World Gold Council to CFTC: Don't Mess With Paper Gold

I have a lot of stories for you today...with the emphasis on the word, lot. As usual, I've cut them down as much as I could...and, as usual, I'll leave the final edit up to you.

Today's first offering is from reader Scott Pluschau...and it's a cnnmoney.com piece that's posted over at finance.yahoo.com. High residential vacancies are killing many housing markets, as foreclosed homes sit on the market and depress sale prices and property values. Maine had the highest proportion of empty housing stock, at 22.8%. Other states with gluts of empty houses included Vermont (20.5%), Florida (17.5%), Arizona (16.3%) and Alaska (15.9%). It's a short piece...and the link is here.

This next real estate-related story is from yesterday's edition of The Guardian...and was sent to me by Swiss reader G.B.

Sightseers come to Spain for the Alhambra, the Gaudis, the beaches. But Spaniards talk about a new set of landmarks, a kind of tourist anti-attraction. You can find them clustered on the outskirts of big cities and around holiday resorts in Madrid and Valencia. They are half-completed housing estates, often vast areas of empty flats and foundations and property-developers' hubris. Now they are nearly deserted. The Spanish call them ciudades fantasma: ghost towns.

It's a bit of a read...and the link is here. But if you don't want to read it, you should at least look at the picture.

I found this second Spain-related story from Swiss reader G.B. profoundly disturbing...but I'm sure Spain is not the only country that has seen this sort of problem since the economic crash. I've read stories about household pets in the U.S.A. being left behind for the same reason...and it's all so sad.

Charity says reports of starving animals have doubled since the construction boom ended in 2008...and the link to this story, also out of yesterday's edition of The Guardian, is here.

Here's another offering from Scott Pluschau...and this one was posted over at Bloomberg on Friday.

“I would recommend against buying long-term fixed-dollar investments,” Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said today in New Delhi. “If you ask me if the U.S. dollar is going to hold its purchasing power fully at the level of 2011, 5 years, 10 years or 20 years from now, I would tell you it will not.”

He never mentioned gold or silver...but that's something that Warren wouldn't do. I'm sure his father would be spinning in his grave if he knew how his son had turned out. The link is here.

Reader U.D. sent this rather longish essay around on the weekend...which he found posted over at lewrockwell.com.

First they inflate. Then there is a boom. Then there is price inflation. Then they stop inflating. Then there is a recession. To keep it from becoming a depression, they inflate. Year after year, decade after decade, generation after generation, this is what central bankers do.

All over the world, central banks are inflating madly. They have not offered any theory for their actions. There is no such theory. Nothing in Keynesian theory ever hinted at the need for central bank policies that are now in full force. This is ad hockery on a scale unprecedented in peacetime, other than in defeated nations immediately after a total military defeat.

Yep...it's inflate, or die! The link is here.

While we're on the subject of the Fed in particular...and central banks of all stripes in general...I finally have a link to the entire 40-minute Glenn Beck Show that featured author G. Edward Griffin last Thursday. They also talk about gold and silver quite a bit as well.

Needless to say, they only scratched the surface of what's contained in Ed's book...so watching this video is wonderful, but does not excuse you from reading it. Just Google the name of the book...and you'll soon find out how to get your hands on a copy of the latest edition.

What's really amazing about this whole thing, is that Griffin wrote the book in 1994...and seventeen years later, it's still a big seller. How many authors do you know that are interviewed on national television about a book they wrote almost a generation ago?

I thank reader Kimberly Somers for sharing it with us...and the link to this must watch video is here.

Here's another story by reader Scott Pluschau. This one is from the on-line edition of the Sunday Daily Mail.

Extremists brought violent chaos to central London yesterday afterhijacking the much-heralded trade union protest against public spending cuts. A massive clear-up operation was underway after troublecontinued to flare late into the night as hundreds of people clashed with officers in Trafalgar Square. Police confirmed 201 people were in custody and there had been84 reported injuries during the protests. At least 31 police were hurt with 11 of them requiring hospital treatment.

It's a very long piece...but if you don't read the article in its entirety...the pictures are worth the trip. The link is here. There's a similar [but much shorter] story on this subject from yesterday's edition of The Telegraph that's courtesy of Roy Stephens...and that link is here.

Here's a bbc.co.uk story filed from Havana on Friday that was sent to me by reader Sean McLaren. Something is happening on the streets of Havana that hasn't been seen for years. Small businesses are starting to appear everywhere. It is part of the first major shake-up of Cuba's struggling Soviet-style economic model since the 1960s, and private enterprise is no longer a dirty word. It's a longish read...and the link is here.

Here's a story that started off life in the L.A. Times...and then reappeared over at The Seattle Times late on Sunday evening. This is a 'boots on the ground' story of how a modern society is forced to cope with one of the 'necessities of life' that it doesn't have at the moment...and that's a steady supply of electricity.

I thank reader U.D. for sending this along...and it's a very worthwhile article...so I hope you can find the time. The link is here.

Without much doubt, pretty much everyone on Planet Earth has had the world 'tsunami' redefined in their minds since the big March 11th subduction earthquake in Japan...this writer included. This is an amazing piece of video...and as the zerohedge.com piece says..."nothing but the brute force of nature here." It's a must watch...and I thank Washington state reader S.A. for sharing it with us...and the link is here.

I stole the headline and the story from a GATA release that came out on Friday. It's a Reuters piece filed from Beijing...and the first paragraph pretty much sums up the entire article. "Loose monetary policies in developed economies will place more upward pressure on global commodity prices and weigh on the dollar this year, the Chinese central bank said on Friday.". The link is here.

Zimbabwe’s government will make sure foreign companies are “junior partners” in the country, President Robert Mugabe said after the state published regulations to take 51 percent of foreign-operated mines.

This is Washington state reader S.A.'s second contribution to today's column. It's posted over at businessweek.com...and filed from Johannesburg...and the link is here.

I have a large number of precious metals related stories today as well...and this one is first of many.

This is a GATA release of a Financial Times story that was posted in that paper yesterday. Vietnamese gold traders have sent billions of dollars worth of high-grade gold jewellery to be smelted in Switzerland over the past two years to circumvent government restrictions on bullion exports. It's on the longish side, but well worth the read...and the link is here.

Here's a second gold-related story out of the Financial Times...this one from their Saturday edition. It appears that precious metals refiners are operating at full capacity in Europe [and elsewhere, one would presume]..."now going three shifts, 24 hours a day, every day of the year." as the story states.

"As a gold arb friend of mine in London says: "The 400-ounce bars are over the EasyJet carry-on limit, not of real use to man nor beast. Kilo bars are what people want these days." The buyers of kilo bars, stamped with fancy Swiss logos, tend to be Europeans or Asians."

This is a must read story...and the link to the GATA release is here.

Here's another GATA release...and I'm just going to steal Chris Powell's heading and preamble...and post the link.

Gold's ascent, GoldMoney founder and Free Gold Money Report publisher James Turk writes, is better described as hyperbolic rather than parabolic, and hyperbolic is much faster than parabolic. Further, Turk writes, gold is going hyperbolic not only against the U.S. dollar...but also against the British pound, the euro, and the Swiss franc. Turk, a longtime consultant to GATA, believes that hyperinflation of the major currencies is imminent. His new commentary is headlined "Gold's Hyperbolic Trajectory" and you can find it at the Free Gold Money Report Internet site here.

Here's a story that was posted over at cnbc.com's "Fast Money" website yesterday, which was sent to me by reader Jack Anderson. The author is correct, but once again there's no mention made of the real reason that silver's price is rising...and that's JPMorgan's attempt to get out of its monster short position in the Comex futures market. It's a short read that's worth your time...and the link is here.

Reader 'David in California' provides this next silver-related story that was posted over at Kitco yesterday.

“This GMFS report demonstrates how buoyant silver industrial demand is, not only because of the lack of substitution, but also because of the wide range of established and growing new uses that make up industrial demand,” said Michael DiRienzo, executive director of the Silver Institute. “This report maintains that we expect to see robust gains in industrial silver demand over the next five years, further emphasizing silver’s essential role in industry.”

I sure hope that you're getting your share as well, dear reader...and the link to this worthwhile piece is here.

As you are more than aware, I have all the time in the world for whatever Jim Rickards has to say. He did an interview with Eric King over at King World News that was posted on Sunday...and it's very much worth listening to. Jim adds a personal observation about what he sees as China's desperation to get gold.

This week probably hasn't provided an interview about economic issues more relevant than this one. Chris Powell's extensive preamble is worth your time as well...and the link to this must listen interview is here.

Here's another story that I ripped from a GATA release yesterday. Once again, Chris Powell does the heavy lifting... "At Coin News, Darrin Lee Unser reports at length on U.S. Rep. Ron Paul's legislation to legalize competition in currencies in the United States. The proposed Free Competition in Currency Act would eliminate capital gains taxes on gold and silver coins, repeal legal tender laws, and repeal the federal prohibition against private mints, the law recently used to destroy the Liberty Dollar operation and convict its founder, Bernard von NotHaus. The Coin News report is headlined "Ron Paul Introduces Free Competition in Currency Act of 2011" and the link is here.

Here's a Reuters story that I pulled from yet another GATA release yesterday. A global push to damp down wild swings in oil and other commodity prices reached a pivotal point on Monday as big traders mounted their last attack on a U.S. plan to limit the role of speculators. The plan to impose "position limits", which has been under debate since prices first surged to records in 2007 and 2008, is now reaching its culmination, with companies rushing to submit their views to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission by yesterday's deadline. This is very much worth your time...and the link is here.

Here's a zerohedge.com piece that's posted over at the businessweek.com website that was sent to me by Washington state reader S.A. You can see that this 'position limits' issue that Ted Butler has been going on about in silver for the last twenty-five years, is a very big deal to all the big banks that are up to their necks rigging the commodity markets. That's why the monthly Bank Participation Report and Ted Butler's weekly 'Days to Cover Short Positions' graph are so important...as it shows what the banks are up to in each commodity that's traded on the Comex.

This is what CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler and Commissioner Bart Chilton are up against. The other three [voting] members of the committee are all Republicans...and they all represent the big banks and don't give a damn about a level playing field. Until one of these board members is replaced by someone who wants these changes to happen, this position limits thing could drag on for a while. We'll see.

This isn't a very long piece...but worth the read...and the link is here.

My last gold-related story today is a real bombshell as far as I'm concerned. I'm not even going to try and do it justice by explaining it myself...as Chris Powell does it so well in the linked GATA release.

As Chris so eloquently puts it..."The World Gold Council's letter to the CFTC has been posted at GATA's Internet site here -- but apparently not at the council's own Internet site. One has to wonder here whether the council is representing mining companies or their bankers instead."

I don't wonder about it all...as GATA has always suspected that the reason why the WGC was originally formed was to prevent a real World Gold Council from getting started. The 7-page letter that's linked in this GATA release is a must read...as is Chris Powell's extensive introduction...and the link is here.