dan norcini has come up with a novel idea: why not let the comex prices go all the way down to zero, since they don't mean anything anyway? of course it's not as simple as that, since producers have long-term contracts to supply commodities based on those prices, but this is his modest proposal:

Futures market analyst Dan Norcini remarks in his nightly commentary at Jim Sinclair's Internet site that the gold futures contract on the New York Commodities Exchange seems to be losing traffic to the gold exchange-traded fund on the stock exchange, probably because traders are beginning to realize that the government is rigging metals prices on the Comex.

Many of us remain glued to the commodities exchange price around the clock even as we realize that it does not signify the price of real gold and silver, that the price of metal in hand is substantially above the commodities exchange price and that, indeed, little if any metal at all remains available to retail purchasers. Of course we watch the commodities exchange price so closely in large part because we hold not only real metal but also shares in mining companies and because the stock market is using the commodities exchange price to fix the value of the mining shares.

But insofar as the commodities exchange is the primary mechanism of the market-rigging fraud, a mechanism in which the infinite amounts of investment house and central bank money can stampede all other traders, we should be wanting the commodities exchange price of the metals to fall to zero, indicating the worthlessness of a commodities exchange contract. For that would be the great repudiation of the price-suppression scheme, an understanding that the U.S. government and the exchange itself would never permit large amounts of metal to be withdrawn -- that force majeure would be declared first and cash settlement would be imposed, as has been done with other commodities contracts when longs have gotten the upper hand.