but it is natural to imagine that gold is being accumulated in this relatively calm and narrow range market since February. Anything which happens to ruffle the financial markets could serve as the catalyst for a short squeeze of major proportions.



In the meantime, I think it is unwise to adopt any philosophical blinders either pro or con the issue of whether gold is and will always be money or is just another commodity. The markets are overextended up and down, and the levels of complacency and sheer disdain for cycles after the March/April stock market mini-crash and giant recovery is stupefying. If you doubt me and think it is only the financial and general public media who think the good times for investors will never end, just visit around the investment chat sites in the Internet. Anyone with a bearish or even cautious stance is thought to be a fool.





Technical Indicators /The Near Term



Technical analysis ( TA ) has taken its lumps in many markets in these past few years. TA was, after all, developed and came to maturity during the trading range markets of stocks from the 1960's to early 1990's. A lot of mathematicians and ballistics engineers, who were accustomed to tracking rapidly moving objects with the goal of shooting them down, found a home in price analysis where trading range volatility seemed second nature to them.



In the trending markets of the 1980's and 1990's these tools are not as valuable. Markets can get overbought or over sold and stay that way for a long time during a very long trend. Relying upon price oscillators has long since been a losers' game. In the currency, interest rate, equity, and gold markets one could simply buy and hold ( or sell and hold ) and not worry even too awfully much about whipsaws from moving averages if ones horizons were far enough out. And market action has encouraged very distant horizons indeed.



In the past year in gold, nearly every technical indicator of price and nearly every timing device has seen limited usefulness. Even when correct, as they often have been, they have rallied gold very little and for very limited periods. This in itself is an indicator of a bear market. Just as all news is bad news in a bear market, so are all indicators bearish.



Friday saw a new contract low for nearby gold futures ( GCQ7 - August 1997 ) as well as a new low close but not new low for 24 hour cash gold. We are now within striking distance ( $15 ) of the 1993 lows for gold after a promising rally from February. I do not think it is a coincidence that gold's February/March rally coincided with the stock market's most ominous days in along while. But now that all is well with the world once more, gold is in disarray. And yet some of the finer gold stocks are 50% or more higher still than in 1992-93, not much by equity-mania standards, but not too shabby. Call it indexing if you will.



For the August contract, the key levels are $336.90 on the downside and $349.60, $354, $357.10 and $360.20 on the upside. The important Gann angles from $35 in 1970, about which I wrote in the Year End Review and elsewhere, is now nearly at $380, and we are below the next lower parallel angle at $350. This is a very bearish position, comparable to the situation at the devastating bottom of August 1976. Although June is statistically the month most likely to have a bottom for gold ( September is next ) , the next most likely cluster of potential turn times is in early July, although with one short term target of 30 June. Given both the key price levels and turn times, a timely close above $349.60 is needed to give rise to any near term hope.



I am holding my long term core position of quality gold producers as well as my bullion and coin position.



The stock market has developed one fifth Elliott wave extension after another since last year, and June 1997 has been no different. This is last wave action. I have had a price target for the cash Standard & Poors 500 Index ( SPX ) of 901 and time targets of June and early July for some time. The price target was met on Friday on a minor reversal day which is not as compelling as early July. Nevertheless when time and price and pattern come together, one needs only a statistically compelling reversal signal to reverse long to short, and I am watching for one.



At the same time the bond market is showing renewed strength. Technical indicators for bonds are very strong in all time frames from daily to monthly. There is little doubt that bonds will be and are already the beneficiary of a topping ( short term ) economy and will become the home for funds fleeing a stock market reversal. Merrill Lynch is now 55% weighted in bonds in their asset allocation portfolio with only 45% in stocks. And even in stocks they are weighted heavily to financials, cash cows, and consumer defensives. The bond market is taking Alan Greenspan at his word, or at least his articulated perception. Namely that the economy may be "pausing."



As you know, I am a long term re-inflationist, but if rates do fall and stocks fall too, I will not be a buyer of gold-related assets below $335 basis GCQ7 - August 1997. My bias has led me to believe that any stock market decline would be upon fears of inflation, not a recession. But an economy which could pause or decline after only one interest rate hike would not be a strong economy of the sort associated with inflation. This is, of course, falling into the belief in the Fed's real control of the interest rate markets. Many feel that the Fed has entirely lost it's ability to exert any control over events due to the proliferation of new sources of money supply, and that its only tool is "jawboning". Since the stock market has noisily thumbed its nose at the Chairman since December, one doubts even that jawboning is a viable alternative.



I still believe that most economists are trapped in a historical time warp of "disinflation forever" and are looking at economic indicators of slowdown much as technical analysts have looked at overbought indicators, as discussed above. Both are too quick to call for a change of trend, in my humble opinion.



The fabulous quantities of money which have entered into the system since 1992, along with the tremendous wealth creation from the equity markets will not suddenly cease to be functional. I do not think a crash is in the works. Everyone knows how to play a crash. Get the Fed to loosen and buy, buy, buy. Psychologically I feel that a high level trading range with high volatility alternating with deadly boring periods is the only way that all that wealth can be "burned". Historically that is the kind of market associated with an inflationary rather than disinflationary recession.



But as always, I reserve the right to be wrong!!!!



GOLD FAXLETTER  1997 IS PUBLISHED BY TENORIO RESEARCH & TRADING, DR. THOMAS DRAKE, EDITOR, 3 HAWTHORNE CIRCLE, SANTA FE, NM 87501. FAX: ( 505 ) 989-3351. ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION: $250 for all Letters, Interim Bulletins, and all special reports.

http://www.conferencecast.worldcongress1998.org/
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House Denies Y2K Emergency Funds
Lawmakers put the kibosh on federal Y2K emergency funding this week, at least temporarily. The House Rules Committee voted to strip out $2.25 billion in Y2K emergency appropriations previously included in the FY 1999 Treasury-Postal spending bill. Along with $1.6 billion in Y2K repair dollars trimmed from the Department of Defense funding bill, the emergency funds will now be incorporated in a separate measure. Making the task even more difficult, the dollars must now be offset by cuts in other government programs.

According to one industry observer: "It is very disheartening. The people who voted to strip the funds from the Treasury-Postal Service bill clearly do not understand the severity of the Y2K problem for federal agencies. It is a crisis and should be treated like other emergencies. This move could seriously hamper the ability to fund the federal government's Y2K repairs. Conservative economics prevailed over common sense. Extraordinary vision was required to respond to extraordinary eventsand Congress failed the test."

Resolution to the funding issue will be delayed until after the Congressional July 4 recess.

UN Resolution Calls for Global Cooperation on Y2K
The United Nations will take up a resolution shortly calling on member states to raise the priority of the Year 2000 issue and forge global cooperation. Speaking at the World Congress on Information Technology in Fairfax, VA, Ambassador Ahmad Kamal, chairman of the UN Working Group on Informatics, said the resolution calls on the Economic and Social Council to prepare action guidelines for member states at its meeting next month, and establishes a UN monitoring and reporting system.

Briefing a series of wide-ranging UN actions in his remarks, Kamal said, "we are far, very far, from being sanguine about results." He noted that common action, not finger-pointing, is the solution. "Y2K is obviously a challenge, but it is also an opportunity," he said. "Great potential exists in several developing countries to assist in addressing the global dimensions of the problemMany developing countrieshave a large pool of software developers and engineers capable of analyzing and re-writing the non-compliant programs, and doing so at a fractional comparative cost."

Kamal, Permanent Ambassador to the UN from Pakistan, spoke on a Year 2000 panel which also included ITAA President Harris Miller, International Chamber of Commerce Secretary General Maria Cattaui, and IBM Year 2000 Global Initiatives General Manager David Cassano. Panelists' remarks are available at http://www.conferencecast.worldcongress1998.org/dflt_d3.htm.

Vice President Al Gore participated in the World Congress via interactive video and urged conference attendees to get the Y2K job done. Perhaps responding to recent criticism by House Speaker New Gingrich and other Republicans in Congress, Gore referred to the rhetoric surrounding the Year 2000 issue. He urged high tech business leaders to action, particularly where big businesses are in a position to help their suppliers.

International Banking Rates Mixed Reviews
If not fireworks in advance of July 4, a hearing in the House this week produced a series of useful insights into the Y2K status of international banks and other institutions. U.S. ambassadors at diplomatic posts around the world report, for instance, that just three percent of foreign banks they polled are "problematic" for Y2K compliance.

Providing written testimony to the House Banking Committee, State Department Undersecretary Bonnie Cohen reported that a status check of banks in 157 countries found 17 percent compliant now and another 48 percent indicating compliance by the end of this year. Cohen also referred to a year-old State Department survey of Post, Telephone and Telegraph ( PTT ) companies indicating that 50 percent have active Y2K programs. "Because many responses were subjective," she indicated, "we are now updating the information."

Cohen reported that globally, the "public and private sectors are heroically addressing the Y2K problem," but time is not working in their favor. As a result, U.S. embassies are trying to get their plans in order for various "operational scenarios." According to Cohen, "These plans would range from the operations within our missions up to the crisis management required from the lack of essential services in a host country." Meanwhile, Cohen said the Bureau of Consular Affairs has begun meeting with its counterparts in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom and New Zealand to discuss public safety and travel security topics. "Future meetings will focus on how to convey information to the public to keep them informed but not react in panic," Cohen indicated.

Y2K comatose countries may panic when they learn about the peer pressure plans of the Joint Year 2000 Council to create country by country Y2K status pages on the web. The Council is co-sponsored by the Basle Committee on Banking Supervision, the G-10 central bank governors' Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems and other groups.

According to Ernest Patrikis, First Vice President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Chairman of the Council, each page would contain contact information for government officials; financial supervisors and regulators; financial industry associations; payment, settlement and trading systems; chambers of commerce; and major utility associations or supervisors. The pages will also contain Y2K related status information for these groups. Patrikis said the web-based approach will help create informal networking and better awareness. But a stick is part and parcel of the package. "the presence of the country pages may exert pressure on those countries where more vigorous action is needed. A blank or uninformative country listing would probably not be seen as a good sign by some financial market participants," Patrikis told the Banking Committee.

Patrikis said the Council is also collecting and posting information on the Y2K preparedness and testing of payment and settlement systems around the globe. He said 150 systems in 47 countries have cooperated to date, and his group intends to expand the scope of coverage to exchanges and trading systems as well as major financial information services providers. Patrikis said twin goals are to help organizations coordinate test schedules and identify anomalies. But again there is a stick:

"Primarily, I see this as an exercise in peer pressure," Patrikis said. "If we list every country in the world on our web site and the public can see that some countries have scheduled mandatory external tests of their

major trading and settlement systems, while other countries do not provide any information, that second country may come under greater pressure to organize an external testing program. This is our stated goal."

Moody's Investors Service also rated noteworthy comments at the hearing. Managing Director Samuel Theodore told the Banking Committee that a majority of large international banks are "on track" for Y2K compliance. According to Theodore, "Such large institutions represent, in aggregate, a critical transmission belt for financial flows worldwide; therefore, we believe that Y2K-related systemic risk, while possible, may in fact be more remote than it is sometimes presented in the media."

If prospects for large institutions are looking up, Theodore indicated that the sunny picture does extend to smaller, less internationally connected banks with less tested IT cultures.

"Banks in Europe, Asia and the rest of the world appear to be less concerned about Y2K than banks in the United States," Theodore said, adding, "with very few exceptions, bank regulators around the world-even in developed national banking markets-are far less assertive and detailed than their U.S. counterparts in guiding their banks towards Y2K compliance."

In European Union member states, the Moody's executive said that the Euro conversion generally racks up several times the budget attributed to Y2K efforts. Y2K compliance, he said, is often viewed as a "necessary evil" in these countries. The Euro grabs mindshare, he indicated, for political as well as economic reasons.

Elsewhere in the world, Theodore said the present banking crisis in Japan is overshadowing Y2K concerns. "Many banks are currently focused on improving their financial condition in the short term, and tend to look at Y2K as a medium-term issue, less difficult to deal with than their current problems. We have observed that the Y2K budgets of several large Japanese banks are noticeably thinner than those of their U.S. and European counterparts."

And that's the good news. "In many emerging markets, both banks and many bank regulators are still utterly unprepared for Y2K-indeed, they are often even unaware of the real challenges of the process," Theodore said. Elsewhere, he indicated, language and cultural differences may prove to be significant challenges to Y2K compliance.

While litigation risk is more an issue in the U.S., reputation risk is a major concern for Y2K wayward banks overseas. "Important clients-both borrowers and depositors-will choose to move their business away from such banks," Theodore said, adding, "This inherently leads to funding, liquidity, and franchise problems for the Y2K--deficient bank, or for the bank being perceived as such."

The dollar is a high risk currency so you have to have those high
real yeilds to get the folks living in the nations accumulating
the detritus of our massive current account deficits to hold on to the
detritus. However, we've now reached a point where those high real
yeilds must fall or the U.S. will import its way to recession or maybe
something worse than a recession. The only way to change the direction
of the hot money is to change their perception of the fundamentals:
lower the real interest rates.

Can you please not string all those letters together like that.
ie. AAAAAAAAAAAAAA etc

It blows out the margins and destroys the readability of the page.

You need to contain you emotions to within a six inch limit. ( :- )

Thanks - namaste

Nice to know someone so well versed in feces. Doo-Doo to you.

I do believe you've got it.

While the Bank of Japan is engaging in a massive reflation program
as measured by the monetary base, it seems to be having no effect on
the macro economy. Why? The answer is twofold: The Japanese banks
are being crimped in their lending capacity by the high dollar and
( 2 ) the money created by the Bank of Japan is leaking out of the
country to the U.S. dollar.

As the dollar rises the value of dollar loans on the balance sheets
of Japanese banks ( up to 1/3 of total loans outstanding ) rises. The
value of dollar liabilites used to fund those loans also rises so
capital expressed in yen remains the same. The BIS requires that
banks maintain capital equal to 8% of outstanding loans so as the
value of loans increases this capital ratio falls for the Japanese
banks and they must contract lending to maintain the proper ratio.
This explains the failure of the money supply to grow with the monetary
base and also the failure of the macro economy to respond to what is
otherwise massive monetary stimulus. The second problem is obvious:
hot money follows the trend and flees to the dollar which is rising.

What is the solution? Intervention to change the technical trend and
lower U.S. short-term interest rates to change the fundamentals.
We've had and will probably have more itervention. The next step
is lower U.S. rates.

http://www.year2000.com/articles/NFarticles.html
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The latest lot of articles contain info about:
CIA
Embedded
Military
Global
Governments

Growing concern about our future reality.
And why we buy gold - insurance...

i hope the light is with you,it is surely with tol.

Excellent. If you haven't already, read N.T. John 14:12, very short, but very explicit, Charlie

I beg to differ...high US interest rates are not due to high risk of US$. Rather the high rates reflect the opportunity cost of what the dollar can earn in the US, which is quite a lot.

Great post! A concerted action as in the 1985 G-5 Plaza accords with "yentervention", increased Japanese rates, and lower US rates is the way to go.

Hi, friend. I'm still wondering why long URL's or AAA's blow out your margins ( mine are fine ) . I use Netscape in its various forms ( 4 of 'em now on various machines. What are you using?

IS GOLD DEAD -as usual, wonderful analysis and perspective. I remember reading it. I will probably make the same comments I made a year ago. Here goes - nothing you ain't aware of - but gold IS money BECAUSE it is a COMMODITY. That is the nature of TRUE money. ( See my current Astrological Investor Essay "The Fiat K-Wave" at Gold ( the one and only ) Eagle website ) So gold, either as money or a commodity, once it has restablished its equilibrium with the past several decades ( which it has just about done now ) will keep pace as a material or commodity with the dilution of currency purchase power by the chronic and unnatural expansion of credit and money supply around the world. Inflation continues every minute, it's just that the catch-up lag of the pig in the python can take years, even a decade or two, to emerge as price adjustment. Then an asset inversion takes place, as in 1972-80, and all commodities must respond. The monster expansion of credit instruments throughout the late '80's and 1990's will arrive in due course. Actually, in such a situation, silver and/or sugar, grains, etc can often bring in better returns as a futures play than gold ( as witness Soybeans in '73 ) given the emergence of exogenous factors which invariably occur during commodity bulls. Except my basement is not big enough to hold all those bushel baskets.
Also, I would also point out that the all time high for gold in "US Currency" came on May 31, 1781 when an ounce of gold went for $19,000 in Continentals. ( I don't know what they wanted for Caddilacs ) . Your article, otherwise, was a masterful act of fence sitting, though as a technician I happen to know which way you are leaning, and if you don't watch your step I will tell everyone. Great to bask in the light of your thoughts. Thanks!

Good quote. There are many more, as you are surely aware. Pray in your closet, call no man "father", etc, etc. In Hebrews, St Paul refers to the "Order of Melchezedic," of which Christ was a type. This pre-existed the appearance of Jesus and relates to the esoteric foundation of all the scriptures - that Man is a being fallen from a higher sphere, and his task is to regenerate by purifaction so that he may return to the archetypal Earth from which he has materialized. The archetypal earth is still here, only it is a sphere of finer matter . The cycling of fallen beings from that sphere results in the earth as we know it. We have created death by our thoughts, and are condemned to live within the dream of our thinking. ( Scary, huh? ) Reincarnation, an important historical key to this universal doctrine, has been of course blotted out of the Western theology for various reasons. But mainly for the priest class to assume the role of intercessor, or "broker" of salvation for individuals.
Unfortunately, we each have to do the work ourselves, but we get help from high places now and then.

Just read your post. Wow! Most well thought out post on gold that I have ever read. Again, WOW!. And thanks. It's good to read something that makes some kind of sense based on reason instead of wishful thinking. I wish gold would rally with all my heart and soul but I can't find any evidence to give me hope it will do so other than a "running of the shorts" as you so wisely described. Keep up the good work. I wish now I had listened to Precther who is forecasting gold at 100-140 depending on who you read. With gold at 280-290 we still may have a long way to go down. UGH!
Crazy Bill

sorry - meant to say Man's task is to regenerate by PURIFICATION ( not purifaction. Don't try purifaction at home! )

I think Prechter has a wonderful mind, but if you had sold out and gone short stocks at Dow 4100 as he very vocally advised, you might regret it today. Why would he be necessarily right on gold? You are looking at a test of the bottom now. Hold off your judgement until gold makes new lows or until it begins to rise. If it rises from here, it is a good bet the bottom is in. And that's MY bet.

The choice, I suppose, is between Purification and Putrifaction.

Nasamte...er

Namsettay...

ummm

Nastame

Nsamete

Neasteme

Netamse...

oh, hell

Peace.

SAN JOSE: This just in over my radio.... Champagne stocks for Y2K will be 20%-30% short of demand necessary for expected celebrations.

The opportunity for price appreciation in 10-13 year vintages is 100% or more!!! In fact there is a broker in London offering 'sparkling wine futures'. Bottles of 88-90 vintages costing $200 today is expected to sell for $400-$500 in December 1999.

Just when I thought all of the 'bad stuff' was comming out on Y2K already, now this. Now I'm worried.....

Glad I'm a beer drinker!!!! How many people are now scheduling parties in New York for New Year's Eve 2000? Can you imagine being an 'out of towner' in NY when Y2K hits the fan? Even if Y2K is a 'minor' instead of 'major' upset it will hit big cities for at least a day, if only on the news. Could be a very sobering New Years Day!!!

Have a great day!
pax

A thought provoking article by Steve H. Hanke in the July 6 issue of the Forbes Magazine.

"Madeline Albright gets on the magazine covers, but Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin runs the foreign policy that really counts: economic policy. At the moment, I wouldn't give him high marks.

Japan is in the middle of a nasty deflationary slump. Indeed, it is officially in the worst recession since 1975. On a year-over-year basis, wholesale prices have declined by 2.7%. Industrial production is off 6.2%. Retail sales for 1998 are also in negative territory relative to 1997, a year in which real GDP growth was barely detectable.

If anyone doubts this is a problem for the U.S. as much as for Japan, he or she need only ask who is the biggest holder of U.S. Treasury securities and who is the banker for U.S. trade deficits. Rubin and Treasury Deputy Secretary Larry Summers are dealing with the problem by repreaching old time Keynesian pump priming. According to them, fiscal expansion-tax cuts and more government spending-will pull Japan
out of its slump.

This is quack medicine. It has been thoroughly discredited as a cure-atl. And it is utterly unsuited to the present circumstances in Japan.

Japan's comprehensive fiscal deficit is about 7% Of GDP, and its gross debt-to-GDP ratio is nearly 100%. These statistics are by far the worst of any of the countries in the G-7, A century's worth of evidence from many countries shows that, under these conditions, more fiscal stimulation won't work. There is too much already.

Why?

The effectiveness of fiscal stimulation seems to hinge on the mysterious factor of "confidence," something on which Keynes himself laid great stress. When deficits are relatively small, a looser fiscal stance will make everyone feel better and get the economic juices flowing. But this isn't a credible policy when it pushes deficits to unsustainable levels. At that point , more fiscal stimulation erodes confidence rather than increasing it. That's why it doesn't work.

So it's time for the Japanese to wave off Rubin and Summers. Instead of opening the fiscal floodgates wider, the Japanese government should be closing them. It has already wasted enough money on unwanted public works.

The Bank of Japan should expand its balance sheet rapidly by purchasing government paper and thereby putting more money into circulation. Does this sound familiar? it should. The press has been working overtime to heap praise on MIT's Paul Krugman for coming up with yet another original idea when he suggested that Japan should do this. But wait a minute. This recommendation was first made by Milton Friedman in a Forbes interview on Dec. 19, 1997.

The combination of a tighter fiscal and looser monetary policy will do the trick in Japan. Here again, Friedman ( and Anna Schwartz ) knows what he's talking about. In a reassessment of the Great Depression and recovery in the U.K., Friedman and Schwartz showed that the 1931-37 recovery was associated with a tight fiscal policy coupled with a loose monetary policy, The government simply spent less and got more money into private hands to take up the slack, and then some.

yet it's not hard to see why Rubin is pushing a fiscal solution rather than a monetary one. If the Japanese central bank pumps a suitable amount of money into the system, the yen will spiral down to the 170-to-the-dollar level. This would send the U.S. merchandise trade deficit with Japan even higher and make life uncomfortable for the powerful U.S. car industry. In short, Rubin and Summers are giving the Japanese tainted advice.

The Japanese may just ignore the quacks and charge them with malpractice. The minutes of the Bank of japan's Apt, 9 meeting show that its policymakers arc leaning toward a monetary stimulus, That's why the markets have started to work over the yen. It's also why Rubin's man in Tokyo, Eisuke Sakakibara ( Mr. Yen ) , will be forced out at the Ministry of Finance.

The Japanese backlash against U.S. economic imperialism is under way. That might be good for Japan, but it promises a weaker yen and a possible second wave of Asian devaluations. That might bring a few Wall Street bears out of hibernation."


Forbes July 6, 1998

Mike I will defer to your expertise at this point. I have read your posts and have high regard for your knowledge of the markets. I have had too many bottles of liquid trying to replace vital body fluids lost in the intense heat of South Carolina today to get into numbers and actual dates but here goes the essence of the story. About a year and a half ago I became convinced that we were growing a "bubble" type of stock market somewhat akin to what Japan did in 88-89. Valuations and P/E's were all out of whack with stock prices and I felt things were going to come unglued. I closed out my stock mutual funds and started investing in gold mutual funds. I reasoned that when the s*it hit the fan gold would be the last refuge of the wary investor. Gold promptly went down. I put more in on along the lines of "doubling down". It went down again. And again. And again. Each time I felt it was the bottome. This last January I was sure the bottom was "in". Remember *Farfel the unpronouncable babbling endlessly about the "bottom being in". Well, gues what. The bottom does not appear to be in. In the meantime I kept reading and learning and reading and learning until now I am convinced that not only is the bottom not in we may not even be half way there. As much as I respect your wisdom and knowledge, which I percieve to be greater than mine, I have yet to hear a sensible argument for gold going up. The CB's don't want it. Consumers don't want it. It has very few industrial applications in relation to it's supply. From whence comes the cause that will cause the price of gold to go up?

oui. oui. Plenty o'gold, personally and corporately....been buying since $311., down to $278 and then back up to $300. Philharmonikers, $20. Liberties, $20. St. Gaudens, Sovereigns, and Argentinos. Yes, I am a gold bug...and mighty proud of it. ( g&p ) to ya!

Stocks: HGMCY, RANGY, DROOY and AZC.

The only money I see is paper and this nickel-clad copper stuff {an other base metals like aluminum and other notes made out of plastic, etc.}
Gold and Silver have been driven out of money.
Bill2j's is correct that Preacher may be correct in a forecast of Gold sinking to half or less of it's present price - given no catastrophe. But as I posted on Wed Jun 24 1998 14:04 I expect Gold to temporarily increase in price then drop back as things return to "normal".
Since Gold is only used now for jewelry, electronics, dental fillings, and poker chips - maybe $100/ounce could be expected. Heck - in those limited uses it may be worth no more than Silver - especially since Silver has more uses than Gold. I am a die-hard BEAR regarding Gold. Gold is overpriced by a factor of ten at least. The only thing keeping it up there are folks bidding against each other - like antique buyers bidding hundreds of dollars for a chair worth only $20 as something USED by folks to sit on {rather than a collectible for a private museum}.

Tv just said it was 102 with a 112 heat index. Ugh! Away to the fridge for another bottle of GOLDEN liquid.

Another insightful and incisive report on the market's rapidly deteriorating condition.

"If this is not speculative frenzy run amok, we don't know

what is. Plainly, we are at the pinnacle of the stock

market mania and can expect the popping of the bubble at

any time now. Mindless buying of severely overvalued

technology stocks by investors from companies who cannot hope

to live up to such high expectations, especially in light of the

Asian crisis, and a developing slowdown in the tech sector, is

living proof that rationality has been thrown out the window."

"The long and complex topping process

evidenced in the DJIA and the S&P 500 indices is flashing

a clear bearish warning signal and appears to have

completed its formation."

"speculative frenzy run amok" - and " ultimate resistance has been met."

Consequently, the stock market's path of least resistance is DECIDELY DOWNWARD.

Full report at following URL - it will be necessary to delete the extra letters "en" in the word "golden" before pasting the URL to your Internet locator:

http://www.golden-eagle.com/gold_digest_98/droke062998.html

You see? There he goes again. Vronsky is predicting gloom and doom based on the fact the Japanese have problems. The other side of the coin is we get cheap cars and VCR's which increases our standard of living.

You see? There he goes again. Vronsky is predicting gloom and doom based on the fact the Japanese have problems. The other side of the coin is we get cheap cars and VCR's which increases our standard of living.

Humpty Dumpty was a great fence sitter too, and someone called me an egghead the other day, so I'll be careful.

I guess before I am "outted" i will have to admit ( once again ) to being a long-term inflationist. Long-term is the operative phrase here. Like you I believe whole-heartedly in very long economic waves rather than random events or linear moves.

We are close to the end or final trough of the long wave whose last such trough was 1942-49 and the next earlier was 1889-96, depending on country. Very hard to time such long waves to the minute or even year....

DEJ's earlier post shows that even the "authorities" are at the point where they may have to reflate in a rational manner, as in 1985, by intervening in the dollar deflationary move. Whatever they do will very likely have happened anyway as we are well into the time window when short rates go down and long ones up along with commodities.

And yes, gold is easier to store than pork bellies or soybeans, although don't overlook Smithfield hams if you have the space amongst all the ammnunition and generators and gold bars..;- )

Canadian Mining & Exploration Share Values

Percentage Decrease May 12 - June 26 ( inc )

PRU 4

ABX 12

GEO 13

ORV 15

PDG 20

BGO 23

GRE 26

SUF 27

RNG 28

PGD 35

MNG 38

Thanks for your comments. The problem with Prechter is that he formulated a "house" position which was wrong, and no one was strong enough speak out successfully against the boss man.

With regard to gold, his idea that gold could and would come back to $103 was based on a huge error which even A. J."Jack" Frost saw as incorrect. Prechter, and many Ewavers, thought the $850 peak in Janaury 1980 was THE top whereas actually it was $720 in September, just
two months before the CRB Index.

What this did to Prechter was make probable a retracement to what he thought was the prior wave four--$103 in 1976-- whereas wave four was truly at about $460 in summer 1980.

This caused him to be excessively deflationary in his overall expectations which in turn caused him to misjudge what would happen in the stock market. We never did have deflation, just a declining rate of inflation. The stock market crash which he expected for so long was over in 1982 or 1984, having begun in 1972 ( or maybe even 1966 ) , just as it was over in 1932 and rose dramatically thereafter to 1946.

I have no idea what he says these days as I have not read his publications for a decade, except for his splendid collection of all of R.N.Elliott's works.

If you're right, and I Don't think you are, and gold drops to 1/10th of its present value to the level you say you think it ought to be, I'll be buying all I can lay my hands on, with every penny I can spare. And then I will borrow and buy more. An then I will sit back and wait. Even if I have to sit in rags and eat beans and tortillas ( I do that anyway ) .

I can't believe I ever thought you had anything useful ( or funny ) to post.

Hey, Bill, your guess, in the end, is as good as mine. I was just trying to provide a handle on the gold bear as far as Up or Down from here is concerned. If we go to new lows, I can very well imagine the worst is yet to come as you, and some others here, imply. I am always amazed at how far a market can go, beyond any sane "analysis" in any direction. But if gold can rise from here, I would say that a test of its lows was in and a recovery would be underway. Gold is like any commodity that has been beaten down to levels where producers are finding it difficult to cover costs, let alone make money. It's precisely times like this that bottoms form. I must admit I bought at 2 "bottoms" so far myself. I have only my astrology to thank to keep me bearish on the gold market until the Spring of '97. And even "knowing" years in advance that the final bottom ( according to my astro research ) would be in the winter of '97, I still bit in the Spring of '97 like a chump. Just bit again. But I AM taking, as aurophile noted, a very long view. If I were 80 years old, I might be just interested in having a good time with my modest funds. But I hope to be around long enuf for this agony to turn to ecstasy someday. If not, I'll be serving fries at Mickey D's with you ( ;- ) Keep Cool.

...why do I want to know,just looking into getting Gold into folks hands,faster,cheaper than anyone else.....

I just saw your recent article at Professor Vrosky's shop. It's nice to know that we agree upon so many things. You must be right...;- )

Trust takes time. You want me to throw the keys to my vault out to WHOM?

What a great debate going on. Is gold going up or down from here? What
about the Japan market? What about the dollar the yen? My sense is that
we are at the point where to continue the present moves something must
happen first: POSITIONS MUST BE UNWOUND! Therefore I expect there is
more profit to be made going long the NIKKEI, short the DOW and long
GOLD. I expect to see the NIKKEI to get to 25,000 before it goes to
8,000, the DOW to go lower,then sideways, then down along with the
NIKKEI and for GOLD to get to $450 + or- $50 and then down if deflation
takes hold. There are too many shorts built up in the NIKKEI and GOLD
for them to tank from here!!! Also, I have noticed over 30 years of investing that money flows down hill. It moves from over to under priced
items precisely because that's where the money is to be made. Thanks. GD

I've been reading the posts on this group for the past two weeks or so and thought the group might benefit from my own comments on purchasing and owning gold - the view of a regular guy. I bought a few thousand dollars worth of gold a few weeks ago ( when it hit a bottom ) and I hope it goes down further so I can get some more on the cheap. The coin dealer I bought it from had good prices, about 20$US over the price of gold for 1oz eagles. The day I bought gold there was another guy there purchasing some too - he said his financial advisor had suggested it, which made me feel like my own common sense wasn't in error, especially when he and the dealer told me that the guy was purchasing 45,000 dollars worth of the metal. Anyway, we all talked for a while, and we had the same kind of opinions on gold, silver, etc. We all come from the back woods of Virginia, so we recounted various stories we'd heard from family members about the 20's and that kind of thing. I remember my grandmother talking about my grandfather being paid in silver when he worked on the docks in Norfolk loading and unloading ships. She's the type of woman, who is, well, thrifty is a good way of putting it - and I was impressed that she thought purchasing gold and silver was a good idea, I would have guessed that she would have thought I was wasting my money. Anyway - in short, I purchased gold a few weeks ago for simple reasons: ( 1 ) it was cheap. ( 2 ) everyone should have some and now looks like a good time to buy. I don't say that based on any kind of complicated financial or economic theory - it's just cheaper now than it has been in a long time. I don't know if it'll go up or down, I don't really care, I just feel "warm and fuzzy" in my stomach now that I have some gold tucked away. Also, being in Virginia, my family has a few centuries to see returns on what I do now.

And so ends my first post to this group.

Cheers, Envy

Bill, I would remind you that the Roman Empire also employeed "that giant sucking sound" on its vasal states, enjoying a high standard of living...

... while it lasted. The problem is, it doesn't last.

Another problem is, while we Americans ride high on the hog of false prosperity, the rest of the planet gets screwed.

Now, if you are an amoral, maximize your own short-term existence type person, this is fine.

Personally, I find this "elaborate scheme" controlled by elite factions in Imperial Washington & Boston immoral, un-American and doomed to the same wretched, ragged-out, wasted end of the Roman Empire.

The day will come when the Asians say "f**k it, we've had enough". And then all the majik make-believe numbers spumed up by the Federal Reserve Cablists won't be worth a damn.

See Pakistan & their nuke tests - Clinton and his pandering State Department boy-toys tride every bribe imaginable AND WE COULD'NT DETER THEM FROM THEIR TESTS!

Conclusion: American Empire, now based on bribes & payoffs no longer works.

Perhaps the Mainland Chinese well-educated atheist thug-lords can start paying off our "elected officials".

Spud

...because oil won't go to $5 bbl. Commodities are down across the board and look to stay that way into the rest of this year, barring a financial crisis. But commodities won't stay down forever. And at least if you buy gold now or bought in the last few years, you will have taken your hits by the time Wall Street and the Treasury takes theirs. I don't think anyone doubts ( even money managers ) that we are a "bubble" economy, whose financial markets are grossly overvalued ( look at P/E ratios ) . How long this will go on, who knows. Who cares? When the bubble pops, it'll be "CYA" and too late to do that.

so the question really is do stock guys trust the net more than Gold guys?

Wow! That's an Affirmative! I didn't know Gold Guys trusted anyone, but look at what those stock guys believe in!

I think I've met your cousins, Greed and Lasciviousness before. If you're unrelated, just ignore that. ( $-^ ) ) Do you happen to recall what the timeframe was when your grandfather was a longshoreman and what was the pay in silver for a day's work? IMHO

( premium US Treasury charges dealers ) I now charge $10.00 over, have to cover cost ie phone bill,paper work etc.

I don't trust internet privacy. Besides, somebody who wants to buy gold can just pick up the phone and call Kitco or any number of others the old fashioned way. The Platinum Guild has a list of recommended dealers, plus there's also the Thomas Register. IMHO http://www.researchmag.com/platinum/platinum.htm
http://www4.thomasregister.com/

Welcome to Kitco. You seem to exude a well thought-out, balanced point of view. Sounds to me like you belong here. You will find, as I did, as your tenure increases, that there are some truly impressive intellects residing here.

Nice post Envy. I have always found that keeping things simple was the
key to success. Every time I let my emotions or my head do the trading
I didn't do as well. Just buying something because it is cheap is the
best way to do it. One does not have to know what will happen to the
"big" questions we talk about here to make money. All we have to do is
buy cheap and hold. Welcome. I"m new here too. GD

You need an intermediary with a name the average guy trusts to handle the exchange of funds, and who won't charge too high of a percentage to do the transaction. Got any ideas? Whose name is good as gold?

I vote for Ben Stein. If you could afford him he'd be fantastic. Who could help but to trust such a great guy?

Gagnrad- I'll ask my grandmother next time I see her ( in regards to how much silver my grandfather was paid when he worked on the docks ) . I seem to recall that I asked her when she told me about it, and it wasn't much, of course, nobody really made much money back then. My other grandfather said that 30 dollars a week was a fortune and that some people were making 3 dollars a week for some jobs. I don't really know anything more specific, but like I said, I'll ask. One thing I do know about it is that my grandfather made about 30 dollars a week and he was able to purchase a rather large farm after working for a few years. He's always been good with money though, so that could account for it more than anything else.

Cheers, Envy

industry...I have been a dealer for 20 years I know where all the bodys are buried....GoldnBoy..a name means nothing,your first remark is the key TRUST....guess we still have a ways to go with this thing called the net

Btw, the reason I signed up as "Envy" was because my motorcycle had been stolen the night before I created an account here, and I was sort of irritated about it. I figured Envy must have been what they were feeling to just take my bike in the middle of the night like that.

Cheers, Envy.

Keeping things simple... "Keep it simple, stupid" = KISS, an
old engineering rule-of-thumb. One reason why I have great
misgivings about derivatives ( evasive dirt, anag. ) .
Something that gets so complex that you need a
Nobel prize-winning Black-Scholes math to understand
it, does not conform to the KISS principle, obviously.
What better way to obfuscate your financial prestidigitations.
I think a certain Arabian prince, advanced in years,
would give a great smile at that.

Asians may, as you put it, say &**% you but until they develop a consumer economy they are in a catch 22. If Japan does anything to rock the boat with the US they are out of business. They need us a lot more than we need them. Lets say the US gets ticked off and tells the Japanese to go fly a kite. Ok, we shut down a few hundred thousand McDonalds and hire enough people to build our own cars and tv's. Lets say the Japanese get ticked off and tell the US to go fly a kite. Think of all the people they would have to lay off that are currently building products for export. We WILL buy our consumer goods. Even if we have to make them ourselves. They have no internal consumption to speak of so they export or die. Guess who has the only economy on earth they can export to? Yup, you are right. The good old USA. The USA without Japan would have the US with a lower unemployment rate in Mexico. Japan without the US is out of business.

You are so right. I was in the business myself a few years. The dealers know who is straight and who isn't! They know whose check is as good as gold, literally, and who you have to chase down. A good name, as always, in any endeavor, is to be treasured.

There are a lot of bass boats and most are U.S.registration. I figure amongst my boat, fishing rods ,reels , life jackets ,licence, gas and other paraphenalia... the 5 bass I caught after being filleted cost about 500 dollars a pound. Good investment HUH? Go gold!

In past crisis the rich ( financial elite ) simply bought increasing percentages of gold in proportion to their assets based on how they viewed the problem.

Today interest rates are used to attract capital to a seemingly strong currency. generally it's peppered up with some rumors or jawboning about a strong economy.

After profits are won, this ( hot/scared/smart/you quess ) capital either returns to it initial abode or finds another profitable scheme.

This will go on indefinately as long as these financial devils stand pat in their greedy quest to hoodwink the average person without a violent opposite reaction.

In sum, without interest payments on the debt ( we pay for ) the participating governments of this destructive scheme would be hard pressed and the tax bill would be much lower.

It has been interesting listening to the many opinions regarding the US Gov. here on Kitco. As a US American living in Africa, it is interesting to note the lack of respect that many US citizens have for their own country. Having experienced really bad government that impacts the economic welfare of the poorest of the poor, I think we have a lot to be proud of in this good ol US of A. In one country I have lived, the common man lives on a small garden plot, grows enough to live for the year ( if it rains ) , and goes into starvation mode if the rains dont come. No access to gold. No hope for much of a future.

On the other side of the coin, he owns his plot. No one else wants it. He can barter for what he needs so there is no sense that deflation or inflation will affect him one way or another. Who needs gold? The average life span is only 45 years so retirement is no problem.

I guess worth is what you make of it.

Something Gollum said the other day got me thinking. Since the debate these days seems to surround deflation vs inflation because the potential impact on gold value is so dependent upon which way the economy falls ( up or down ) , it hit me that this whole debate is one of worth or value. Good arguments have been made on this forum for deflation and good arguments for inflation. Ultimately though worth is measured by what someone can get in barter. In essence we have forgotten that the dollar we trade for food is a measure of worth or barter. Gold has an historical sense of value and really when you barter $296 for an oz. You are simply reflecting worth on an oz of gold. That worth will certainly change as economic conditions change.

The poor farmer in Africa doesnt have a worry about the price of gold because he is more worried about his next meal.

Question for Gollum  IF the OPEC cartel succeeds in driving the price of oil up, wont that impact the economic indicators in the US in an inflationary way? It will be the first domino falling. Your post about the instability of the Arab World was a light going on for me. I never could figure out why President Bush didnt go in and get Saddam. Instability in that region was of too much importance. I am afraid that they have figured it out

Yep.

Management of Company has apparently pulled a rabbit out of hat. Their new mine ( Kemess ) is apparently operating at low cost. CEO says Expect 337k au @ 222 this year and 477k au next year @192. Ceo indicated expectation of profit in 2nd qtr 1998, this would be two profitable qtrs in a row in a tough mkt. Stk appears to be a bargain at .875. Anybody have any thoughts.

I saw a Tempelton chart that indicated that without probably trying to. It showed how their funds had performed for 40 years. Believe me... the last little dip has been the preliminary. The next dip is the one that hurts the yuppies and their mutual funds. I'm not B I T T E R. ? Who me? QOI?

require the phone companys to supply all names of business that telemarket...in other words any firms that do outbound calling to clients will have to supply names and numbers to a new federal agency,all under the name of stopping fraud....the boys on Wall Street better take notice....if you are found guilty of fraud and the person is over fifty five they add 5 years onto the sentence,no one noticed this bill it will have a big impact on how business is done in the future

Yes, the price of other commodities will and, for many, are going down. This reflects their cost of production as balanced against their usefulness. The rest of the commodities can be used for food, construction, etc. Gold isn't used for much.
With tens of thousands of tonnes stockpiled and available to the market at some point to meet a decade of demand - why mine more for a while? There is perhaps no commodity with stockpiles similarly so far in excess of demand.
The current cost of production of Gold is irrelevant. If humanity's technological civilization and progress does not collapse here shortly ( a big if ) other technologies will come on line in the next decade or two to drop the cost of production to a fraction of what it is today. See the following posts:
Ed Fishbaine on K2 on Fri Jun 26 1998 23:19
Squirrel on K1 on Sun Jun 21 1998 04:41
If humanity's technological civilization and progress does collapse we will all ( nations & individuals ) be selling our gold in order to eat - just as the Indonesians and Koreans did.

Actually the Japanese have been trying to inflate their way out of
their present mess for quite awhile without success. The paradox
here is that as the Japanese expand the monetary base more rapidly,
it causes the yen to fall against the dollar causing hot money to
flee Japan and Japan's banks to contract lending in order to remain
in compliance with BIS standards. What Japan needs is to have the
U.S. return the favor Japan did for us in 1987: lower our own
short-term interest rates so the Japanese can inflate without fear
of the yen falling further against the dollar thus exacerbating
capital flight and bank credit contraction.

If the U.S. refuses to lower short rates, the Japanese, as a last resort,
should raise their own. This would help their banks by raising the
yen's value against the dollar thus lowering the value of dollar
loans on the banks' balance sheets and, hopefully, increasing the ratio
of bank capital to outstanding loans thus putting the banks back in
the position of being able to lend again. This course is not
preferable to the U.S. lowering short rates because it could negatively
impact Japanese stocks thus lowering bank capital enough to wipe-out
any improvement in the capital-loan ratio.

When the $U.S. declines AU will shine. If the $ goes to 170 Yen, then POG could take a long time to go up, barring an exogenous event. It's in a trading range & good traders will do well .

I said it before and I'll say it again. Don't buy silver stocks that do business in Russia, e.g. SSRIF and PAASF. That country is on schedule to come unglued. Preacher mentioned that the Russian partner wanted to be bought out of the deal with SSRIF. Sure they do. They are no dummies. They would like to take the money and run while they still can. Has anyone noticed poor old Avino Silver and Gold. Its trading down to about a buck a share from $2.20 a few months ago and $4.00 last year. Volume has been heavy lately with 5 figure numbers of shares trading. This is unusual for them as they typically trade only a few thousand shares a session. Anyone know whats up with Avino?

Gold is monetary in nature. Its worth is based on the potential purchasing power based on the amount of currency created. On this basis it is cheap beyond comprehension. Most importantly, vis a vis other perishable commodities, Gold is not perishable and IS portable, IS hard for govts to control and IS readily exchangeable anywhere in the world. Try doing the same with a ton of Coffee, a barrel of oil or a bushel of soybeans. Grizz, Nice Try Though.

For DEJ
No No the US interest rates are not high because the
dollar is a "high risk" currency .. pardon me .. but
that is pure crapola.
The US interest rates are high BECAUSE the US
economy has been very robust relative to other economies.
This creates a demand for capital in the US and interest
rates RISE to accomodate this demand. Rising interest
rates then proceed to make the currency STRONGER.
Format country, industrial production growth %.
USA, 5.5
germany 6.9
Swiss, 2.2
Britain, -0.4
Japan, -3.3

Now look at change in unemployment rate

country, unemplyrate %, prior year
USA 4.6,5.7
Germany 11.5,11.3
Swiss 4.9,5.7
Britain 5, 6.5
Japan 3.5,3.3

The USA and Britain have had lower unemployment
rate as a result of strong economies .. and their
interest rates are HIGH. unemployment has risen in
Japan and Germany and their rates are lower.
The Dollar will start to weaken when unemployment
starts to rise in the US and GNP growth starts to slow
down IF some other competing country starts to take up
the slack.
Value judgements from DEJ will have exactly NOTHING
to do with it. It all takes pretty good care of itself.
My numbers are 2 months old ( the sustem lags by that
much anyway ) .. but some subscriber should put in new
numbers and update this mess.
In summary .. the dollar is strong and will get
stronger .. one day it will become another currency's
turn and the dollar will weaken.

If the market corrects 20% or more, will there be enough cash to cover the margin calls, or would it crash three days later from lack of cash forcing sell-offs.

I dont think that Korea sold its gold, it collected it from its citizens and I believe that the government still has it. It may have been done in order to prepare for a new worldwide gold standard thus reestablishing that countries economic strenth. The EU is going to back their new currency with some percentage of gold reserves and I would think that the other countries will have to do the same soon thereafter or suffer from weaker currencies. Only a return to a gold backed currency system can stop a world wide currency collapse.

...usually posts a plethora of intellectually lightweight material, this time I will agree with him in his assessment of ROYAL OAK.

Any person stupid enough to buy stock today in this wretched abject little company deserves to be wiped out financially. The idea that such a consistently failed, inept company would offer bonuses or rewards to its incompetent, super-retarded senior managers considering its miserable, less than zero historical performance defies imagination. This Witte chick should be summarily fired, dismembered, and her body parts handed over to Canadian huskies to be devoured and spit out!

All I am waiting for is the day the company fails ( soon ) and the Bronfmans step in and take it over for a lousy nickel ( they will be overpaying, mind you )

IMHO.

Thanks.

F*

If Japan goes ahead with their plan of cleaning up their banking

mess and allow insolvent banks to collapse while strenghtening the

good ones,how will this affect a]the yen?
b]the Nikkei
c]u.s. dollar
d]the POG?

Will this possible action temporarily tank the yen and nikkei,
and then send the dollar to new highs?

I would be interested in any ideas on this topic since the Japaneese
said that they would announce something concrete on this problem
by July 12.[although we've all heard this a million times already.]


thanks Allan F [new poster]

All those commodities including gold went up in Korea and Indonesia and the rest of Asia, so it seems to me that the value of their paper currencies went down.

Then just months before SEA went to hell in a handbasket, some experts were glorifying their great strides forward.

Can it happen here????

If Farfelburger hates RYO ...
then it cant be all bad.

Where do you come up with your good stuff, I wish that you were my neighbor.

As an aside, your post about teaching children casting techniques was first rate, as are you.
My name according to someone who I don't trust, comes from the dark ages: "One Who Leads Children Astray", sorta' like Mr. tolerant1, and you.

Aurum ad finitum.

If Farfelburger hates RYO ...
then it cant be all bad.

The U.S. has had high real rates since 1980 and return on invested capital
in the U.S. has only been higher in the U.S. for only a brief portion
of that period. Until 1997 investment capital earned more in the
Asian Tigers and before 1989 could earn more in Japan. So opportunity
cost doesn't explain the phenomenon.

Actually there are 3 components of the market rate of interest: risk
premium, inflation premium, and the discount between present goods
vs. future goods ( the originary rate of interest ) Throughout the 80's
the U.S. had a lower originary rate of interest than Japan but the
inflation premium was higher along with the risk factor because the
U.S. runs persistent current account deficits ( since 1976 ) which
have tended to grow substantially larger over time. Also risk
has been enhanced by the U.S. becoming a net debtor nation ( 1987 )
with cumulative current net foreign debt over $1trillion.

If only it was that simple..........

Contrary to popular American belief, there IS a World out there !

to all ..
in the unlikely event that Royal
Oak makes any operating profit, Im
sure their glorious managemnt will
find a way to steal it from the shareholders

to MC ..
The hard work and desire for individual
freedom made the lot of Americans
much better than that of most Africans ..
.. NOT the US Government. But they would
be quick to try to grab the credit. What
exactly does the Government DO for people
other than take their money and get them
into wars ?? Oh yes .. and try to stop
them from smoking .. YUK

....that everything outside the USA is "cheap", and of no "value" ?


Date: Sat Jun 27 1998 14:57
Bill2j ( @All ) ID#259400:
You see? There he goes again. Vronsky is predicting gloom and doom based on the fact the Japanese have problems. The other side of the coin is we get cheap cars and VCR's which increases our standard of living.

Your statement that Japan without the US is out of business would hold only if Japan was not carrying so much US debt.

What a great time for Japan to announce, "We are going to 'write off' our bad bank loans and restore our banking industry to its former place in the world. We feel bad that we have to sell, sell, and sell more USBonds to raise the capital to do so." Yen would climb, Dollar would tank, Dow would tank, Gold might go up for a while.... Bonds are at their high, probably a great time for Japan to sell as the dollar tanks.

Both US and Japan benefit from the current situation. In spite of their objections, Japan is benefiting from a strong dollar. US is also benefiting from the strong dollar. What both want to avoid is unnecessary volitality in the currency market that will make inflation and any management of their respective economies impossible. Both are buying time with their announcements. Japan today is oversold, US way overbought. Do you think anyone in Japan is afraid of Clinton or Rubin? Don't think so. They hold the loans and cheap products that are like drugs to our economy...

I think next week you will see Yen strengthen as announcements are made to clean up Japan's banking industry. I do not think Yen will go over 142.90 about where it was Friday. Bonds look lower from here. Gold will go up a little but not over 305 and then a lot lower.... Dow could rally on the news of a stronger Yen and progress in Japan in spite of a weaker Bond market...

Random thoughts on a sunny summer afternoon...

pax

Grizz ( I DON'T SEE ANY GOLD MONEY or Silver money either )

Re: feeding Witte to our Huskies. We have pure food laws up here to protect our pets. Do you think we would allow the pestilence that would emit from her grossly, corpulent carcass to poison one of our most cherished species?

That's Weiss's latest calculation on the total amout of U.S. interest
bearing debt. And gold is going down? The Fed will inflate and is doing
so now. That's the only thing they can do. They are powerless in a
deflation. Look at Japan. The electrical contractors just go a $6 increase over three years in Seattle. The plummers are to follow. Will
this stick? Will labor make up for lost time? I think so. It is happening
right now. With 21 trillion jelly beans out there I think bonds are not
the thing to own. Bad for your health. Too much sugar. You will become
hyper-active. You will need valium. ( Unforturately gold investors have
needed same over past year. ) Such is life in the fast lane. Thanks. GD

Well, puppy breath, enough about what we don't agree on, lets discuss what we all probably do agree on. We all think we are in the final days of the "bubble" or whatever you want to call it. Economic expansions do not go on forever and this one is very long in the tooth. We have not had a meaningful "correction" since the fall of 1990. WE ARE DUE. The american dollar either will not be "allowed" to rise much farther or natural events will see to it that it does not. The Euro is part of that. The French and half a dozen other european nations hate us and our arrogant ways and may just bury their differences long enough for the Euro to replace the US dollar, at least partially, as the reserve currency of choice. The Arabs, justifiably so, hate our guts. A switch from dollars to the euro by the arabs as payment for oil would be a natural extension of their sovereign interests. Never put all your eggs in one basket. Oddly enough the one I fear the least is the Japanese. We gave them a share of our domestic market back during the Korean war in exchange for them allowing us to use their little island as a floating aircraft carrier off the coast of russia. The cold war is over now and we can take back the market share we allotted them at any time. Yes, they can roil our currency markets for awhile but lets face facts. If I owe you a huge amount of money I am in charge not you. The debtor always gets screwed over. The creditor has very few cards to play. The long and the short of it is I see the end as a lot nearer than it was awhile ago. What that will mean for gold I do not know. A lot I hope. Probably not very much I fear. The winds of change are blowing. The baton will be passed to a new leader. I doubt very much the next century will be as dominated by the US as this one was. All that is far enough into the future that we probably will never know the answer. Suffice it to say I think there will be a lot of changes in the next few years.
Crazy Bill

NOT ..
for DEJ ..
Okay Buddy .. The dollar is WEAK ..
I put you down as long the yen at
141.. YOU GONNA LOSE..
You seem to want to win cheap
arguments .. sorry .. I'd rather
make some dough.

Thanks for the info. According to others I've talked to the going wage rate for laborers before the 1929-1931 collapse was about $1.00 per day in parts of the south and midwest. Getting info about jobs on the east coast would be greatly helpful in establishing a ballpark figure for the actual price of gold/silver as intuitively measured in human toil before the artificial interruption of the 1930's monitary law changes. IMHO

All this is subjective of course. I recall not too many years ago my children made an effort to establish $50 per hour as the going rate for household chores until their market collapsed. Regrettably if we really get into depression mode I anticipate the government to be in the same difficulty supporting the present minimum wages. IMHO

Buying Gold on-line

Robnoel, GoldnBoy, Argent, Silverbarron, Greedy, Tol, All who like to HOLD GOLD and buy gold..

How many kitcoites would buy 9999 NZ kiwi gold coins from an auratorial homepage? Assume competitive gold pricing, slightly more expensive p & p and the best credit-card security I could muster. No sales taxes. NZ Privacy laws uphold principles of contractual secrecies.

If there is enough interest....

James ..
Dogs must be protected .. at all
cost. Are pets covered by medicare ??
No .. Why .. because they cant VOTE.

Date: Sat Jun 27 1998 12:50
aurophile ( One year later........ ) ID#256326:


Sounds like a pretty good place to me - where is it, Mars.

Or did I miss a point here ?

Inflation or Deflation, bankruptcy or not, Ying or Yang, before the
end is known POSITIONS MUST BE UNWOUND. UNTIL THEY ARE WE WON'T KNOW
WHERE WE ARE AS TO FINAL PRICES AND THEIR RELATIVE VALUES. Stocks, bonds,
gold, Yen, $ etc. So I simply bought what is the cheapest that has
lasting value. It is that simple for me. But then I am a simple guy. I have got to get off line now and do some sailing. Thanks. GD

Pax, I do not disagree with you in principle. Having said that I see the Japanese situation as being very weak in relation to ours. We owe them a ton of debt. They depend on our every whim for their only source of jobs and income. I doubt if they would cut off their nose to spite their face. If we get into a urinating contest we can choose to pay them off on our terms. We can shift the production they supply our market to other markets. They would be hard pressed to find other markets to replace ours. The whole thing rests on a little known agreement dating from the Korean war. When the Korean war broke out the Japanese were in total devastation. The US military said we needed a "British island" off the coast of asia like we had in Britain in WWII. The decision was made to give the Japanese a portion of our domestic market in exchange for this. We can change that at will. We no longer need a "floating aircraft carrier island" off the coast of asia like we thought we did in 1950. The Japanese made a bad deal. They need our markets. Without them they are nothing. We do not need their production in the same way. We can get VCR's and tv's from anyone. I admit they can stir up the currency markets for awhile but when the dust is settled they are out of business.
Crazy Bill

Crusty
What was the score Springboks v Wales? in the 90's?

Maybe that Haggis bet is looking better.

aurator ( Cricket? By Jimminy! )

Now, we will not take on any bets concerning Scotland vs Morocco, or IRAN vs Usa........

But, we will take on a bet concerning Australia vs the Yarpies ( South Africa ) .......

Any others ??????

It has been obvious that you have gone from cheerleading to unctuous undertaker.
Although many yuppie types would suggest a psychodrug program, I will say that your contrived bearishness as of late, has ass much foundation in reality as the IDCIBM of the past months.

Mr. Disney,
Whay makes you think that the stockholders of Harmony would allow the company to sell at US250., or less?
They might look upon this as a Golden opportunity to make a bit of money.
They seem to have a bit of forward-looking ability.
Have you seen any of the gold baubles that their goldsmithy cooperative has produced?
If it is eye pleasing, they might be able to absorb a small portion of their gold production. Hell, if they tried, and it was any good, they could sell it through agents in the US over the net. Studio.R : Stockholder and dealer- over his site. Synergy: Records/Gold

sharefin, thks for your 12:59; guess this meams more ammunition for Klintonnes to use Emergency Powers to stay in office. Following is site for real-time countdown clock: http://www.tasc.dot.gov/Y2K/ - Federal days are Government work days; scary!!

All: Kitco "post meter" needle is well in the minus readings; suggest we should let the market say if the bottom is in. If XAU doesn't break January lows, bottom is still intact IMHO!

Best Regards; Mtn Bear

I know a broker there and they are in awe of how the CEO has turned this company around. He says the stock options are a sign of confidence in the company. Even if exercised and sold same would be reportable and thus if anything untoward were ready to happen it wouldnt look good. Mgmt desrves tp be rewarded for an outstanding job and I would rather lower the option price than pay out cash or lose what is obviously outstanding talent to other companies. We maybe getting an update on royal Oak from I think it is Ann Brown who follows the stock for Salomon.
The Broker said Kemess coming on as expected is truly a break through and that the shorts will soon be running for cover.

ENVY: You make good sense to me! Welcome.

HAGGIS: There is no world out ther but America. Everything outside the U.S. is cheap. And some things like gold, silver & oil properties in the U.S. are cheap too! ( ;- )

Yes, OPEC getting the price of oil up would be another inflaitionary domino among others that already starting to fall. The GM strike is another. Labor shortages out of high unemployment are also leading to much competition among employers in many areas. The economic boom in the US would ordinarily lead to very inflationary times. It, however, has been offset by the deflationary effect of the asian recession so th enet effect has been the so called disinflation - growth without inflation.

OPEC raising prices has WORLD WIDE impacts of which some are actually deflationary. Take Japan for example. Japan has been able to keep alive to some extent even with the problems it has because raw material prices have been low. Japan has no oil of it's own. The OPEC oil price increase if it succeeds may make it impossible for even more Japanese ( and other countries too ) to compete thus putting even more pressure on foreign currencies.

Over all the rise in oil prices is much more inflationary than deflationary but the effect on every country is the same as raise in taxes and that is very much the opposite of what many need right now.

OPECD "raising" the price of oil is a historical ( hysterical? ) joke. Don't hold yer breath, my friend.

Skip that "D" in OPEC"D" unless we are thinking: OPEC is "D" last orhganization to get it "all together."

Nay, nay not at all. What I was referring to was the fact that Vronsky, and others, seem to thing that if Japan goes down the tube we will follow. I don't see it that way. Ours is a consumer based market. One can argue the merits of that ad infinitum but it is a fact. If Japan goes down the tubes or we get into a political disagreement with Japan we can replace their production for our markets a lot easier than they can replace our markets to sell into. I am sure if Japan went down the tubes our markets would be roiled for awhile but it would not be fatal. I did not mean to infer that the value of their labor was worth less than ours. I apologize if my words came across that way. I just don't see that Japan is as important to our survival as we are to theirs. Well being would be a better word than survival.
Crazy Bill

How did you do today ?

Robnoel, in response to your 15:36 question about "buying gold on the internet" [paraphrased], here are my thoughts to you and to aurator's post at 17:47.

I do NOT buy gold on the internet, I buy gold from a person/business. The internet is a WONDERFUL TOOL that helps me to find these persons/businesses. The other option, lacking a bullion dealer in my town, is to go to the library and look through phonebooks of every major city to locate these people/businesses. Then I would call them, e-mail them or fax them. This doesn't mean I am buying from a phonebook, or buying from a telephone, or fax machine, etc.

Think of the internet as the best damn media available to advertise your
product or service. I do indeed want NZ Kiwis, but can't seem to locate them through my established channels, even on the web. If I saw what I wanted on your web site, I would phone you, fax you, or e-mail you. In my mind, this does not mean that I am buying gold on the internet. And yes, my primary dealer has a web site, and it is very helpful when I want to check products or prices. But ultimately there is a human at the other side of the equation. The issue of communication device is simply a matter of preference and convenience. Personally, I find a web site a lot more meaningful and helpful than an ad in the Yellow Pages of the phone book. Hope this gives you the necessary encouragement to plough ahead.
Any business that is mail-order/shipment oriented will always have a certain "trust" issue to overcome. I don't see the internet working against you in that regard.

Correct me if I am wrong.

The so called "global" economy was instigated by the USA via Wall Street and the multinationals. "Free" trade for all was the cry, hi-tech marvels and all kinds of possibilities that would transcend class, historical experience and ideology. The buzz words were - "recovery", "growth", "competitiveness", "flexible working".

The "global" financial system, post 1973 when the US$ was taken off a gold standard, was engineered by the US markets and thje US Government.

So, what is happening now - has the US declared economic war against the rest of the planet? Looks like it.

The US IMF "loans" - what do they represent - Peter robbing Paul.

Chickens always come home to roost !

Coincidently, the name of my company, which owns the music biz as a sub, is Synergex, Inc........funny you would choose the word "synergy". ;^ ) ~

Pray Sir,

What to an American has any "value" ?

Cmon', get off the dime, just buy something.

Whether it be Royal Oak, or Newmont Gold, or Harmony, you can become a capitalist.

Be aware, that amongst the Canadian miners, RYO is held in contempt by the unions- very unprogressive.

I think that you are enamored of this company because it is headed by a woman.

That's fine with me, but you like that because you want to be dominated by women.

Else, you'd just say "To hell wit' dem wimmin, I am going to buys me some gold."

One of the things that really hit me when we got back was that people in America are basically honest. In the place where I live in Africa people are basically dishonest. There is a feeling that the government above them is dishonest, businesses have to bribe to get anything accomplished, the common man is feeling like he has to do what he can to survive. There is nothing like coming back to a country where you can put a quarter in to buy a newspaper and the newspaper company trusts you to only take one paper. In Africa the first guy along would have taken the whole stack and be selling them at the street corner.

It doesn't have much to do with gold, but despite our warts, there are a lot of people who would rather live here than their own country. Certainly not everyone, there are some great countries in this world with more heritage of freedom that we can boast of, aren't there? I think that is the ultimate measure of quality. I certainly feel that those who feel a disatisfaction with things as they are here should be free to say so. It is that freedom that has made this country great.

I do not agree with Witte's apparent ( since i really dont know them ) politics as a Democratic Socialist. But she has done good business with the BC govt, of which I approve. So she has dealt well with a progressive govt.I do agree seeing a woman or any minority succeed is something progressives support. I do regret her anti-labor stance but I think she will change once the company situation improves. I think she knows it is the Democratic Socialist desire in BC to create jobs which gave her company an opening. It appears she has succeeded. The more jobs created the better for labor.

I've got my kids prayin' for rain in your area.

We've had a good deal of it in the past two days.

I was serious about the goldsmithy that was set up by Harmony.

I tried to find them on the web, but to no avail.

With the "African Angle", that might entice quite a few buyers in the US.

( Although I consider "African Americans" to be as exclusively American, as any other ethnic group. )

Haggis
here
http://www.kitcomm.com/comments/gold/1998q2/1998_06/980625.123158.auratoree.htm

What say you, mon? A silver dollar? I can pony up a commemorative NZ Silver dollar glorifying Mt Taranaki instead of the Peace dollar if you dont trust merkan money. What ya got under ya kilt? ( beside the sheep )

I am not clear on this........was there a "confirmed" intervention on the rand yesterday? If so, do you consider this a bit quick? TIA....and BTW, you have great trading technique and timing!...enviable, for sure.

I once read that generals are forever doomed to failure because they are always training based upon the lessons of the last war. At the end of WWII a number of nations learned a number of lessons. The US and Russia learned that huge armys meant power. The US learned that floating and "island" type aircraft carriers meant power. By island I refer to the fact we bombed Germany from the safety of the British Island. On the other hand the Japanese and German leaders looked at the lessons of WWII and arrived at different conclusions. The Japanese and Germans felt they had been defeated by superior manufacturing power. So for the next 40 years the US set about setting up strategic alliance such as the one with Japan so we could have "floating air craft carriers" off all of our real and imagined enemys coasts. The Japanes and the Germans set about building an industrial empire. The Russian bankrupted themselves trying to match our military might. The net result is where we are today. Indeed the chickens will come home to roost. Our military might will go down as a curse instead of a blessing. The Japanes will for many years rue the deal they made with the devil by becoming so dependent on our markets. The Russians may never recover from the squandering of wealth they did trying to match the US military machine. A whole lot of imbalances have been built up by all these world leaders putting into practice what they learned from the lessons of WWII. I don't know how this will play out in the future but I suspect it will be to no ones's good.
Crazy Bill

You missed it. I admire your modesty.

variety in our Gov't & they are not only covered by medicare along with all their generous perks, but as of last week in B.C., they can name their "partner" as survivor for their generous pensions. We may have the Peso of the north, but no one can say we're not progressive. The question is, where are we progressing to?

Thank you. Yes, Harmony Rox! Where are you domiciled???

I have followed off and on the discussion taking place over the last several days regarding the merits of Russian vs US military equipment. I come down on your side. If we have a five minute war from a great distance the US equipment wins. If we have a five week war or a five month war the Russian equipment wins. I remember watching a documentary about WWII. The story went like this. Early on the Germans realized they could not match Russias output in military hardware. They made the decision that quality would overcome quantity. A whole new generation of Tiger and Elephant tanks were rolled out just in time for the great tank battle at Kursk. The Germans sent something like 1500 of the most technologicallyy advanced tanks in the world agains 3000 crude and ungainly T-34's. We all know the outcome. After the war the Russian and American analysts summed it up this way. Weapon for weapon the German weapons were far superior. They also had an average of 50-300% more moving parts and were machined to such close tolerances that they were useless in battlefield conditions. Enough said. It all depends on the length of the war.

I liked your short but potent posting of 17:02 today. Whether or not the current DOW run up is the last, I certainly hope that we have seen the last of the d**n shorts driving gold and silver down. While I do not normally wish adversity on anyone, I must admit that whatever turmoil the PM shorts get, they have brought on themselves. By taking unfair advantage of world hype by the CB's, they have driven many of us goldbugs intop despair and financial ruin. When it is their turn, perhaps they might appreciate what we have gone through this last painful year.

I'll have more empathy for the people hurt by the DOW correction, because
it is my opinion that they are genuinely duped. However, don't the shorts know that they are playing with FIRE when they drive the value of something below its cost of production??? Sooner or later they will get burned, and burned badly. If you are short, COVER your shorts and get long before it's too late.

--Skip

All Repost / Reposte?

Anyone know current price of the 1 kilogram silver kookabura Collection? RJ's got a single kilo as a paper weight ( I'm sure the paper don't blow away, RJ ) but what about the collection thatcontains the 1 kg, the 10 oz, the 2 oz and the 1 oz all in a fancy box. I understand the edition was limited to 1000.

This is not a small coin.

-Hailing from the frigid waters of Lake Michigan, land of the fat chicks, who never lose their blubber, for fear of being plunged in the cold water.

Racine, Wisconsin.

-Seventy miles from the south end of the lake, two hundred miles from the top end, -eighty miles across.

Aurator might be dismayed to know that our Great Lakes have big fish in them again. We do clean up our messes now and then.

Our biggest threat to the Great Lakes is introduced species of fish, molluscs, and crustaceans,- all from Europe.

Come to think of it, fiat money is another pernicious import from our intellectual betters.

Has anyone heard whether europeons can buy "investment gold", without VAT?

I think that this is a big deal, not accounted for by the many gold-en bears.

My God, man, I hesitate to venture any reply at all for fear of failing to conduct myself within the bounds of decorum required on this site.

I am able to see the point you feel to be truth...that gold is not money as supported by any reasonable inventory of your wallet or pants pocket. That is where you should cease with your point. It is impossible to refute, and your dignity is not compromised.

However, you reach beyond your grasp of the world view when you state...
"Since Gold is only used now for jewelry, electronics, dental fillings, and poker chips - maybe $100/ounce could be expected. Heck - in those limited uses it may be worth no more than Silver - especially since
Silver has more uses than Gold. I am a die-hard BEAR regarding Gold.
Gold is overpriced by a factor of ten at least. The only thing keeping
it up there are folks bidding against each other..."
Gold is the ultimate international currency. If you had the wherewithal to bank with the BIS, you'd better show up with your bag of gold because they don't take empty promises, and they don't take American Express. ( My attempt to keep this light, because your wanton and irresponsible "information", if left unmitigated, may dampen the inclination of a lurking/reserching soul to take appropriate action toward economic responsibility. )
You seem to feel that the central bank gold inventory represents an overhang that destroys the market. This is preposterous. That very gold, held by an entities of that very nature ( banking ) , gives the ultimate argument against your case of gold not being money. There can be no such market overhang with money. Couldn't you try to argue that trillions of paper dollars constitute a more burdensome overhang? Yet dollars seem to remain in demand.
You mention that "use" is an important issue. In addition to the comments on international banking, I offer this thought for your consideration.
Money alone does NOT beget additional money, human EFFORT begets additional money. And remember, money in and of itself does not need to serve a special purpose other than enhancing your liklihood of survival through its ability to STORE VALUE and be exchanged for products or services as needed. You said,
"If humanity's technological civilization and progress does collapse we
will all ( nations & individuals ) be selling our gold in order to eat -
just as the Indonesians and Koreans did." Seems that paper is not good-as-gold.

I believe in your attempt to support your point, you not only failed, but you made mine. And the only collapse that is needed is the collapse of human arrogance and victimization of the uninitiated via fiat currencies and deficit spending practices.
And so that you know what page I am on, I don't view gold as an investment that is intended to generate income. Gold doesn't have to, by its very nature. I view gold as an investment in increasing my liklihood for survival. The same gold I purchase today, at prices so low as to be worthy of ridicule, is held to store the value of my efforts which today exceed my immediate needs for survival. When I am old and feeble, this gold will have purchasing power anywhere in the world. I do not know what will become of paper or nickel and copper coins.

Aragorn III crushes the ball.... GOING, GOING, GONE!!! Out of the park.

Thanks for meeting me at homeplate with a golden "high-five".

You are a wise and temperate person. A mighty gulp & puff to ya! Our boat will hold only a few more, unfortunately, many good souls will be left to flounder in the icy water.

you ask "What to an American has any value?"

Good Kwestion!

To THIS American, freedom has value, value for value has value, honesty and TRUTH has value, and integrity and morality have value. Preventing the State, or the "Commune" from railroading the "individual" has value. Law and Reason have Value. Representative Democracy, though often a farce, yet the best we have, has value. Separation of powers has value. Checks and balances have value. MacDonald's has value ( the "Value Meal" ) and our Children have value. People like you, though you live in other countries which have no apparent value to us, have value, because you are a person. Life has value. And, as Americans, we like to think we have given a bit o' Value added to the whole thing. And that, you must admit, has value. YOUR OPINION has value, as does your gold, AND your paper money. YOUR children have value, because they are young, beautiful, innocent human beings. The clean air has value, even if we must fight our own to obtain it, as is the case with our water. Our old people have value, because they raised us up, and now they are helpless, and we will one day, if we are lucky, be like them. So we value them. Our corn has value, because it pops for us, and fills our bellies. Our politicians, believe it or not, have value, because we can, in the end, vote them out of office. ( The bastards ) And, like everyone else on the face of the earth, we get what we deserve. Our pain has value, because through it we learn what we have done wrong, and what we must do right.
And, last, but not least, sheep intestines have value, for without them, where would we obtain...Haggis!

You got guts, Mon' and I salute you. We Americans look for value as you do. Go easy on us, as we are everyman...in this world, Brother Haggis!

Will you be visiting the tolerant-one's O-TAY corral in mid August? What is the nature of the round-up he made mention of? I intend to stop in and rattle his cage early October when I'm in the region to sail upon the Chessapeake Bay.

ERLE
Au contraire, mon ami, I am delighted the great lakes have fish in them again. A victory of good sense over rapacity. So do they taste sweet? Stay tuned ( and tuna-ed ) fishermen all, aurator's *fisherman's friend* is getting nearer production, will be ready by Christmas, perhaps before.

Aragorn III thank you for your comments:
http://www.kitcomm.com/comments/gold/1998q2/1998_06/980627.182151.aragorn_i.htm

to my request of:
http://www.kitcomm.com/comments/gold/1998q2/1998_06/980627.174712.auratoree.htm
Anyone else have anything to add? TIA

You left something out, but I'm damned if I can find it. I DID find the value in that post to Haggis.
I liked where you found the value in a politician...because in the end we can vote them out of office. What value can be found in a bagpipe, aye, Haggis?

got kiwis?

Bill-lad,
If the Japanese have had enough abuse from Uncle Rubin and his persian boy Bill, they can just say "it's over. period. we dump your US TreasuryNotes. we expel your army of occupation. we go to the gold standard. we refuse to trade but for gold. your american politicians ... they are without honour"

#1 The US dollar collapses over night.
#2 Clinton & crew are reveal as impotent mouthers.
#3 American world-wide tyrany ends.
#4 China reveals its true intentions.
#5 Japan reveals the extent of its nuclear arsenal.

Japan is already hurting enough; what can they loose, but the greasy, pallid, putresecent tentacles of the Federal Reserve?

Japan, be MEN again! Not the servile lackys of "men" I wouldn't pay to bark outside a West Texas brothel.

Spud

Rate Observer.
Maybe Donald.
There is a reference on his site about gold in the current issue.
This man is the best that I have ever read about debt and credit.
His, "Money Of The Mind" is the best history of credit expansion that I have seen.
Besides, he does have a way with words that would appeal to many of us here.
The best that I can do is to direct you to "Dogpile", which is incidentally the best search engine anywhere.
Search, "Grants Interest Rate Observer".
You'll need PDF .
Just read his sample issue, though.


Why isn't the Dogpile search engine company valued at 10x Yahoo?
It's 40x better.

Although it does not pay interest ( apart from the possiblities for option writes or loans ) , gold has greater value for those whose currencies are withering away in this US dollar heat wave than for those domiciled in dollar lands or hedged of their own wilting paper. At such times it is well to remember that a wide spectrum of nationalities attend this room, whose various current situations are reflected in their posts.

This should make it clearer to all that gold's value IS in its role as another ( lower case ) currency.

The value in a bagpipe is when it STOPS playing.

Aye,
Mikey

Aragorn III
Ya, I got kiwis. But I must do some homework before I can offer them for sale. Like what happens when currency and POG shift between order, receipt of $ and despatch? Hmmmm not to hedge is to speculate.
Is that Russell in the Hedgerows again?

He once provided me with the funniest collection of bagpipe jokes...ALL of which derided the cumbersome intrument. Personally, I like the things...far, far away.

Gee, Sheller would make a better president, and, he writes his own stuff.



Got Willie?
Aw sh!!, we do.

Sorry - I don't buy ANYTHING over the net....basically a combination of paranoia and an unsufficient understanding ( on my part ) about how secure "secure servers" are.

aurator...no need to sharpen pencils on my account. Lest my earlier message was unclear, I am perfectly willing to conduct business using modern methods of communication, internet included. I rambled on my message in an attempt to convey the notion that there is nothing inherently shadey about businesses that utilize web sites. Who in their right mind would say to a business "Oh, your one of *those* business that uses telephones, accepts orders by fax machines, and uses electronic credit card payments...I don't think I can trust you anymore." ? Same rationale goes for the internet. It's modern, it's ( usually ) reliable and efficient, so use it!!!

http://infind.inference.com/infind/infind.exe?query=grant%27s+observer&time=7&x=34&y=7

What kinda country we got here, anyway? GIVE THE DOGS THE VOTE! Sandy sez"Arf!" Little orphan Annie sez "Buy Gold! Daddy Warbucks sez - Well, you KNOW what HE says! Punjab sez "Together, we buy gold, yes?" Asp sez "?" I don't know what he says. Untranslateable.

Leaving to squander earned income on nachos... and beer, to be drank in honor of those with which I've had the pleasure to communicate with over the past few hours.

Well put, mate.

http://www.drudgereport.com/

Bill2j, please do not take personal offense, but, for the sake of 'light'
as well as 'heat'....& I hope for the sake of encouraging open-minded inquiry & debate: I hope you will go back & re-read 'Spudmaster's' 15:45 post, and maybe even make a personal printed-out copy of it for yourself.

If you will keep seeking the truth in all this international finance, money & gold & global economy ....'stuff'.... then, eventually,
you may come around to the point of view that a growing number of
students of economic & monetary history have come to believe:

WE LIVE IN AN INTER-DEPENDENT, INTER-CONNECTED WORLD, WHERE ALL PEOPLES ARE CREATED EQUAL, WITH THE RIGHT TO LIFE, HEALTH, & THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS". ( As idealistic as that may sound at first, the alternative is the continued world of haves vs havenots, bouts of war & misery, etc., etc., etc. )

I may be misinterpreting your attitude & your reasoning, but based on
several of your posts & comments....I'd like to offer the following ideas for consideration:

If we, in the U.S., take the attitutude that we don't need the
Japanese, but they sure do need us, etc.,;
that line of ( faulty ) 'reasoning' ultimately takes us down
a dangerous national & international road.

It is a treacherous road that history has already tried
to teach humanity time and again, not to indulge & deceive itself with.
It is a bury-your-head-in-the-sand kind of road, a road of denail, prejudice, and "I win when you losse" mentality. It is an ominous road
that is characterized by careening, blinding curves and abrupt
dead-ends. It is a line of thinking, and a way of believing that builds a faulty road filled with mine-fields such as:

1 ) national arrogance;
2 ) protectionism;
3 ) trade-tensions/trade-barriers/competitive-currency-devaluations
4 ) isolationism;
5 ) increasing social & political tensions within & between
nations, as scapegoating & a seige mentality sets in, and economic decline & poverty begins to accelerate, world-wide;
6 ) and ultimately -- if not arrested by reasoned, freedom-loving peoples & their enlightened, courageous leaders of integrity -- then ultimately...such a dangerous road .... leads, almost inevitably, to war.

Such is the track-record of history.

Granted, the U.S. has been, and may well be, in the future,
a 'consumer-driven', economic market-place miracle, that was once the admiration & envy of the world.

Bur right now, today, the U.S. is headed, head-first, into economic decline, and growing consumer insolvency and bankruptcy.
Moreover, we are the largest debtor nation in the world; and it took
us less than 2 decades to get there/here, from being the largest
creditor nation in the world, lttle more than a generation ago.

I wonder how secure any U.S. citizens would be ...
( -does this include you, Bill2j? ) , if those Japanese, who you seem to
feel need us, so much more than we need them....just how secure would
the U.S. consumer be.... economically, politically, etc.,.... if the Japanese simply got to the end of their rope, with the "King Dollar"
game... that the fragile U.S. economy so delicately depends on....?

Just how safe & secure and "consumer-market-place" strong would
the U.S. economy be, if the fed-up, dollar-stuffed Japanese....
started dumping all their U.S. stocks, bonds, & Treasuries,
not to mention their horde of U.S. paper dollars,
on the open, free markets of the world?

Granted the Japanese have their problems, big & deep ones. Theirs
however are closer to the surface than ours; at least they are finally
being forced by the reality of the market-place, to at least begin to talk candidly about their problems & maybe even find the leadership to face them.

But I think it is perhaps the height of arrogance, & a syymptom of the
false pride of national ethnocentrism, to think that there is some
superior, self-sufficient nature.... to the once great
"consumer-marketplace" of the American economy.

It might be prudent to remember, before we decide to tell the
Japanese to go fly a kite, that America's addiction to consumerism,
is perhaps her economic achille's heel. Ours is a fragile national economy that looks great on the surface, but underneath, it is on the verge of hemorrhaging from red ink.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the pocketbook of the American consumer, whom you speak of, with such seemingly condescending pride,
Billj2.

America's consumer-driven economy is dangerously overextended. It is continually fueled by, and hopelessly dependent on, a self-destructing array of....credit institutions & debt-instruments....such as:
1 ) credit cards;
2 ) refinanced/borrowing aga. the 'rising' equity in the house;
3 ) financed new car for 4 years, or re-fiance it, & the other one, for 6;
4 ) signature loans;
5 ) loans aga. the life-insurance;
etc., etc., etc., ad nauseum....

I could go on, but I hope you are getting the picture,
or at least an idea, of the point I am trying to make:
"consumer-America" is exhausted, tapped out, strung out,
and in complete denial of how he/she will make ends meet --
make the payments, feed the kids - & the kat - etc.,
if the wolf ... comes to the door.

Why "healthy", "self-sufficient", 'consumer-America' .... hardly
even remembers what a savings account is.
While the Japanese 'consumers', can smell a rainy day when
its still weeks & months, even years off. They are not afraid
to save a little cash for a rainy day....something that seems
almost "unamerican" in mighty, majestic, debt-bloated,
"consumer-America".

And this the mighty consumer - America that doesn't need Japan; is that it, Billj2?
Is this the U.S. consumer-market-palce economy, that you speak so highly of, so self-righteously of? Is this the economic wonder,
the market-place powerhouse that can grow & thrive,
whether the Japanese want to play our game of buy now, borrow now,
pay later ( or never?! ) ...

a game of allegiance to U.S. dollar hegemony,
a game of masqueraded, postponed human misery in the making...
a game of high stakes treachery & corruption in highest places,
while the masses are like blind sheep being led to the slaughter....

a mad game of "King Dollar" .... of U.S. paper dollar floods &
mushrooming U.S. credit creations to keep the charade going......

Trillions of U.S. dollars are now sloshing and careening around the world...unconttrollably.... helping to create the careening & crashing
currencies of SE Asia, & others....contributing to the growing instability of toppling governments & millions thrown out of work & into poverty........

And is all of this primarily for the sake of maintaining our
marvelous, hungry, glutenous American consumer...gorging himself
on the "good life" of over-consumption, debt payments,
finance charges, etc. etc. ....millions & trillions of
U.S. dollars in the world....and yet this marvelous market-place
wonder - this U.S. consumer - hardly has any! -

He's close to drowning in his own red-ink, which will be
inevitable when his stock-market nest-egg begins to crack
into little pieces, seemingly overnight.

I hardly could imagine a nation with a 'consumer-economy'
more in need of help.

But I suppose we can't expect much help from the
Japanese, the Indonesian, the S. Korean, the Brazilian,
the S. African, or even the Russian.
After all, they are in trouble too.

But maybe, just maybe we might learn something from them
afterall; like how to produce more inexpensively, and with
competivie quality. Certainly a good case can be made for
how the Japanese have already helped America learn to do just
that, in the automobile industry, over the last 20 years.

And maybe we comfortable, complacent, supposedly self-sufficient American consumers could learn something else, from those less fortunate, than we have been for generations:
such as:
those people are at least willing to tighten the belt,
when they have to....and are willing to survive,
to stay alive, to go & look for work, any work, and pay cash,
and squirrel some away too......

Do you think...may be... they can teach us well-fed, smug,
condescending, self-centered American consumers that there is still somethin we haven't mastered, like.... maybe -
humility
hard-work
patience
endurance
toughing it out, when the going gets tough
surrendering immediate gratification & impulse buying
paying cash, & paying off the debts
modesty
civility
appreciation of life, in simple things.

Aren't we - 'consumer-America' - only 4% of the world's people,
yet consuming 40-50% of the world's resources?!
Isn't there maybe, just maybe... something out of balance
in such a 'picture'?!

Or is it that our credit cards & our refinanced homes,
our 2 car garages, & 3-TVs....
make us morally & economically superior ....to
to...
to whom....?!

the Japanese...or anyone...anywhere...in the rest of the world?!

Isn't there maybe something we missed
in our economic & monetary & political history lesson, Bill2j?

In my humble opinion: it's back to the drawing boards, Bill2j,
and to the history books. ....
for, you, and I, and all of us.
None of us ever has it all figured out; thanks be to those who
aspire to the discipline of the inquiring, reasoning, open-mind.

Our global economy is a Titanic, and she is going down.
Blaming the Japanese, or 'telling them we don't need them for our economy', is not going to save the Titanic, nor is it going
to help provide enough life-boats to go around.

The sinking of our Titanic world economy is inevitable.
It has evolved past a point of no return, due to the
the corruption and false pride that flourish, when
monetary & banking institutions are divorced from
the innate integrity of gold-convertibility,
gold-backing, and the transparency of gold-accountability.

So it's to the 'life-boats' we must each,
individually & collectively, turn. And we must turn to
one another, to offer our help where we can, and to ask for help,
when we must.

And the Japanese, and everyone else, deserve the life-boats,
just as much as the debt-laden American consumers.

Sincerely,
David Blair Macrory
goldfever@k-online.com

Oh, I don't know if they would succeed or not. If OPEC had any real muscle prices would have bee dealt with long before now. I was just replying to the hypothetical "what if" question.

What if questions are interesting because every once in a long while things turn out to be surprising and the what if turns into a "now that".

http://biz.yahoo.com/finance/980626/mexico_pes_2.html

stock on the net,or is this another media lie
about on-line trading and its growth and
effect on the market,or are we as gold bugs
really all are closet conspiratorialist...a
60's thing ... trust no one question
everything

Unfortunately, my schedule is pretty well screwed-up until after Thanksgiving. That particular weekend, if all goes as planned, we'll be in Baton Rouge planting daughter #2 at LSU. This is her "deb" summer ( Hey! I don't need to hear the crap guys! ) and we have been swallowed up by that time.and.cash-eating whale. ugh.

I do very much want to hang out with T#1 and the illustrious Kitco Kowboys/girls as soon as possible thereafter. I long for The OTAY CORRAL... ( sigh ) .

I, too, buy gold only from individuals or businesses with whom I am acquainted as a matter of long standing policy. Also, my purse is sadly depleted right now from over- zealous buying this past spring.

A Maximum Gulp & Puff to YA!!!! WoW!!! WoW!!! Hand me an oar, mate.

I just installed your recently "updated" version of AmericanValues............and am very pleased to report that they work beautifully. Masterful creation, Pard. Muchas Saludes!!!

http://www.pathfinder.com:80/asiaweek/current/issue/cs5.html

tell ya buddy...throughout Huntington children are talking...Oh...just for the record...Shelly Marie was her name...and it was a kickin hat!!!

Lord almighty. I appear to be coming across arrogant and superior and that is not my intent at all. I am not making, or at least I hope I am not makiing, any judgements in any of the things I say as to what is right and what is wrong. I am only trying to paint a picture with words as to how I perceive the situation. Let's see if we can start out on some common ground I think we agree on. The huge debt the US has run up. Some years back I got into a discussion with a friend of mine about the merits of the fiscal policy of the Reagan years. He said Ronny brought the US great prosperity. I pointed out that if the Gross Domestic Product were to be adjusted downward by the amount of the deficit incurred in any given year or for all the Reagan years in total the economy was only average, or below average at best. The analogy I used was the guy that makes $20,000 a year, borrows $5000, spends it and then feels as if he had a 25% increase in his standard of living. He had an increase in his level of spending but not his true standard of living. That is what the US has done for generations. We have increased our level of spending and consumption but we have done it with borrowed money. As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end and I think we are rapidly approaching the end of our rope on deficit spending. We will pay the piper for this one. Now we get to what appears to be the sore tooth and that is Japan. Apparently I am coming across as arrogant and superior in relation to the Japanese. I don't feel that way. However I do feel the Japanese have made a bad bargain. Faustian pact comes to mind. They made a pact with the devil and now it is haunting them. They gave us military bases on their homeland. They gave us cheap production to hold down the wages and rate of inflation in the US. They got back in exchange IOU's backed by the full faith and CREDIT of the US government. Now they are in a bad way. They already run a monster trade deficit with the US so no help is forthcoming there. Because we allowed it and they took the bait they neglected to build a solid economy at home and in asia. Now they are dependent on trade with the US. You have spoken of inter dependency. Ok, lets take it out to it's logical extreme. The Japanese say screw you not one more Japanese product hits your shores. Immediately our trade deficti vanishes and we have a terrible labor shortage. We get mad and say screw you to the Japanese. Immediately our trade deficit vanishes and our biggest problem is to build the factorys and hire the people necessary to make the products we currently import from Japan. In a two way trade system this would not be so but the trade flow is so one sided it almost comical. I don't have the numbers at my fingertips but the Japanese sell us one whole hell of a lot more than we sell them. My Step son works for Honda and if you think the US will be allowed free entry into the Japanese market you are dead wrong. It will never happen. Now, back to what I think the thrust of your post is about and that is debt, consumerism and the american military arrogance. I am in total agreement with you. The US is the most arrogant world power since the Roman Empire. Quite possibly one of the stupidest when it comes to economics. However please do not take me as being an "ugly american". I agree with almost all you say. I just fail to see where we are so dependent on Japan.
Crazy Bill

stay within the margins...Opps!...A GIANT O'tay Corral GULP of RESERVA to YA...

Hope you and your's are having a fabulous day of it!!!

Have been dealing with Mexico 20 years now, and
it seems that every time the peso declines vs
$US it is at yet another all time low.

The big problems seem to arrive every 6th year,
whenever the newly elected president is forced
to devalue the peso like we saw last in Dec. '95.

Mexicans all know this. But it still surprises us
gringos every 6 years.

http://www.nando.net/newsroom/ntn/top/062798/topstory_26666.html

/-+* 8

/*-
http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/98/06/26/timfgnfar01001.html?1124027

http://www.the-times.co.uk/news/pages/tim/98/06/26/timfgnfar01001.html?1124027

Why do you let the politicians disturb your serenity? They do what they feel they must. Just as water flows downhill, currencies will reflate. Gold will continue to be precious, durable and easily divisible. Question is...What do we do in the meantime?

Why would Fred Thompson NOT be the Republicans
best presidential candidate in '98?

In a world of smoke & mirrors, why not another
Hollywooder?

"What value can be found in a bagpipe, aye,".........

CULTURE man CULTURE........

or is that something new to North Americans.....


Och aye the noooooooooooooo..................

Everything goes in cycles. IMHO Gold is near a Minimum. Downside risk appears low & short-term because the dollar is so high, and it is unsustainable in the long run. Asian competition will hurt earnings leading to a burst of our stock market bubble leading to a consumer lead recession. ( again )

Why shouldn't the President move beyond a tragedy where the armed forces fired on unarmed civilians. We've done it before...1970 at Kent State.

Asian competition will certainly deflate
the bubble, and I look for the UAW vs GM strike
ripple to accelerate the process.

( Y'all know where that is ) and well, I'm thinking . . . . RR's homeboys over at Goldman-Sachs are putting their house up for sale in a public offering, yes? And if Veneroso's right about the high dollar sucking in all that stock/bond money ( we do have some evidence here ) , I'm guessing that GS cashing in their chips now signals a near-high for the dollar. Guessing, but within 10% or so of its highs. Pretty soon, the US concern about falling exports will generate so much internal pressure that the dollar must be allowed to fall. IMHO, of course.

I truly understand your point of view...Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...uh oh!...steaks are cooking in Honor of STUDIO_R...be back in a little...

serenity.............Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

The corollary to my last post is that gold and oil will both be supported, soon, by a falling dollar. This is his only shot to prevent all-out collapse of the banking systems of Russia, Venezuela, and Mexico, which are all showing large cracks now. The IMF monies won't be there in the amounts he'd need to keep them afloat at these levels.

Not. Just as Mother Merrill went public in 1971 and then tanked for some years, so too Goldie-rocks will mark high water. Or so everyone says.

IMO, the USG set out 8-10 yrs ago on a course to destroy the Japanese economy & it appears that they have succeeded. They have eliminated their main competitor. I do'nt think they will have the same success against the Euro Countries.

Off to the pub to meet my son & his lovely Japanese wife.

Mike,

I don't doubt you morals and ethics, and your view of the USA.

I would, however, suggest that the inherent values within American society are not necessarily reflected by your Governments view of the world, or indeed their active policies within the USA.

For example, according to a Congressional study, the USA has become "THE MOST UNEQUAL OF MODERN NATIONS", in which the most prominent feature of everyday life is class divisiveness.

TODAY, the top 20% of the population hold the largest share of income, while the bottom 60% had the lowest ever recorded. Wages have fallen below 1973 levels ( the year the UD$ was taken off a gold standard ) .

Do the majority of WORKERS have full or part-time employment ?

How many life on/below the poverty line ? 50 million Americans ?

Ref - The State of Working America, Economic Policy Institute, Washington

Has anyone noticed, that when embedded systems are brought up as a topic on the possibility of y2k being catastrophic, all detractors fall by the wayside? I have experienced many posters on several forums from the IT sector naysaying this y2k thing as being overblown, full of intellectual holes, fuelled by greed, etc. This I accept as a possibility, but have any of you experienced the same when it comes to embedded logic???? I agree with Allen ( USA ) ....When I see companies anti-up with written guarantees is when I will put some concerns to rest.

By the way, how many of you have contacted YOUR LOCAL UTILITY to find out their Y2K status? If you want a TRUE TO LIFE REALITY CHECK, and YOUR utility "big cheese" happens to value honesty, as mine currently does, IT'S NOT GOING TO BE A WALK IN THE PARK, FOLKS. My head of the "Y2K" utlility big boy has obviously not been fed to the legal sharks yet. He is SCARED, based on his knowledge of embedded systems and the dependency of purchasing needs from the biggun's. IT'S TIME TO WAKE UP, IF YOUR LOCAL UTILITY MAN IS NERVOUS ABOUT LIFE AFTER Y2K.

After all, we are not just talking about embedded systems, you have to look at the big picture. Where do utilities get their resources from to create their power. It is a total and complete invasive infrastructure we depend upon. Anyone who does not question this scenario is probably thinking it will only be out for a couple of days. Think again. Do mental triage. I have found very few people who are willing/or/can think in mental triage here.

Please, all you naysayers, "IT" managers, etc. Let me have it. Where is my thinking going wrong here? I would like nothing more than to be put in my place. Please, just do it with FACTS. Don't bother me with the rest of the "flying crap" ( ie,. opinions ) . I'm listening......

My utmost respect lies with many Kitcoites who listen, listen, listen.

Extract from the Dines Newsletter......


"The IMF has long impeded economic growth in poorer countries, and its new penchant for bailouts is likely to further slow reform while putting US taxpayers at risk. The real test of any aid agency is whether its clients move from dependency to self-sufficiency. More than half of the IMF's borrowers between 1965 and 1995 were no better off than when they started. A third were actually poorer. Almost all were deeper in debt."

FORTUNE, 25 May 98

It is being held down like a lid on a pressure cooker. As many here feel - Gold is the only reputable store of value. Given the population in the world and the amount of a global M1 and the undersupply of Gold {even including CB stockpiles} there just ain't enough of the yellow precious to meet demand from re-monetization of it - not at US$300 or even US$1000 per ounce.
What puzzles me is why large holders of Gold would want to hold down the price. If they permitted re-monetization and the subsequent price increase - their stockpiles would increase in real value to a phenomenal extent. But then that may be a common sense view which is contrary to political power plays - which are beyond my humble ken.

ALL - posters this weekend are to be congratulated on the reasoned dialogue with those whose ideas may need a little enlightenment. No one has yet stooped to ranting and raving - maybe empassioned defense of ideas - yes, but personal attacks - no.
Maybe as I catch up on my reading I shall be disappointed, but a quick review looks good so far.

The y2k problem report by the Congressional Research Service ( CRS ) dated May 5, 1998 is available from your U.S. state Senator. Titled: 97036: The Year 2000 Computer Problem: Activity in the 105th Congress.

Report prepared by Richard M. Nunno, Science, Technology, and Medicine Division.

The opening SUMMARY first two and the last paragraphs read as follows:

Many computers in use today will not be able to process dates beyond the year 2000 unless they are modified, Currently many computers only store two-digit number for the year, which makes the year 2000 indistinguishable from 1900. Without correction, computer malfunctions will cause many costly problems in commerce and government.
Although some many may still doubt the seriousness of this problem, most business managers and government officials are now convinced that this is a major problem that will be difficult and time consuming to correct. Federal agencies have established year 2000 program offices, and an interagency committee has overseen several government-wide actions. State and local governments, private sector business, and foreign organizations also face the year 2000 problem for their computer systems.

... [skip 5 Para's]

For the remainder of the 105th Congress, and even into the year 2000, Congress will continue to hold hearings to raise public awareness of the problem, to oversee federal agency efforts at correcting their computer systems, and if necessary, to pass additional legislation to ensure that private sector systems are year 2000 compliant.

The report is 14 pages in length, very thorough and presents the problems associated with both hardware ( embedded systems ) and software.

Recently Senator Bennett ( R-UT ) was appointed to chair the Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem ( call him ) . One focus of the committee ( 7 in all ) will be "litigation prevention." Interesting that there are an equal number of both parties on the committee.

Happy summer reading!!

Opinions first:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Year 2000: The MacGyver Solution - By Lorin May
I've been talking to Year 2000 experts and reading the recent Y2K analyses of heavyweights like Capers Jones, Ed Yourdon, and Peter de Jager. Although they present what looks like irrefutable evidence that much of the world will be unprepared for the Y2K crisis, unfortunately they ignore one critical factor that should cause us all to reject their gloomy forecast: nothing as bad as a worldwide computer failure could ever happen! Not in a million bajillion years! It can't! It can't! IT CAN'T!
In spite of this kind of strong data, many Y2K "experts" insist that most organizations have started far too late to fix all their systems. It is sad that just because these experts have watched a few hundred non-Y2K-compliant systems crash and burn, and have seen how long it takes just to test a system, and have seen that organizations are allocating only a fraction of the needed resources to the problem, they think they can do some math and declare that almost everyone is ridiculously behind schedule.
These experts obviously haven't watched enough television. By now, everyone should know that no problem is too big, and no odds are too high for a scrappy group of misfits who appear a little rough around the edges, yet when the going gets tough they can do the impossible. I can't count how many times I saw "The A-Team" take only one afternoon to create, for example, a tactical stealth helicopter using nothing but duct tape and an abandoned '76 Pacer. Certainly, our computer engineers could muster an equivalent feat! I bet that MacGyver alone could fix the Y2K problem using nothing but PVC pipe, a transistor radio, and Gouda cheese.
But I won't bore you with the technical details of Y2K fixes. For the sake of argument, let's pretend that, as the experts predict, by Jan. 1, 2000, a large portion of the world's computers will be spitting out even more garbage data than they do right now. Let us assume that non-Y2K-compliant microchips cause everything from microwaves and elevators to airplanes and bank vaults to start malfunctioning. As I will prove below, any nitwit can refute the worst-case projections of the experts.
Businesses will have a greatly decreased ability to produce, distribute, and sell goods. Rippling financial losses may trigger stock price plunges, business failures, bank closures, unemployment, and recession. Yeah, right.
Do they really think the world economy is that volatile? Look at the U.S. stock market -- stable, independent, impervious to any outside influence other than when Alan Greenspan sneezes in the wrong direction. And who cares if all that highly overvalued stock suddenly self-corrects to a fraction of its present value? The Great Depression wasn't that bad.
The communication, distribution, and utility infrastructures may limp badly for a time. ( Yawn. ) What if it did happen? Most people have a few days' supply of food on hand and plenty of flammable furniture. And we're talking about the dead of winter here -- plenty of snow to melt into water. A few days is time enough for thousands of food distributors and utility companies to work out any unanticipated Y2K bugs from their decentralized, real-time networks run by thousands of interconnected, one-of-a-kind computer systems. Not to worry!
State, local, and federal government computer systems will be largely unable to function. This could result in many wholesale changes to the way taxes are collected and services are rendered. That's supposed to be a disadvantage? It goes without saying that in the face of disaster, our elected leaders would set aside petty differences, and in less time than it takes to vote down a congressional pay cut, would form a solution that is efficient, effective, fair, and beneficial to all.
I could go on and on, but I've made my point. And one more thing -- if the experts are so sure this "crash" will cause such chaos, may I ask: Are they working frantically to safeguard their organizations' survivability? Are they storing food and fuel for a worst-case scenario? Are they avoiding debt and putting their wealth into tangible assets? The answer is yes, they are.
But what do they know? It all comes down to whether you believe we can grit our teeth and somehow do the impossible ( Rah! Rah! ) , or you think it's time to face the music and start working on feasible system contingency plans ( Boo! ) .
So who do we bet the farm on: MacGyver or the "experts"? I'll take MacGyver -- after all, what have we got to lose?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then some facts - from the Gov't
http://www.tasc.dot.gov/Y2K/NewLetter/letter.htm
Contingency Planning
The phrase has connotations of last resort plans, situations that backfire, and other unpleasant images, but contingency planning is basically disaster recovery planning for Year 2000 that is used in case systems are not repaired in time, fail as a result of key dates, or produce incorrect information.

How can a Year 2000 manager sell contingency planning and assure business continuity?
oEnsure that organizations spend their time and money wisely.
oConvince everyone that the money and time spent will be effective.
oDemonstrate what the consequences are of doing nothing, or delaying doing something.
oShow that all alternatives have been considered.

It is the task of the contingency planner to present a balanced business case that weighs the costs, the benefits, and the impact on third parties and other important stakeholders.

Contingency planning for the Year 2000 Program should be an integral part of the overall approach. Even if everything is going well, and you are on schedule to begin testing before the end of 1998, you still need contingency plans. Many facets of the Year 2000 are out of your control.

What If....
What will you do if your suppliers' computers go down ... if the power company goes down ... or if telephone, mail, transportation, and building security systems are suddenly not there? In addition to dealing with other people's problems, you will have to deal with mistakes accidentally programmed into your systems during the remediation phase. Your systems may be Year 2000 compliant, but what about those you interface with? There are a host of other problems that could crop up.

Why Contingency Planning?
The purpose of contingency planning is to avoid or reduce the effects of failure by creating a plan of action to be followed if a failure occurs. In your planning, remember to consider failures that are outside the control of the agency, i.e., failures of vendors, customers, suppliers.

You should --
oIdentify situations for which contingency planning is necessary and prioritize them.
oGroup similar situations together if possible to reduce the amount of planning necessary. oConsider possible actions and select the most appropriate action or decide the criteria for determining actions to be taken.
oDivide actions into those that...
1.Can be taken prior to the event,
2.Can be taken if a failure occurs, and
3.Are necessary if the event does not occur.
oList the possible causes of the situation, if possible.
oCreate documentation for staff to follow if there is a failure.
oConsider training staff so that everyone understands what might occur and what to do if a failure does occur.

Once a good contingency plan is developed, it must be tested as realistically as possible, just like any other disaster recovery plan. A contingency plan is not just a "good idea"; it is essential if your organization is to survive the Year 2000.

If you knew that a disaster, such as an earthquake, would hit your data center in two years, would you question the idea of a disaster recovery plan? Well, the Year 2000 earthquake is coming in less than two years, and it will rock your computer systems to the core.

Better Get Planning!!!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Prometheus
Simple - I use MS Internet Explorer v3
Msft teaches me patience.
Reboot often or crash.
Stability not.

regarding your question about whether people are more willing to trade stocks on the net than they are gold: i can only speak for myself, a private investor ( if you can even call me that ) . i don't do a lot of trades and i think of myself as a pretty typical investor ( complete with 401-k even ) . i would trade stocks on the net via one of the agencies that advertises on television ( e-trade, etc ) , but i wouldn't purchase gold off of the internet. the reason is that i've heard rumors ( i admit sometimes perpetuated by the local gold shop ) that people on the internet have been scammed on occasion when purchasing gold - things like hollowing out the center of coins and replacing the core with lead, etc. i don't know how much ( or even if, it could be urban legend ) such things happen, but as a small-time investor, i can't afford to take chances on something like that, and i really have no way to verify the authenticity of my purchases. you could reason that i don't have any more protection at a local coin dealer - but then again, the possiblility of physical retaliation does carry a little bit of weight, and my local dealer has a history with the community. now if there were a gold site that advertised as widely as say, e-trade, etc, then i might consider it. i think it'd be comfortable dealing with monex, they seem like an established firm - but i can't endorse them, and, well, i didn't use them ( part of the reason was because their rates weren't any lower than my local coin shop ) . anyway, thought i'd throw in my .02$US.

Cheers, Envy.

Netscape is free and easily available.

And the margin's don't go splooey.

Thanks for the continuing reminders to prepare for a change of period.

BTW, ever read The Great Wave?

Would you, if I sent you a copy?

Do you have an url for that report.

As a downunder I would love to read it.
Thanks

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Update on the year 2000 bug
http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/bigstory/062498/bug.html
Dismaying news from America's 250 largest public companies, measured by revenue, is contained in a recent report by Triaxsys Research of Missoula, Mont.

Judging by those who did supply full or partial updates, Triaxsys President Steven Hock says, the big boys "have made remarkably little progress.

Of the 50 companies that disclosed when they began work on the problem, "66 percent didn't start until the last two years - and an even more disturbing - 33 percent didn't get under way until 1997."

"They're trying to squeeze four fifths of the project into the last two years of this century," Hock said, and that "would be an amazing accomplishment."

Square... podge...we need to talk...such a comparison is...is...well...is
ridiculous from the outset...re-think what you have stated... I think you will agree you mis-spoke...certainly...you did...

Don't put too much stock in my moral or ethics ( ;- ) . I was simply speaking for myself. To get the real story, you'll have to ask each American individually. By the way, folks are still coming here from other places, so I guess we can't be all THAT bad. Besides, you have it in for the US Government ( take a number, laddie ) but you believe their information and statistics. As tolerant would say, Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I believe we have entered into a primary Dow bear market. The public soon will become the most bearish element . Stocks are being distributed
to the unsuspected public at high prices. Look around you. Almost every
butcher, clothing salesman, barber, liquor saleman, office clerk,cab driver, and shoeshine boy own stocks. They probably read The wall Street Journal and they are generally well informed---but also emotional about their investments. When I was in Honolulu , this spring sunning on the beach of Waikiki, I learned that most of the people on the beach with me owned stocks---and all were bullish. They seemed to know exactly what they were doing. However, they appeared over confident to me. Even though everyone I talked to had losses at the time, they were absolutely sure that the stock market would rally again, and that they would come out of it with handsome profits. Why did they believe this ? Most of them
subscribed to bullish services, their brokers were bullish and TV commentators were also bullish. Inflation, they felt , was here to stay . How could they be wrong ? Their stocks were their best investments, and they all seemed to believe that the US government would turn inflationay and that stocks would go through their old high up to the clouds. People would tell me, " It's a sure thing, just give it time ". the fact remains, however, that stocks were distributed to the public at high prices. If it is true that we now have an estimated 60 million investors in the US, doesn't it also mean that most of this crowd came in when stocks were high in price.? Yes, it couldn't mean anything else. This is called "mass distribution" , an old game among seasoned investors. I would like to submit the though to you that the next part of this huge game is to scare the public out of their holding at low prices. This will be a time where stocks will move from weak to strong hands. It's characterized by the buying of stocks representing "sound value " by seasoned investors
during severe martet reactions. People with plenty of money will buy stocks representing "sound value " for the long pull. This will the area where the public is no longer interested in stocks. Their primary interest will be in money and jobs. This will take place during a major depression .
Let's face it, we are active participants in quite game, a game designed to strip us of our belongings if we don't watch out.

I suspected the public all along.

take care of some steaks, the neighbors and such...I guess in the meantime we teach children the right things in life...tend to the gardens and pray for more Space Missions...

I must say...my Friend...your..."what do we do in the meantime." has me deep in thought...In fact...I am going to sit and listen to Little Wing which is cut number 4 on The Sky is Crying by Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble.........

Although...Hmmmmmmmmmmm...I prefer the term in the kindtime...yes...yes...I rather prefer kindtime...

Molson, my four legged friend and I shall ponder this as he eats his steak I have prepared specially for him...his wisdom is far reaching...he don't say much...but when he does...it truly is worth listening to...

off to serve his Lordship...Lord Molson...

Oh...and a most GIANT GULP of RESERVA to YA!!!

I should have changed but to bother now with so little time left???
I have better things to do.
For me I have about 3 months to go before I do a Ted.
Exit stage left and shut down the PC.

I love reading and would enjoy thank you.
Dad also has a ravenous appetite for good reading too.
It will be well shared.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
More good reading from the Gov't
http://www.tasc.dot.gov/Y2K/NewLetter/letter2.htm

Do you really think so?

A great Saturday at the forum. Thanks!

this creature is still learning,always learning,always searching,,,,,,,

so do I

Tommorrow's Martini will be tipped toward little Shelley Marie, of Huntington, proud owner of a gold piece and hopefully now corrupted to a pre-pubescent gold bug by the likes of you. Well done, o good and faithful servant. Suffer the little children to come unto gold. You are Kitco's version of Joe Camel, enticing the kiddies into a world they never knew existed, far ahead of their tender years, well before their thoughts should turn to such things. Yuletide will never be the same, with visions of sugarplums replaced by Maple Leafs and Kruggerrands, and bright shiny nuggets. A gold bar so hefty, you just want to huggit. Molten hot plat'num pouring in streams...these are a few of my favorite things!

Like I've said in previous posts, I'm not an investor, I'm more Joe Public as far as investments go. Regarding the post about the market: I've been a typical investor as far as the market goes - 401-K funds have seen 20, 30, 40, sometimes over 50 percent gains in various "growth" type funds ( funds connected to the market ) . Anyway, I didn't even pay attention to them really, the money just seemed to grow like magic, pretty nifty. I suspect that most Americans are like me in that regard, you guys might just not realize how little we all know about the market collectively ( I could be worse than most ) . But then for some reason last month I started getting that "bad feeling" when I watched the news, glanced at the cable stock market channel ( MSNBC ? CNBC ? something-NBC ) . Anyway, I started getting spooked. I didn't get spooked from all the asian-this-and-that, or the commentators ( they talk like things are rosey ) , nothing like that. I got spooked when some of the obviously conservative ( bears-in-waiting ) investors started talking about how much cash they were holding. It seemed to be a common theme, investors were holding TONS of cash. Obviously that meant they were pretty convinced that things were going to go down in the long run. So then I started listening to the news a little closer and reading some things on my own, and, well, to make a long story shorter, I'm pretty convinced that things will be rocky for a while. Just so you know it isn't idle talk out of my mouth - I pulled all of my money out of the market and into stable things. If the market goes up, great, I'm and idiot who didn't make as much as he did for the past bunch of years. If it goes down, well that's okay too. The market will no doubt do all kinds of crazy stuff in the next few months - go to 10000, drop to 5000, who knows, who cares. I'm out, and I'll stay out until even the most die-hard-born-again-bull is out, then maybe I'll buy something again. I'm pretty happy about the money that I made in the market, and I feel it was prudent to get out while the market was high ( assuming it's going to go down, like I said, who knows ) . Anyway, again, my .02$US. I'm not suggesting anybody listen to me one way or the other, I probably don't even know what I'm talking about - but that doesn't change the fact that my gut told me to get out, and I did.

Cheers, Envy.

so is this creature

" I didn't even pay attention to them really, the money just seemed to growlike magic, pretty nifty. I suspect that most Americans are like me in that regard,you guys might just not realize how little we all know about the market collectively "

Oh sure. Thanks, Envy. We bust our brains here every day for two years at Kitco analyzing and arguing and pulling news off the wires and dissecting every accent and inflection of "Another," putting up with Hepcat, having to tolerate LGB, and refereeing foodfights, listening to GSC/Old Gold tell us how the stocks are leading the bullion, or the bullion is leading the stocks, day after day after day , and we still lose money, and you and your kind just sit around not knowing even where your put your last account statement and the dough just piles up. It's people like you that give investing a bad name.
And then you have the nerve to come here and tell us how you don't know anything about the markets. Just who do you think you are? And how can you be so cruel?