Oh, I completley agree. It’s a canard to make the charge that was made against me, and it’s really unfortunate if our language becomes so over-policed that we can’t string words together to form logical descriptions of everyday events and objects.
Banking Elite is an excellent phrase that describes perfectly that exact thing: the banking elite. The Times article goes on to ennumerate where they are drawn from: JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
Funny these names come up over and over again. When the Fed was forced to dump the names of the special loan recipients they were all featured heavily.
When the maipulation of the silver market is being probed it is JPMorgan Chase and HSBC.
When it’s ‘where do all the heavy hitters in the treasury & administration come from’ it’s Goldman-Sachs: Paulson, Rubin, Kashkeri, Larry Sommers and by extension Geithner.
So, we keep getting back to the same short list of firms who sit upon the commanding heights of the financial pyramid, a pyramid which has been exempt for the overall leveling (dis-intermediation) that almost all other sectors have gone through in the last 30 years.
CFTC Commissioner Alleges Silver Market Manipulation; Silver Price Soars
By Patrick A. Heller on October 26th, 2010
Categories: Gold and Silver Commentary, Precious Metals
At a Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Public Hearing on Anti-Manipulation and Disruptive Trading Practices this morning, CFTC Bart Chilton dropped a bombshell, alleging that the silver market has been manipulated.
A couple weeks ago, Chilton had stated that if the CFTC would not soon issue its own report into its investigation into possible manipulation of the silver market, then he would issue his own statement. Today is when he let loose. His full statement can be read at
http://www.cftc.gov/PressRoom/SpeechesTestimony/Commissioner BartChilton/chiltonstatement102610.html.
The two most important paragraphs of Chilton’s statement are:
“I believe that there have been repeated attempts to influence prices in the silver markets. There have been fraudulent efforts to persuade and deviously control that price. Based on what I have been told by members of the public, and reviewing in publicly available documents, I believe violations to the Commodity Exchange Act (ACT) have taken place in silver markets and that any such violation of the law in this regard should be prosecuted.”
“In saying this, I am fully aware of the prohibition from divulging trader names or information about their positions. I am extremely careful not to violate the law in this, or any, regard. I also cannot pre-judge anything the agency may do with regard to our silver investigation, or any other matter.”
Some analysts who have been interviewed by Chilton don’t think he would stick his neck out with such statements unless he had ample documentation to prove them.
For once, the mainstream media quickly picked up Chilton’s statement. In late European trading today, gold was in the $1340′s, and silver was around $23.70. Then the US government and its trading partners went into action to suppress prices. By the time of Chilton’s statement, the price of gold had been pushed down to $1,327 and silver to $23.16.
As the news coverage of Chilton’s statement mushroomed, metals prices took off. Gold hit a high of $1,342 and silver $23.97 before subsiding slightly going into the COMEX close.
In his statement, Chilton pointed out that the CFTC had been investigating possible manipulation of the silver market for more than two years. But, he also warned that proving the legal standard of actual market manipulation was extremely difficult. Chilton’s statement concluded with, “I am hopeful that the agency will speak publicly about the investigation in the very near future and when they do that it will be in a more granular fashion than I am permitted from doing at this time.”
As of October 19, eight or fewer traders owned short silver positions of approximately 290 million ounces. Total COMEX silver inventories have fluctuated in the 110-112 million ounces range over the past month. There is no way that these large short positions, of which JPMorgan Chase is suspected of having greatest exposure, can possibly be covered with physical metal. If a run on COMEX silver inventories continues, most contracts will have to be settled for cash—at prices far higher than today’s levels.
I anticipate that the major surge in demand for physical silver will be underway by the end of this week. In my judgment, there is little time left to establish your position at anywhere near today’s prices.