All the gold & silver miners that I follow are up pretty strongly today. Managed to dump one silver play at a 10% profit, only to see it go up another 10% by noon. Oh well, I made a profit, and I didn't like the company anyway.

Silver at $19 according to Kitco? OMG, LOL and WTF are appropriate descriptors. Maybe the market has determined that the massive taxpayer bailout of the US investment banking overlords isn't unique - European taxpayers now have to bail out their own investment banking overlords, and so it will continue around the globe for the next few years.

As well, maybe the market fears that the rioting in Greece will spread throughout Europe, as all countries are forced by the IMF to bring in "austerity measures" - which generally involve handing huge tax breaks to banks while euthanizing the poor. "Austerity measures" will not go over well in any Eurozone country, many of which have had violent revolutions and armed terrorist insurgencies in living memory (France '68, Spain, Greece, Baader-Meinhof, Red Brigade, etc.).

Americans just politely keep quiet and take it with a smile; the Europeans are more likely to fight back.

Thus the investment banking overlords feel fear, and thus gold has to go up. I'm so happy.