Tinfoil hats are earned just by questioning central banks

Submitted by cpowell on 08:15AM ET Monday, July 12, 2010. Section:

"Gold is stronger this morning, and it is stronger in non-US-dollar terms than it is in dollar terms. As we write, gold is trading E960, having traded ever-so-shortly to E935 at one point last week. The trend in both terms -- US dollars or EURs -- remains upward, and for now so long as spot gold remains above $1,180 and above E935 we shall remain bullish.

"Again, we are not gold bugs here at The Gartman Letter. We do not believe that the world is coming to an end. We do not believe that depression lies ahead. We do not believe in black helicopters, nor in the Bilderbergs, nor in other strange conspiracies that the real gold bugs of the world believe in.

"However, following the recent BIS gold swaps and try as we might to follow the logic of those swaps through to the end, we find ourselves wondering: Might GATA have been right all along? Might it be possible that some large gold dealer or bank or international entity has made itself short of gold and finds that covering that position is harder than it had thought?

"Then we shake our head and say, 'Nah, it can't be.' But can it?"

The people in GATA aren't gold bugs as much as free-market bugs. We don't believe that the world is coming to an end, nor in black helicopters. We haven't pursued the Bilderbergs or any "strange conspiracies." Rather, we have tried to pursue public policy and the evidence that what was once done openly by governments -- the suppression of the price of gold -- lately has been undertaken surreptitiously, central banking generally and the Bank for International Settlements particularly operating so surreptitiously. We have discovered and publicized many official records of this surreptitious price suppression.

To question the surreptitious actions of central banks it is not necessary to expect the end of the world, nor to become obsessed with black helicopters or the Bilderbergs, nor even to believe in returning the world financial system to a gold standard.

Rather, it is necessary only to want to know what is, in the belief that the valuation of all the capital, labor, goods, and services in the world is a matter of public interest that should be determined a little more openly and democratically than is now the case under central banking.

For many years such curiosity has earned GATA tinfoil hat after tinfoil hat. If, as it is starting to seem, Gartman wants one too, all he has to do is keeping asking -- not us but the central banks.

CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer
Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc.