[Publius]

Shortly after making his comments, John Embry was fired by Royal Bank. He now runs his own gold fund.

[Steven W.]

which would be a good thing to start shorting ;)

[Capitalism2003]

Short gold, buy silver...

There is less silver in world inventories than gold right now and the price has not shot up to match gold's rise...I think it's ga great value...been buying silver eagles on ebay over the past few months.

[First_Salute]

Gold is a "life-ring" to grasp in order to diminish the effects of wild swings in the value of currency.

The recent rise in gold prices is an indicator of, but not to be used as an accurate measure of, the results found in a look forward at the anticipated value of currency.

When gold is sharply up, that means that currency is expected to be worth less. When gold is sharply down, that means that currency is expected to be worth more.

[Dinsdale]

which is an enormous deficit when yearly mine supply is only 2,500 tonnes and going down. (edit)

.....

estimates the alleged shortage of central-bank gold at between 15,000 and 16,000 tonnes -- nearly a decade's worth of mine production.

So what is world gold production 2,500 tons or 15,000 tons?

A source that cannot keep it's numbers straight for two paragraphs is suspect.

[IncPen]

I've been bemused at the 'gold bugs' on this forum over the years and the doom-saying that generally goes with it.

But it begs the question of people like Embry... how can you play this game when it's clear that major, major stakeholders aren't being forthright in their disclosures?

It seems this article is more about the shady big operators and the probability that little guys will get caught in their pinchers.

It reminds me of DeBeers, or something

Finally, I understood that even as recently as a few years ago Russia was thought to have a virtually inexhaustible amount of silver yet unrealized (in fact, I learned this after losing a small amount in the commodities market on silver trading)

It's interesting to watch from the sidelines, but the average investor is, IMHO swimming with sharks on this

[WatchNKorea]

I've been out of the coin business for years, but here's the number of Houston Precious Metals. Just called them, and they have on hand - right now, 600 ounces of gold bullion coins - (Kruggerrands)- ready to go. No charge fellow posters - for giving you this competitive name in the numismatic business.
713-228-3931

[tortoise]

There has been a lot of quiet activity in Nevada lately. Over the 90s when gold prices were soft, the Nevada gold fields basically ran skeleton operations on existing mines just to stay afloat but prospecting for new ore bodies continued.

I own scads of land in the mountains of the primary gold-bearing regions of Nevada. What I know from first-hand information is that during the long period of soft gold prices, some of the prospecting companies have identified a number of what they believe to be extremely fat ore bodies, some of the richest since the initial gold rush in the 19th century, using some new models for how and where those mineral formations occur that caused them to look in places no one had seriously looked before. With gold prices being what they are, these new mining sites are being built at a rapid pace and without so much as an announcement of the fact. I run into geologists all the time while cruising around my property and the surrounding wilderness, and I've recently run into a bunch who are turning up new mining sites around my area. They are basically saying that they've been sitting on these new ore bodies for a few years now and have been waiting for prices to go up. Their prognosis is that output from Nevada (one of the major gold exporting regions of the world) will climb rapidly as these new sites are brought online over the coming months. In other words, there are several new resources that will be coming online shortly in addition to all the existing mines going back to full production.

I'm stoked because I own hundreds of acres of land that included presumed-to-be-worthless mineral rights that are literally a stones throw from what is expected to be one of the richest ore body discoveries since the 19th century, or at least according to the geologists who are putting the site together as we speak.

[dennisw]

btttttttttttttttt

[Salvation]

I was thinking that panic had hit when I saw that gasoline had increased 30 cents in one week.

Now $1.91 for super in Oregon.

Liquid gold.

[Quix]

HMMMMM

And your predictions?

[WatchNKorea]

God forbid insane North Korean leader Kim Jong Il explodes one of his nuclear bombs close to or near the DMZ hoping to take out as many of our U S troops as possible, or Kim just fires one or two missiles at our West coast and we reply by taking out North Korea in total...one of the many devastating repercussions - will be that gold bullion soars out of sight. (hate to thing about such a thing-but what if!)

[Jack Black]

bump

[arete]

Ping the (un)usual suspects.

[fightu4it]

Gold I can do without.

Oil? Now that is an entirely different matter!

[unixfox]

Forget the gold and silver, I'm gonna use alcohol and tobacco as a bartering tool. When all is said and done, a piece of metal won't do jack squat, but alcolhol...now you have something.

[goldilucky]

Thanks for this post, Publius. I was right all along about the gold market being rigged by J.P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs and others. They are undervaluing the POG so that people like myself will, in despair, sell. Then they raise to POG only to the point that those who can afford to own stock have real wealth. A lot my buddies are investors in gold. I see it rising but I also predict that in order for it to rise, something must happen first. Like a "correction" in the markets.

[Hammerhead]

maybe im woefully stupid, but I really never understood the value of gold. Water, oil, food? yes. but gold?

Seriously, what is gold really good for besides it's conduction properties.

given the choice of what I would want on a deserted island, a heavy chunck of metal is LAST on the list.

[snopercod]

bump

[Bob J]

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