Quite apart from the predictions of doom and gloom for Kitco under Barts new enforcement policy, I see no stifling of opinion here, quite the contrary. The only thing that seems to be missing is all the name calling.
I like it better this way.
Indeedy
I'm still short gold
I will buy none tomorrow
Huh uh
I found Wealth of Nations in two forms, the first an indexed chapter by chapter rendition and the second an 'en block' version. Tracking the first back to its source I found the index to the website and then found a version of Gibbon's opus. Its been a great night. Goodnight all.
http://www.bibliomania.com/NonFiction/Smith/Wealth/index.html
http://www.shef.ac.uk/uni/projects/gpp/Tapestry/society/aninqu1.html
http://www.bibliomania.com/index.html
http://www.bibliomania.com/NonFiction/Gibbon/DeclineAndFall/
Maybe we're pregnant ?
http://personal12.fidelity.com/gen/reuters/content/stocks/430698.html
goldbug: "If a society is to be free, its government has to be controlled." Ayn Rand.
In my ( single, individual ) view ...
That quote makes a number of assumptions. It assumes that 1 ) you have to take sides, 2 ) there is a point to be debated, 3 ) things progress in a direction, 4 ) freedom and government are mutually exclusive, 5 ) that we've all banded together in some sort of society, and most importantly, 6 ) that anybody cares.
Throwing that quote out there is so much like the stuff I see on television. You've got to be republican or democrat ( or in this case libertarian ) , pro-choice or pro-life, baby boomer or generation-X, pro-Gold or "everybody else".
Life just ain't that simple for me.
I own some gold, and up until recently, I owned some stock. I like some libertarian views, but republicans and democrats make sense sometimes too. I'm all about women ruling their own lives, but I'm not too cool with 8 month old babies being aborted. Life's tough like that and there are a million ways of looking at something ( unless you let television frame the discussion for you )
In other words - you've done a 60'ish kind of thing and made "voting" an issue. Personally, I don't think it's too big a deal. I'm much more interested in what I'm having for breakfast in a few hours and whether my employees are going to produce tomorrow without my intervention.
In short - there's a new game in town. It used to be you had to be either for the home team or the visiting team - now days you can refuse to play, get a glass of wine, and talk about the days events with your friends ... and it's okay.
The Japanesse word/expression "mu" pretty much sums it up. It means in it's most simple form "un-ask the question".
There's a chap who has posted frequently under this handle on the HotCopper forum re: ECM. As I recall, he seemed to know what he was talking about there, also. The same person??
Gold Price Still Sags Despite Plan In Europe to Withdraw Sales Tax
By NEIL BEHRMANN
Special to THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
LONDON -- Gold continues to languish even though European finance ministers agreed last week to remove the sales tax on coins and other gold-investment transactions, dealers said.
The price of gold dipped 90 cents to $290.80 an ounce in New York on Friday, despite the fact that removing the tax will substantially lower the cost of coin and bar purchases in Europe, dealers said.
"The market believes that it will take time for the 15 national EU governments to enact legislation," said Dick Ware, an official at the World Gold Council, a marketing organization for producer companies. But legislation will come quickly and the new European Union directive, which doesn't include numismatic coins, should be in place by the year 2000, he said.
Germany Bucks Trend
Punitive value-added tax, a form of sales tax, played a major part in deterring nations' efforts to mint and market gold coins in the EU, Mr. Ware said. In Denmark, the VAT rate on gold is 25%, while VAT rates are 20.6% in France, 19% in Italy, 17.5% in the U.K. and 16% in Spain, he said. Germany's VAT rate is 15%, but the nation refused to impose a sales tax on the sale of gold coins and bars, said Philip Klapwijk, European specialist at Gold Fields Mineral Services, precious metals consultants.
Since there wasn't VAT on gold transactions there, German sales of coins and bars of around 45 metric tons were well above levels in other EU nations, he said.
Gold Fields Mineral Services estimated that global fabrication of new coins amounted to 94 metric tons last year, up from 60 tons in 1996 but much lower than 147 tons in 1991. Yet the consultants and the World Gold Council said it is exceedingly difficult to gauge European gold coin and bar demand.
To avoid the tax, investors tended to buy gold in offshore centers that import bars and coins including South African Krugerrands, U.S. Eagles, Canadian Maple Leafs and Australian Nuggets. There also aren't estimates of large-scale European physical gold investment, which is well below previous years, gold dealers said.
VAT-Free Activity
"The activity in Germany points to the potential," said Mr. Klapwijk. "Besides locals, Italian, French and other European investors tended to purchase VAT-free coins and bars there," he said.
However, there's a sizable trade in secondhand coins in Europe because
they aren't subject to VAT, Mr Klapwijk noted.
The Gold Council and London Bullion
Market Association began lobbying the EU two years ago, and British Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown pushed for an end to the tax during the British presidency of the EU in the first half of this year, gold dealers said.
"The move will enable physical gold to compete on equal terms with other
forms of investment," said Douglas Beadle, assistant director, legal services at N.M. Rothschild & Sons.
"It can only be good news for the coin market," said Peter Hambro, chairman of the Millennium Gold Coin Co. "Since prices will be lower, we'll be able to raise the gold content of our proposed millennium gold coins to around 14 grams from 13 grams," he said.
Robert Guy, a director of N.M. Rothschild said in a recent speech that the European Central Bank should hold transparent gold auctions to eliminate market uncertainty created by sporadic sales by central banks in countries such as the Netherlands and Belgium. Central-bank gold could be sold directly to the European public, he said.
OLD GOLD -
A very successful international gold trader of 20 + years experience once told me that in his most profitable year ever, he was WRONG 74% of the time. The other 26% were home runs. You are right about limiting loss, though. Even so, occasionally the market will gap up or down on the open and blow right through protective stops. Volatility is where the big money is made. It is also where the risk lays.
Indeedy
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/exclusiv/980713.ex.landmine.legisla.html
Conclusion: Gold goes up when the US dollar is inflating ( obvious ) , but it also goes up during currency crises, at least during non-deflationary periods. We know from first hand experience that gold can go down during deflationary crises ( outside the USA ) , as the SEAsians were forced to sell the gold they had saved. We also know that 90's era CBer's think relatively little of gold during this deflationary era, and tend to sell it or loan it, as it makes little profit for the CB's. A cash crunch could trigger more gold sales or loans.
So, would gold and the US dollar go up again if a European crisis or a Russian revolution occurred? Europe does not seem to be in an inflationary mode, and neither does the USA. The US dollar would certainly go up, but it is not clear whether gold will go up, or repeat the bearish events of SEAsia.
My guess is the following: A EURO crisis -- unlikely during the honeymoon period this year -- might be bullish for gold since we are talking about a western currency crisis. However, without inflation lurking in the background, the desire for gold might be damped, and a gold bear could result instead. If there was a Russian revolution, however, gold and the US dollar would go up, due to fear of uncertainty. All depends on whether a European 'flight for safety' would be to gold and to the US dollar, or just to the US dollar.
When there are so many bearish trends in the price of gold, gold investing experts are best to focus on intermediate-term gains, buying on bottoms, and selling on rallies, or putting a small percentage of their portfolio into gold equities, and holding very long term for the eventual rally.
Is it possible that the FED will inflate the US dollar? Right now the US economy is still fairly strong, but corporate profits are dropping. We still have the GM strike, which may lead to some inflationary labor pressures -- or GM moving more of its operations overseas. One item is fairly clear -- LT interest rates are going to drop for some time, and the yield curve will invert if the FED does not lower rates. Also, the FED cannot let the US dollar rise too much more, given the fragile nature of the world economies. And Japan would benefit from dropping US interest rates. So forces are gathering to inflate the US dollar -- to maintain the stability of the world's currencies -- and to prop up the 'now old' US market bull.
To complicate matters, I think the US 'powers that be' would like the US markets to correct now, so that they can recover by election time. This would certainly bring down the US dollar. However, I don't think this will happen soon, given the sheer volume of foreign investors who want the relative security of US dollars.
Closer to year 2000, there are a number of events that could coalesce to push gold up. Wish gold investing was simpler -- but we are no longer in clearly inflationary times. Gold investing in the 70's was much simpler, because we had only inflation.
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