You could be right sinbob. JPMorgan has to get silver prices down or their derivatives will wipe them out. They have already probably used everything that was available in SLV. So I also expect a full out attack on silver soon. If you sell $2.5 Billion of paper silver short like they did last May, then you can probably pull silver back to $35. I don't know if the cartel will be successful in pulling down gold below $1700 although the CME has raised gold margins by 23%. Probably the first of many. However I think HSBC is hurting bad. As custodian of GLD, they probably have very little physical left in the fund and they are going to have to cover at some point. HSBC is laying off 30,000 employees and are selling their credit card business. I don't know if these actions are related to their losses in shorting gold.

I hope that we will triumph over the Evil Empire but you know they won't go away without using every last dollar they can extract from the Fed/administration because they are fighting for their very existence.