Remember Enron? It's heads they win, tails you lose. If they lose, they hide the loses in off-balance sheet transactions. If those blow up, the counterparties take a bath. JPM and Citi are already in the hole on Enron's natural gas derivatives. They tried to pawn the loss off on the insurance companies but have failed in court. Eventually, the taxpayer will be on the hook. That's the "you lose" part.
Also look up Ashanti and Cambior. It's happened in the gold market before.
Well, if you're right about that claim, your gold holdings will do you no good. You can't eat it, and you can at least use worthless Federal Reserve notes as toilet paper.
I also store two year's worth of food and toilet paper, so no problem there :-)
Seriously, we don't need to see Argentina happen here to have a good trade in gold. And gold holdings do pay off in a rising gold market. Harmony yields 2.6% and has doubled in the last year.
"Today was a sight to behold. Right from the get-go, you could tell gold was going to roar. The cabal tried to take down gold all night and morning, but it was obvious they were not going to succeed. Yesterday’s dramatic sell-off then became a positive as today’s early action showed the shorts to be in big trouble. Sure enough, once again the smart money buying crowd stuck it to The Gold Cartel on the close.
"The cabal has now lost their last line of defense, that being $340 resistance. For the last two days, they gave it all they had to try and take gold down. THEY WERE WHIPPED! It is important to note that we still do not have any gaps to fill on the downside. We still do not have that upside break-away gap, followed by a buying panic in the US. That could come any day now. Word was sent my way today that option books are blowing up because of the sharp move up in the gold price. There is no telling what the gold price could do on the upside. That $10, $20, $30 up day could be at hand! Collectively, the shorts are on the hook for some 15,000 tonnes of gold. Mine supply is only 2500 tonnes per year and shrinking. How are they going to pay the loans back? Where are they going to get the gold? Only one way: gold must rise hundreds of dollars per ounce. Then, the women and peasants of the world will bring their scrap gold in jewelry form to market. What fun! The dummkopf, arrogant western bullion bankers need to be bailed out by the peasants of the world. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of guys."
This fellow is a trifle on the conspiracy side of life like Bob Chapman, but they both have made me money. I note that James Dines has been bullish for some time and came out with three new recommendations. All three of these men are interesting and easy to read, and Dines is a master wordsmith and I subscribe to him as much for his intellectual meanderings as for his financial advice. No one should buy gold or gold stocks without looking at a number of good advisers.