for Rhody ..
Bear with me .. and remember that I HOPE there is
a 20,000 ton short position too .. Id prefer 50,000.
But I fail to see how a man that wants to borrow
money fails to see this opportunity .. and I fail to
see how a bullion bank that wants to obtain a 5 %
return on its gold also fails to see this at the same
time ...
Assumptions
a. gold = $300
b. lease rate = 1.5%
c. forward rate = 3.5%
d. sum of lease and forward = 5%

1. A man wants to borrow about $300..
2. He goes to bullion bank and leases gold at
1 1/2 percent ..
3. He then has an obligation to return one oz of gold
to bank in one year.
4. He immediately sells gold back to bank for 300
minus the lease cost ( $4.5 ) .. he has $295.5
bank has $4.5.
5. Next step to avoid any risk on the price of gold
rising over the year .. he buys one oz of gold
forward ( from the SAME BANK ) at $300 Plus the forward
rate .. the gold costs him 300 + ( 300*.035 ) = 310.5
in one year. ( he may have to deposit 10%
but I assume he will not )
6. One year passes .. he returns to the bank and
returns $310.5 for his oz of gold.
7. The bank gives him his oz. Then he gives it back
to settle his loan.

Note .. Gold NEVER really left bank. Borrower's
cost was ( 10.5 + 4.5 ) /300 = 5%
.. neither bank nor borrower had any risk associated
with the gold price.
Gold returned the same 5 % to bank .. If the bank
wishes to enter into a slightly riskier deal ..
they can DO THE SAME THING AGAIN WITH THE SAME OZ.
... please find my mistake !! I dont think gold
is such a sterile asset after all.

Euro-Sceptic Launches 'Save The Pound'
Leaflet

Millionaire Euro-sceptic businessman Paul Sykes has started the
distribution of one million leaflets arguing against ditching the pound
and joining the single currency.

http://www.yahoo.co.uk/headlines/19990110/news/915935220-6-1.html

For Mozel ..
If I issue a gold backed bond .. the buyer upon
maturity has the choice of receiving the face value
of the bond OR a nominated amount of gold which
is set at the time of issue of the bond ..
exanple .. I issue a US Gommont 2 % bond face value
$1000 ( matures 2009 ) .. gold backing is 1000/290 0r
3.45 oz of gold.
Upon maturity bond holder has the choice of receiving
3.45 oz of gold or $1000. Bond rate is much lower as
bond is truely link to inflation rather than through
A Greasepan's monkey dumdum inflation miscalculatio

mozel, What are the implications of a gold bond?
This is of real practical interest to me, as I am selling a house that I have to finance for the purchaser, and, I don't care to be looking at the dabchick value of FRN's three years out.
.
Got Legalese?

sorry eso but those gold calls will eat dirt....
if thems ya dreams give me a nightmare.
ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

China's warns against religious meddling

China has warned the United States it will not allow religious issues to be used
as an excuse to meddle in its internal affairs.

China's official Xinhua news agency reports, the director of the State
Administration of Religious Affairs, Ye Xiaowen, made the point in a meeting
with Robert Seiple, special representative of the US Secretary of State.

Mr Ye says the Chinese side is willing to increase exchanges with other
countries in the field of religion on the basis of equality and mutual respect.

But he says China opposes any act of using the religious issue to interfere in
the internal affairs of other countries.

For Mozel/Erle ..
Gold bonds would be ideal way for individual Euro
countries to raise money .. face value could be
nominated in any currency .. and backed by equivalent
gold.
The obvious most likely countries to do this
would be gold producers .. ie for example RSA or
Auatralia .. rather than SELL their gold .. back bonds
with it at say 1/3 of their present cost of raising
money and keep the gold as reserves.. How about a
grass roots movement for Disney as Treasury Secretary
of the Southern Hemisphere.

@ERLE One suggestion is to buy a hedge with the first tranche. You might also sell the note ( just like the bank you are functioning as ) and park your liquid as you see fit.

@The True size of the Gold Short is the accumulated deficit of production versus demand. Consumption for fabrication demand is presumably known as is gold production. The deficit of other demand is kind of a day to day function of confidence in government bonds, the banking system, and the like, isn't it ?

@OK, so I am to give you paper as a loan and on the due date you are to give me paper plus paper back and if you don't or if your paper is depreciated, you are going to give me gold at my option. Hmm, if you can't offer gold now, why should I anticipate you will be able or willing to do so if you or your paper get into difficulty ?

On the other hand, if you have gold, why don't you just lease it out to raise paper ?

Now, if you want to borrow gold from me on a bond, then I hope you have something tangible to put up as collateral.

You answered the better part of my question before I asked it.
I was off, letting the dogs out, and got out of sequence. My dogs don't make any decent stock picks, as does yours.
I do need to finance a house sale, and appreciate the gold backed reply.

Being a simpleton, I'd like to KISS.
For the sake of an example:
Sell property for 100,000
The buyer offers a balloon at 3 Yr @ 10% interest
I say, "You can have it for 100,000/POG ( fixed at date of sale ) @ 4% gold interest."
Let the buyer take care of the hedge cost. I'll get the property back if there is a default.

http://cgi.pathfinder.com/time/daily/0,2960,18010-101990109,00.html

http://minerals.er.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/platinum/stat/tbl10.txt

Father and son form a golden circle

MINING CONTROL

By JULIE WALKER

EXPECT a tidying up of some messy corporate structures, but don't
expect father and son Roger and Brett Kebble to take up arms
against each other. Both are on the board of Consolidated African
Mines ( CAM ) and Brett is on the JCI board.

"We're partners," says Brett. "Roger has technical skills and I have
my skills. We both have a role in dealing with the assets within the
groups."

CAM's investments include 29% of Randgold, 34.9% of Saflife ( itself
a holder of 30% of JCI and 47% of Capital Alliance ) and a direct 6%
of JCI. CAM is trading at a discount to the value of those three
investments alone.

CAM itself has a widely spread shareholder base with BNC
Investments the largest. BNC is jointly held by the Kebble family and
Mzi Khumalo. There is no love lost between these two parties
following the disasters at JCI where Khumalo was chairman, and it
was inevitable that BNC would be dissolved.

It seems likely that Khumalo will settle for the non-gold interests of
CAM ( property and Capital Alliance ) and the Kebbles will pool their
resources to build up a gold-mining business.

Khumalo says he intends to pursue his plan for an African-based
multi-commodity company with access to international markets, and
plans to make an announcement this month.

A source said it was likely he would sell his Capital Alliance stake.

Kebble is also taking a renewed look at empowerment: "In a business
such as mining where most of the employees are black, the biggest
contribution to empowerment should be through enriching the
employees themselves. We saw JCI as an opportunity to achieve that
concept, not as a means of enriching single individuals.

"Khumalo's disappearance from JCI doesn't put an end to our
concept of non-racial empowerment," Kebble says.

But the "fickle finger of fate" decreed to lop $100/oz off the gold
price, while coal and chrome also fell, taking investor confidence with
it. JCI proposes to sell its coal and chrome assets and exchange its
best gold assets for Lonrho scrip which will be cashed in.

These deals still have to be approved by shareholders and, depending
on how they vote, there will still be a gold-focused JCI centred on
Randfontein Estates, Barnex, Freddev, Kimberley Resources and
other assets. "We will begin to rebuild from there. Randfontein will be
a big generator of cash over the next five years."

Kebble senior is chairman of Durban Deep, which lies close to
Randfontein. Kebble junior says that if there were to be any deal,
Durban Deep would be treated as an investment and not be merged
with Randfontein.

Kebble junior notes that with CAM owning 29% of Randgold, the
two are "perfect partners". He is particularly impressed with
Randgold Resources.

 See Page 5

Kebble invites JCI's critics to eat his hat

QUARTERLY RESULTS

By JULIE WALKER

WHAT a difference a gold hedge makes. JCI took some steps
towards silencing its critics with a robust performance during the
September quarter. The restructuring of Western Areas' gold hedge
yielded revenue of more than R80 000/kg ( $533/oz ) against the early
R50 000/kg earned by stablemates Randfontein and Joel.

Group gold production increased 2.5% to 10 508kg and costs were
lowered. The net effect was an increase in profit from gold from
R3-million in the June quarter to R160.5-million.

Only a quarter ago, it was anticipated that Western Areas would be
heavily in the red by year-end. JCI chief executive Brett Kebble
brought a hat to the press conference and offered its consumption to
those sceptics who doubted that Randfontein could ever again make
a profit: it made R31-million against last quarter's R17-million loss.
Kebble himself seems to be wearing a new hat: only months ago he
was the most anti-hedging man in town.

But everything comes at a price: Randfontein shed 3 261 jobs and
several thousand more will go when it takes over the Western Areas
North shaft operations in a sale scheduled shortly. Another 160 jobs
will also go at JCI head office.

The North shaft is a lossmaker, but does bear 15-million ounces of
gold which might be better tapped out of near neighbour Randfontein.
Randfontein probably will not part with actual money to access
Western Areas North: some kind of option will be arranged so that
Western Areas' shareholders are not prejudiced.

Western Areas will become the vehicle through which JCI's quality
gold portfolio is built. Its first purchase will be the much smaller but
equally promising HJ Joel mine in the Free State, also currently
managed by JCI.

The sale of the North division leaves the mine with production of 400
000oz of gold a year at a cost of $240/oz. With Joel, production will
rise to 665 000oz a year ( rising to 1.2-million ounces by 2003 ) at a
cash cost of $226/oz. Kebble says the new Western Areas will be
the vehicle for JCI Ltd's emerging gold interests in Africa, Australia
and southeast Asia.

Kebble was asked whether or not JCI was being "transferred" into
Western Areas with no real change. Randfontein Estates will buy in
Lindum Reefs as well as Western Areas North division to house the
quantity gold mines - high-volume, low-margin operations. The rump
of JCI will bear the base metal operations ( about which chairman Mzi
Khumalo was less than enthusiastic only a few weeks ago ) and is still
aiming to buy Anglo American's Lonrho stake.

The coal operations are being sold to Lonrho/Duiker. The mining
exploration and mineral rights portfolios in Barnato Exploration and
Freddev will be tidied up and passed to Western Areas, which retains
25 exploration staff out of JCI.

Kebble says a little exploration expenditure at Western Areas can
result in several million more ounces gold reserves in the Ventersdorp
Contact Reef, which to him makes more sense that exploring in Africa
at the moment.

JCI will also have a large but passive investment in the two gold
mining companies as the management contracts will be dissolved and
services formerly provided by JCI head office will be undertaken by
the mines themselves. Khumalo agrees that JCI will become an
operating company strong in base metals but seeking to maintain the
gold investments.

Kebble says there is a net cost saving of $25/oz of gold at Western
Areas and $16/oz at Randfontein by taking out the management
contracts.

Randfontein, already more than a century old, will have another 23
years of life. Western Areas has plenty more: Kebble says it is one of
the world's great gold assets. American Barrick has a rating 10 times
higher than Western Areas, which clearly piques Kebble: he is
determined to redress this.

All the group's mines have managed to secure full calendar and
productivity agreements with the workforce. Western Areas South
gets another 78 production shifts a year and Randfontein 75.

The results were announced into a weaker gold market and the share
prices mainly eased: JCI 25c to R26.75, Randfontein 50c to R11 and
Joel by 25c to 370c, while Western Areas climbed to R40.

Quo vadis JCI? Khumalo says things are becoming clearer and
answers will be coming in due course.

Sounds good to me. I need a place to live free for three years. Where is it anyway ?

Hedgehog. Thank you for your kind words !! NOT !

FYI : Ommmmmmm is actually spelt AUM. Each letter having seperate significance. A and U being my favourites. What do you dream of ?

ERLE : Truimphs are great. The best belong to other people ( so they can fix them ) . I borrowed one a few years back and rode it the length of Thailand. That was an adventure, and the older generation locals much appreciated it.

Wickenburg, Arizona.
The townies are some of the finest people that you'll ever meet.
An added plus, the house is Y2K stand alone.

If you don't mind getting the place back in case of default, why don't you just rent it ?

If you ever make it to Wisconsin, USA , we'll have to go pub crawling on some nice Triumphs, or Guzzis, or Benelli Sei, or BSA, or AJS.
I 'll guess that any Triumph that you rode over there has about 150,000 hard miles on it.

I'd rather get the "earnest money" and the first year payment, and then let the buyer default, if that is the case.
Didn't you see the deals that the Whitewater buyers got from the Clintons?

snooze time

I see.

It seems to me the gold leasing we hear so much about is actually one form of DisneyBond.

Gold and paper just don't appear to mix in settlement very well.

I would not be surprised to learn that there was an expectation in some quarters that gold could be leased against demand for a longer period than actually has been the case. I think the plan was for a gradual decline in the POG, just enough decline to assure the lender got his gold back. But, the greedy fund boys got in the act and rushed everything along to its conclusion.

Don't want to turn this into a bikers get together - but you said a Benelli Sei. My first bike was a little red Benelli and I once rode a 750 Sei. I've never heard anyone ever mention one before.

My all time dream bike : Laverda Jota.
Your offer appreciated.

Firstly GOLD 400 then I'll climb on a plane !

The millenium bug:

http://www.thesitefights.com/wepatrol/mil_bug.gif

Interesting. Actually I have never heard of Black Gold until AURATOR mentioned it existing in Laos.

Your post was intruiging. From what do you quote ?

http://www.cairns.net.au/~sharefin/Charts/Swingcharts.htm

We have now seen the initial buy-in which produced the massive upward momentum surge.
Like in the past this is the trigger for a new rally.
Now we are coming into the distribution phase where the strong sell to the weak and the indexes march higher.

When this tapers off - which should take in three or so cycle waves of the swing.
We should see the swing oscillate down to below the zero line.
Then there should be a strong rally on the swing which indicates the last buy in from the weakest of hands.

At the crest of this final upwave should be the time to be getting short.

This is my reading of the chart over the last few years.

An intitial strong wave followed by the swing oscillating down to below the zero line .
Then comes the last up swing before the indices start to fall.

Not saying that it will perform true this time but we will watch and see.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_btl/19990108_xcbtl_the_phenom.shtml

---------------------------------
The Presidents Council on Year 2000 Conversion
First Quarterly Summary of Assessment Information
http://www.y2k.gov/new/FINAL2.htm

-----------------------
Year 2000 Unites Healthcare Industry Leaders To Set Standard For Contingency Plans
http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/990107/odin_group_1.html

---------------------------
Emergency Centers to Battle Bug
Agencies to Join ForcesTo Aid Y2K Conversion
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/WPlate/1999-01/08/178l-010899-idx.html

-------------
What of spikes and brownouts?
http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=000NAd

Some time ago I read about a gold euro coin.
Does anyone know if one is planned.
Simon

Here's a thought-- Would it not be in the interest of the bank and the borrower to have a higher POG? The idea being that the higher the POG, the more dollars to borrow and lend. What is the incentive to keep Gold at $300 or lower?

FYI from Virginia Beach, VA...FEMA is now running preparedness commercials on
the radio...heard one tonight! The station was WFOG-FM. FEMA just put up a
preparedness page on their web site. Also, the FEDS now have a toll free
number you can call for y2k updates...Called...it is all 'iffy maybe" with a
charming female voice. That number is
1-888-usa-4y2k..translation...1-888-872-4925.

Pass the word....I think we should all be in prayer.

---------------------
Got gold, grub and what ever else you may thing you need???

THE Y ZERO K PROBLEM
While browsing through some dust-covered archival material in the
recesses of the Roman Section of the British Museum a researcher
recently came across a tattered bit of parchment. After some effort he
translated it and found it was a letter from a man called Plutonius with
the title of "magister factorium", or keeper of the calendar, to one
Cassius. It was dated, strangely enough, 2 BC, December 3, or 2,000
years ago today. The
text of the message follows:

Dear Cassius,

Are you still working on the Y zero K problem? The change from BC to AD
is giving us a lot of headaches and we haven't much time left.

I don't know how people will cope with working the wrong way around.

Having been working happily downwards forever, now we have to start
thinking upwards. You would think that someone would have thought of it
earlier and not left it to us to sort it all out at the last minute.

I spoke to Caesar the other evening. He was livid that Julius hadn't
done something about it when he was sorting out the calendar. He said he
could see why Brutus had turned nasty. We called in the consulting
astrologers, but they simply said that continuing downwards using minus
BC won't work. As usual the consultants charged a fortune for doing
nothing useful.

As for myself, I just can't see the sand in an hour glass flowing
upwards. We have heard that there are three wise men in the East who
have been working on the problem, but unfortunately they won't arrive
until it's all over. Some say the world will cease to exist at the
moment of transition.

We're continuing to work on the Y zero K problem and I'll send you a
parchment if anything develops.

Best regards,
Plutonius

information on trading during a full moon. Here are the results. So far this year we have had 10 full moons. Only two fell on a weekend so we used the following Monday as the "full moon day". We asked the computers to look for any patterns on the 3 trading days before a full moon day, and ( since everyone wants to buy an option, hold it for a week, and hit a home run ) on the 5 trading days after a full moon day. What we found is very interesting. As you learned above, full moon days close up 83% of the time. AND that is the worst day to be short, as the average drop on a full moon day is only 20.10 points on the Dow. BUT, shorting before the full moon does much better. The average cumulative drop during the three days BEFORE a full moon trading day is 90.40 points. That's the equivalent of over 10 points on the OEX. AND, the best day of the three to be short, or in puts, is the day BEFORE the full moon, which averages dropping 35.20 points. BUT, if you really want to go for a big lick in puts, study this. The average cumulative drop in the week ( 5 trading days ) after a full moon is 168.80 points. That's 19 points on the OEX and not bad for a weeks work. The best day to be short is the THIRD day after the full moon trading day, which averages dropping 72.50 points. The second best day to be short is the FIRST day after the full moon trading day, which averages dropping 35.60 points. Now before you start thinking that this full moon stuff is a bunch of bull, tell us how much and on what day was the biggest one day drop in 1996 ( so far ) . We'll even give you a hint. Elaine Garzarelli had nothing to do with it. While your at it, tell us how much and on what day was the biggest one, and two day drops in 1995. Give up? The biggest one day drop in 1996 was - 216 points on March 8. It was the THIRD day after the full moon. The biggest one day drop in 1995 was - 133 points on July 19. It was the fifth day after the full moon. The biggest two day drop was that day and the day before, the fourth day after the full moon when the Dow dropped - 58 for a total two day drop of - 191 points. Of the 15 biggest one day drops in 1996 so far, 11 of them were within the time frames examined by our computers during the full moon each month. Ten of them fell in the "week" after the full moon. If we ignore the Garzarelli selloff days that means that only 2 of the biggest drops this year have NOT been during a full moon. Making 10 out of 13 of the biggest drops hitting after the full moon. All other things equal, we know of no better time to be holding puts. Only once in the past year has holding puts right after a full moon not worked very well. That full moon was also a "Blue Moon", proving once again that that old saying of "once in a Blue Moon" really is something unusual.

http://www.iht.com:80/IHT/TODAY/SAT/FIN/hkrate.html

AUM is merely your literal interpretation of a song some of us sing, have a cigar, things could be better but not yet, not march, not december.
Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
MARITIME UNION OF AUSTRALIA ( they have it wired ) yehhhhhhhhhhh..

Nine dead and 100 injured in department store blaze in China

At least nine people have died, and more than 100 were injured, in a fire at a
department store in the Chinese province of Sichuan.

A report carried by Hong Kong's RTHK radio said more than 500 firemen
battled the blaze which completely gutted the store.

The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Meanwhile, nine people died when a minibus ran off the road in eastern China's
Jiangxi province.

According to the official Xinhua news agency, the bus was carrying 38
passengers when it plunged into a mountain valley.

Two Chicago police officers shot, one fatally -- 1/10/99, 1:06 AM
Former Sen. Paul Simon released from hospital after bypass -- 1/10/99, 12:12 AM
w
Three homeless men die in downtown Charleston fire -- 1/10/99, 12:11 AM
Clinton dines with juror, family member -- 1/10/99, 12:09 AM
Anger flares at funeral for woman shot 12 times by police -- 1/9/99, 9:12 PM
Triplets saved after each suddenly stopped breathing -- 1/9/99, 8:55 PM
Report: In Poland, former slave laborers under Nazis threaten -- 1/9/99, 8:39
Pw
Shore 60 -- 1/9/99, 8:36 PM
Mormon church cuts e-mail from missions -- 1/9/99, 8:26 PM
FL-LOT-Lottery Glance -- 1/9/99, 8:02 PM
Catholic diocese recruiting priests on the Web and MTV -- 1/9/99, 7:20 PM
Riots break out for second day in Indonesian town -- 1/9/99, 7:13 PM
Romance ends in death for teen couple -- 1/9/99, 6:52 PM
Quinnipiac 81, St. Francis 62 -- 1/9/99, 6:51 PM
Dominican general arrested in probe of journalist's death -- 1/9/99, 6:43 PM
France honors 100-year-old former doughboy -- 1/9/99, 6:34 PM
CBS News executives chafe at decision to favor football over -- 1/9/99, 6:32
PM7
Polish president says country ready for 'new chapter' with Jews -- 1/9/99,
6:207
Addict caught with dog pills -- 1/9/99, 6:17 PM
Kidnappers on Chechnya border abduct boy, kill policeman -- 1/9/99, 6:10 PM
9-year-old girl killed when car crashes through house window -- 1/9/99, 5:53
PM7
Postal rates a penny higher for first-class letters -- 1/9/99, 5:45 PM
Rebels release executive who traded places with kidnapped -- 1/9/99, 5:44 PM
Planned pig shoot turns into pig slaughter -- 1/9/99, 5:44 PM
Albanian reportedly arrested in plot against Americans -- 1/9/99, 5:32 PM
CBS says it breaks even on first year of NFL football -- 1/9/99, 5:28 PM
Rebels' No. 2 leader invites U.S. officials to visit zone -- 1/9/99, 5:27 PM
Northwestern 59, Illinois 46 -- 1/9/99, 5:23 PM
Palestinians demand re-starting of Wye River pullback -- 1/9/99, 5:14 PM
Davis' education ideas carry on get-tough reform legacy of -- 1/9/99, 5:14 PM
U.S. religious envoy visits China ahead of human rights talks -- 1/9/99, 5:12 P7
30 Cuban railroad guards sentenced for looting state food -- 1/9/99, 4:40 PM
Women arrested at airport with 13 suitcases of marijuana -- 1/9/99, 4:37 PM
Dog track closed after six dogs die of mystery illness -- 1/9/99, 4:33 PM
Cult members return to Denver from Israel -- 1/9/99, 4:30 PM
With AM-Clinton-Impeachment, Bjt -- 1/9/99, 4:21 PM
EU chief names Helmut Kohl as possible successor -- 1/9/99, 4:13 PM
House, White House lawyers work on strategy; Lott pledges -- 1/9/99, 3:47 PM
Congolese survivors say rebels killed hundreds in eastern -- 1/9/99, 3:45 PM
Marine is awarded Purple Heart for heroism in Kenya

http://www.friedberg.com/newsletter/index.html

Firstly, M.U.A. actually stands for the Ministry of University Affairs here in Thailand.

Not by March ? Aw Shucks. Nor December? Say it ain't so. You're killing me. My broker promised me it was a dead certainty. Really.

I had EVERYTHING pinned on these options paying off this year.... New House, New Car, new threadz, : ) University education for my 7 teenage children etc.

Now what am I going to do ? S'pose I'll have to go .....deep breath now...ready for it.....

AUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM !! : (

My Dear Felow-kitcoites,
Who has put his foot in his mouth, or is it in the ass, more than
I have done, on this kitco discussion-grp.-board; one musn't
ever give up, I'm told. Had T. Edison done so, we'd still be
reading by a flickering candle-light, that might burn us, and
the whole house down, deep in the darknes of these cold winter
nights.
What I'd like to seek your indulgence of, is your boundless
patience, to read the 'rough-draft' that folows-- mind you
it is 6 or 7 pages long -- and if you so choose; you mght be
graciously wiling, to-email me back, a reply, of your feed-back/comments/creative-edtorial-suggestions:
to improve upon its content & style. I hope, soon
( -and long overdue ) to publish this article,
and many more 'editorials;, mine & others,
as well as useful technical timing chats,
for those so interestd, on my own web-site, yet to be born.
And your sincere feedback would be greatly apreciated.

My current e-mail addresses are:
goldfever@k-online.com>goldfever@k-online.com>goldfever@k-online.com
and/or
essene@k-online.com>essene@k-online.com>essene@k-online.com>essene@k-online.com

I intend that this new web-site of mine, whether I post it
at geocities, or wherever; will be a non-subscription site
to all interested visitors; dedicated to the
eradication of economic and monetary illiteracy,
upon our planet.

May the spirit of new-birth, and eternal truth, inspire and
renew us, one and all, as we embark uon our individual paths,
into the unknowns of this promising new year.

Best Wishes always,
David Blair Macrory
San Diego, CA 01/10/99
goldfever@k-online.com
essene@k-online.com
P.S.
Here is my articles draft ( all copyrights reserved, thank-you ) ;
..............

Subject: A 20th century Boom-to-Bust cycle: Will 1999 follow
in 1929s footsteps ?!

"We at the height, are ready to decline." Shakespeare
"The only thing we learn from history, is that we fail to learn from history." Santyana
"When the ego, or a society, has reaped the full hell of false security and status,, for which they have
so vainly sought; they are at the point of collapse, and rebirth." Oscar Ichazo

This article is written in the tradition & spirit of the American colonial revolutionary  Paul Revere.
I offer it to you, the reader, in dedication to. "Liberty" -- the interconnected principle of: monetary, economic, political, and personal freedom. May the modern-day monetary and economic revolutionists among us, rise up, unite, and petition our governments, for a redress of our grievances.

From Don Bauder, San Diego Union-Tribune, 01/05/99 :
( copyright, The San Diego Union-Tribune, 1998-99 )
"I believe that this year, there will be one or two or more economic shocks that will bring on a panic, causing the worlds central banks to lower interest rates and print money massively  rescuing
stock markets, but not curing the underlying economic cancer."

From Thomas Jefferson:
"If the American people, ever allow their banking system, to control their money, first by inflation, then by deflation; their children will one day, wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

From the brilliant Austrian economist Ludwig vonMises:
"Government is the only agency, that can take a useful commodity like paper,
slap some ink on it; and make it totally worthless."

The purpose of this article, and text below, is to hopefully share some light ( -fresh perspective ) , and maybe some warmth ( -useful knowledge ) ; that might be helpful. If we learn how to best take care of ourselves in an unfolding decade of "Economic-Winter"; perhaps then we can help  by petitioning our governments -- in finding the larger solution  establishing a common, international, enduring, stable monetary system. And if enough of us get a good understanding of what is really going on, and what to do about it; then maybe, the generations of the next century, will not have to repeat a similar fate and folly, as the destructive boom-bust super-cycles of excess, that have so plagued the 20th century.

From Robert Hemphill, Credit Manager of Federal Reserve Bank, Atlanta, Ga. :
"This is a staggering thought. We are completely dependent on the commercial
banks. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation, cash or credit. If
the banks create ample synthetic money we are prosperous; if not, we starve. We are
absolutely without a permanent money system. When one gets a complete grasp of the
picture, the tragic absurdity of our hopeless position is almost incredible, but there
it is. It is the most important subject intelligent persons can investigate and reflect upon.
It is so important that our present civilization may collapse unless it becomes widely
understood and the defects remedied very soon".

A growing body of evidence suggests that this unfolding decade of "Economic-Winter", will not be unlike the 1930s, as it relentlessly grips and overtakes the worlds national economies, as they collapse, one by one, like so many proverbial, falling dominoes.
From my 09/27/97 post, at web-site kitco.com:
"When the tent collapses,
it will not be the center post
that goes first;
but the side-posts,
and even the takes."

By seeking a reasoned, open-minded, objective inquiry, we might well-conclude that the evidence is accumulating: a decade or more, of "Economic-Winter", is unfolding upon the world, including the U.S. & Europe. These approaching hard-times are now knocking at the doors of even the stronger nations, as their trading ports pile up with cheap foreign imports, undermining their domestic producers, and collapsing their own exports for abroad. The U.S.s international-trade imbalance continues to hemorrhage with a flood of U.S. dollars being pumped out into the world. Pretending that we can import something real  goods & services, from abroad  with phony, un-real paper money & artificial credit, which serves only to place the U.S.s economic-neck, deeper into a nose, controlled by the whim, and the-self-preservation instincts, of free, foreign capital flows. If foreign investment capital gets nervous enough about the fragile stability and unfounded "soundness" of the U.S. economy; such capital flight will undermine our stock & bond markets, in a matter of a few short, shattering weeks; just as it has in so many other countries, since mid-1997. And the new Euro, may well be proven to be a welcome alternative to once "King-Dollar", eventually sounding its death-knell.

So the hard-times of Economic-Winter is just beginning to be obviously felt in the developed West -- knocking at the door of U.S. and European markets. As foreign money begins to withdraw from the U.S. paper-dollar, & her bonds & stock markets; that sacred-cow known as "consumer-confidence" will begin to worry, then wobble, and then collapse; especially as U.S. corporate layoffs accelerate, and unemployment begins to rise once again, like an over-due coiled serpent, of relentless, pent-up frustration and fear. And in such a lop-sided economy, where indulged credit-card consumers, and plentiful services, make-up two thirds of the Americas mercurial, economic-pie; we find a pie that can flip-flop, and get easily burned to a crisp  on consumer-spending exhaustion  tapped out on over-extended instalment debt, with nary a per-capita savings-cushion to weather any slighest, lay-off, or surprising lay-off,
with an economic down-turn.

Meanwhile, the deflationary collapse and spreading depression have already broken down the door, and flooded the nations of  the markets and economies -- of many recently thriving, but smaller countries. Like so many falling dominoes, we have seen one after another country topple into economic decline, recession, and out-right depression. There are deep-seated, and ominous implications that the resulting wide-spread poverty portends, for the stability of our political world.

As one single, poignant example: a thriving, frugal, conscientious middle-class, in South Korea ; having been, in less than a year, virtually crushed, by wide-spread layoffs & unemployment; so much so that they are forced to place their children into state run orphanages, to insure that they are at least fed.

All the doors of the strongest, developed nations, appear to holding firm but for perhaps a moment longer; supposedly immune, to this spreading monetary-cancer & credit malaise -- this deflation-contagion -- of Economic-Winter. But the international monetary systems cancer cannot help but spread world-wide, and sweep it s way thru all national borders and economic systems. It is inevitable
that even the so-called strongest nations will succumb to this monetary & credit Titanic, for we are all part and parcel of this corrupted, international monetary system, even though once dominated by & determined by the U.S. dollar. We, in No. America and Europe, still prefer to distract ourselves, largely living in denial and wishful thinking, while the blind  our so-called leaders -- continue to lead the blind  our gullible, nave citizenry. This is particularly the case in the U.S., and to a lesser extent,in Westeern Europe.

The smaller, less developed countries are always the weakest-links, in the global economy, and the first to succumb. And so another decade of Economic-Winter, as it unfolds, will overtake the U.S. & Europe with it. Similar to the 1930s, it may however, be more intense, & protracted this time, as it happening on a global, and simultaneous scale.

And yet, by seeking the light of truth and understanding, as to how this has come about, and why; and what can be done about it; we might discover how best to keep ourselves informed, and "warm", in the midst of a protracted Economic-Winter. There are unique opportunities always, all along the way.

Knowledge is power; and right action garners inner-wisdom, and well-being; no matter what outer storm-clouds there are that may be gathering. Collective, mass psychology is often predictable, and even self-defeating. But the individual is always reserved his/her right to free-fill, the innate power of
free-choice, and independent thinking.

As a whole new decade of Economic-Winter is unfolding upon the world, we have a unique opportunity to gain the insight and understanding that can lead us to prudent and timely action, to provide for ourselves, to assist others, and to petition our govermentsfor a redress of our goverments of the underlying errors  the causes  the roots of the problem, that have evolved into this boom-to-bust super-cycle economic world. It has deteriorated into a careening world economy, that is wrecking havoc and misery on multitudes, and relentlessly exploiting the less fortunate and innocent. All the while, such a boom-bust global economy insures the ever-concentration of more and more wealth, in fewer and fewer hands.

If we do our homework now, and take reasoned, bold, individual & cooperative action NOW, we stand a good chance of thus learning to be able to help ourselves, and our children; and the next generation,
by seeking out the largely hidden and overlooked opportunities in these years of Economic-Winter. By best providing for ourselves, and serving those we can, we might live in faith that future generations of the new millennium, will be promised a higher order of economic-seasons unfolding; so that the next up-ward cycle of Economic-Spring and Economic-Summer might flourish, more equitably, and universally, for all peoples, everywhere.

Surely we can find the vision, the courage, and the commitment, to do our part, individually and collectively, to make the next millennium, one of reason, justice, peace, and prosperity, for the greatest numbers of the human family, across national boundaries &, ethnic identities; or regardless of economic power-blocks of self-interest. The coming decades of Economic-Spring and Economic-Summer, which will inevitably follow this decade of Economic-Winter, will usher in the foundation for the greatest chapters so far, in the evolution of humankind. The super-cycles underlying, more moderating, eternally balancing rhythm of life, will not, and cannot, ever be denied. We have but to learn how to best live in harmony with its ebb and flow.

Well into the new millennium, we will look back on this chapter of Economic-Winter, and recognize the boundless & unique opportunities that presented themselves, but only to the informed few; while the masses continued to be led, and lost; like so many blinded leemmings, being mis-guided & led over the cliff--by economic & political spin-doctors from the belt-way; and from virtually every other government & central-banking power-center pundit-elite, internationally.

At this critical, momentuous, turning-point time,when genuine, statesmanship-like, leadership is called for, unfortunately, at least in the U.S.s case,, it seems that the proverbial "nero, continues to fiddle
( -over impeachment ) ; while "Rome", and the whole world are burning. Unfortunately, genuine, courageous statesmanship, rooted in integrity, and possessing far-sighted vision; are an endangered-species  and are virtually no where to be found, in the government & central-banking instituions that are the power-brokers of our world today. Truly, the blind are leading the blind; and the implications are ominous.

It will take an informed, and aroused body-politic of collective-citizenry, working to petition their governments for the reform of both their national, and the international monetary and credit system; a monetary system that will be workable, reliable, constant, universally trusted, and immune to any particular special interests manipulation or control. In order for our global economy to renew and restore itself, all nations must become willing enough to unite on this common denominator  a common medium of exchange, PLUS a universally trusted store of value. These dual functions make up the real definition and meaning, bed-rock, and building-block of "real-money", and of all of civilization.
And in the 20th century, this truth, and timely principle of real money, has been abandoned, for the sake of political expedience, domination, and control. And yet, over 5,000 years of civilization remind us, would we but heed, hear, and learn from the lessons of the past:
gold-backed money and credit, alone, will serve this vital, essential dual purpose and function of real money  the heart-beat of any and all living cultures and societies..

Real money is the basic building-block, and the mortar, that is trusted everywhere; and that insures the equality, liberty, and promise of free-markets, where freely-negotiated trade & commerce can flourish. And where the hope of prosperity stirs in the hearts of all of humanity, across all borders. One day, perhaps as soon as the next millennium, there will b an enduring reign of peace upon our planet, If so, its foundation will be rooted in the universal acceptance and standard of gold-backed money and credit, for all peoples, everywhere.

Meanwhile, weve really got our work cut out for us. We could use a legion, or a million,
"monetary-liberty Paul Reveres", today..arousing the misinformed, sleeping masses. It will most likely take us well into the new millennium to restoring e monetary, economic, political, and personal freedom, for the citizens of the world; and the business-cycle will, sooner or later, turn up again, as the economic-seasons of Economic-Spring and Economic-Summer flourish once again upon the Earth. But for the moment, the immediate future is increasingly ominous, as Nero continues to fiddle ( over impeachment ) , while Rome and the whole world are burning  going down in the consuming flames of crashing currencies, collapsing economies, and orchestrated, suffocating depressions. The immediate outlook is even ore foreboding, more and more national dominoes fall: Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, So. Korea, Honk-Kong, Russia, Taiwan, China, Brazil, and others. Closer to U.S. shores, Mexico is gasping, and Canada is hanging on my by its finger-nails.

Through the evolution of government-monopolized, central-banks, the 20th centurys economies have, by manipulated monetary & banking systems, become distorted into boom-to-bust super-cycles . of ultimate extremes: from mania-excess to deflationary-collapse, and from collapse back to excess, again.
And it is the ultimate hubris, that generously salaried government & central-bankers, are succeeding at nothing but securing our cololective necks, in a collective noose, of their special design;, so that their
own, diabolical plan, which orchestrates itself, with a cathedral of success, lest eloquently heard, in the strangled silence of truths confess.
But for a moment
merely posponed.our collective neck in a nose, of their owm, behind-the-scenes engineering. May the live that lives of those who dream nightly, relentless tormented dreamsfeel the raw screams of evils dreams..missing thee moment of magics eternal, healing team

From Reginald McKenna, a 19th century banker, of England:
"Give me control of a nations money; and I care not who makes the laws.

1999 could be shaping-up as a repeat of 1929. Governments have garnered awesome ( -though little understood- ) power over their citizens, through their central-bank institutions, which have abandoned the independence, discipline, integrity and accountability -- that real, gold-backed money would provide. They have replaced it with paper currencies and artificial credit, which are continually created by the billions, at will  for the sake of political expediency. They attempt to control and manipulate the financial and economic affairs of their citizens. 20th century governments have sanctioned their central banks with virtually unlimited power over the meaning, value, and availability
of money  currency & credit.

With the pretense that they know what theyre doing, central bankers more often react, often clumsily, to
the otherwise free, natural economic changes of the market-place. Rather than controlling and managing, sooner or later they make matters worse; as they mushroom or withdraw money supply, and fiddle with interest rates. But what is really going on, is much bigger than any group of men & institutions -- of any nation or alliance -- can manage or control. Over several generations, there has been an exponential growth in peoples expectations, and dependency, on government. This is at the heart of the international monetary crisis, spreading deflationary collapse, and Economic Winter, that are sweeping the world.

An otherwise moderating business-cycle has been replaced or eclipsed, as boom-bust economies -- from excess to austerity -- have increasingly characterized all national economies in the 20th century. These politically contrived and cancerous monetary and credit systems, are dominated by the U.S. dollar. The U.S. paper-dollar, as the worlds reserve-currency, has, for generations, become the high-octane money and credit fuel  driving the world to a debt-pyramided precipice, of over-extended , debt-bloated,
bubble-economies, around the globe.

The extreme, inflating bubble-boom times, are followed by the bust times  ushering in global deflationary depression, which overtakes the smaller & and more fragile national economies first. This Economic-Winter is repeating again, similar to the 1930s. It is a 20th century phenomenon of modern civilization. As the dominant theme of this tumultuous century, this boom-bust super-cycle is now carrying the world into an Economic-Winter, that is spreading inevitably, and unavoidably, from nation to nation, and from one region to the next.

This world-wide, economic-season of Economic-Winter could persist for a generation or more. What is needed is bold, cooperative international leadership, rooted in integrity If it does not come to the world-scene, and soon..with genuine leadership dedicated to monetary & credit reform, and to establishing a common, international money and credit system, acceptable to all nations in the global economy; then the global Economic-Winter, which began in the summer of 1997, will persist for years to come.

Economic-Winter appeared first, in some of the global economys so-called weaker-links : Southeast Asias Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and S. Korea in1997; then Russia, and more recently, Brazil and South America, in 1998. Such extreme, prolonged hard-times ( like the U.S. in the 30s ) , can indeed, be identified as an unfolding Economic-Winter. At this millennium-time, it is declaring and establishing its place, within historys super-cycle time-frame. It is one of the economic-seasons, that are characteristic of the 20th centurys boom-to-bust, business-cycles of extremes.

At this critical, momentuous time, when genuine statesmanship-like leadership is called for;
unfortunately, at least in the U.S.s case, it seems that the proverbial: Nero, continues to fiddle,
( - with impeachment ) ; as Rome, and the world, continue to burn.

The so-called "Asian contagion", is a misnomer: there is no "Asian" contagion. It is a world-wide
monetary & credit contagion, built on the false premise -- rooted in political manipulation and expediency -- that some thing real ( -such as real money ) , can be created out of nothing. The experience of the 20th century, includes two persistent, virulent themes: mans exploitation of, and inhumanity to, his fellow-man; and the relentless rape of the earth and her resources. These are both symptoms of, and by-products of, economies careening from excess to austerity & back again  due to a corrupting monetary and credit malaise, that afflicts all nations bubble-economies, and societies, today.

The unfolding Economic-Winter is characterized by nations volatile, collapsing currencies, exhausted demand, excess supply, and deflating credit systems. Meanwhile, growing international tensions with looming trade-wars, threaten the global economys jugular  international trade and commerce. And deepening political and international instability are further fueled by spreading, intensifying poverty  imposed on growing millions of recently middle-class citizens of the nations of the world. One by one, nations faulty currencies collapse, with the flight of free-capital, which always seeks a safe and stable "haven", before it is willing to be invested in productive endeavors.

Symptoms of a bubble-economy , similar to those of other countries which have toppled, also characterize the U.S.: over-valuations in securities & real estate markets; wide-spread speculation; increasingly idled, manufacturing over-capacity; and spreading layoffs with growing unemployment. Meanwhile, the over-extended U.S. economy is undermining itself with one of the lowest per-capita savings rates, among the developed nations. And it continues to consume over 50% of the worlds production and resources, yet has only 6% of the worlds population. A paper-dollar denominated, and dominated, global economy, has, over decades, led the U.S. economy out on a weakening limb  of dependency on foreign capital, cheap labor from abroad, and a tenuous "king-dollar".

Thus, today the U.S finds itself out on a ledge  of ever-expanding, growth in unsustainable credit and debt. There is no possible, gradual return, or gentle re-balancing, from such excesses. Borrowing a nations way, into growth and prosperity, is simply not sustainable, over time.

A growing body of evidence suggests that 1999 could become the fulcrum-point, or turning-point,
for the U.S. economy and markets. Economic-Winter, and hard-times may have begun with capital flight, and monetary turmoil in Southeast Asia, in mid-1997. But it continues to spread around the world, reaching not only Eastern Europe & Russia, and South America & Brazil; but also Hong Kong,
and now, Taiwan and China too, are being impacted.

And Economic-Winter will, in 1999, begin to be experienced more obviously, and widely, including
in the U.S. & European economies; with increasing unemployment, excess capacity, continuing monetary instability, and vulnerable investment markets.




Uniquely, the U.S. has, in a few fast decades, become the largest debtor nation in the world. Were it not for the presence of foreign capital still investing in American stock and bond markets, we would have already experienced the sudden volatility, and the deflationary decline -- even collapse -- that have already over-taken so many other nations. In the global economys politically-dominated, monetary, financial, and economic affairs of nations; there is wide-spread manipulation, misunderstanding, misinformation, wishful thinking, and denial; and a pattern of lemming-like blind-leading-the-blind. This has ultimately pervaded the entire fabric of civilization. It has helped national economies to balloon into the over-development, excess-capacity, wide-spread corruption and speculation that can be seen today, if we are willing to look beneath the surface appearances.

From Proverbs, in the Christian Bible:
"A people without vision, will perish."
Or:
"Where there is no vision; the people are unrestrained."

From Martin A. Armstrong, Princeton Economics International, http://www.pei-intl.com>http://www.pei-intl.com
( copyright 1998 PEI, all rights reserved ) :
"At the height of many of the greatest bubbles in history, one always finds optimism that attempts to explain why this cycle is different, and that a correction will never come. At the depth of the business cycle we often find the lowest level of human confidence, with such prevailing views that things cannot ever get better again."

After decades of credit-fed, over-extended Economic-Spring & Economic-Summer, it is the time in the business super-cycle, for the economic-seasons to change. And once there is a basic understanding of what is really going on, and why; there are always, unique opportunities that can be identified, even in the season of Economic-Winter.

From Shakespeare ( -the parentheses & editing are mine ) :
We at the height, are ready to decline. There is a tide ( -& time ) in the affairs of men; which ( if ) taken at the flood ( -or crest ) , leads on to fortune. ( but if- ) omitted, all the balance of their lives are bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea, are we now afloat. We must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures."

If you wish to explore these ideas further  the root causes, possible solutions, and some of the unique opportunities in this turning-point-time of the business cycle, I have included a few web-site addresses,
as additional sources of information, with the urls listed below. And you are welcome to contact me.

Sincerely,
David Blair Macrory
essene@k-online.com
goldfever@k-online.com
A few of the web-sites I recommend:
http://www.pei-intl.com
http://www.princetoneconomics.com
http://www.the-privateer.com
http://www.kitco.com
http://www.golden-eagle.com
http://www.aicinvestmentadvisors.com
http://decisionpoint.com


Thank-you for your time & consideration; Happy New Year,
David Blair Macrory
San Diego, CA
essene@k-online.com
or
goldfever@k-omline.com
P.S.
My latests article's 'draft' :

http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/990110/l.html

http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/990110/s.html

http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/990110/x.html

http://www.drudgereport.com/matt.htm

http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/990107/bgs.html

**********

The man who works for the gold in the job rather than for the money in the pay envelope, is the fellow who gets on.

**********

Now, if you are feeling too relaxed, tighten up every part of your body .....slowly.....................NOW HOLD................

Aye,

Haggis

GOOD NITE..........

http://www.sgwoozy.force9.co.uk/rangers.html

Clinton is the political version of Ricki Lake, Jerry Springer, and Howard Stern all rolled in to one convenient package. Few people are shocked by the 'Main' Shock Jock of our times. It's been quite a pattern for ol' Slick. First, Pro and Con Clinton people line up on the latest story which generates much heat and little else, and then the inevitable 'emotional let down' occurs. It sort of like getting allergy shots in which you are exposed to greater and greater levels of the allergen over time in order to decrease your sensitivity to the allergen.

The question is, will we go in to anaphylactic shock eventualy? :- ) )

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/bs/story.html?s=v/nm/19990110/bs/dollar_127.html

for mozel ..
My gold back bonds yield a much lower paper interest
than my paper bonds .. Once people realize what a scam
my paper bonds were.. I suggest the paper bond interest
rate would rise to 15 % .. the equivalent gold backed
bond would be say 3 % .. thus the fact that I HAVE
gold .. gives me an implicit 12 % /year return on it ..
in that example .. In the meantime I can lease my gold
out at 5 % annually anyway .. using my prior shell
game lease and buy forward example ..
I can make a lot of money this way .. perhaps even
keep my currency strong enough relative to gold so
that at bond value date the gold option is not
exercised .. At any rate .. its preferable to selling
my gold NOW to raise paper.
the trick is .. keep gold .. get goods .. pay later
by printing money .. its the American way .. its...
PROSPERITY ..

Thank you for posting the links. It looks like the ball is still in play. Brazilian governor making threats on Eurobond moratorium, article on the pending devaluation of the Brazilian currency, and Japan complaining because the FED is letting the dollar's value slip against the Yen. Seems to be playing out like it has to play out. America couldn't let the dollar stay up there forever, nevermind Japan's exports, it was destroying US exports. Japan may now have to fight her final battle, the one thing she had going for her, the loss of her export market. If Japan's exports fall off I guess she'll make one last death spiral before hitting bottom. After that shoe drops she probably has nowhere to go but up. Good fight, good night.

What do you think Japan will do with the US bonds that it owns?

You just sent a chill up my spine.

Did you ever see the movie 'ROLLOVER'?

perhaps more to the point the question is will we go into prophylactic shock.

glad I caught up with you...

wanted to tell you your lad does good work!

Wish I was out your way, I'd love to ride with you guys. I had an FZR 600 but it was stolen this summer, which actually wasn't so bad because it needed some work and was insured. Planning to pick up a GSXR 750, but I'll wait until the last breath of winter before I get it.

Didn't see that one, what's it about ?

It's deja-vu all over again. It's about fiat money, foriegn debt, conspiracy and gold. Only this was made 20 years ago, so it's the arabs not the Japanese.

http://www.moviefinder.com/facts/0,5,14598,00.html

If you are bored some night, go rent it. It's a movie a goldbug might like.

What IF there is more than one bank involved and, hence, counterparty risk, which is brought into play when price volitility is such that defaults occur, and the gold is NOT returned at the end of the lease period?

Seems you either need a ONE WORLD bank or just pray price never is so volitile that defaults occur... Geeze...wonder what AG was worried about with LTCM.

Enough money creation through the gold lease program and ANY default, absent a ONE WORLD bank, on the return of the gold would cause THE big default.

Perhaps I do not understand...or do I?

Tom

Yep, now I remember, not the movie, but Japan's "threat" concerning US Treasuries. Now if that were to happen, it'd be a good day for goldbugs. Beyond the actual threat, could Japan REALLY do it ?

They are between a rock and a hard place. I am sure they are thinking about their problem.

to borrow $300 from the bank at 5% interest without risk of the price of gold changing is to simply borrow it.

Strange how the lease and forward rates work out to the same thing.

Must have something to do with market forces.

There goes my gravy train. Had a company all set up to sell DNA kits for home testing. The kit co. was going to be called "Hoosier Daddy?"

http://www.larouchepub.com/eir_talks/eir_talks_981230.html

In a speech in New York on 6/23/97, Japanese prime minister Ryutaro Hashimoto lobbed a hand grenade at the U.S.: "I hope the U.S. will engage in efforts and cooperate to maintain exchange stability so that we would not succumb to this temptation to sell off Treasury bills and switch our foreign reserves to gold."

http://135.145.5.70/japanbonds.htm
--
I knew I had this old thing in my bookmarks somewhere.

S&P 500 traders, and general stockmarket watchers may be interested to note some compelling aspects in the S&P 500 Futures First Trade Horoscope. I personally place so-called "First Trade" ( usually very first contract of a new future, or first trade of a stock ) dates a notch below corporate incorporation dates for reliability, but they can be very revealing of coming action and significant time windows.

Friday the 15th:
Transiting Mars conjuncts ( lines up with ) S&P Pluto at 25 Libra. This aspect could bring a day or two of volatility, with the intuitive tendency toward a heated blowoff, given market momentum these days. In any event, this is a short term aspect, but not without significant profit potential for short term futures traders.

3rd week in February:
Jupiter conjuncts S&P Moon at 1 degree Aries. Slower moving than Mars, Jupiter's effects upon a Zodiac point can last for a couple of weeks. The "approach" ( the two or three degrees prior to the exact hit ) are usually more telling than the departure, and sometimes even more powerful than the exact aspect. This could be an expansive influence for the index, with toppiness and great enthusiasm.

Mid March:
This is VERY significant - Transiting Saturn lines up with S&P Sun at 1 degree Taurus. The Sun is perhaps the most important degree in any Zodiac. What is very interesting here is that Saturn made this exact aspect in June of '98, went to 3 degrees and retrograded ( apparent "backward" motion ) in August, and came BACK to that 1 degree S&P Sun in early October. You know where the market was THEN! Saturn retrograded back to 26 Aries by the end of December before it went direct ( "forward" ) again, and will hit 1 degree Taurus in Mid March once more. As a rule of thumb, Saturn is often a stern and restrictive influence on anything it conjuncts, opposes ( 180 degree angle ) or squares ( 90 degree angle ) . In contrast to Jupiter, which often brings expansive, sloppy, indulgent influences, Saturn turns the lights out on the party as often as not.

The Astrological question thus becomes: Will Saturn's return to conjunction with S&P 500's Sun herald the same collapse we saw in '98 when it transited back and forth across that degree? A disconcerting corroboration may be coming from transiting Pluto, which is trining ( 120 degree angle - very "benign" and supportive ) NYSE Midheaven right now. NYSE Midheaven is 10 Aries. Pluto goes retrograde at 10 Aries in MID MARCH, just as Saturn reaches full-on conjunction with S&P 500 Futures First Trade Sun. Coincidence? ...or important clue?

Watch for a toppy market in the next several weeks, with clouds possibly brewing in March. A downturn in the stock market after mid March works nicely with the Jupiter conjunction with NYSE Moon ( Silver! ) in early May. If silver is rising steadily through the next two months, we might be seeing an exciting acceleration in silver, and all the PM's in April, with a dramatic blowoff in May.

I read the other day that quite a few ( I don't have numbers ) folks in Saudi Arabia put their money in the bank, but won't accept interest on the money. I'm sure this is a cultural thing, can anyone shed some light on it for me ? Is there some Islamic code that prevents people from charging interest on money loaned ? Thanks for any pointers.

Usury is forbidden by Islam ( one of its finer points IMHO ) . The banks will typically charge a small service charge.

http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~thirdway/files/articles/iswe.html

http://admin.engr.wisc.edu/quest/CLERIC/CLERIC41.htm

http://www.iciec.org/default.htm

Thanks so much for the links Tolerant1, awesome information, especially in that first one. No interest, seems to be working for them. That does have a "nice" feeling to it. Kinda makes you feel like the Western banking system is tainted somehow. If no interest is charged, I can only assume that lending practices are extremely conservative, that the Islamic banks would refuse to lend to ventures that didn't have the highest degree of strength.

Gold is about to start a major move and few are on the train. The true global economic problems are beginning to surface and the degree of risk tied to holding paper is growing by the minute. The thought of being long paper equities over a weekend should be disturbing to all. Brazil is ready to tumble and with it you can expect that blood will begin to flow in the streets. A major collapse of the Dow and European markets will send participants running to gold which in turn will trigger the mother of all short squeezes. My call for gold this week is a breach of the three hundred dollar mark. Gold stocks will quickly come into fashion as investors scramble to hedge their holdings. We are getting very close everyone and the time to celebrate is near.

( perhaps an inelegant phrase when others are talking about Islam... )

but this might save many kitcoites from loads of angst and uncertainty:

When bond yeilds are falling, PM's are falling

When bond yeilds are rising, PM's will follow.

This is a GENERAL rule. A notable exception was during the Great Depression of the 1930's when gold was revalued in the midst of an interest rate decline.

The big question is, therefore, and of course, have bonds topped?
If so, rates will begin to back up and the monetary inflation of the 1990's will begin to make itself felt in some manner, especially as Asian, Latin American, and Eastern European economies resume their expansion into the same world we "westerners" have been living in since the 1950's. Can we deny them that? Will THEY allow themselves to be denied that? I don't think so.

Otherwise, the deflationists will be right and global economic activity will contract, bringing 3 and 4% bond rates, perhaps lower, and world depression. The PM's will fall, along with commodities generally, further still.

I am still sticking with the first scenario, that we are IN the trough of the K-Wave depression phase now, saved only by a decade of chronic money supply inflation and horrendously imbalanced budgets and fudged budgets even today, in the greatest "soft landing" in history.

Gold will be in the thousands of dollars per ounce by 2003. Silver won't be a stick in the eye either.

Avanti.

blood flowing in the streets?

collapsing financial structures?

global economic catastrophe?

the time to celebrate?????


I love the smell of kitco on a Sunday!

I know this is contrary to most of the stuff on television, but why don't we, the US, just leave all these folks alone ? My understanding is that most of the reason the Islamic folks hate us so much is because we mess around in their regional politics and get too involved in their business. Live and let live. I know it's not that simple. I hate to admit it but hearing that Ben Laden fella on television, well, he has some points to consider. I know he helps blow stuff up, and that can't be forgiven with ease, but at the same time when he says why he's doing what he's doing, it sounds like he just wants Islamic nations to have total self determination, that is, he wants the nations of Islam to unite and become a centralized power without influences from the outside getting in their business. I dunno. If folks were throwing cruise missiles over my head, I'd probably want the same thing.

See my earlier astrological post. Don't worry, you can hold selected equities well into March, let alone overnight. In fact I'm off to the library to research some fresh incorporation dates ( fresh bodies! ) for the next wave in the winter of '99/2000. Got to add to the collection. This winter's crop is very nice. We're heading into the big top, but it won't be a sudden reversal and Puetz-like crash. No, not until a couple of big sawtooth waves trace out the ceiling here and get everyone into a real lather. The last money in non-PM stocks is going to be made in the ups and downs of the next year to 18 months.

are you saying that most of the stuff on TV can't be trusted?

Gollum ..
dont be glib .. US prime rate is
7 plus % .. borrow in any other
currency and you ALSO have to
buy forward to cover currency
risk .. I fear you miss the point ..
My gold loan is 5 % and no risk ..

For Mike Sheller ..
thanks .. Ill pass it on ..

: )

Does anybody know in any previous gold price take off's where the party started. In Japan, Europe/London or New York ?

We all hope you're right @Mr. Hatt. Time now I went to bed to dream my dreams. Gollum - silver taking off first I hope...forget deadman's curve, levers etc. Steam ? I think a little nitro would be more appropriate this week.

The coming week will be most interesting. ( Slight understatement )

. Obuchi meets the Pope ! Touts a need for Yen stability in face of Euro. Fearful of US dollar collapse.

. The Chinese in front of their mirrors practising their lies to tell Mr. Greenspan

. The HongKong boy's threatening to use their reserves in conjunction with China, and Singapore's perhaps...

. Euro week 2 - europhoria having worn off after a weekend. Who was going to bet against it week one ? Short honeymoon over.

. The insanely toppy US Market.

. Brazil still a problem. Now threatening Eurobond "default"

. WJC sticking to what he knows best...legalistic timne wasting tactics...

. Iraq declaring Security Council resolutions illegal and irrelevant - calling for punishment of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia

( Have I missed anything ?? )

Monday morning just a timezone away ! And I smell blood. And I like my T-Bones rare.

Kickoff in Tokyo in just a few hours.....Front row seats here at Kitco.
Can I have the website popcorn concession round here ? : )

I donot think anyone on this site takes delight in knowing that a massive redistribution of wealth is about to occurr. I have done my best to warn everyone near to me but somehow the warnings are falling on deaf ears caused by a series of twenty percent plus gains over the last five years. No matter how you cut it the market is dictated by fear and greed. I understand the fear aspect and so should many on this site as we have all had those moments in front of the mirror where we questioned our loyalty to gold. The writing is on the wall for all to see but somehow the U.S. has fallen into the trap of thinking that could never happen to us. Making reference to many Countries around the world that are already in severe depression. Interest rates at 37%, hyper inflation, record unemployment, currency devaluations and worst of all food shortages. Look to Asia, Brazil, Russia and let those economic indicators put fear into your heart.

I ONLY POST THINGS HERE WHEN I FEEL SOMETHING IS ABOUT TO BREAK AND THE FINANCIAL STRUCTURES IN PLACE TODAY WILL NOT BE ABLE TO HELP THIS TIME

to all ..
All the points on the gold loan example appreciated ..
Gollum makes the point why not just borrow at 5 % in
the first place .. Point is I dont think you can ..
Economist gives US prime rate at 7 1/2 % .. The Goverment
Borrows at 5 % by issuing paper around that level ..
The lease and forward rate total to a number that
approximates Government borrowing .. Corporate bonds
are 6.5% .. so if the gold loan scam can be done it
provides the CHEAPEST way to raise money without risk.
... What bothers me is that I have no clue whether or
not this is being done.. if it is .. then much of the
gold leased is not really short at all .. as it has been
bought forward.. and the price may not rocket up as
much as we expect .. and the effect of gold leasing
on the POG has been overestimated.

I have an open mind to most ideas relating to the future but somehow can not let myself buy into astrology. My thoughts are that it is another form of a ponzi game that attracts those that refuse to think for themselves and who donot want to be in control of their own lives. You may be gifted and i may be WRONG but somehow I choose to follow my own direction.

THIS IS AN EXCELLENT ARTICLE FROM THE LOS ANGELES TIMES ON THE PRESENT STOCK MARKET.YESTERDAY THE ARTICLE FROM BARRON'S WAS ALSO EXCELLENT.GOLDTECK Sunday, January 10, 1999 Market Beat Net Frenzy Grows More Acute, as Do History's Lessons By TOM PETRUNO
Never before in the history of U.S. securities markets had shareholders owned so many equities with such stratospheric price-to-earnings multiples." Another critic of the Internet stock frenzy? Nah. That was financial consultant and author Max Shapiro writing in Dun's magazine in January 1971. His article, titled "The Great Crash in Growth Stocks," was a review of the technology stock mania of 1967-68, which lifted a select group of shares to prices with which Wall Street had no previous experience.Continued............................ http://www.latimes.com/HOME/BUSINESS/t000002744.html

Doe anyone know how closing prices are pegged at COMEX? If you look at the graphs on http://www.quote.com/layout/index.frames.html?/cgi-bin/jchart-form
especially the end of day stuff, you see the latest prices, and out of nowhere comes a bid that is substantially lower than all of the latest trades. This is wierd. the GC99G shows all last minute trades at average 292.20. The settle is a bid/ask of 291.7/292.30, so the settle comes in at 292.00, about .20 less than all of the trades prior to the close.
SI99H shows a similar pattern. The volume figures would suggest an effort to push the price lower at the end of the day.

This is the same Iraq that has the habit of war and conflict remember ?

They can't help themselves.

Gassing Iranians and their own Kurds alike. Shooting rockets at Israel. Invading Kuwait. Creating environmental disaster there. Raping hundreds. Still imprisoning thousands of Kuwaitis. Trying to build a mushroom cloud generator, lying totally about weapons building programmes. Of ALL categories including the nasty stuff.

A regime that murders its own all the time. Evil.

It's time the west assasinated Saddam Hussein. Period. Within a week it would be yesterday's news with NO international repercussions. Saddam would be dead. Problem over.

Serb military build up in response to kidnappings. From the bbc-- http://news.bbc.co.uk/low/english/world/europe/newsid_252000/252248.stm

By Jennifer Westhoven

NEW YORK ( Reuters ) - Wall Street veterans are wondering; When
is E-nough enough?

Internet mania continued on Wall Street Friday and analysts are
asking how ugly the landing might be if this high-wire act loses
its balance.
But even the doomsayers are unwilling to call a top.

On the whole, more analysts are shifting to pejoratives like
``mania'' and drawing parallels to historical crashes.

Michael Farr, president of Farr, Miller & Washington, a fund
based in Washington, compared the latest buying surge to 19th
century land rushes.

``You're placing the stakes on land that may bear no crops. This
is a very expensive way to take these kinds of chances,'' Farr
said.

Friday, cyber stocks still had the power to astound.
Broadcast.com Inc. jumped $65.50 to $197.50. Nasdaq briefly
halted trading, but the company said it had no comment, which
many took as a signal that there was no material news driving
the gains.

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/headlines/wr/story.html?s=v/nm/19990110/wr/stocks_11.html

No offense taken my friend.

I can understand the feelings of people who are not really familiar with astrology. I was once such a person.

Your Gold Bond posts are interesting, and the last one makes one wonder.
Who was it that did all of the publicity work on the gold-short fable? I assume that it is Frank Veneroso. Perhaps the question should be directed at him.
Another thing, I have always wondered why there is such a lack of info from the miners about the nuts'n'bolts of the gold hedges. I understand why they do it, but why is there so little info and explanation when a producer closes their hedges? This is a big deal. Do they expect a big rise in POG, or are they in such poor financial condition that they need the cash now, and they are using the last asset that will generate cash?
I hope that you will continue this discussion when you get some answers to your excellent questions.

I agree with all your points, Iraq has definitely done some pretty dirty stuff over the past decade or two. BUT, who are we to decide ? I mean, look at it from our own perspective, switch the tables around. The United States becomes aggressive and decides to go on the offensive against our brothers in Columbia. Our fight with Columbia goes way back, they've been dealing drugs in our country, etc, etc, and we just finally get sick of it and decide they need to be the wholly-owned subsidiary of United States, Inc. Keep in mind that this is a battle that has raged between us and Columbia for a long time. Columbia freaks out. Then all of a sudden, Russia starts bombing Washington DC with cruise missiles ? After they've destroyed our ability to make war, they throw trade restrictions on us and challenge our own sovereignty ? Sure, maybe we shouldn't have taken Columbia to task and all those other things, but what right does Russia have to get involved ? And further, why are they messing with our Christian brothers in Canada and Mexico ? This is a Western hemisphere thing, a Christian thing, Russia has no business messing around in it. And further, even if you think Russia has every right to go blowing up Washington DC for it's evil deeds, what does that have to do with some other Christian fundamentalist with roots in Canada who has taken Russia to task in Panama for messing with Christians everywhere ? The more Russia messes around with Christian folks everywhere, the more Christian folks start listening to these fundamentalist guys preaching about the evils of Russian society. Worse, Russia keeps supporting these Cuban guys just off the coast of the United States, a country we don't like anyway. All I'm saying is that I'm not convinced the US should be so involved with all the goings-on in the Islamic regions of the world. The more we press our interests and try to influence things there, the more power we give the fundamentalist Islamic folks to bring about a renaissance in Islamic politics ( one that is anti-American ) .

Both at $292. The market says one share of
eBay equals one ounce of Gold. There are 40,000,000 shares of eBay. If my math is accurate, this is about 1250 tons of Gold. ( @ 32,000 oz/ton ) http://quote.yahoo.com/q?s=ebay&d=t

I ran my data back to 1991 and could NOT find SIX or more up
days in a row for the XAU. The gains in the index have not
been all that impressive in terms of percentage. Any comments
on the technical significance of this, if any, appreciated.

Mike i understand that there is a lunar eclipse at the end of this month, ( it is also a blue moon )
my best ever trade was a silver trade on a lunar eclipse , do you have any thoughts on this one please .

Sorry for not posting lately...been so dang busy...20 yr construction boom and all that...my, my is there a spending frenzy...spending the profits on their internet stocks...I smell tulips...

I feel the biggest ? I can't find the answer to is-- What does the big $ know about the POG that we don't know?...there is something..there is nothing that scares these boys to cover their shorts..nothing !...think about all the type of news that historicaly sends PM soaring...so what do they know ?...IMHO..it has to do with the EURO...

Thoughts anyone?

Chicken man..

I tend to agree on the observation that there is really no great gold short position out there in the forward market. Perhaps, however there is a great long position...I know, for every position there is a counterparty...anyway, gold has been used to expand the money supply through the leasing/loan program as you described. Now, if the forward position of the borrower is not with the same financial institution you must account for counterparty risk.

It is really rather easy to sell to a long position...be short...and be naked. No gold is required to be short. Even if a counterparty has gold it is also rather easy, in a down trending market, to sell or go short in excess of the actual gold holdings.

I think my point is I agree with you on the nature of what has been going on but disagree with what the ramifications might be. Now if several large gold companies are selling forward, are part of these transactions and are called on to deliver gold in excess of their holdings...what happens? Also, if there are naked shorts the same situation applies.

I think I could easily suggest that the recent liquidity crisis, still ongoing, may have more to do with gold than we realize. Perhaps AG was telling everyone this summer that the CB's will control the price of gold by leasing to calm the credit markets...not slam goldbugs.

So much for my wanderings...I'm sticking to my prediction of a world gold standard before AG retires. The odds of this are now one in five million...up from one in one million this last week ( odds furnished by Cinnamon, the ferret, after consultaion with Ben ) . Actually, I'm trying to make this a rumor so it can be denied by AG , himself, thus confirming the veracity of my prediction. : )

Tom

The nation who,s team refused the silver medal when defeated by the Russians in the Olympic Basketball finals ,will not easily accept the demise in the US dollar which will surely happen if the price of gold
is now to soar seeing the Euro is 30% backed by gold .
Let the curency wars begin .....

I vote Kitco issue a press release to the world that denies rumors that we have all been approached by a frantic Japanese government searching for gold bullion to shore up it's currency in anticipation of a massive liquidation of it's Treasury position. Further, we should deny the rumors that there is no physical silver available on world markets, deny the rumor that silver is going to go to 200$US an ounce, and assure the public that there is enough silver in COMEX to last for at least a few days, even with heavy buying. While we're at it, let's deny that the fiat money system is due for systemic failure, and deny the rumors that gold will be the only currency available for international trade by June of 1999. We have to assure the public that despite all the pressures on gold to go to the moon, everything is fine, there's still enough gold to go around.

i saw this over at USAGold and hunted it down....
ohmmm, AUmmmmm, OHaummmm

NEW YORK-- ( BUSINESS WIRE ) --Jan. 8,
1999--

This statement was issued by Marston Webb International on
behalf of the World Gold Council.
In the light of various speculative press reports concerning
gold and this week's publication of the first reserves'
statement by the European Central Bank, the Centre for
Public Policy Studies of the World Gold Council is issuing
this press release to clarify the key issues.
It is important to emphasise that the mere publication of this
reserves' statement carries no implication for future gold
sales by either the ECB or the 11 individual EU member states
which comprise euroland.
The European System of Central Banks ( ESCB or 'Eurosystem' ) is
now -- as a consequence of the changes resulting from the
introduction of the euro -- the world's largest single holder of
gold, easily exceeding the amount held by the world's previous
largest holder, the US.

The ESCB consists of the European Central Bank ( ECB ) in
Frankfurt and the national central banks of the 11 countries
( Note A ) that have joined the European Economic and Monetary
Union ( EMU ) , under the terms of the 1992 Maastricht treaty.

http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/990108/world_gold_1.html

Very good ?? regarding the big $$$ and the Euro.Last spring
and summer, the revelation ( World Gold Council release ) that
the ECB was backing the Euro with 30 % AU would have been
monumental news for the price of gold.I am a bit puzzled that
this has not been much of the focus of discussion on this site.
I hope that this would be the catalyst that may push gold in
the right direction next week.Lets hope.Good luck to all!!!

since you never give any basis for your conclusions no one bothers to respond. Kitco has seen enough mystery types and opinions from persons of unknown identity. Without a stated basis for your opinions they are as water off a ducks back.

We watch this old gold market together. Yes?

A gold standard before AG retires! That's my rumor and I'm sticking to it...oops...that is my prediction, sorry.: )

Ok, so what is your thinking? BTW...no offense intended...just telling you what is on my mind.

Tom bbml

Assuming the PMs take off, what dangers await those of us with call options?

this radio runs by turning an internal generator
for 30 seconds, it then runs for 30 minutes.
while powering a light.
( insert disclaimer here )
shortwave,AM,FM
new model has solar power....
i ordered one, but hadn't heard of
the solar option...wondering if they'll
give me the new one or not.

http://www.ccrane.com/baygenwl.htm

Regarding a gold standard before Greenspan retires. I have to deny all of that. Despite all the talk from Greenspan about a gold standard, and despite all the current pressures on him to create such a standard, we have to deny that Greenspan has called us individually asking for advice. Further, he did not meet with the Kitco representatives in Toronto at their recent precious metals strategy meeting ( and ice cream social ) , and he has not passed any proposed gold standard white papers to us for our opinions. The fiat money system is fine, even if it is fundamentally flawed. We've heard that there is a credit bubble, and we do hoard gold and continue to buy it as it becomes more of a bargain everyday, but we deny the rumors that we will be the only source of gold if the credit bubble bursts and we must further assure the public that there will be at least a half ounce of gold for each of them if the system fails. Though coins are currently being bought like they're going out of style, the mint should be able to make enough of them for everyone who wants a small amount of gold by y2k. I desperately want to clear up any rumors about Greenspan visiting me at my home to talk about a possible silver standard as well. Silver is cheap and would make a great reserve for any currency base, but it didn't happen, and I don't want my name appearing in the Wall Street Journal.

perhaps you should both recall that the usa supported iraq in the
against iran in the war. you may also recall that the us gave a
signal to sadam that it was okay to invade kuwait.
make no mistake, the us policy towards iraq is strictly for the
free flow of oil for japan and neighboring countries, and has nothing
to do with other concerns.

The commodity writer this week notes that gold miners are their own worst enemies by increasing output in the face of dropping prices. Overcapacity and technology are conspiring to further erode pricing. Interesting to me. I wonder if 6 months from now other industries plagued by overcapacity and falling prices might see the same pressures. Maybe the deflation of all things gold-related ( coins and shares ) is a preview of things to come in the rest of the stock market...

baal shem: what's wrong with those pesky gold miners, working even harder to sell more product while prices fall? Why don't they all go on holiday. Nice vacations in warm climates. Stuff like that.

Date: Sun Jan 10 1999 14:42
morbius ( Question ) ID#35757:
Assuming the PMs take off, what dangers await those of us with call options?

The dangers are clear and apparent: Making unusual amounts of money very quickly usually results in psychological changes that are at first euphoric, then foolhardy. One starts spending lavishly on friends, then finds one has more friends than onew thought. Expenditures on useless but ego-enhancing luxuries overcome wise and frugal management of funds. If you are a man, comely women will throw themselves at you at lavish cocktail parties ( that you are throwing ) , and, being human you will succumb to their forward advances and feminine charms ( women always look great at cocktail parties ) . This will break up your once rock-solid marriage of 20 or 30 years, and your children will hate you. Your ex-wife will get half of everything anyhow, leaving you with barely enough to pay the taxes you forgot about on your PM profits. You will be forced to pay for your kids' psychological rehabilitation, and wind up working the night shift at McDonald's.

Better sell those calls now before gold skyrockets, gets away from you, and does some real damage.

leftyKiwi: sorry, my friend, I don't do eclipses. I'm not being flippant ( I never am ) . I just work with incorporation dates for companies and institutions, and sometimes initial futures contract dates. Sorry.

I do know that there is SOME relationship between the Moon and silver, but my own personal observations tend to the conclusion that Full Moons, Eclipses, New Moons, etc, are fairly unreliable. But I can't say I have made this an exacting study. While I have done a lot of work with horoscopes and there the Moon is another story. Very potent.

If silver is not booming by April/May, the Moon won't be the only thing blue.

The Solar Powered version is just AM/FM--no shortwave. If the NA power grid goes down as the drumbeaters would have us believe then tuning in to the rest of the world would be a last hope for a while.

for tyoung
The example was constructed the way it was simply
to demonstrate how easy the "in house" transaction
would be ..
In practice.. once the gold is leased from a bullion
bank, it would seem to me that the simplest manner
of selling it would obviously be directely back to
the bank it was leased from.. The leasor would have
a relationship with them .. no gold would actually
have to be transferred .. cheaper all round.
From the banks standpoint, if that is its modus
operandi for leasing .. it couldnt care less if
the leasor buys the gold forward or not.. as long
as it sells some gold forward to someone to get the
3 1/2 % piece of the operation.
Sure selling to some other bank introduces
complications and maybe risks .. but why bother
to do it really unless you just want to complicate
matters pointlessly.
I do not know if this leasing/forward purchasing
is prevalent or not .. but if not .. I wonder why not.
Maybe Im just silly to prefer borrowing at 5 %
rather than 7 1/2%.

I appreciate the time you took to reply, but the dangers I had im mind were more like a busy signal at your commodities broker, lack of inventory to make good on delivery, etc.

Not only is the fiat money doing fine, but something even more disturbing is taking place in America. It's not enough they took away our gold coins and gave us paper reciepts for them, then took away those gold certificates and simply issed paper money as legal tender with no backing whatsover. Now they are surreptitiously taking all our good paper money, $20's, and $50's, and even $100's ( I'm not sure here, I never get to hold one ) and replacing them with PAPER paper money. They look so phoney even a kid can spot it. I could design a better note with Quark Express. Our kids will grow up with this "money" and THEIR kids, our GRANDCHILDREN, will know only PAPER paper money ( or is it paper PAPER paper money? ) .
They won't have any connection to the real thing. Then they'll buy internet stocks and send their prices into the thousands of dollars per share.

Who is behind this?

for Mike Sheller ..

You could even get killed .. dont
buy them ..

I never worry about stuff like that. Getting creamed when you're wrong is bad enuf.

By now it is apparent to even the casual Kitcoite that a veiled shadow government actually rules this planet. They probably hide behind such front philosophies as "The New World Order" and such, but a look at the state of our financial markets discloses that they have been entrenched and effectively extending their control over every aspect of our lives for some time now.

A case in point is the superb control they are exercising over the stock market and, at the very same time, the price of gold. By their cunning and sagacious activities they have engineered a condition whereby the U.S. stock market climbs upward with barely an interruption, while the price of gold languishes at a depressed and contained level. Of course, like everything, even this wonderful and perpetual prosperity for share investors has its problems. And don't think these puppetmasters aren't aware of that. The danger is boredom. And lack of crisis. For even though the Dow may be on a march to 120,000 by the turn of the century, those who run the world are very much aware that a crisis now and then is an important stimulant to the turnover of money and assets and an important psychological prop to keep investors from getting complacent and uninvolved. After all, you can't control someone who is not playing the game.

Sure, 30% gains each and every year are fine and dandy for most folks who don't know a donut from a debenture, but how long will they keep their edge trading up the the next luxury utility vehicle with even more cupholders and a higher pricetag? It gets boring. So an occasional managed crisis, created specifically for the society at large, is in order. In their gilded boardrooms during clandestine meetings, our masters noted how the mere deletion of two zeros ( a double nothing! ) in computer code has led to humanity being on the verge of a perceived panic and civilizational disruption of herculean proportions. Taking their lead from Y2K, these insidious controllers of our fate have come up with something even more disruptive, more evil than the mere "Millenium Bug" so many of us are worried about.

With the complicity of their running dogs of global industry, they have engineered a ticking time bomb in all of our word processing programs since the introduction of Windows 95.

It is the "WHY TOOK A ? problem. And it is BIG!

Imagine, for a moment, a world in which ALL the letter A's suddenly disappear. Wiped off countless computer screens and harddrives in an instant, at the tolling of a certain hour on a certain day. Gone forever, or, at least, until these pernicious masters of the universe deem it appropriate for A's return. And return under what terms?

There is no question, under such a scenario, that panic, or certainly pnic, would take hold. Never mind the proper education of our young, imagine how this would affect investments!
How could you sell your AT&T? Or your Amazon.com? It would be impossible to short Soy Bns, difficult to find a chart of the Dow Industrils, and pointless to trade Len Hogs. But Gold, retaining the integrity of its name, would be among those investment vehicles unaffected. The price would skyrocket when investors found that it was possible to buy and sell it esily, and get a quote nytime.

Naturally, this entire situation would pose a problem for pronounciation, and eventually, if not solved soon enough, could affect the speech and language of generations to come. Probably a welcome side effect that our overlords will use to full advantage in their plans for world domination.

In any event, the ramifications of this looming crisis will surely be explored ad infinitum on the internet, and eventually the society at large will be aware of it. How does one prepare for "WHY TOOK A?" ( which is what people will be saying when the precious vowel is snatched from their free and voluntary possession ) ? These questions will doubtless be explored at Kitco long before others can imagine what awaits them.

I am only happy to be able to break this story first, and here. Just remember, time is running out. I hope I have contributed in some way to the warning of humnity.

check out this site for a small solar powered AM/FM/SW radio.
www.atlnta.com/eps/lightradio.html Website links just won't
turn blue for me, sorry!

Now you've really scared me. I'm staying away from gold calls.

You are a real Hoot ! enjoy your comments.

Coukd there be a difference between reserve curriency and curriency reserve? the former could be 30%...but big deal the USA is 53%...the figures on that table don't make any sense...look at Japan...what.. 3%...even tho they have $150 billion in USGB

Take a look at the tables here
http://www.gold.org/Gedt/Speeches/Sbc/Sbc.htm
If I'm reading this right...this sounds like curriency reserves....10% would be approx. 50% of each central banks total gold reserves...check out how the gold from the old EMU would be divided...the EMU would get 20% and the countries that did not join would each get 20%...not a bad windfall for Greece

What does everybody think?

Chicken man...

Donot worry as the U.S. willnot even be invited to the podium once the world realizes how close Greenspan and Rubin have come to putting the U.S. into Chapter 11. The U.S. banking system is in dire staits as the Government continues to spin the true economic condition of the Country. I wonder if the Americans will wake up to the fact that Clinton spins everything in sight including the numbers that indicate the Country is in great economic shape with little to worry about. Watch the bond market closely next week as it looks about ready to puke and the first sign of vomit will trigger more Asian selling which in turn will collapse more hedge funds. The Dow has not taken the pulse of the bond market as it moves forward but one day someone will notice rates are rising and bonds are being blown off. Then watch out!

Over time, the RBA appears to have managed the value of the currency to keep the A$ value of commodity exports more or less constant. The difference between the A$ and US$ value of Australian exports is obviously the exchange rate. The estimate on this basis is that at current price levels, the A$ is about 5% overvalued vs. its U.S. counterpart.

Thanks for your 00:06 of 1/10/99, I'm thinking that it pertains to the bullion bank's wholy owned gold hoard. Is that correct?
What if a bullion bank takes a gold loan from a CB, pays the 1 1/2% annual, how they can insure that the gold that they get 3 1/2 - 1 1/2, or 2% plus fees will ever return.
Do they put up their own gold as collateral for the CB gold loan? Are gold ounces that may be coming to them from gold miners for project financing also being used as collateral, or is it that only a percentage of "a CB gold loan" ever leaves the CB vault. I often wonder if the heavy volume on the LBMA is somehow connected to gold loans.
I know that these are complicated questions, but thank for your for clear 00:06.

During its first week, the Euro has traded in a 2.7% point band of $1.1565 - 1.1875. Compared to its starting level of $1.16675 on December 31st, this range is skewed roughly 66%/33% toward a strengthening Euro, although it has barely moved on net.

JD: If borrower of gold sells directly back to bullion bank, how does this affect market price of gold? Reason for declining gold price is forward selling of borrowed gold onto the market. Your scenario requires an equal amount of buying back by the bullion banks....this is obviously not happening.
Gold has been leased out, sold onto the market to ensure declining price ( dragging in gullible producer forward sales ) . Of course the gold has never left the vault but all gold longs who have not taken delivery ( and there are plenty else we wouldn't be at $292 ) have been stung.
Gold paper longs have been plasetered and are now rarer than dildos in a monastery, gold physical longs still have the gold.

As big fund players are waking up to the rigged game they are nowing coming to the physical market. This is the logical conclusion and this is the end game of the paper gold market.

Swiss bankers are now getting their bonuses in PHYSICAL gold.......makes you wonder.

The following article may shed some light on recent yen strength, which confirms a view that it has been driven by repatriations ( also helped by rising bond yelds ) :

There is an article in Monday's Nihon Shimbun indicating the extent to which Japanese banks have been scaling back overseas business. The article indicates assets in overseas branches fell to Y92.9 trln, down 8.4 Trln since Septmeber, and versus a Y198 trln peak in March 1990. Outstanding overseas lona sfell 30% and cash deposits fell 60% as Japanese banks lowered credit ratings made it hard for them to raise funds.

Source: Proprietary analysis

Given that the Euro conversion process is commonly acknowledged to have been about 5 times larger ( approx 6 times larger budget ) than Y2K, it is interesting to note that the entire Euro conversion process went off almost entirely without an hitch.

Rattle your dags mate! or you'll miss out.

Seriously though, the liberty is not mine but it is on good authority.

There was also a hint in an AFP report just before Christmas, not something one would advertise at this critical juncture though is it?

Briefcases a little heavier these days I suppose and it's not more work.

On Friday there were serious rumours that the European Central Bank or its operatives stepped into the FOREX market to support the Euro/$ at around 1.1550.

Thats interesting, I didnt know that. It is worth noting, however that the two problems are qualitatively different. The euro is just ome more currency to calculate. You dont have to worry about getting negative numbers in places where the programmer expected only positive numbers. No fields had to be enlarged to make room for the EURO. Im not privy to the details, but I assume when the system was written provisions were made for new currencies. Not so with the four digit date.

I realise that they are quite different, personally I expect Y2K to be more significant, but there were quite a few calling for all sorts of doom and gloom to happen - now you don't hear a squeak out of them!

Euro conversion process was quite complicated. For example, every bourse in Euroland had to have all stocks, bonds, etc. redominated into euros. The clearing systems between bourses had to be changed so that they could talk to each other, etc. etc. This was all done over four days.

http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/990110/bq.html

To bookmark, I've seen these posted on here from time to time, I find them most useful to go to for data and charts, with all the help one can get right here on KITCO one does not need to pay for newsletter advisors. I for one appreciate this forum immensely and ALL of the contributors, even the the non goldbugs out there.

For XAU info......go to this one
http://www.phlx.com/products/xau.html

A good site to get a lotta gold info
http://www,golden-eagle.com/

The Vancouver Stock Exchange
http://www.VSE.ca/

A great Site to look at all sorts of great charts
http://www.comoditytrader.net

With these sites one can just about get all you woud need to make decisions about anything.
My current outlook.............

1999 will be a great year for the AU and the AU stocks.

Am long June 99 AU with no stop and have all available free cash in gold mutual funds.
CoBra

Sorry about that ,they should read as follows:

http://www.golden-eagle.com

http://www.commoditytrader.net

Greenspan scheduled to be in Hong Kong today, Beijing on Tuesday. http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/990110/h.html

Some body put a virus on my keyboard, This may be it.
http://www.golden-eagle.com/

no bug there. just that Kitco is rigged to print gold ( as in the website you are referring us to ) eagle as "golden eagle." This is a leftover from an unfortunate...how shall we say it...promotional altercation between the respective site proprietors.

Don't ask. Doubtless others will chime in on this.

Disney....I think you got it right...money is being created through this mechanism...you and I are not as "cheap" as the big money folk...this has to be known and used...question: WHY?

Why the advantage to use gold? Why are the rates what they are to promote this? Who sets these rates? More importantly...what happens when the rates are "adjusted" to negate the advantage? Still contend default, as in any fiat money game, spells disaster.


Envy...I deny that Greenspan has offered to purchase my physical gold and silver at prices 100 times the present market...deny...deny...deny.

However, AG did suggest a method of my mobilizing my gold and silver...seems I can lease it out and then purchase it back together with going short on a contract with the lessee...UNFORTUNATELY...the return was much to low...all the money I borrowed ( or the return I could get on the money I used to buy the gold and silver ) requires a much higher return. Especially, in the last four years where a blind squirrel finds acorns in abundance.

I'll let you know what uncle Al has to say next week...he is coming to dinner...will slip him a beer or two w/out permission and see what's really up. Further, I deny any relationship or personal knowledge with my uncle....er...Mr. Greenspan...don't know him from Adam or a golden apple. Don't start any rumors ...please...especially about the gold standard to be introduced by the end of April...just ANOTHER strange THOUGHT ( s ) ...BTW...WB was talking about the next golf outing and how a SILVER trophy would be nice...oops...I deny I even live in the same town as WB...said something about a "cup" made of one hundred ounces of siver and worth $15,000. Sorry, can't say that either....forget I said anything...it is all fantasy...but as Gollum says, you got to at least enjoy this situation.

odds now up to ten million to one...think I'll go dream up some more relatives and friends. : ) : ) : )

Tom

I type in the correct URL and it will not print the correct URL

www.golden-eagle.com/

maybe this one will get thru anyway I was not tring to waste your time.

eezie munee is gud for detters

the world is in a lots of det

eezie munee will keep all the balloons at the party blowed up.

then evryone can keep partying.

Alan Greasepan is a nice man.

He gives everyone eezie munee.

I think he made everyone a sof landing.

He flies his own plain.

Mikel Sheller
2nd Grayde

please read your post previous to your last... but you did that already, didn't you! ( ;- )

oops, I meany MY post previous...etc

It is not only bourses that had much to do with Euro conversion. Practically every large bank in Holland, for example, offers customers own software to access accounts, make transactions, in some cases - trade on stock market. Every single installation of such software is replaced now. You can have accounts in "old" national currency or in Euro, but both can be used for Euro transactions. Software shows original currency of transaction and its equivalent in Euro or "old" currency, including currencies of other EMU countries. I have spend less then half an hour in total to upgrade my system - download new codes and option series ( strike is different - for example, you had call 80,00 now strike is 36.3 in Euro ) and download new data in Euro for stock transaction account.
According to manual I have, my software is Y2K proof. To my knowledge, most banks had both Euro and Y2K projects running as one, often with common budget. That tells nothing about situation in energy sector, for example, but for sure I will not withdraw cash in December. IMHO banks in Europe will be ready.

the japan's.........between a rock and a hard spot....
a blast from the past...

http://www.golden-eagle.com/gold_digest/oracle707.html

look back to see forward...

again...

but remove the 'en' from golden

http://www.golden-eagle.com/gold_digest/oracle707.html

Det defaltz will make a beeg hol en z runvay...watz out for dis...maks mooney dizapear...boo bad.

Tom

Anyone noticed that you can't get postings from previous sessions today? The checkbox reverts to the current time period only when you click on subit.

Of course my system has been a bit flakey today.

Not just tonight but yesterday and today its done some strange things it's never done before and I am scratching my head too.

...an estimated 17 million will crowd New York city for the year 2000 countdown on Dec 31 1999...when the ball drops and lights go out how many will leave alive?

I wonder what a 17 million strong crowd in a panicked frenzy looks like?

China Police Said to Be Holding 10 in Farmers' Protest
10.04 a.m. ET ( 1504 GMT ) January 10, 1999

BEIJING  Chinese police have detained 10 farmers in the eastern province of Jiangsu for trying to organize a protest against high taxes and rigged elections, a Hong Kong-based human rights group reported on Sunday.
The 10 were held for "disturbing social order" after they applied on Jan. 4 for permission to hold a demonstration in the village of Guoyuan, said the Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China.

About 100 villagers in Guoyuan sought to protest against exorbitant taxes and fees and official manipulation of village elections, according to the center.

The government in the city of Xuzhou rejected the application and sent more than 100 police to Guoyuan, where they took away the entire village population in trucks, beating some 30 villagers who resisted detention, the center said in a statement.

While the majority of villagers were released the next day, the 10 organizers were detained, of whom four faced probable criminal charges and six were held in 15-day administrative detention, it said.

Xuzhou authorities were not available for comment.

Center director Lu Siqing said in the statement the arrests and the recent jailing of a labor activist showed "the Communist Party is getting increasingly concerned about farmers' protests."

On Dec. 27, a Chinese court sentenced labor activist Zhang Shanguang to 10 years for revealing details of farmers' protests in Hunan province's Xupu county in an interview with the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Asia.

The center quoted Zhang as saying that Xupu county alone had experienced more than 100 such protests in the first half of 1998, indicating rural protests nationwide may have numbered many thousands last year amid stagnant incomes and high taxes.

Lu said the tough response to rural unrest showed police were closely following orders issued by President Jiang Zemin, who in two hardline speeches last month said all sources of instability must be "nipped in the bud."

On Sunday, the People's Daily quoted Minister of Public Security Jia Chunwang as ordering nationwide police to put the maintenance of social stability at the top of their work agendas.

Jia told police to stress stability and protect property in the countryside, the Communist Party mouthpiece said.

http://www.foxnews.com

Admire your faith in the future Europen banks however however if no where else is ready yhey cannot tranfer in or out of their group for fear ( I would hope ) of recontamination.

go on put my mind at rest ! you will take some cash out ? No !
But of course your decision is reviewable?

go gold
cpo

Just checked the merc's data on the Yen http://www.cme.com/statistics/bulletin/B1999005PG34.html
5255 Yen calls were exercised on Fri....FWIW..if I have this right ( please set me straight if I'm wrong ) ..the party that wrote these call have to deliver a Mar Yen contract by the end of the following business day ( in this case Monday ) ...if the Yen opens up you know that these calls were naked
Fri was expiry day for the metals too...with the sudden run up in the POS I wouldn't be surprised if the silver calls were naked...short squeeze Monday...hope so..want to buy some 525 puts cheap...see a $1.00 on the down side before the next expiry...
Bought 128 T-bond calls Fri on the close...see new contract high before Jan 22...don't think the bonds will tank with AG in China...the Chinese will be talking about selling the $ to buy EURO...the fed will have to do what it is good at and "make" that T-bond investment look good no matter what the cost...plus the fact that the Joe & jane 6-pak are going to get stuck with bonds before the inflation train leaves the station...like kind of game called Old Maid ( hearts )

More fertilizer from the coop...Chicken man..

Doesn't DuPont ( DD ) make latex? :- ) )

I get it! Isn't DD in the Dow? That's why the market is up! It's duPont stupid! :- ) )

Of course, I may review my decision - but thats how I see it now. More generally speaking, I think, some companies will not be ready for Y2K and will fall. That does not mean that the sky will fall on the ground or rivers will begin to flow in opposite direction. Gnite

http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/990110/3.html

Note the point made about AOL. After all, wasn't it just added to the S&P 500????

Its early day's yet and for a real test they need a stressed out day with loads of panick.
By the way anybody know if the DOW has been fixed so as to report the extra digit when it hits 10,000!!!!!!!!!

caveat emptor

cpo

Chicken Man you may be right and you may be wrong on the bond calls, The March bonds closed friday right above their 200 day moving average, which should be support, BUT... the 30 year bond yield closed above the downtrending 100 day average in a spike move, In any event we all should know the bond ultimate direction very shortly, Takes a real trader to take a position in these situations, one with conviction.

Cage Rattler, I don't know the source of your information, however, your numbers are just about reversed. In DP community the commonly acknowledged fact is that Y2K is the largest software project in the history, Euro conversion is the second. I had many discussions with people in Europe working on both and this ranking was acknowledged by all of them. It is difficult to do a budget allocation on these projects as most European companies bundled the software mods and did them in parallel. Mind you that Euro conversion is not finished and not all services are implemented.

The biggest difference is that Euro conversion project was mostly application software modification, Y2K requires a significant hardware/Operating system replacement and mods, including embedded chips in control devices.

While we are on Y2K, I have to join the crowd of people with moderate views. Y2K will not be the end of society as we know it. Most of my money will stay where they are, and while I'll be probably sailing in some remote location, it's not because of Y2K.

As far as Y2K influence on gold and financial markets, there will be a psychological impact, but don't hope that Y2K alone will drive the price of gold through the roof.

JMHO for whatever it's worth.

http://quote.yahoo.com/q?s=^N225&d=1d

According to the Drudge Report Danny Williams is holding up under the knowledge that the DNA evidence was against him. IMHO Mr. Clinton must be really hard hearted to disavow him just because hes not a biological son. Shouldn't he love him anyway regardless of which other John was the boys biofather? Im thinking of writing him a letter to tell him so. http://www.drudgereport.com/

Go Gold!

Cheaper hand-crank radio empowers the
power-poor

High-tech improvements to a low-tech idea ease information access in areas where electricity is scarce.

Kate Dunn
Special to The Christian Science Monitor

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA

When it first caught public attention in 1994, Trevor Baylis's windup radio
seemed the perfect solution for poor people in electricity-deprived countries where few can afford pricey batteries.

Twenty seconds of cranking the fold-out arm of the shoebox-size radio stored enough energy for an hour of listening. In rural areas, especially, where any sort of media are hard to come by, cheap radios would make a big difference by spreading basic information on everything from elections to health.
....
The range of applications for windup technology is growing thanks to the
decreasing energy requirements for each new generation of electronic equipment
arriving on the market.

Both developed and developing nations could benefit from BayGen's emerging
line of human-powered generators for everything from computers and cell phones
to land-mine detectors. The UN's World Health Organization is currently testing a
BayGen product that uses a windup generator to convert salt to chlorine in a
simple, inexpensive water-purification system.

http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/1999/01/11/fp7s2-csm.shtml
~~~~~~~~~~~
12 Steps To Third World Living
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC26/3rdWrld.htm
~~~~~~~~~~
review:
The Baygen Freeplay Portable Radio
http://www.anarc.org/naswa/issues/1096/equip1096.html
~~~~~~~~~
GE is backing BayGen, and has increased their investment...
good as AU?

CAMARILLO, Calif. ( AP ) -- Gasoline prices continued to drop at the pump as supply outpaced demand, an industry analyst said Sunday. The average retail price for all grades, including taxes, was $1.03 per gallon on Friday. That was down about a half-cent over the past three weeks, according to the Lundberg Survey of 10,000 stations nationwide. The price fell below the all-time low of nearly $1.04 reached last month, thanks to an oil glut compounded by lowered demand from economies hit by financial crises. "The rate of decline has slowed ... and prices went up in some cities and down in many others in that period. But there still is more supply than demand requires," analyst Trilby Lundberg said.

http://www.newsday.com/ap/rnmpfn19.htm

MOSCOW ( AP ) -- Russia's oil industry is no longer in a position to drive the economy forward, a top oil executive conceded. For years, the Russian economy has been dependent on the oil industry, which has provided the county with its largest source of foreign currency and has led to big deals with foreign partners. However, a drop in world oil prices last year sent Russia's economy reeling, ultimately contributing to the economic crisis that began in August, when the government effectively devalued the ruble and defaulted on foreign debts.

http://www.newsday.com/ap/rnmpfn18.htm

Nearing the lows of October.

http://quote.yahoo.com/q?s=^N225&d=1y

for several weeks.

Today the Commerce Department reported a much stronger than expected December employment report. For the month, 378,000 jobs were created as the unemployment rate dropped to a 28-year low. The booming service sector added 290,000 jobs and the construction industry added 104,000 jobs, the largest increase since 1984. Today's report is consistent with releases from earlier this week that had November new homes sold at an all-time record, fully 10% above last year's level. For the first 11 months of 1998, new home sales were more than 9% greater than 1997, and 1998 is quite likely to be the third consecutive year of record total home sales. But the boom is not limited to housing as auto manufacturers this week reported December auto sales were more than 7% greater than last year's rate, and the highest monthly rate since 1986. Moreover, retailers reported huge sales in December with year-over-year same-store sales gains of 9% for Wal-Mart, 11% for Circuit City, and 19% for The GAP. This data is clear evidence of a dangerously overheated economy that at any other time would be seen as unacceptable by a diligent Federal Reserve. But today, the US bubble runs completely unfettered. Indeed, it is not difficult to identify the fuel for this huge bubble economy. Certainly, the boom in housing and consumption that clearly accelerated into the end of the year was the work of an historic stock market rally. Amazingly, since early October, the total value of the stock market has risen by a stunning $3 trillion. More than $530 billion of additional market value came from just the five largest NASDAQ stocks. In fact, Wednesday's rally created more than $230 billion of stock market value in a single session. For comparison, several weeks ago California was hit with a terrible winter freeze that wiped out much of the state's citrus crop, and the loss was estimated at $500 million; the total value of the US farm economy is estimated at $50 billion. So Wednesday, the stock market created perceived value of almost 500 times the lost California citrus crop and 5 times the total US farm economy. So really, there should be little misunderstanding as to why this most unprecedented and dangerous bubble continues to expand.

http://www.prudentopinion.com/mkcomm.htm

Have you claimed him as *your* son? Why not? If you think that El Presidente' is "hard-hearted to disavow him as his son", are you willing to walk a mile in those moccasins?

Look, the kid's not his, ergo there is no proof that El Presidente' was lying when he says he never met Bobbi Jo Williams. Case closed. I don't like Clinton any more than the rest of you, but proof is proof. Clinton owes him no more than you do.

Just a thought.

Copyright 1999 El Borak, inc. Makers of "Lyin' Your Bass Off" brand photogenic rubber game fish. Some dissembly required.

http://www.wildwilderness.org/docs/dappen.htm

They said it could not possibly happen again. But in the first week after the calendar flipped to 1999, the Dow Jones industrial average twice set new records, coming within shouting distance of that once- implausible 10,000 mark and imbuing investors with renewed hopes of the untold riches yet to be reaped. The Dow has not only bounced back from a 512-point, one-day dive in August but has done so while one-third of the world has been mired in recession. Americans are spending like there's no tomorrow, and Wall Street is predicting the economy will continue to expand. Nothing can stop it. "There's an optimism in the air - a feeling a new wave is coming with the euro and the millennium and all the rest," said Jeremy Siegel, a finance professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School in Philadelphia. It may be a new wave. Or it may, just suppose, be insanity. "Unless the laws of nature have been repealed," said Barton Biggs of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in a 1999 outlook report, "bust still follows boom, and bear markets follow bull markets." The truth about the market's future no doubt lies between the doomsday forecasts of bears, like Biggs, who have crawled out of their Wall Street dens, and the mania that has infected Internet-stock buyers. Nevertheless, as the Dow last week added 461 points - 5 percent - in its march toward Friday's record close of 9643.32, it was not difficult to find market analysts and economists willing to indulge, albeit briefly, in their worst nightmares about 1999.

http://www.boston.com:80/dailyglobe2/010/business/Nightmare_on_Wall_St_+.shtml

to mark the top, as it did at previous tops in history.
http://decisionpoint.com/DailyCharts/ADCurrent.html
http://decisionpoint.com/DailyCharts/CurrentPC.html
These two measures of the markets sickness will soon show that indeed, a bell HAS been ringing for some time now. The put/call is the best indicator that I know of to show extremes in sentiment.

http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/990110/cu.html

Called the NIKKEI to go up, it did,
Now I see the possibility of another
upturn from these levels.
How long and how far, we'll see, but
for them that's a bettin, here's a good
gamble for, at least the short term, with a stop
in at 13000.
Should it break 13K and come back into the
pattern it should be bought again.

If I have many more correct calls I may just
start a financial market letter. It can't be
worse than many of the others I've read.

PMs lookin mighty fine, but could have short
term corrections.
Suggest everyone become a "PM dipster"!!!


s

anyone see anything out early on the russian silver project
feasability study due out tommorow, debating whether to add some
more shares

Gold off initially - now climbing back a little.

Big speech expected later this morning at a seminar in Tokyo - from the finance minister regarding YEN-DOLLAR...which is now struggling to stay above 110 !

NIKKEI down..

And there's talk of government strains - Ozawa complaining about LDP and making threats to scuttle the present coalition.

foretell a total washout in PM markets this week.

Buoyant, chirpy mood is a sure sign. Gold stocks to pull back in major corrective phase and US$gold spot to hit the skids heading for $282 by Fri.

FWIW.

Chinese water torture...debt defaults drip drip drip drip drip drip

Had heard that an announcement regarding PAASF's Russian adventure was in the works and soon for release - maybe then it is tomorrow. I don't think the market will react favorably to their Russina feasibility study. Anything with Russian in it is a negative these days. They hopefully will also address the fiancing issues associated with start up of that project.

What I like about PAASF is that they are finding silver deposits and moving them into production. I view this as the best silver play for that reason. First Reserves or First Silver Reserves on the Vancover Exchange also receives much positive comment but I am not set up to trade that exchange.

PAASF could go into positive cash flow with silver above $5.25. RaY Hughes over on the Silicon Investor Board suggests $39 as a target for PAASF on a move in silver to $10 per oz. That's worthy of attention.

The smart money is already gone, big money will be leaving soon. I've been talking to various folks about what their investment strategies are for some time now, and I'm convinced that the smart money has already been taken out of the markets. Smart money isn't like the money most people put in the markets, smart money is held by folks who don't think about how they're going to make a mortgage payment, or how they're going to put their kids through school. Smart money worries about having enough money around for their grandchild to capitalize a start-up company, or to start a trust for an art museum long after the investor's death. Smart money is safe money, it doesn't like scary events, and it's happy with a few percentage points every year over a century. Smart money may have been buying stocks in the US markets a decade or two ago, but it's gotten out by now and has moved on to something else, something cheap, in anticipation of events that will happen years from now. Smart money is investing in things that have been forgotten, safe things, things that the world has to have. Smart money never purchased Internet stocks, or if it did, it sold them when they started getting scary. Smart money has been selling investors stock certificates that it bought a long time ago, stocks that are now extremely expensive, and smart money won't be buying them back again during this bull market, not until the height of the market bear that always comes. Smart money doesn't wait until the last minute and never tries to time the top, it might try to time the year. Smart money worries about large trends, changes in economic and political focus in the world. Smart money has gazed past the top in equities out into the future and is thinking about what's going to be happening 10 years from now and which country will be the dominate force in 200 years. Smart money is clever and patient and will be here long after equity investors have lost their shirts. The real money, the old money, the money that gets passed from generation to generation, it's already gone. I honestly believe that the smart money is already buying, or has already bought precious metals in anticipation of the downside to the world economic cycle. The long term investors who act as protectors of the family fortune aren't likely to be buying expensive dollars, stocks, or bonds at this stage in the game, they've already run to safety, and they've taken large gains from the current market participants with them. That's what I think anyway.

I don't know who THEY were who said "it couldn't possibly happen again," but I was saying around October/November the bottom was in and the Dow was going to go for new highs.

kiwi: If Gold gets past 296.50 basis spot, then the rally tro 370 by Spring is born! This week is critical, and goldbugs may just be subliminally and happily tuned in to what is about to transpire. Chirpy.

Good nite everyone. A pleasure visitin' with y'all.

First Silver is on the Toronto Exchange not the VSE.

http://golf.yahoo.com/pga/

for moa ...
you asked
" If borrower of gold sells directly back to bullion
bank, how does this affect market price of gold?"
******************************************************
it doesnt .. then you say

"Reason for declining gold price is forward selling of
borrowed gold onto the market."
*****************************************************
How do you KNOW this ??? I am questioning the
extent of the effect. Then you say

" Your scenario requires an equal amount of buying back
by the bullion banks...."
*****************************************************
No by the man who leased the gold from the CB or
from the bullion bank .. then you say

"this is obviously not happening. Gold has been leased
out, sold onto the market to ensure declining price .."
******************************************************
I dont think this is obvious .. and I dont think you
can provide anything OTHER than your opinion to back
it up .. WE ALL know this side of the story but why
do CB really want to risk their gold to drive its
price down ??
The interesting side of the story is that by leasing
this way .. gold holder obtain almost exactly the same
dollar return on assets as by selling and replacing
with US treasuries .. 5 %. So they have no incentive
to do this .. More interestingly .. the rates on
Euro debt instruments will be closer to 3 %

Four Hundred Words on the Gold Elixir is by Zhang Boduan ( Chang Po-tuan ) .
I'm familiar with your discussion of Black Gold with Aurator. In Laos some would know the text cited. Whether the Black Gold he asked you about is to be taken literally and/or symbolically is a question.

TheMissingLink, et al: Here is my silver "investment" ( as it was cast via lost wax in investment plaster ) after acid pickling and rough grinding of the sprues. As it sits it is down to 299.6 grams. The next step is to finish smooth grinding and start polishing. FWIW the reason I keep posting these pics it that I really believe that silver at these prices is the perfect art metal for small sculptures. At a little over $5 per ounce it is only about 10 times more expensive than silicon bronze. ( BTW my art is not for sale. It is merely less dangerous than fast women, longer lasting than good scotch and smells better than cigars! )

G'night

Very nice, beautiful. What process do you use to make things like that ? I'm unfamiliar with the terms you used to describe how you created it. How much is pure silver running per pound these days ? Do you purchase it by the bar to do your sculpture ?